Tag Archives: shelters

Shelter Advocates, or Corporate Puppets?

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It appears there’s a new non-profit in town…

In a flurry of expensive ads in several major newspapers, the Humane Society for Shelter Pets has announced its arrival. However, seasoned animal advocates are justifiably wary of this seemingly warm and fuzzy charity.

It turns out that the Humane Society for Shelter Pets (“HSSP”) has no connection with any animal shelters. It doesn’t run a shelter, nor does it fund any shelters. Instead, its Mission Statement claims it is “dedicated to creating a sustainable base of local support for the nation’s network of local pet shelters through grassroots advocacy and outreach”.

While this may seem like a praise-worthy mission, a little poking around on the site shows that:

  • The HSSP website is full of anti-HSUS rhetoric.
  • It cites the Center for Consumer Freedom almost exclusively.
  • It relies on three polls to support its claims: two were commissioned by HumaneWatch, and the third was actually written and conducted by HumaneWatch. (HumaneWatch refuses to reveal the wording and results of the polls.)
  • It focuses almost entirely on the HSUS, ignoring other national groups.
  • It provides no services to shelters whatsoever. Its sole purpose is to attack the HSUS.

If you’re familiar with the deceptive marketing and “educational” non-profit websites that are the hallmark of the Center for Consumer Freedom (parent and puppetmaster of HumaneWatch), you’re probably thinking you’ve seen this all before. You’d be right.

HSSP’s initial press release lists its address as “1090 Vermont Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008 United States”.

That address happens to be the street location for Richard Berman’s PR firm, Berman & Company. It’s also the street location for the Center for Consumer Freedom, the Center for Union Facts, the Employment Policies Institute Foundation, and the American Beverage Institute, among others – all Berman-run front groups.

To be fair, HSSP denies that Berman has anything to do with the daily operations of the organization. However, they do admit to “hiring” Berman & Company as their PR firm. Which leads us to another question…

Why would a supposed animal advocacy organization hire a PR firm with documented record of working vigorously on ANTI-animal causes?

It doesn’t make sense. And that’s not the only question that needs answering.

For example, where does a brand new “grassroots” non-profit get the money to launch a major advertising campaign, in its very first week of existence?

HSSP isn’t saying. Their supporters or partners aren’t listed on their web site. Nor is there a way to look at any of their documentation. Presumably one would have to file a FOIA request – just like with all of Berman’s shell operations.

Furthermore, we already know that Berman & Company does not work pro bono. They are strictly “pay-for-play”. Nor do their services come cheap.

So where does a brand new “grassroots” non-profit get the money to hire one of the most expensive PR firms in Washington, D.C., in its very first week of existence?

HSSP isn’t disclosing that, either.

On HSSP’s Facebook page, several people inquired about the confusing name of the group. Since they clearly do not support the Humane Society of the United States, and since they are not associated with any local humane societies, it seems strange that they would choose to name their organization after an entity they clearly despise.

Additionally, several posters noted the similarity of the rhetoric used on the web site and in the ads to that used by HumaneWatch, and inquired whether the organization was part of, or associated with, HumaneWatch.

None of these seem like unreasonable questions. Yet all of these posters were immediately banned and blocked from the FaceBook page. Again, this is a classic HumaneWatch response to questions, and the similarities are inescapable.

The refusal of HSSP to answer the most basic questions about their agenda and associations has already drawn the attention and suspicion of influential voices of the animal welfare community.

Diana “Didi” Culp: HSUS ex-employee, puppy mill legislation opponent, and co-director of HSSP.

HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle didn’t mince words:
But now Rick Berman has outdone himself. Now, this Beltway con artist -– who has probably spent as much time as anyone in recent years fighting against animal welfare -– has formed a new supposed animal welfare charity. He’s calling it the “Humane Society for Shelter Pets.”

Neither did Karel Minor of the Humane Society of Berks County:

[The CCF] knows that by making big scary claims and using big numbers they can make people think, even animal people, that HSUS is the problem and keep HSUS on their heels. That is the real reason behind it. When they create sweet little pro-shelter animal websites, using testimonials by HSUS ex-employees (beware testimonials by ex-employees- what did you think of your last boss?), they aren’t doing it to help the animals, they are doing it to muddy the waters.

