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Cross post to eveyone you know who loves cats and or dogs

   
flubber

Water!!!!!		 
 
Purred: Wed Nov 19, '08 5:59am PST 
Cros spost to everyone you know who loves cats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And
all cat lovers, no matter where you live, need to write these
officials demanding action!!!!!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, here are a couple of
articles below about wrongdoings under Barking Hound Village
Foundation from the Atlanta Journal. Then read the email below this
one from Randy the Hound and email the Fulton county officials listed
below this. But basically, Fulton County/Atlanta, GA gave the
contract to run their animal control to a doggie daycare in Atlanta
named Barking Hound Village who didn't even meet the minimum
requirements to bid on the contract. But you see he was a friend of
one of the county commissioners who made sure he got the contract.
Then that doggie daycare owner hired a woman named Jere Alexander to
run the shelter. Jere is married to a pitbull breeder and dog fighter
and keeps pitbulls chained up at her house. She and her husband took
over 100 mostly feral but a some friendly cats (there were 20 more
than the 83 mentioned in these articles according to emploees) at
night when the shelter was
closed and no one knows what happened to those cats. Some of those
cats were pregnant and some had only been at the shelter one day. No
vet spayed or neutered them, no foster home took them and they didn't
TNR them -- this director and her husband just took them and the cats
disappeared into thin air!!! Once scenerio is that they were dumped
in the woods somewhere where they are probably starving to death.
Worst case scenerio is that they were used for bait for fighting pit
bulls. See email below this one from Randy and ACT NOW!!!!
Read:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/northfulton/s tories/2008/11/16/fulton_animal_shelter.html
http://www.ajc.com/sea rch/content/metro/stories/2008/11/05/pitbulls.html

Here are also some links to the TV news investigative reports about
the shelter. The third one is about the cats. I hear there is one or
two more TV news reports coming up next week:
Part 1 video:
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video. jsp?contentId=7758516&version=1&locale=EN-US
Part 2 video:
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video. jsp?contentId=7767842&version=1&locale=EN-US
Part 3 video (this one talks about the cats):
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsession id=ED38ECACA7B319A4FD7644C1BA226A7F?contentId=7868956&version=3&loca le=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1



--- In atlantarescue@yahoogroups.com, rachelnrogers@ wrote:

PLEASE READ and CROSS POST

Everyone needs to read this email below from Randy the Hound which
details Barking Hound Village's director's connections to dog fighting
and then they need to write the officials below DEMANDING
that they bring in the GBI or FBI to investigate and DEMANDING that
they cancel the contract with Barking Hound Village Foundation.
For everyone who read the RFP online, you know that Barking Hound
Village didn't even meet the minimum requirements to bid and there
must have been county corruption involved for them to get the contract
in the first place so ask the GBI to investigate that too.

HELP SPEAK FOR THE ANIMALS WHO HAVE NO VOICE!!!!
We need to attend the Fulton County commissioner's meeting this
Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 10am, 141 Pryor Street, Atlanta, to express
their concerns. As many people as possible!!! WEAR RED!!! If
you live or work in Fulton you can speak or donate your minutes. Please
contact lizziz101 @ bellsouth.net if your are planning to attend. We
need to know
how many minutes we have so we can be sure to cover all of points the
commissioners need to hear.


VERY IMPORTANT -REMOVE THE BLANK SPACESBEFORE/AFTER THE "@" SIGN
BEFORE EMAILING:
John.eaves @ fultoncountyga.gov, robb.pitts @ fultoncountyga.gov,
lynne.riley @ fultoncountyga.gov,
tom.lowe @ fultoncountyga.gov, emma.darnell @ fultoncountyga.gov,
district6 @ fultoncountyga.gov,
william.edwards @ fultoncountyga.gov, zachary.williams @
fultoncountyga.gov, kim.turner @ fultoncountyga.gov, oliver.delk @
fultoncountyga.gov, cassandra.jones @fultoncountyga.gov, paul.howard
@fultoncountyga.gov,
rjstanionis @atlantaga.gov, pmwilliams @atlantaga.gov




________________________________

From:0ABy20hounds@ [mailto:By20hounds@]
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2008
9:14 AM
To: AtlantaRescueRailroad@yahoogroups.com;
georgiaanimalrescue@yahoogro ups.com; kittycityrescue@yahoogroups.com;
MiamiDadeRescueRailroad@yahoogroup s.com;
StopThe_SS_KillingMachine@yahoogroups.com
Cc: GADirtRoadBlues@
Subject: Fulton County
Ex- shelter director's
Jere Alexander Dog Fighting Connections

Fox 5 News reports that Jere Alexander
"released" the feral cats and that her rescue group, Nine Lives,
offered no proof that the cats had been sterilized. (Feral
cat programs, also called Trap-Neuter-Return, only
"release" the cats after they have been sterilized). When confronted
by Randy Travis, Alexander, said she needed to "investigate" the
allegations. Former employee, Myles Swain, surmises that the
disappearance of
the cats helped the shelter reduce its "kill rate."


The Fox story also reports that Sherri
Self, who was hired as a "shelter vet tech" is now the third
former employee on record complaining of Alexander's questionable
policies.
Self admitted in the Fox 5 investigation that Alexander did indeed
remove feral
cats from the shelter that were not altered. What wasn't clear from the
interview was the prior connection with Alexander and Self with a
group called
the Georgia APBT Association.

