Getting It Right About Murder Hollow

Ticks, feces, standing in water, cherry eye, parasites, filth. Murder Hollow.

Retrieverman gets it entirely right about the Murder Hollow bassets. Read his simple summary about Wendy Willard and her dogs.

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Murder Hollow Bassets Fail Court Inspection

This is what a health and well-cared for Basset looks like.

Some months back, a handful of reactionaries went off half-cocked, and contrived a manufactured crisis. It seems the "Animal Rights" folks in Pennsylvania had "raided" Wendy Willard "without warning" and seized her legally kenneled pack of Basset Hounds.

Eh? And what was the supposed reason for all this? Ostensibly it was because the "Animal Rights" loons hated hunting.

Eh?

Something was clearly wrong with this story, and from the get-go I urged caution and a go-slow-and-get-the-facts approach.

For one, Basset Hounds are generally not used for hunting in this country. The activities of a Basset Club are mostly comprised of overweight and aged matrons playing dress-up as they walk around a hay field with their dogs ambling around in front of them. After an hour or so, there is a break for lunch and tea. No one has a gun, and "no animals are killed in the making of this movie."

The second issue is that all this was supposed to be happening in Pennsylvania, where hunting deer, duck, rabbit, geese, turkey, elk, fox, raccoon, bear, and coyote are wildly popular, entirely legal, and heavily promoted activities. If you were to wage a war on hunting or hunting dogs, Pennsylvania is NOT where you would want to start that fight.

The third issue is that it was not PETA doing the "raid" on this kennel; it was the Pennsylvania SPCA. These folks have a regular television show on national TV where they rescue animals from cruelty and abuse, and they are funded by the state of Pennsylvania to act as Animal Control officers.

But never mind. The pack mentality of the paranoid took over and all kinds of nonsense made its way onto the Internet thanks to the breathlessly inflated right-wing nuttery of a blogger by the name of David Zincavage, who describes himself as a "right-wing web aggregator and purveyor of unpopular opinions."

In fact, he is simply a man who has a very casual relationship with the truth, and it soon tumbled out that almost everything he claimed and said about the Murder Hollow Basset pack on his blog was demonstrably wrong.

For example, Mr. Zincavage said Wendy Willard's dogs were seized without notice. Not quite. In fact, the PSPCA had stopped by and given Wendy written notice that she needed to contact them, and she ignored that notice. Then, when the PSPCA stopped by again, Ms. Willard went "Madwoman of Chaillot" and started throwing rocks at the officers and screaming at them. Needless to say, those officers came back very quickly with police officers in tow, and what they found at the kennel was shocking enough that they seized the dogs, took pictures, and filed criminal animal cruelty charges.

Zincavage said Willard's kennel had always been in compliance until a new law was passed in the dead of night changing all the rules. In fact, there was no new law, Willard's kennel has been wildly out of compliance for a very long time, and Philadelphia's dog laws are some of the most permissive in the nation, as I pointed out by actually doing the research.

So what's the update?

The short story is that Wendy Willard and the PSPCA went to court yesterday, and Ms. Willard lost after a judge looked at the pictures and heard the evidence.

Ten of the 11 seized dogs are to be permanently rehomed by the PSPCA. The PSPCA may consider rehoming suggestions made by Ms Willard, but they do not have to follow her suggestions; the PSPCA has the final say. Ms. Willard will be allowed to have one dog back -- the dog she said she kept in her house.

The criminal animal cruelty charges are still pending against Ms. Willard, but provided she cleans up her Kennel, fixes the roof, installs a drainage and watering system, and allows unfettered inspection by the PSPCA, those charges will be dropped in six months.

This is the kind of sentence a judge will impose on someone caught drunk driving or with illegal drugs in their luggage: "If you check yourself into rehab and go to Alcoholics Anonymous for six months (and get signed notes at each meeting saying you attended), we will drop the charges."

In a sentence like this, there is no question a serious violation occurred, but the judge is tempering his justice by trying to train the offender to go in a different direction in his or her life. The judge is saying: Show me six months worth of real change, and maybe you won't have to go to jail. But jail time is still hanging out there, which is why those criminal animal cruelty charges have NOT been dropped and are still pending.

