Doug Rae
Doug Rae has been named executive director of the Humane Society of Fremont County, in Canon City, Colorado, following brief and often controversial animal shelter management stints in Phoenix, Maryland, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and most recently as executive director of the Animal Rescue League of Southern Rhode Island in Warren, Rhode Island.
Much of the controversy has been associated with pit bulls, who were reportedly about 80% of the dog intake Rae handled in Philadelphia and about a third of the dog intake in Indianapolis, but 50% of the dogs who were killed because they could not be rehomed. Despite the numbers, Rae prominently opposed then-Indianapolis city council member Mike Speedy’s 2009 attempt to pass an ordinance requiring that pit bulls be sterilized. The Speedy draft ordinance was modeled on legislation in effect in San Francisco since 2006 that has reduced pit bull intake at the city shelter by more than half. Speedy was soon afterward elected to the Indiana state legislature.
Beth & Merritt Clifton.
(Geoff Geiger photo)
Operations director for Hickory Farms before entering animal care and control work in 2003, Rae in a 2009 interview credited his interest in the field to meeting No Kill Advocacy Center founder Nathan Winograd at a Best Friends No More Homeless Pets conference held in 2002.
Founded in 1951 by Hazel and Ralph J. Wann, the Humane Society of Fremont County currently handles about 3,000 animals per year, mostly as the animal control housing contractor for Fremont County, the cities of Cañon City and Florence, and the towns of Coal Creek, Rockvale, Westcliffe and Williamsburg.
About 39% of the Humane Society of Fremont County budget comes from the Ralph J. Wann Foundation, according to the shelter web site.
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I just don’t understand why anyone would hire this man with his background in Philly and Indy. Did they not read the audit done by Philly when Rae was there? Total mismanagement under Rae. He only lasted 10 months in Indy. When he left, they found cats in the ventilation ducts, put there in hopes of showing less crowding in the shelter. Ruined the ventilation system. I wouldn’t hire him to clean portapotties.
The board of this shelter needs to be hit with a lawsuit for negligence and putting animals at risk.
Douglas Rae works for Nathan Winograd and the breeders.. He didn’t just get inspired by Winograd. For all practical purposes he works for him..
It was Winograd who put him in business at PACCA in Philadelphia and Rae disappeared out of town only a second before potentially being charged with amimal cruelty.
Rae was allegedly giving dogs to hoarders who killed those dogs, even though he was told many times about the abusive hoarders.
He was also allegedly letting dogs kill each other in cages at that shelter and letting animals die in their cages of disease, so he could artificially alter the euthanasia statistics.
He was also allegedly giving out unneutered dogs and dangerous dogs, some of whom ended up in the hands of dog fighters.
He also allegedly refused to pick up abandoned dogs and let them die outside.
A group of concerned Philadelphia citizens put together a web page that covered the cruelties and abuses of Douglas Rae. It is no longer after after he was fired, but the information is still available.
That was even before he went to Indianapolis and repeated the atrocities, and was fired again after getting pets killed and people hurt. He was brought into Indianapolis animal control in a fraudulent hiring scheme under false pretences by another of Winograd’s fellow associates, who was later thrown off the Indianapolis animal control board. The government employee that colluded with them to hide Rae’s history and put Rae in place was also fired.
Fremont County government and the board of this shelter can’t claim ignorance. They are now going to have animals being tortured in that shelter and community, and people and getting hurt. They will be held responsible.
The specific hoarder that he gave dogs to was known by many in the Philadelphia rescue community, who begged Rae not to give them any dogs. Rae did anyway, and some dogs died before they could be rescued back.
A group of people concerned about the cruelty at the PACCA shelter that Rae ran ran a website documenting this specific incident and others, which isn’t up any more but is archived.