48 dogs seized from animal rescue
Wheatfield, NY (US)Incident Date: Friday, Jan 29, 2010
County: Niagara
Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted
Case Images: 3 files available
Defendant/Suspect: Joelle R. Kott
Upcoming Court Dates:
» Tuesday, Oct 19, 2010: Sentencing
Case Updates: 3 update(s) available
Forty-eight pit bulls, huskies, puppies and other dogs were taken from a Norman Road house, a Niagara Falls Boulevard kennel and a Shawnee Road farm today in what Niagara County SPCA officials described as an animal rescue operation that grew out of control.
SPCA workers and deputies from the Niagara County Sheriff's Office took 18 dogs from the Norman Road house of Joelle Kott and 21 dogs from Pitstop Puppy's Dog Rescue and Boarding Kennel on Niagara Falls Boulevard.
"I think she meant well, but now it just got out of hand," said Kari McAlee, an SPCA veterinarian technician. "She has just too many. You can't keep track and you can't take care of that many, even with the volunteers and help. It's just too much for one person and one house."
Officials also took eight puppies from a nearby farm that they believe also belonged to Kott, said SPCA President Brandy Scrufari.
McAlee said the SPCA had been working with Kott since Thursday, but became concerned about "deplorable" conditions in the Norman Road house after visiting this morning.
"These animals were in pretty good shape, but when you start to have that many, it's impossible to keep up with the urine and the feces and all that," McAlee said. "That was the main concern in the house there with small children."
The dogs included pit bulls, St. Bernards, Cockapoos and bull dogs, McAlee said.
Officers also found one dead dog at the home.
McAlee said dogs at the kennel were living in an unheated building that was 30 degrees, and had no access to water or food in their cages when officials arrived. Some of the dogs at the kennel were thin, McAlee said.
Kott, 40, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child, because of the "deplorable condition" of the home, Niagara County sheriff's officials said.
Kott told The Buffalo News she had been working with the SPCA to address concerns, but is upset the agency insisted on taking dogs from her house she believes are in healthy condition.
"At the kennel, yes, the conditions got a little out of control, but they're all well fed and healthy here," Kott said of her home.
Kott said she has run a not-for-profit dog rescue operation since 2004, but began to publicly advertise for adoptions and to run the kennel within the last year. During the last month, Kott said, she began to receive more dogs than she expected. She said she reached out to other shelters for help, but did not want to turn them over to the SPCA.
Kott said she was "trying to do a good thing" by looking to adopt the dogs out, and that she and others who helped her were "doing the best we possibly can."
The SPCA allowed her to keep six dogs at her home, Kott said. She said one of the dogs taken from her home was a St. Bernard that she has taken to local shows.
"To take my personal dogs from here that I show with was just absolutely wrong," Kott said.
She said she is concerned that the dogs taken to the SPCA will be killed if the agency is unable to find homes for them.
McAlee said the SPCA would try to adopt the dogs out, and that many of the animals are friendly.
"We'll do our best to find them homes," McAlee said. "They're in good shape."
Kott was issued an appearance ticket on the two charges and is due back in Town Court on Tuesday.
Scrufari said additional charges may be filed by the SPCA after photographs of the dogs and the living conditions are assessed.
Case UpdatesJoelle R. Kott, the woman accused of keeping 47 dogs in squalid conditions in three Wheatfield properties, pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty Tuesday night in Town Court.
Kott, 40, of Norman Road, was scheduled for sentencing Oct. 19 by Town Justice Erin P. DeLabio.
The dogs were seized Jan. 29. Kott also was charged originally with two counts of endangering the welfare of her two children, ages 2 and 12, because of dog feces in the house. Those charges were dropped. | Source: buffalonews.com - Aug 19, 2010
Update posted on Aug 25, 2010 - 4:03PM |
One-time Wheatfield dog rescue operator Joelle Kott waived a scheduled court appearance Tuesday in Wheatfield Town Court regarding animal cruelty charges filed last month.
Kott was first arrested Jan. 29 on charges of child endangerment when more than 20 dogs - some suffering from a range of maladies - were found living in her home on Norman Road alongside two children, ages 12 and 2. One of the dogs was dead.