The judge was apparently NOT amused by the kennel pictures he saw. What he saw was real abuse. And while he may be sympathetic that folks do, occasionally, get over their head with dogs or cats, there is a place to draw the line. And the line is a simple one: take care of the animals. Run a clean kennel. Make sure the roof doesn't leak, that parasites and bugs are kept at bay, and that dogs get veterinary attention. On all of these counts, Ms. Willard had been failing, which is why the order for remedial work is in place, and the criminal animal abuse charges are still in place.

Of course, all of this is typing, and sometimes a picture really is a 1,000 words. Have you noticed that Wendy Willard has never posted any pictures of her kennels or dogs?

Well, Amy Worden at the Philadelphia Inquirer Philly Dawg blog has. The picture below is of one of the Bassets found at Ms. Willard's kennel.

As Amy notes,

"Look closely at those little black dots on the dog's face, those are ticks. PSPCA officers say all the dogs in Willard's kennel were covered in ticks and some were suffering from Lyme Disease. Many had severe cases of parasites too."

This is what a "Murder Hollow" basset looks like; a flithy dog, shit caked on it ears, cherry eyed, tick-infested, with a healing wound over the left eye, standing on wet concrete.

Right.

The dogs were also covered in feces and were standing in water from a leaky roof.

In short, misery.

No wonder the judge was not amused and the criminal charges are still pending!

• Related Posts:
  ** Load, Fire, Aim: A Case History of Nonsense
  ** Talk Is Cheap When It Comes to Bassets in Trouble
  ** What's the Legal Limit on Dogs?
  ** Dog Laws: A Case of "Pick Your Poison"
  ** Murder Hollow Update: The Dogs Still Need a Vet
  ** Another "AR" Case for Know Nothing Outrage
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David Zincavage Is a Thief

David Zincavage of Bluemont, Virginia, is a thief. The page at the link, above, will remain up as simple declarative statement. It will disappear when he follows the law.

Another "AR" Case for Conservative Outrage

Here's another Pennsylvania case for conservative know-nothings to express chest-thumping outrage about.

Dog wardens have shut down a kennel in Waynesboro, west of Harrisburg, that was operating without a license. Wardens and officers with the Washington Township Police Department went to the property last week and removed all 29 live dogs and one dead dog from the premises. Acting on information provided by a visitor to the kennel, dog wardens and police officers secured search warrants to investigate potential kennel and cruelty violations.

The agents found dogs and other animals living in filthy conditions, including cages stacked four-high and filled with feces, maggots and moldy food. The dogs—Papillons, Yorkies and Poodle mixes—as well as several cats and birds, were immediately removed by the Antietam Humane Society in Waynesboro. The dogs were matted and dirty, and several appeared to have eye and ear infections. The animals will all be examined and receive veterinary care.

The Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement plans to file charges against the owner, Donna Cook, for operating an unlicensed kennel. Any charges for animal cruelty will be issued by the police department. Cook was cited in 2001 for cruelty and operating a kennel without a license.

My God, what's with these fascist local Humane Society's and SPCAs?

Don't they know it's their job to ignore animal abuse? I mean, who doesn't have a dead dog in their Kennel? These thing happen. In any case, the dog committed suicide. It was depressed.

So what if the local Humane Society found dogs and other animals living in filthy conditions, including cages stacked four-high and filled with feces, maggots and moldy food?

You believe these people over the lady who was cited for animal cruelty back in 2001? Why?

These dogs are private property and were on private property. How dare the local Humane Society step in to immediately relieve their misery?

Instead, they should visit, be denied admission to the premises, and then go to a judge for a warrant. Then, with warrant in hand, they should come back and maybe issue a warning. Then, a week or two later, they can come back and maybe levy a small fine if things are not better. Then, a week or two later, they can come back and levy another small fine if things are not much improved.

By then, of course, most of the dogs might be dead, which will make legal action moot.

You see? Wasn't that easy?


Who is to say this is wrong?

The outage here, of course, is that these dogs are going to be placed in loving homes with families rather than be sold to people who have not done their research on how to even purchase a dog, much less how to house, feed, or train one.