David York, the owner of Barking Hounds
Village Foundation, fired Self in October saying that she "falsified her
time sheet." The real question to be asked was whether Self's firing
was an attempt to cover up the role that both woman played in connection
to
a highly lucrative dog fighting business.

Self was one of the first hires of
Alexander, served as the president of the Georgia APBT Association in
2007 when
Alexander was the Vice President and whose husband last week pleaded
guilty to
a felony charge of transporting dogs for fighting.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC)
newspaper reports that Jere Alexander signed out 83 feral cats at the
Fulton County
animal shelter. She gave the cats to an unlicensed "rescue"
organization that she herself operates. Authorities could not
determine what happened to the innocent cats.
Perhaps
the cats became bait animals for pit bulls. ????
The AJC reports that one evening -- after
Jere and Rocky signed out 19 cats -- longtime kennel manager Myles
Swain, who
was later fired by Jere, confronted the director the next day.
Alexander told
Swain that she took the cats to a rescue organization called Nine Lives, a
"trap, neuter and release" group. Over a four month period, Nine
Lives took 83 cats from the shelter, more than twice the number taken
by all
other groups. A subsequent investigation showed that Jere ran the cat
organization.

Was Swain firing a deliberate attempt to
silence and discredit him for questioning why the feral cats were suddenly
disappearing from the shelter? While Swain surmised that the cats were
simply released into the community "unaltered" a more accurate
allegation is that Alexander disposed of the cats as bait animals for
pit bulls.
With Alexander's close ties to criminals involved in the dog fighting
culture
there is a huge market for bait animals with her having an unlimited
access to
supply that need. Further, while waste resources on vetting and altering
animals that are simply doomed to be killed anyway?


"Rescue groups that
take animals from shelters must be licensed by the state Department of
Agriculture, but officials found no such records. An investigation by the
department last week found Alexander ran the rescue group. But it
could not
determine what happened to the cats, including whether they were
neutered or
released. Charles Woody, who was listed on the form as a vet who
neutered the
cats for Nine Lives, said Friday he never heard of t
he group."

If I took 83 animals out
of my county shelter and failed to provide documentation that they
were indeed
altered I would probably be needing a VERY GOOD attorney to explain
myself. Alexander IS an attorney but apparently not a very good one or
she would have known this.

The
AJC also reported that Alexander and her husband, Rocky, took home one
especially aggressive pit bull named "Beast" from the Fulton County
shelter. They never returned the dog. Beast was being held at the
shelter as
evidence in a criminal dogfighting case.

How was Alexander allowed to take a dog
being held in a criminal dog fighting case out of the shelter and what
became
of that unaltered dog - who probably could be sold for a large sum of
money?

It is imperative that charges be brought
for Alexander's involvement in violating the law that requires
spay/neutering
of ALL pets pulled from shelters - even those destined to be killed as
bait.

Jere Alexander resigned earlier this month after Fox 5 news investigators
exposed multiple dangerous, if not criminal, actions taken by
Alexander while
serving as the director. (Please see: I-Team, Fox 5 News, Breaks Story on
Fulton Animal Shelter). Among other things, Jere made a
vicious dog ticket "disappear" after a pit bull attacked 5 children
waiting for a school bus; she allowed pit bulls in the Fulton County
animal shelter to terrorize and kill other dogs; and she broke county
laws by
chaining her own pit bulls.

American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT) Group Linked
to Dogfighters

Early on once Alexander was hired by
Barking Hounds to take over as Fulton
County's shelter
director one of her first hires was a pit bull breeder, Sherri
Self, whose husband, Tony Self, was
under indictment for transporting fighting dogs. According to the AJC,
Sherri's husband, Tony Self, pleaded guilty last week to a felony
charge of
transporting dogs for fighting and was sentenced to a year in prison.

The AJC also noted that Jere's husband, Rocky Alexander, wrote on a
website
that he is "a professional canine behaviorist, trainer, handler, historian
and conditioner" who grew up in Washington
State in an area where
"a professional dogfight was as normal as a baseball game."

Alexander also ran a website (pitarchive.org)
with advisers who had dogfighting-related charges in their pasts: Tom
Garner and T.L.
Williams.
Sherri Self is also the former president of the Georgia American Pit
Bull Terrier Association.
Alexander served as the Vice President of this group as recently as 2007.
With ALL that is known about Jere
Alexander how did she ever qualify to be hired to run the Fulton County
animal shelter? These are the questions that demand answer
s from David
York and the Fulton County Commissioners who awarded this contract.

There is a "direct" link
between an APBT group and dogfighters. It has long been suggested
that those heavily involved in the multi million dollar dog fighting
industry
that has taken down such high profile and wealthy participants like
Michael
Vick would be well advised to infiltrate our legal system, the
shelters and
governmental entities to protect their interests. The fact that
Alexander's supporters point to her being an "attorney" only means
that if called on she is qualified to defend criminals caught
violating the new
laws enacted to take down this industry.

The fact that Fulton County
was "duped" into playing patsy to this effort is amazing. There
is no solution that would be acceptable except voiding the contract with
Barking Hounds and prosecuting those who attempted to take advantage
of the
laws and unltimately cause unheard of suffering to animals they were
trusted to
protect.

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