Kat 5 surmounts tremendous obstacles to place more than 100 dogs from the former Canine Angels sanctuary – but remaining animals still need your help.

By Claire Davis
The Legal Animal
Best Friends Animal Society

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pictured: Grayson, one of the former Canine Angels dogs who is still looking for a home.

After months of work, a lot of sacrifice, and more than a few headaches, Kat 5 Animal Rescue is down to just a handful of dogs from the former Canine Angels sanctuary who still need homes.

Representatives of Kat 5 have now left the property of the closed Georgia sanctuary, as the former sanctuary operators, Sue Wells and Lynette Rowe, have returned to take possession of their land.

Over the past several months, Kat 5 has worked with volunteers and other organizations to place more than 130 dogs into homes, rescue groups, and sanctuaries around the country.

Kat 5 Executive Director Susan Meyer calls the outpouring of assistance and support in this effort “heartening.”

“There is a lady in California who has donated towards almost every transport for these animals to a safe haven. Rescuers that we know from Katrina have taken time off of work and driven over 60 hours to transport some of these dogs. Local volunteers have dedicated themselves to socializing these dogs. . . . Shelters have opened their hearts to these animals,” she says.

“We do this for the animals, the added benefit is seeing humanity at it's finest, people willing to go the extra mile to save the life of an animal.”

Despite its success, Kat 5 is still struggling to help about 15 former Canine Angels dogs, many of whom are elderly, shy, or poorly socialized. Please visit http://semperfifarm.com/kat5/ to read about the dogs still in need of homes.

The organization is currently paying to board six of the dogs, while four others are staying at a volunteer’s house. An additional five dogs were set loose upon Wells and Rowe’s return to the property, and Kat 5 is working with local animal control to try to trap them.

“I want people to know that although we have left the property, we are not done,” says Meyer. “We still have animals we are trying to help, and we still need help.”

Meyer says the group is still in need of donations to fund the rescue effort, which continues to rack up costs for boarding, feeding, training, and vet care for the remaining animals. The leaders of Kat 5 have reportedly put tens of thousands of their own money into the rescue effort.

The organization is also in need of homes for the remaining dogs, as well as experienced trainers and foster homes to help train, socialize, and evaluate some of the animals.

Many of the dogs at the Canine Angels sanctuary had reportedly gone years with little human contact. After weeks of concentrated work, rescuers were able to turn many of the dogs around, but some were so fearful that volunteers were not able to successfully work with them. Some of these dogs had spent almost all of their lives at the Canine Angels facility.

According to the Georgia Department of Agriculture, Wells and Rowe were just unable to properly care for all the animals on their property – who at one time numbered over 250.

“Personally, from what I understand about hoarders and collectors, that is what they were in our book,” says David Gunter, general counsel for the Georgia Department of Agriculture. “They tried to find excuses not to adopt animals out, the animals were dying from fighting one another, and there were terrible conditions for housing, especially during the winter time.”

The state Department of Agriculture had cited Rowe and Wells for 62 violations of the animal welfare code, and they had racked up more than $15,000 in fines, before they signed a consent agreement to close the sanctuary in May. Wells and Rowe later reneged on the terms of the consent agreement, trying to prevent the Department of Agriculture from closing the sanctuary and seizing the dogs, and eventually signing over ownership of all the animals to North Carolina animal advocate Jim Willis.

After Kat 5 became involved to care for and place the animals, Rowe and Wells kicked Kat 5 off the property and then abandoned the property and the animals, leaving several animals locked in their trailer without food and water. They are scheduled to appear in court Sept. 22 on 13 counts of animal cruelty in relation to this abandonment.

“I think Kat 5 has done an outstanding job, especially considering the position they jumped into, they put a lot of time and effort into trying to get these animals adopted,” Gunter says. “If it had not been for Kat 5, we would still be battling to get these animals adopted.”

Gunter says that Rowe and Wells have tried to block the rescue effort from the start, and that they and their supporters made things very difficult for Kat 5.

“There were met with resistance at every turn,” he says. “They were basically trying to thwart them at every step in adopting animals out.”

In addition to the animal cruelty charges in local court, Gunter says, Rowe and Wells are also still facing an administrative action from the Department of Agriculture, since they violated the terms of the consent agreement.

Gunter says he wants to try to make sure that Rowe and Wells aren’t allowed to operate an animal sanctuary in the state again. He also wants to try to figure out a better process to address similar situations in the future.

“We will be addressing it during this legislative session, to see if we can get some funding from the state, and to get agreements with some other organizations and rescue groups,” he says. “The next time we have a large number of animals that we need to get away from where they are currently housed, maybe we can figure out a cooperative agreement to get it done.”

Please help Kat 5 complete their mission and rescue the rest of the dogs from the former Canine Angels sanctuary. In order to help or get more information, please contact Kat 5 at 214-235-5530 or kat5animalrescue@yahoo.com, or see their page on the Best Friends Network at http://network.bestfriends.org/kat5.