Dogs are private property, same as a stack of tires, and this is nothing more than theft by the SPCA's and local Humane Society's in order to line their own well-padded coffers.

It's a konspiracy I tell you!

Everyone knows there is huge cash-money to be made selling broken, diseased, and poorly socialized animals.

That's how the local Humane Societies and SPCA's can pay all those big salaries. That's why every local dog catcher is driving a Lincoln Navigator home from the office every day.

This is theft by the State, and I am outraged.

Thank God we have clear-thinking people like David Zincavage over at the "Never Yet Melted" blog to help us sort it all out.

He knows dogs.

He even tells me that he owns one! He hopes to get a second one soon.

• Related Posts:
  ** Load, Fire, Aim: A Case History of Nonsense
  ** Talk Is Cheap When It Comes to Bassets in Trouble
  ** What's the Legal Limit on Dogs?
  ** Dog Laws: A Case of "Pick Your Poison"
  ** Murder Hollow Update: The Dogs Still Need a Vet
  ** Another "AR" Case for Know Nothing Outrage

As good as it should ever get for dogs in a conservative/libertarian world.

Murder Hollow Update: The Dogs Still Need a Vet

NOT the dogs in question.

The Philadelphia SPCA has put out an update about the Murder Hollow Bassets owned by Wendy Willard.

On Friday, August 7, 2009, Humane Law Enforcement officers from the Pennsylvania SPCA conducted a pre-arranged follow-up inspection of Murder Hollow, the location of an illegal basset hound kennel in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia, PA. The owner had previously surrendered 11 dogs during the officers’ visit on Monday, July 27, 2009, due to unsanitary conditions, lack of veterinary care and more dogs than allowed by law.

Despite the time allotted to the owner to make improvements, overall living conditions remained poor at the second inspection, resulting in 11 citations for unsanitary conditions, 11 citations for lack of veterinary care and two tickets for barking. Graphic photos of the dogs detailing their condition and their housing have been turned over to the district attorney’s office.

Right.

As I noted in a comment to my original post on this matter:

[W]e know a bit more now than we did a while back, due to a combination of admission and omission.

The admission comes from Ms. Willard who, in a letter going around the Internet, says the ceiling tiles were coming down in the kennel. As a general rule, ceiling tiles come down due to a leaking roof. I am not sure that this was the case here, but if it is, I do not think it would take much rain water, bedding, and dog crap to make an ungodly mess inside a kennel with 25 dogs.

Is that filth? Absolutely!

The omission here is two-fold: little or no mention about the state of the dogs in Ms. Willard's "letter to many," and the complete absence of photos.

Ms. Willard no doubt owns a camera. You can be sure the SPCA was taking pictures, and she would no doubt have seen that occurring, and would have gotten the idea very quickly.

If things were pretty bad-looking, she would fold up and let the dogs be taken (that is, in fact, what occurred).

If the kennels were in great shape, however, and the dogs were in fine fettle, she would have run to get her own camera, and those pictures would have been up on the Internet before the SPCA hit the first traffic light out of her place.

Of course, that has not happened, has it? Instead, the SPCA has sent its pictures to the district attorney’s office.

Remember, these SPCA pictures were taken at the time of the THIRD visit by the SPCA.

Even now -- on a fourth visit some time later, the kennels are not yet in order, and the dogs needing veterinary care have not gotten that attention.

Here's an idea: To hell with Wendy Willard!

How about we start thinking about the dogs?!

• Related Posts:
  ** Load, Fire, Aim: A Case History of Nonsense
  ** Talk Is Cheap When It Comes to Bassets in Trouble
  ** What's the Legal Limit on Dogs?
  ** Dog Laws: A Case of "Pick Your Poison"
  ** Murder Hollow Update: The Dogs Still Need a Vet
  ** Another "AR" Case for Know Nothing Outrage

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Talk Is Cheap When It Comes to Bassets in Trouble

Over at the conservative blog "Never Yet Melted," David Zincavage has yet to apologize for getting the basic facts of the Philadelphia basset hound story wrong.

While he claimed the 12-dog limit was new, it was in fact more than 25-years old.