Pack Mentality author Tom Grady asked HSSP spokesman Jeff Douglas about the allegations. He dodged the question:

HSSP and the Center for Consumer Freedom are separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

Berman and Company is the communications firm that was brought on by HSSP during its inception to manage its campaign due to their extensive work in this issue area. HSSP has an independent board and is managed by me — a long-time veterinary advocate — and former director of education for the Humane Society of the United States Diana Culp.

Obviously HSUS will try to paint HSSP as a group run by Rick Berman to avoid answering the real questions about their misleading fundraising practices. And while Rick Berman’s PR firm has helped bring HSSP to fruition, this group is a product of the efforts of a group of individuals with deep ties to the animal welfare community dedicated to improving the well-being of shelter animals across the country. Who we hired as our PR firm should be immaterial to the project.

Douglas’ last sentence is particularly interesting. No competent executive would ever think that the reputation and history of the PR firm you choose to represent your organization is “immaterial”.

You are known by the company you keep. When you claim to be on the side of animals, but hire the foremost defender of animal cruelty on the planet, your credibility vanishes like nonprofit donations into Richard Berman’s bank account.

On the other hand, stating that HSSP and CCF are separate organizations is immaterial. The dubious nonprofits run out of Berman and Company’s office are all separate organizations on paper, yet they employ the same staff, operate out of the same office, and funnel money into the pockets of the one seedy individual.

They may be separate organizations, but there’s little doubt about who’s really pulling the strings.

Tomorrow, we’ll examine who’s backing this deceptive group, and explore a comment by HSSP’s co-founder that reveals more than he intended.

HumaneWatch lies, so shelter pets die

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Six million to eight million animals enter our nation's animal shelters each year.

Gloating by the industry-funded hate group HumaneWatch ran thick this week after the Platte Valley Humane Society in Nebraska turned down a $5,000 grant from the Humane Society of the United States. Although the grant totaled almost half of what the shelter garners through its largest fund-raising event each year, shelter management felt they could not take the money. “We thought that maybe we should just bow out and not accept these funds and maybe we wouldn’t be crossing any feelings of people who are advocates and those in the industry,” board president Steve McClure said. In other words, board members were so intimidated by the misinformation spread by HumaneWatch and the industrial agribusiness interests it represents that they turned down the money rather than risk alienating factory farmers in the area. This is all part of the HumaneWatch strategy: to turn one animal protection charity against another. While these groups are distracted by infighting, the puppy mills and factory farms that the HSUS confronts are free to continue profiting from animal cruelty. HumaneWatch’s attacks haven’t stopped the HSUS, ASPCA, or other national groups from confronting cruelty to animals, but they have hurt local shelters — and animals. $5,000 could spell the difference between life and death for hundreds of shelter pets. A new adoption campaign. A new paint job to welcome adopters. Medical treatment. Personnel. Enrichment. Housing. All these items so key to no-kill goals were lost, solely because of HumaneWatch lies. Add it to the toll of suffering caused by the puppy mills, factory farms, furriers, seal clubbers, horse slaughterers, and other animal cruelty they are paid to defend. HumaneWatch lies, so shelter pets die.

When disaster strikes, the last thing you need is a HumaneWatcher

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It is often said that one’s character comes out during a crisis.  If that is so, then several prominent HumaneWatchers have shown their true colors in the wake of the Joplin tornado.

Last Sunday’s tornado was among the deadliest in U.S. history, with a human death toll of at least 142.  And where human lives are destroyed, surviving animals are displaced.

One agency — the Joplin Humane Society Animal Adoption & Resource Center — has been working nonstop to care for animals displaced by the storms and reunite them with their families.  As of Saturday, they had received 573 animals and reunited 147 with their families.  Besides dogs and cats, some of the animals handled by the shelter include a quaker bird, several chickens, goldfish, and a boa constrictor.

Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished, and HumaneWatchers are always there to dole out punishment to anyone who actually cares about animals.

As is common in any large-scale rescue or natural disaster, the local animal shelter was unable to handle the huge influx of animals on its own.  So Karen Aquino, director of the Joplin Humane Society, asked the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to help.  The ASPCA set up an emergency shelter, brought in all the necessary supplies, and is running the emergency operation.

The Humane Society of the United States, already stretched thin by its operations in the disaster zones of Mississippi and Alabama, sent personnel to care for the animals at the emergency shelter in Joplin.  The Humane Society of Missouri sent in teams to perform search and rescue operations.  And American Humane Association sent in people to provide relief in the shelter itself so staff could time off to care for their own families hit by the disaster.