Another 24 dogs were at the time removed from PitStop Puppy's dog rescue, which Kott ran in a rented former kennel at 3049 Niagara Falls Blvd. Since then, Niagara County Sheriff Capt. Kristen Neubauer said a "thorough investigation" also resulted in Kott's arrest June 10 on six counts of cruelty.
Outside of town court on Tuesday about a dozen protesters waited with signs inscribed with phrases like "dogs demand justice" and "torture = jail time" alongside pictures of supposed blood, excrement and injuries from or incurred by dogs at the former rescue shelter. The group formed on Facebook in recent months, in part led by Lisa Liddle, a North Tonawanda resident who says she volunteered at PitStop Puppy's from approximately October 2009 to the time the shelter was shut down.
Liddle claims Kott had been purchasing dogs and perhaps even breeding dogs for puppies in search of a profit despite the lack of space, heat and food.
"She was buying dogs on Craigslist. She was pulling females from out of state shelters ... this isn't a case of a hoarder being overwhelmed ... this was methodical greed (and abuse)," Liddle alleges.
Those claims have not been confirmed by authorities. Liddle herself concedes abuse was likely not a goal but a consequence.
She said the Facebook group was formed to petition Niagara County District Attorney Michael Violante for stiffer charges and to keep the issue at the forefront of the public's attention. The Facebook page, with more than 8,000 members, has a petition for harsher punishment signed by about half that many people.
"We're just citizens, neighbors, we are not an official organization," she said. "We formed mainly to make sure the animals are not put down and to make sure that charges are pressed."
According to Liddle, homes or alternative shelter has been found for all the dogs so far. In January, Sheriff's deputies and SPCA personnel reported 46 living animals were seized, 24 from Kott's home, 22 from the shelter and one that was dead.
Liddle, said the total number of dogs in Kott's care was closer to 60 and said she visited the home and witnessed conditions first hand.
"We went to a head over the dogs' condition," she said about the nearly three months she spent volunteering for Kott. "On one hand I was trying to be nice to her and on another my husband and I were going to re-light the kerosene heater at 3 in the morning ... she just kept taking more and more dogs," she said.
Liddle said she called the SPCA Jan. 2, almost a month before authorities intervened, after forming her belief that Kott may have been attempting to profit from breeding puppies.
The growing suspicion that Kott had more dogs at her home was just one reason she said she was finally compelled to file a complaint, she said. Authorities in January said a different complaint prompted them to initially pay visits to both locations.
Kott's appearance Tuesday on the latest charges was canceled after Kott, according to a court clerk, sent in a document waiving her right to the meeting. A future appearance will be scheduled.
The six most recent charges accuse Kott of overdriving, torturing and injuring animals while failing to provide adequate sustenance.
Kott is said to have kept far more animals than the shelter could sustain, many of them at her home, where conditions were described as deplorable by authorities.
"(The charges) are based on a co-investigation between the Niagara County SPCA and Niagara County Sheriff's Department and based on detailed documentation from our veterinary tech Kari McAlee," SPCA Board President Brandi Scrufari said of the almost five-month investigation. "The dogs were in various (states) and suffering from malnutrition."
No food or water were present at the shelter or at Kott's home, he had previously stated. Also, despite the presence of kerosene heaters at the shelter, temperatures were documented at 30 degrees when authorities seized the animals.
Scrufari said an autopsy concluded that the dead dog authorities took from Kott's home in January had not eaten for at least 24 hours prior to the time of its death.
The latest charges include that incident as well as the equally severe mistreatment of five other living animals examined by investigators since then. | Source: Niagara Gazette - July 6, 2010
Update posted on Jul 8, 2010 - 1:55AM |
Animal cruelty charges have not yet been filed against a Wheatfield animal rescuer who was arrested last month for child endangerment after 24 dogs in and around her home were found living in proximity to two children.
All but six of the dogs were seized for their own welfare and one was found dead. Another 22 animals were taken from Pitstop Puppys, the rented former kennel at 3049 Niagara Falls Blvd. run by Joelle Kott of Norman Road since 2004.
Niagara County Sheriff's Captain Bruce Elliott said Monday that results of SPCA veterinarians' examination of the animals are still pending. The report may or may not result in additional charges of neglect. SPCA personnel had documented freezing conditions at the facility along with a reported lack of food and water at both locations.