While he claimed the Philadelphia SPCA showed up without notice to seize 13 dogs, the truth is that the SPCA visited and left a note asking to be contacted about a complaint from a neighbor.

When they were not contacted, they stopped by again, and the woman who owned the bassets would not let them in, and threw rocks at the SPCA vehicle as it left. Not a good idea.

On the third visit, the Philadelphia SPCA showed up with trucks, police officers, and a camera to document the state of things.

At that point, the jig was up, and the owner of the bassets voluntarily relinquished the extra dogs that were over the legal limit, promised to clean up and repair the kennels, and also promised to take the dogs that needed medical attention to a veterinarian.

Those are the facts.

Rather than apologize to the Philadelphia SPCA for getting it wrong, Mr. Zincavage has gone in a different direction: he has decided to tell us how little he knows about animal control operations in the U.S.

Apparently, it comes as new information to him that many local SPCA's and humane societies are contract animal-control officers for cities, towns and counties.

Of course, a cursory look on Google could have told him this. In fact, a pretty detailed history of animal control operations in the U.S. can be found on this very blog at a post (and book review) entitled Beyond the Blue Solution of Dog Shelter Death.

Now here's the ironic part: You know why so many local shelters are a basket case?

Because conservatives complain that their taxes are too high!

Why pay for a decent animal shelter, when it's so much cheaper to put dogs and cats to sleep?

Conservatives call this "tough love."

And "tough love" is not just their prescription for dogs, is it?

After all, every human zygote is supposed to be a "miracle of life" until it is born. After that, it's just a sniveling little welfare cheat.

Why should society pay for better public schools, comprehensive sex education, or national health care? That will only encourage "those people."

And Mr. Zincavage and the organized hunts are not "those people." He writes to tell me that:

The Murder Hollow Bassets have 11 staff members, all of whom are eminently respectable, upper middle class dog-lovers who are part of the hard corps sporting community. Organized packs do not neglect hounds.

Really?

Wonderful then.

And so I have challenged Mr Zincavage and the 11 "staff members" of the Murder Hollow Bassets to pay for three or four years worth of private (and legal) kenneling for those seized Philadelphia dogs.

There are many commercial kennels in Pennsylvania, and I am sure the the SPCA will have no objection to the dogs being placed in a good private kennel provided that three or four years worth of kennel fees are paid up in full and in advance, plus any veterinary bills accrued.

No, not a month. No, not four months. Three or four years.

After all, these dogs deserve continuity of care, and with 12 people to shoulder the cost of kenneling, it shouldn't be too big a deal for everyone to pony up the price.

Talk is cheap.

But, of course, so too are most people -- a point missed by many conservatives.

They will tell you they are against taxation, preferring instead that everything be done by some mysterious thing called "a Thousand Points of Light."

Fine. Here's a chance for Mr. Zincavage and the Murder Hollow "staff" to be a Point of Light. Pay for the veterinary costs plus three or four years of private kenneling for Wendy Willard's basset hounds. She will still own them -- the donors will simply be making a charitable gift to make sure things are done right by the dogs.

Mr. Zincavage goes on to claim that "organized packs do not neglect hounds."

Really? Well, as a general rule that might be true, but I am burdened by specific knowledge, as I have actually seen a few fox hunting packs in Virginia.

In fact, I have challenged Mr. Zincavage to go out to the Casanova Hunt this morning to take a look at the hounds. I expect he will find what I found last time I was there: 20 couple of hounds and a stench that will knock your socks off. The hounds are fed the flesh of horses that are shot on site (their skulls can be found in the woods), and there will be a few vultures in the dead tree in the pen above the hounds, just waiting to clean the last bits of flesh from the bones.

It is not a pretty site.

Are the dogs healthy? They better be!

I do not think a dog ever gets a chance to raise too big a veterinary bill at the Casanova Hunt. After all, these are "just working dogs," and they have large litters. No one dog is all that important, and the Casanova Hunt takes great pride in getting it all done as cheaply as possible. Old racing greyhounds find homes in the suburbs; old fox hounds generally do not.

Now, to be clear, I have no complaints about the Casanova hunt. If they want to shoot old horses to feed the pack, and dispose of old dogs any way they see fit that causes no pain to the dogs, that is fine. But let's not act as if every mounted hunt is the model of genteel propriety, eh? It's not true. Surely we can be honest and admit that?.

