CANINE ANGELS

  Many people have been manipulated into thinking that Sue and Lynette are the victims.  Can the State of Georgia and all of their agencies as well as the individual counties and municipalities, dog rescue groups and animal rescue workers all be wrong?  The victims?  How about the many animals on the property?  All of them became victims. That IS the truth.

In the beginning Sue & Lynette started something for a noble cause, but something went wrong, very wrong.  It got out of hand, money was cut off, conditions deteriorated.  The animals began to be neglected at the facility.  KAT5 came in and "rescued the rescuers". 

Here is a note from Cassandra about her experience:

"I spent 6 months in Dewy Rose, Ga. There are things to say, and people to thank..."
 

"First of all, Larry Roberts for his trust in me to go and take care of the dogs and his funding the operation.
Second, Dept. of Ag Ray Deluca, Mary Green and Vanessa Green and Commissioner Tommy Irving for their support, help and patience with me, being new in this position they entrusted the care of the animals to me and aloud me to do my job, I will be forever grateful."

"Third, Elbert County Animal Control, Patrick and Jeff, they went above and beyond the call of duty in helping me. The story is long and involved, someday I will try to write it.  But at this time, these two men, not only kept these dogs alive, they had them all vetted and cared for while in their care, they came back to the farm in far better condition because of them, they also took pride in the socialization of these dogs. I was interviewed numerous times by the television stations and newspapers thanking them, nobody wants to read "thank you notes," they want "dirt", so I was never quoted on my personal thanks to them."

"Also, Mr. Richard Rice HSUS, was supportive and helpful, personally bringing supplies, equipment and dog food to the farm on his own time. Dr. Michael Good for EVERYTHING, he treated dogs, placed cats and always took my calls. (the field alone is a tough place to be, 159 dogs and 22 cats to care for is a frightening place to be).."

"The amazing volunteers, I don't even know where to start, it was one of my most memorable experiences of my life, life changing, If I have overlooked anyone, I apologize, but you know who you are, and know how grateful I am."
"First and foremost, needs to be my husband and sons, I missed my son's entire Sr. year of High School and they never made me regret doing what I was meant to do...I love you."

                                                                  Cassandra

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This is from the Athens Banner- Herald

Shelter's founders leave dogs behind

A canine rescue in Elbert County

DEWY ROSE - After months spent fighting with state and local officials to keep the Northeast Georgia Canine Angels dog sanctuary open and operating, the shelters' founders apparently have skipped town.

Other volunteers who've been working with the shelter's operators to find homes for the animals this summer say they received voice-mail messages from Lynette Rowe and Sue Wells Wednesday saying that they were abandoning the shelter - leaving behind more than 100 dogs, possible animal cruelty charges and a mountain of debt and fines.

"I think the emotional and the financial strains of the last few months finally just wore them all the way down," said Don Hill, a volunteer at Canine Angels. "I think they'd been distancing themselves from the dogs for the past few weeks. They realized this was coming to an end."

The Elbert County Sheriff's Department served a search warrant at the sanctuary on Pulliam Road at 2 p.m. Thursday so the Elbert County Animal Control Department could remove 10 special-needs dogs that Wells and Rowe left locked inside their home at the sanctuary. Nine of the dogs were taken to a local veterinarian's office.

Because of an extensive amount of urine and feces inside the house, Animal Control Officers couldn't enter without respirators. Many of the dogs locked in the house were suffering from upper respiratory infections when they were removed, said Cassandra Koster, a field officer for KAT 5, a Katrina-spawned animal rescue group that has helped run the sanctuary for the last month.

Most of the 114 dogs left outside the house were in fairly good condition when the sanctuary's volunteers arrived Wednesday afternoon, but they had not received food or clean water for three days and four were taken for immediate veterinary care, said Hill.

The Elbert County Sheriff's Department is investigating and may file animal cruelty charges against Wells and Rowe in coming days, said Maj. David Cleveland.

Despite the Georgia Department of Agriculture's repeated efforts to get Wells and Rowe to pare down the number of dogs at the shelter, Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin said he was comfortable allowing the 114 dogs that still were at shelter stay there under Koster's supervision until they are adopted.

"The dogs weren't moving with the original people here," Irvin said. "Now, I think we're starting to see some progress. As long as there's progress being made."

Rowe and Wells already faced more than 62 citations and $15,000 in fines from the Georgia Department of Agriculture for unhygienic and inhumane conditions at the shelter since 2004. Rowe is scheduled to be in court Aug. 16 to answer to an Elbert County Magistrate Judge for violating a county code that prohibits homeowners from keeping more than 15 dogs without a shelter license.

The dogs now technically belong to Jim Willis - a North Carolina animal activist who adopted them en masse to keep them from being confiscated by the state in June. But since Willis has never stepped foot at the Dewy Rose sanctuary or applied for the shelter license he needed to keep the shelter opened, state agriculture officials have been dealing with Koster.

Canine Angels hit rocky financial straits since the agriculture department revoked the shelter's license and forbade Rowe and Wells from soliciting donations to help care for the roughly 150 dogs that remained at the sanctuary at the beginning of July.

Larry Roberts, an Atlanta businessman who co-founded KAT5 with Koster, paid for Wells and Lynette to take four dogs up to an animal sanctuary in Long Island, N.Y., last week, and has been paying the past-due electric bills at the Dewy Rose facility since the end of June, Koster said.

Koster is hoping to find private homes for more of the dogs in coming months.

Owners of Canine Angels dog shelter arrested, charged

The former directors of a dog shelter surrendered to police Monday on animal cruelty charges filed last week after officials found nine dogs locked inside a mobile home at the Dewy Rose sanctuary.

