President of ASPCA Is Now Puppy Mill Lobbyist

The former president of the ASPCA is now a lobbyist for the puppy mill industry.

Yes, that's right: Ed Sayres, the former President of the ASPCA, is now the head of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC), the Washington, D.C.-based lobby group representing pet stores, pet products, pet dealers, and pet breeders.

Sayres resigned from the ASPCA last year amid questions about his $500,000 a year salary and just after the organization was forced to pay $9.3 million to settle a RICO (racketeering) violation over their direct mail operations.

As I have noted in the past, ALL of the major national humane groups are scams of one sort or another.

In the case of the ASPCA, the entire focus of the organization became direct mail.

As former ASPCA investigator Bob Baker told The New York Times:

... show one picture of a mistreated dog and the funds would pour in... [I]t got to the point where animal welfare was not the priority, fund-raising was. It felt as though the animals were being used for fundraising, rather than using funds raised to help the animals.

As Amy Worden over at The Philadelphia Inquirer notes, some of the leaders of the puppy mill industry seem to think hiring Ed Sayles might take the stink of death and systematic abuse off of their industry:

PIJAC regularly fights against humane animal legislation in Congress and in the states. Most recently the group has been engaged in trying to block efforts to ban the sale of commercially-bred dogs in pet stores. In a letter to members Andrew Hunte, president of the Hunte Corporation, in a letter implored dog breeders to "set their doubts about Sayres behind and unite around PIJAC" to face the threats from "over-regulation" endangering their industry.

Good luck with that!

Ed Sayres's departure from the corrupt money-chasing ASPCA, and re-emergence over at the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, simply underscores how morally bankrupt and money-grubbing the world of of dogs, cats, and pets has become, and how desperate both the PIJAC and Ed Sayres have become.

Sayres is, no doubt, desperate for the kind of ridiculously high-paying job he had at the ASPCA, while the PIJAC is desperate for someone to "save" the business of pet store puppy sales and puppy mill commercial breeders.

The main person pushing for Ed Sayres to head PIJAC was none other than the Hunte puppy mill corporation which sits on the board of directors of the PIJAC, as does Petland which markets Hunte puppy mill dogs (now registered by the AKC)

Liars for hire?  Yep, and at every turn.  Look for more corruption ahead.