You would think that all this would show how local and national animal welfare groups can pull together during a time of disaster to provide much needed care for displaced animals.

But then, you would not be a HumaneWatcher.  In their paranoid, delusional fantasy world, the national organizations are not in Missouri to help the local shelter.  They are there to loot, steal, whisk people’s pets off to far-away places, sell them for a profit for themselves, or give them to out-of-state shelter and rescue groups trying to make a buck off tornado victims.

Who, you ask, could possibly believe such a thing?  Let’s start with the VoteNoOnPropB page, which has become a haven for paranoid puppy milling HumaneWatchers and their sympathizers.

Here, Sabra Steele recounts how rescue groups “looted” dogs in Alabama.  She thinks the National Guard should close state borders to any out-of-state rescue groups, and says next time she will chain her dog crate to one hand and her gun to the other.

HumaneWatchers Larkin Vonalt and Cheri Medlin Cason tell VoteNoOnPropB that the HSUS is only in Missouri to take dogs for shelters in the Northeast to sell for a profit:

HumaneWatcher Angie Jensen Noland says she won’t give a dime to Joplin Humane Society.

And HumaneWatcher Bonnie Thompson Jensen sided with VoteNoOnPropB admin Jessica White Bryand on charges that the HSUS had looted dogs from Mississippi.

In fact, the HSUS was transporting animals that families had surrendered because they had lost everything in the storms and could no longer care for their pets.  Rather than trying to rehome pets in a disaster area, HSUS was moving them to new areas where families looking to adopt animals could be found.  This also freed up space in the disaster area for displaced pets.

But that didn’t stop Bonnie from going on to accuse the Joplin Humane Society — on its own Facebook page — of releasing pets to be taken out of state by rescue groups before people had the chance to claim them.

The Joplin Humane Society’s Facebook page is supposed to be a place for the shelter to post items it needs to have donated, information to volunteers, and photos of lost, found, and reunited pets.  It is not supposed to be a place for people to harass those working so hard to help.

So when HumaneWatch rather unwisely chose the Joplin Humane Society as its “Shelter of the Day” on Friday, it should have come as no surprise that its core members would revolt.

Bonnie Thompson Jensen repeated yet again the unfounded rumors of the humane society releasing animals to out-of-state rescue groups.

Gail Ledbetter bemoaned how the Joplin Humane Society allowed national groups to “take over” the shelter.

And Cheryl Nims, to the incredulity of a shelter manager in Minnesota, denounced the Joplin Humane Society, the HSUS, ASPCA, and rescue groups, all in one post.  She also claimed that local groups were turned away, despite the presence of the Humane Society of Missouri.

So what does a sane person do in the face of such irrational hate-filled diatribes?  They set the record straight, as the director of the Joplin Humane Society did in a series of posts on May 25:

And they hope their friends will step up in support, as we are doing today.

HumaneWatch Info condemns the lies, misinformation, and slander directed at the Joplin Humane Society, ASPCA, HSUS, and other rescue groups from sources such as HumaneWatch and VoteNoOnPropB.

While people like Sabra, Larkin, Cheri, Angie, Bonnie, Jessica, Gail and Cheryl are sitting behind their computers spreading malicious rumors, the local and national welfare groups have people on the ground actively working to help.

We salute these animal heroes, and urge everyone to support their work on behalf of animals affected by natural disasters and the families who love them.

If you’d like to donate, the Joplin Humane Society’s wish list is here – http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wedding/9NXFU5BUZCLK.  Urgent needs include 6-foot-high chain link dog panel fencing and swamp coolers to help cool the emergency shelter building.

If you’d like to volunteer, please use the volunteer sign-up form at http://www.controlledgo.com/AARC_JHS_FAQ.html.  Give your name, phone number(s) and availability. Someone will contact you to confirm your shift(s). Please do not just show up at the shelter.

And you can see some of the wonderful reunions of pets with their families here – http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.569815389308.2066417.107700024

Do HumaneWatchers know where THEIR money is spent?

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Anyone who is familiar with Richard Berman’s enterprises knows that deception is the key to his astroturf empire.

But seldom have we seen evidence of his deception shown as blatantly as in the Center for Consumer Freedom’s 2009 tax return.