Sue Wells and Lynette Rowe, who ran Northeast Georgia Canine Angels Rescue and Referral, were taken into custody at the Elbert County Sheriff's Department at about 11 a.m. on 13 counts each of misdemeanor cruelty to animals, said Lt. Wade King.

As of Monday afternoon, Wells and Rowe still were being held in the Elbert County Jail, each with $13,000 bonds.

The duo, who founded Canine Angels in Athens in 1999, left their embattled animal sanctuary last Wednesday afternoon and alerted volunteers that more than 100 dogs on the property needed to be cared for because the couple was leaving town.

But they also warned volunteers not to go into the mobile home where they lived, and said they would be back to get the nine dogs inside Wednesday night, said volunteer Don Hill.

When they had not returned by Thursday morning, volunteers called the Elbert County Animal Control Department, who in turn called the sheriff's department to get a search warrant to go into the home and remove the dogs.

Animal control officers said the mobile home was filled with dog urine and feces, and they had to wear respirators to go inside and remove the dogs. Eight of the nine dogs had to be taken for immediate veterinary care, according to animal control officials.

Rowe and Wells already were facing more than 62 citations and $15,000 in fines from the state Department of Agriculture for alleged unhygienic and inhumane conditions at the shelter dating back to 2004. Rowe also was scheduled to be in court Aug. 16 to face an Elbert County Magistrate judge for violating a county code that prohibits homeowners from keeping more than 15 dogs without a shelter license.

Since spring 2005, officials with the agriculture department's Animal Protection Division have worked with Wells and Rowe to pare down the number of dogs they were keeping at the sanctuary, which once topped 200. Earlier this year, Wells agreed to close the shelter and give up her right to hold a shelter license as part of a settlement with the agriculture department.

But Wells violated the terms of this agreement by not allowing the state to take control of the animals by a June 2 deadline. A North Carolina animal-rights activist, Jim Willis, adopted the shelter's dogs en masse that day to prevent them from being confiscated. The dogs remained on the Dewy Rose property, however.

Currently, the 108 dogs left at the sanctuary are being cared for by volunteers overseen by Cassandra Koster, a field officer with KAT5, an animal rescue group that was created last year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. KAT5 has helped run the sanctuary for the last month.

All are up for adoption, and Koster said 31 are scheduled to be transferred to the Graceworks Foundation on St. Simons Island - a pet-fostering operation.

Canine Angels hit rocky financial straits after the agriculture department revoked the shelter's license and forbade Rowe and Wells from soliciting donations to help care for the roughly 150 dogs that remained at the sanctuary at the beginning of July.

Larry Roberts, an Atlanta businessman who co-founded KAT5 with Koster, has been paying the past-due electric bills and covering many other expenses at the Dewy Rose facility since the end of June, Koster said.

Recently, donations of food and supplies have been arriving at the sanctuary from the agriculture department, the Elbert County Animal Control Department and the Humane Society of the United States.

Animal shelter officially closes

Homes found for dogs as Canine Angels shut down

After two years of turmoil and pressure from the state Department of Agriculture, the Northeast Georgia Canine Angels shelter in Dewy Rose now is closed.

Over the past six months, more than 150 dogs and about a dozen cats were transferred from Canine Angels to shelters across the country, and many have found permanent homes. The last nine dogs were taken from the shelter last week - marking the end of an almost five-month effort to clear out a shelter that once held nearly 200 dogs.

"When I first got to the shelter, there were so many dogs and they were so unsocialized, I thought we had a major tragedy on our hands," said Cassandra Koster, who works as a volunteer with KAT5, a pet rescue group formed in 2005 to help animals left homeless after Hurricane Katrina. The group sent volunteers to the Dewy Rose shelter when the Department of Agriculture began to shut the shelter down over the summer.

"I just feel that we were extremely lucky."

The fact that none of the dogs - deemed unadoptable by many - were euthanized is miraculous to the volunteers, said Koster, who ran Canine Angels since its founders abandoned it in late July.

Sue Wells and Lynette Rowe, who opened the Canine Angels Rescue and Referral Shelter in 1999 in Athens and moved it to a 19-acre farm in Dewy Rose in 2001, were under state pressure since early 2004 to reduce the unwieldy number of animals at the shelter.

Over the past two years, they accumulated 62 citations from the Animal Protection Division of the Department of Agriculture for unhygienic and inhumane conditions at the shelter and had racked up nearly $15,000 in fines.

After missing several state-set deadlines to pare down the number of dogs on the farm, Wells and Rowe abandoned the embattled shelter in July - with nine dogs locked inside a mobile home on the property. The duo currently is facing 13 counts each of misdemeanor cruelty to animals stemming from that incident.

Officials who have worked to investigate possible wrongdoing at the shelter over the past two years say they've learned a lot from the Dewy Rose saga.

"We're glad it's over," said Jeff Simpson, assistant code enforcement officer for Elbert County. "We're glad that a place was found for each one of those dogs. The whole situation really opened our eyes to what is possible."

In response to complaints lodged at the Elbert County Animal Control Department about Canine Angels, the county instituted a kennel-licensing system, Simpson said. The program, started earlier this year, requires county residents who want to keep more than 15 dogs to register with the county.

"That's helped us monitor these types of situations to make sure they don't get out of control," Simpson said.

The local government also changed the policy on responding to reports of abuse; now, officers visit several times to check up on the dogs after their owners are warned. It's a much more serious matter now, Simpson said.

A public relations official with the agriculture department said the department could not comment on whether the department's Animal Protection Division has changed any of its policies on regulating animal shelters because a hearing on Rowe and Well's citations is scheduled in the near future.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 112006