And, above all, let's not act as if people do not lose their minds and fall down on the job just because they have money.

I'm sorry, but anyone who throws rocks at the cars of state-appointed officers who come to inspect a kennel is a little off the beam. And this woman, apparently, has been off the beam long enough that her neighbors thought it was more than time to intervene on the dog's behalf. When the Philadelphia SPCA looked things over, they agreed. When the police showed up, and pictures were taken, the owner of these dogs folded up like a wing-shot duck.

Regular readers of this blog know I have no love for animal rights loons. I have called the General Counsel of PETA a moron in print, posted a graphic representation of the kill rate of PETA's shelter, and done an autopsy on the very questionable direct mail economics of the Humane Society of the U.S.

But I do not fear the animal rights crowd. I still eat chicken, hunt freely, and go to zoos. PETA has no lobbying power on Capitol Hill. Farm subsidies still roll like candy from a slot machine. The hot dog is still the national food, even if Chevrolet is no longer the national car.

That said, I am always fascinated by the paranoia so many people have about "animal rights" groups. You see, I hunt, I post pictures, and I do not hide my real name. My address is in the telephone book, and my dogs are well cared for. There is no shit-strewn kennel at my place, or rotting flesh in the yard. In fact, there is no kennel at all. The dogs sleep in the laundry room on clean towels fresh from the dryer. Anyone can come by at any time, and anyone who can carry a post hole digger is welcome to come hunting with me on any day it is below 90 degrees out, and the ground is not soaking wet. I fear no one and nothing.

And neither does anyone else I know who actually hunts in this state or any other state.

Yet, as I once noted on this blog some people jump at the slightest shadow:

Some years back, I was lurking on several boards and list-servs when PETA came out with an advertising campaign against dairy milk. The folks over at FOL (Foxhunters On Line) went nuts. To listen to them talk, this was the end of the world and PETA's silly campaign was proof that the Anti-Christ was coming.

Over on the Dairy Management list, however, everyone yawned at the PETA campaign, and the talk quickly moved on to more germane matters such as the best low-grade slope to have on a loafing shed (3 percent as I recall).

The point here is that one embattled group -- the fox hunters -- freaked out, squawking like pet-store parrots next to a slamming screen door. The dairy folks, on the other hand, knew One True Thing, which is that America will always drink milk.

I recount this story because I believe that it was on Foxhunters On Line that Mr. Zincavage first learned of the illegally housed (and apparently poorly-kenneled) basset hounds in Philadelphia.

Now, here's the ironic thing: mounted fox packs in the U.S. rarely kill a fox. In fact, some people will ride two or three years before they even see a fox.

The same is true for rabbit hunting with the basset hound folks -- no animals are killed in the making of this movie.

These people are not hunting; they are playing dress up!

So why all this concern about PETA and the Humane Society of the U.S., and the animal rights loons?

Beats me.

After all, the United States is not the U.K. is it? We not only have a long tradition of citizen-hunters in this country, but in Virginia, where Mr. Zincavage and I both live, the right to hunt and fish is actually baked into the State Constitution.

In Maryland, where I do most of my hunting, a fox is on the cover of the current state guide to hunting and trapping.

In every state on the East Coast, the Division of Natural Resources is trying to get more people to shoot more deer. Seasons are getting extended, and in many counties around here the limit is 36 deer a year. Thirty-six!!

In Virginia, where PETA is actually headquartered, we do not hear a peep from them, even though we shoot more than 220,000 deer a year (to say nothing of bear, fox, bobcat, duck, geese, rabbit, coyote, squirrel, raccoon, etc.)

The Congressional Sportsman's Caucus is the largest caucus on Capitol Hill.

So what's with the paranoia among hound packs where no one is even doing any hunting?

I have no idea, but I think it might have something to do with a combination of ego and ignorance.

Most of the folks who ride to hounds (or walk to bassetts) enjoy the romance and dress up of it all, but are only tangentially connected to wild places, wildlife, and real hunting.

These are genteel people with pretty boring lives, and no doubt it makes them feel a bit more dangerous and important to imagine they are a "persecuted" class.