In the meantime, however, an initial report of the charges against Kott has piqued the interest of a psychologist with the ASPCA used to testify about the human/animal relationship in similar criminal cases and before animal rights organizations worldwide.
Dr. Randall Lockwood, senior vice president of the ASPCA's forensic sciences and anti-cruelty projects said whether the distinction is one of animal cruelty, abuse or animal hoarding, the animals are the ones that suffer.
The "hoarding" concept is nothing new, he explained, but more importantly it helps explain a recent rise nationwide in cases involving shelters shut down for neglecting animals they can't properly care for.
Lockwood, who retired as vice president of the U.S. Humane Society in 2005 after 20 years, added he is not officially hanging that moniker on the case in Wheatfield. Nevertheless, he said a failure to properly care for all of the animals is a crime regardless of economic realities or a flagging influx of donations. It is a misdemeanor without intent, a felony with malice.
It is a crime regardless of whether or not the intentions are good.
"More and more the cases that we encounter are involving animal rescuers or rescue groups," he said, later adding, "You don't have to say I'm going to (harm) this animal but if you fail to provide the animal with food or water then that is an act of omission that has predictable results."
Partly, he said a rise in such cases could be attributable to the quantity of animals and a widespread popular resistance to euthanasia. A belief that saving every animal is of paramount importance, regardless of the chances the same animals could end up in a life without proper nutrition or other basic necessities.
Contrary to the stigma associated with violent abusers, hoarders are often educated, articulate people who for any number of reasons find it unbearable to let go of nearly as many animals as they take in.
"We've seen situations involving doctors, lawyers, teachers and others ...," he said.
Niagara County SPCA Board President Brandy Scrufari indicated on the day of the raid that many of the dogs in Kott's care were emaciated when officials led them away.
"(Legitimate shelters) don't keep animals in a situation where they don't have adequate food or adequate heat and if they can't provide that they stop taking animals in," he said.
Kott's Facebook page detailed 10 surrenders in January and included a posting saying that she had begun using her home to house additional dogs. Last year, in a story about fundraising efforts at the shelter, she said foreclosures had contributed to a major spike in recent years in the number of dogs surrendered by people who could no longer care for the dogs themselves.
In an influx of dogs Kott described on the Facebook page as "crazy," Kott apparently had trouble closing her door as the number exceeded the rented former kennel she used to primarily house them.
"That does seem to be a growing problem - some of this involves legitimate shelters being overwhelmed by foreclosure," Lockwood said, "but sometimes it's not a legitimate rescue group, they are in it for their own psychological needs."
To be clear, though, he couldn't say for certain which framework encompasses the story of Pitstop Puppys' current demise.
Either way, on Monday the shelter remained dormant, it's former four-legged occupants now in the care of the already overwhelmed SPCA. On the front door are several signs apparently chronicling a desperate situation. It is not clear when each one was placed there.
One of the messages signed by Kott reads: "We are trying here to help those who cannot help themselves. Donations 'fix' things that need fixing, not calling someone to turn this place in. It only brings headache and sorrow to us who are helping these dogs so they are not put down at a shelter. Please ... if you have a problem call and have it resolved between us!"
Another refers to recent vandalism.
Another names the price and variety of dog food donors were urged to buy at Thieles on Shawnee Road to help feed the dogs in Kott's care.
The dogs' fate depends entirely on the due legal process to either find Kott at fault or not. Assuming it does, Lockwood said the process for re-placing animals involves sending small groups to each of a nationwide network of accredited rescues. Keeping tabs on which are legitimate or potentially overwhelmed from time to time take consistent monitoring of the number of animals and resources available to each.
"We've taken in animals from as far away as California in New York City," he said. "That's one of the things you have to be very careful about."
A recent case involving a Florida household housing roughly 600 cats involved working with the University of Florida and other groups to establish pre-approved rescue operations where small numbers of animals could be disbursed while reducing the chances any one of them would become critically overwhelmed.
"They've been farmed out throughout the state and beyond," he said. | Source: Tonawanda News - Feb 16, 2010
Update posted on Jul 8, 2010 - 1:54AM |
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