The CCF — also known as HumaneWatch — describes its mission as “research and education on food, beverage and lifestyle issues”. But according to CCF’s tax return, a staggering 86% of donations to the organization were redirected to Berman’s union-busting campaign, the Employment Policies Institute Foundation (EPI). 86 cents out of every dollar donated to HumaneWatch or CCF was used to undermine working wages, employee health care, and labor unions.

How many HumaneWatch donors know that “educating consumers about lifestyle issues” means lobbying to strip workers of their health benefits and wages?

The remainder of CCF’s donations were redirected to Berman’s for-profit PR firm, Berman & Company, Inc., to the tune of $1,461,597.00. That left CCF $779,222.00 in the red for 2009, a shameful performance record that would earn it the lowest possible rating in any charity evaluator’s system — if CCF were significant enough to warrant an evaluation.

If there’s one lesson we can take away from this, it’s that Richard Berman cares about human rights as little as he cares about animal rights. What Richard Berman cares about is money, and finding creative ways of diverting it into his personal bank account.

Because Berman thrives on deception and obfuscation, he does not makes the tax returns for his “nonprofits” available online. However, we have assembled the most recent tax returns for his money-making enterprises in the Document Library.

Whitewash weekend

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When an industry front group pretending to be a charity bashes legitimate animal welfare charities, I get annoyed. When they try to use shelters as pawns in their smear campaign, I get furious. Supporting shelters is admirable, and absolutely necessary to facilities strained to the breaking point. I donate to my local shelters year-round. But HumaneWatch has managed to pervert that selfless act into a wholly selfish publicity stunt, which they’ve named “Shelter Supply Saturday”. We call it “Whitewash Weekend”. For the better part of a year, HumaneWatchers have been spitting on shelters and shelter personnel, while they fight spay/neuter laws, deny overpopulation, accuse shelters of profiting from their work, defend substandard breeders and animal brokers like Hunte Corp., and rail against any legislation that would ease the flood of abandoned and neglected animals into our nation’s shelters. Now HumaneWatch is attempting to whitewash that abuse by encouraging their members to send supplies to shelters — wrapped in HumaneWatch propaganda, of course. It will take a lot more than a dishonest greeting card to cover up HumaneWatch’s anti-animal agenda. Shall we take a look at the scoreboard?
Humane Society of the USHumaneWatch
  • A scheme to boost traffic for their website by offering a $100 donation for a winning comment. ($1700 total)
  • A scheme to convince supporters to donate shelter supplies, and give the credit to HumaneWatch.
Like HumaneWatch’s short-lived attempt to buy comments on its largely ignored website, this stunt will be forgotten in a month… but shelters will continue to struggle year-round. Meanwhile HumaneWatchers will resume their attacks on shelters and staff with comments like these:
You do realize that there is no real pet overpopulation, right? We have a mismanaged shelter system that imports animals from overseas to fill some shelters, rather than ship animals from one part of the country to another–among other problems. — Kim Egan, HumaneWatch Facebook group, July 17, 2010
There are scandals every day about how shelters HAVE room and kill animals because they are just too plain lazy to clean up after them. Or they kill them because they hired a sadist who enjoys it, or they kill them because it’s ‘easier’ than making good faith efforts to adopt them out. — Katie Dokken, convicted animal abuser, “Shelter Supply Saturday” Facebook event, Dec. 3, 2010
I have seen more deplorable conditions in shelters than I have EVER seen at a breeders! — Erica Eblin, HumaneWatch Facebook group, Nov. 10, 2010
Oh, but the shelter workers won’t blame the BS law; they’ll blame the big, bad breeders for having so many dogs and having to unload them or be shut down. They’ll make up stories of “rescuing” these poor dogs from near death in horrible conditions and slap excessive “adoption” fees on them, all the while looking for reasons NOT to “adopt” to the vast majority of wonderful potential owners. Then they’ll claim there aren’t enough homes out there for dogs. — Cathy Merchant, HumaneWatch Facebook group, Nov. 3, 2010
There is a large national rescue… here in CO looking for space…. They already go to the auctions down there and bring back dogs… Every dog that comes in will have some bad luck story about how they rescued it from a fate worse than death. People will be screened and rejected–it’s a Dog!!! — Cindy DeBerge, HumaneWatch Facebook group, Nov. 3, 2010
HumaneWatch, don’t lie to us and say that the HSUS does nothing for shelters. Don’t lie to us and say you support shelters when you encourage abuse like this. And don’t you dare claim to support shelters when you’ve never done a thing for shelters that didn’t benefit you directly.