In fact no one gives a damn if they want to go out and jump a few coops on a Tuesday afternoon, or walk a pack of funny-looking achondroplastic dogs down a field looking for rabbits. Knock yourself out!

Now, to be fair, some folks may have heard of "the ban" on fox hunting in the U.K.

But do they know that fox hunting in the U.K. is now more popular than ever, and that terrier work is still going on in Great Britain?

Eh? Terrier work? What the hell is terrier work?

Yes, that's right. Most mounted hunts in the U.S. have no idea what terrier work is.

You see, in the U.S. the mounted hunts almost never kill a fox, and they never dig one out. Why would they? After all, a red fox generally does no damage to cattle, sheep, or corn fields. Those of us who engage in terrier work in the U.S. may dig on an occassional fox, but we have no need to kill them. I, myself, never kill fox, and only rarely dispatch raccoon (though I account for quite a few nuisance groundhogs all year long).

As for the basset hound folks, they do no killing at all. This is a dress up affair with slow dogs ambling down the field to a nice lunch at noon. See for yourself -- there are lots of green coats to be seen, but no shotguns. A rabbit getting chased down by a basset? Not likely!



Which brings me back to the Philadelphia SPCA.

The idea that these folks are jack-booted thugs is a bit of a stretch. For one thing, they operate as an arm of the state. If they screw it up, they can lose their contract and, by extension, their job. Everyone at the SPCA is very aware of this.

What are the folks at the Philadelphia SPCA really like?

Well, you can see for yourself.

It turns out there's an entire Youtube channel devoted to the Philadelphia SPCA. Click on this link and watch five or six videos. Do these people look like jack-booted Nazi's to you? Not to me.

I think most people who are regular readers of this blog know I have no love of the animal rights crowd. I will, for the record, continue to beat the loons around the head whenever that is warranted. But I do not beat things without cause.

Nor do I support those who do not do right by the dogs. If you think people who house dogs in filth are victims, rather that victimizers, then we will just have to part company on that point.

If you stand shoulder to shoulder with the puppy mill purveyors of pain, and care more about their business interests than the welfare of dogs, then we do not see eye to eye.

If you have looked around this great nation and never once seen a person falling down on their responsibility to dogs, then I think you are truely blind.

By the same token, if you want to live your life in terror of bubble-headed vegans, well go right ahead; I certainly cannot stop you from jumping at shadows.

All I can do is point out that there are more than 60 million dogs in this country and hunting organizations are the largest membership organizations in the U.S. We hold every reign of historical, political, and economic power. If, despite this fact, you still want to whine that you are scared, there is not much I can do to strengthen your lost backbone.

Some people, I have found, will cut and run at the sight of a mouse.

Finally, anyone who can carry a post hole digger for 6-7 hours in the field with me is always welcome to come out for a bit of digging -- even the lunatics at PETA if they think they can hack the dirt, the sweat, the bugs, and the thorns.

But be advised that no whining is allowed. We're not walking in the woods with fancy clothes here. We're hunting.

And yes, there will be blood..

As for the Philadelphia SPCA, who knows if they got it right with these Bassetts? My bet is that they did, but time will tell. One thing is for sure: the easiest way forward, right from the start, was to pay attention to the laws, do right by the dogs, and communicated without throwing rocks. On every one of those points, however, Wendy Willard and her pack of supporters failed.

• Related Posts:
  ** Load, Fire, Aim: A Case History of Nonsense spun by David Zincavage at "Never Yet Melted"
  ** Talk Is Cheap When It Comes to Bassets in Trouble
  ** What's the Legal Limit on Dogs?
  ** Dog Laws: A Case of "Pick Your Poison"
  ** Murder Hollow Update: The Dogs Still Need a Vet
  ** Another "AR" Case for Know Nothing Outrage
  .

Load, Fire, Aim: A Case History of Nonsense

This is a case of "load, fire, and aim" by a very reckless blogger.

Or, to put it another way, it's a case history of nonsense.

Back when we were kids, it was easier to tell what was true and what was a lie.

Back then, news was fact-checked and veracity was prized. News was a bit slower, and there was not quite as much of it, but by-and-large it was accurate and we could sort it out and make sense of it.

No more.

Now the news is fast and furious, chaotic and full of lies, misinformation, and partial truths wrapped in bias, conjecture and carefully crafted to fit a story board someone is anxious for us to hear.

So how do we separate fact from fiction and lies from truth?

It's really not that hard, and the good news is that basic techniques can be learned by all.

Let's review the basics, and let's do it by looking at a post that was circulated around the world of dogs just yesterday.

The kerfuffle started when a blog entitled "Never Yet Melted" posted a piece entitled SPCA Outage in Philadelphia.

According to this blog post, written by someone by the name of David Zincavage, a woman had been made a victim of the jack-booted police state. Really? There's a jack booted police state in Philadelphia? News to me.

The story told is that a dog law was changed in the middle of the night and this poor woman was then raided, without notice, and her dogs scooped up to be rushed away to waiting gas chambers or to be sold to the Arabs ... or something.

Hmmm... There was something odd here. You see, for starters this blog does not normally cover dog issues. Nor is it noted for rationale discourse or a careful gathering of facts. In fact, it prides itself as being "Another Right-Wing Web Aggregator and Purveyor of Unpopular Opinions."

In short, it's a place that starts and collects conspiracy theories and circulates them back out to the gullible.

Scroll down and look at the badges on the right side of this blog, and what you find is a glad bag of right-wing nuttery. This blog salutes the crackpot Michelle Malkin, and has a picture of Charlton Heston doing his "cold dead body" thing with a flintlock rifle held high over his head.

Now I support the Second Amendment, but I also support all the other parts of the U.S. Constitution. Where was the badge on this blog in support of the First Amendment's separation of Church and State? Not there. Instead we find a badge that says "Islamaphobic and Proud of It."

Right. Got it. A paranoid gun nut who thinks hate is humorous.

In paragraph four of the post I found an interesting line.

The sort of people who go in for basseting are typically well-educated, upper middle-class animal lovers of a preparatory school sort of background. In other words, the very last sort of people imaginable to be dog abusers or law breakers.

Really? People with money who attended prep schools do not commit crimes or abuse animals? Mental illness only happens to the poor? I had no idea there was any correlation. You would think it was the opposite, with so many stories in the newpaper about richie-riches going off to drug treatment or long stays at private laughing academies for the insane. None ever abused an animal? And then there are all those stories about pharma fraud, banking fraud, stock market swindlers, and professional murderers masquerading as weapons salesmen and drug manufacturers.

I could go on, but let's not.

A reading of the blog post showed there were no citations. It seems this blog was "breaking news."

And what was their source? Why, the most reliable thing in the world: a "mention on a fox hunting list yesterday" and a report "today on the Border Collie Bulletin Board."

Eh? Was this a joke? The Philadelphia Police and the Philadelphia SPCA are being accused of violating someones civil rights because of little more than anonymous rumor?!

But, in fact, that was the case. And it did not stop there. Three other blogs picked up this train of nonsense and repeated it almost word for word, expressing outrage at the violation of this poor woman's civil liberties. There was a lot of typing about animal rights loons. But I could not help but notice that there was not much concern about what kind of condition the dogs might be in.

I posted on all four blogs urging caution and noting that the facts were not in. I am hardly a friend of the PETA crowd, so I hoped throwing the caution flag might slow things down a bit. Then I fired off a quick note to a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, suggesting she take a look into the story -- there was an article here either way it went. She was already on it (a good reporter!), and this morning her piece appeared and I rip it off in it entirety in order to set the record straight:

As master of Murder Hollow Bassets hound pack, Philadelphia resident Wendy Willard ran in tony rabbit and fox hunting circles. Her pack, formed in 1986, was listed among a select handful from Virginia hunt country and elsewhere in the prestigious Chronicle of the Horse, the bible of the horse and hound crowd. The kennel's Bassets won awards at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show.

Last week the Pennsylvania SPCA raided her farmhouse in the Schuylkill Valley Nature Preserve and found 23 dogs covered in feces and riddled with parasites, said George Bengal, the PSPCA's director of law enforcement.

"The kennel was a mess," he said.

Humane agents first went to the house on July 21 in response to neighbor complaints about noise and odor, said Bengal. Finding no one home, they left cards asking the property owner to contact them. When no one responded, an agent and two state dog wardens returned on July 27. Willard refused them entry and as they left the property she threw stones at the officers' vehicles, said Bengal.

They returned later that day with a search warrant and found dogs living in what Bengal described as unsanitary conditions and in need of veterinary care. Willard voluntarily surrendered 11 dogs and agreed to comply with certain conditions for keeping the rest, including inspections, he said.

"We could have charged her, but we didn't yet," said Bengal. "We could have seized the dogs, but she agreed to get medical care for the remaining dogs and spay or neuter eight of the 12 dogs" - the limit allowed under the city's decades old animal ordinance.

Since there were fewer than 26 dogs on the property (the number required for a state kennel license) there were no citations issued by the state, said Chris Ryder, spokesman for the Department of Agriculture.

The dogs that were removed were placed with Basset hound rescue groups, the PSPCA said.

The PSPCA's executive director Sue Cosby said they did not initially release any information about the incident because they thought they could resolve the issue amicably with the owner.

"The officer heading the case really went out of her way to work with the owner in an effort to have the kennels cleaned up and the dogs cared for rather than file charges and take all of the dogs,'" said Cosby in an email.

Dog breeder list serves and hunting blogs were buzzing over the weekend with news of the raid. The chatter grew to a fever pitch today with pages of posts defending Willard and railing against the PSPCA for trampling on the rights of dog owners.

So there you have it.

The real facts, as presented so far, is that this woman was a nutter who was abusing dogs by keeping them in filth and without proper veterinary care.

The law limiting the number of dogs in Philadelphia County (a city and suburb last time I looked) was 12, which hardly seem onerous. It is not a new law -- it is more than 25 years old. This crazy woman was way over the legal limit, but no one reported her so long as the dogs were well taken care of. When the dogs were not being cared for, however, and when this crazy old lady would not step up to care for the dogs even when notified by the authorities, the Philadelphia SPCA stepped in to rescue the dogs and to help this poor woman get her life back on keel. That's the story as it reads now.

This is a case statement for abuse of power? I think not!

This is, in fact, a case statement for the Philadelphia SPCA who seems to have done excellent work here and who probably need to be thanked. So Thank you, Philadelphia SPCA, for thinking about the dogs. No one else seems to have been doing so yesterday.

Is there a lesson here?

Sure. And here it is:

1. Never run on rumor. If people really need a beating, they can be beaten twice as hard tomorrow (when all the facts are in).
   
   
2. Google is your friend. In this day and age, there is no excuse for not doing at least a little bit of research. Look for credible sources, and look for more than one source.
   
   
3. Remember that not everything on an Internet list-serv or bulletin board is true, and almost nothing sent to you in a forwarded email is true. Blogs are not newspapers.
   
   
4. Be especially wary of those on the far end of either political spectrum. Ideologues, paranoids, and hysterics operate by throwing out every fact that does not fit a pre-conceived frame.
   
   
5. The absence of credible sources is a silence that roars. Even when sources are given, be sure to actually check those sources. Many of the emails being circulated now have fake sources appended to them. Again, use the Google.
   
   
6. Use your brain. All of it. If you hear hoof beats, suspect horses, not zebras. Go with the probable (and boring) rather than the improbable (even if exciting). Is it more likely that a government-funded SPCA is violating the civil rights of someone, or is it more likely that some lady is mentally ill or has fallen down on the job when it comes to taking care of her dogs? One is as common as rain water, the other as rare as hen's teeth.
   
   
7. Never embrace conspiracy when good old-fashioned stupidity, negligence and sloth will get you the same results. Stupidity, negligence and sloth are common, but conspiracies of evil are actually quite rare. Except, maybe, in the health care arena.
   

• Related Posts:
  ** Talk Is Cheap When It Comes to Bassets in Trouble
  ** What's the Legal Limit on Dogs?
  ** Dog Laws: A Case of "Pick Your Poison"
  ** Murder Hollow Update: The Dogs Still Need a Vet
  ** Another "AR" Case for Know Nothing Outrage
  .