Inset: Louise Coleman and defense attorney Daniel Coppetta celebrate her acquittal.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Rescue legend allegedly no longer kept up with the pack
FRAMINGHAM, Massachusetts–– Greyhound Friends founder Louise Coleman, 73, for nearly 35 years a pioneer of racing greyhound rescue, rehabilitation, and adoption, was on December 1, 2017 acquitted of felony neglect by Framingham District Court Judge David Cunis, after a four-day bench trial.
Concluded Cunis, in rejecting the charge filed against Coleman on March 1, 2017 by Lieutenant Alan Borgal of the Animal Rescue League of Boston, ““While there has been some evidence that Greyhound Friends could have improved sanitary conditions of the shelter, there was also much credible evidence that the shelter was generally a safe and healthy environment for the dogs. This was a rescue shelter and evidence showed many of the dogs that arrived there had already experienced much mistreatment and trauma in various other environments from which they came.”
Louise Coleman
(Greyhound Friends photos)
Regulatory violations
Assessed defense attorney Daniel Cappetta, to Framingham MetroWest Daily News reporter Jonathan Phelps, “This was a case of regulators making regulatory violations into a felony criminal case that never should have happened.”
The Hopkinton animal control department suspended the Greyhound Friends operating permit on January 23, 2017 “after the state issued a cease-and-desist order for the shelter to stop taking in new out-of-state dogs because of needed repairs,” recounted Phelps.
Coleman, who founded Greyhound Friends in 1983, resigned from any role with the organization after she was criminally charged.
(Beth Clifton photo)
New management
Coleman was succeeded as board president by retired school teacher and counselor Stoddard Melhado, also a noted former marathon runner and coach, now serving as a Massachusetts justice of the peace.
Succeeding Coleman as shelter manager was longtime Greyhound Friends employee Theresa Shepard.
Melhado told Phelps that the board is still working to meet the regulatory requirements for reopening the Greyhound Friends shelter.
Borgal testified that he counted as many as 41 dogs in the shelter, built to house 20, during repeated inspection visits in 2016 and January 2017.
Massachusetts Department of Animal Resources animal health inspector Linda Harrod listed 48 dogs on a spreadsheet submitted as part of her affidavit. Of 30 dogs tested for giardia, hookworms, roundworms, and whipworms, Harrod testified, 19 were infected with one or more of these common parasites. That in itself might have meant nothing if the dogs were recent arrivals from southern tracks, but many were longtime Greyhound Friends residents.
(Laurie Ann photo)
Longstanding problems
Prosecutor Wendi Safran told the court that the issue was not just the care of the 10 specific dogs named in the criminal charges, “but the way the kennel was run and in addition certain record keeping issues that put the health of many dogs at risk and potentially put other dogs in the area at risk of catching certain diseases and parasites.”
“Some of the problems date back to when the shelter moved to Hopkinton in 1987––30 years ago,” wrote Phelps. “Records dating back to 1988 show a problem with the shelter staying within the allowed number of dogs.”
The Greyhound Friends kennel limit was gradually raised from the original 20 dogs to 35.
The Raynham Park greyhound track closed for racing at the end of 2009 and for simulcasting of out-of-state races six months later.
(Beth Clifton photo)
Rehomed 10,000 greyhounds
Greyhound Friends claims to have cumulatively rehomed more than 10,000 former racing greyhounds, initially mostly from the now defunct Wonderland and Raynham tracks in Massachusetts, the now defunct Plainfield track in Connecticut, and four now defunct tracks in New Hampshire.
Coleman was at times criticized by more outspoken activists for her mostly cooperative relationships with greyhound track management.
“If we are too outspoken, the tracks will not give us dogs,” Coleman explained.
End Greyhound Exports poster.
(Animals Australia)
Overseas outreach
But Coleman made no secret of her wish that the greyhound industry would go out of business, and of her support for organizations such as Grey 2K, which with backing from the Animal Rescue League of Boston eventually won a string of political victories that brought about the collapse of greyhound racing throughout New England.
As the local supply of retired racing greyhounds suitable for adoption dwindled, Coleman kept up with adoption demand by importing greyhounds from abroad, and began offering dogs of other breeds for adoption.
Among the Greyhound Friends inventory detailed in recent inspection reports were a pit bull and several beagles.
(ARAN photo)
Ireland
But most of the Greyhound Friends dogs were greyhounds, as ever. The major change at Greyhound Friends appeared to be that as adopting rescued racing greyhounds fell out of vogue, the average stay of a dog in the Hopkinton kennel stretched from 10 days when the organization was most successful to several months, or longer.
Importing dogs for adoption was nothing new for Coleman, who began bringing in occasional dogs from Ireland in 1994.
“I began going to Ireland on a regular basis in 1978,” Coleman told ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton in 2005. “I have Irish grandparents and used to go over to visit family, hear music, and have a good time. After my greyhound work began in 1983, I realized that the glut of extraneous greyhounds in the U.S. had a corollary in Ireland. Many of the dogs raced here are from Ireland or are bred from Irish dogs.
(Laurie Ann photo)
Other nations
“In 1994,” Coleman recalled, “I heard that the World Greyhound Racing Federation was meeting in Dublin. I decided to see what was happening. I was not an official registrant, but sat in on many presentations. I became worried about plans to send greyhounds to race in countries where there is little or no animal protection, including in the Far East, Spain, and Morocco. Even with marginal welfare provisions, those dogs’ fate was obviously grim.”
(Laurie Ann photo)
Beginning with that 1994 visit, Coleman actively assisted several start-up Irish greyhound rescue organizations. Coleman also helped to coordinate mass greyhound rescues in Quebec, Spain, and even Guam, after the 32-year-old Guam Greyhound Track closed in November 2008.
Isolation-and-quarantine
But as well as conflicting with Hopkinton officials about her dog inventory, Coleman often clashed with Massachusetts state regulators, including in 2005 when a canine influenza outbreak that killed 18 greyhounds at Wonderland occasioned a state agriculture department demand that shelters had to add isolation-and-quarantine facilities if they wished to bring animals in from out-of-state.
(Beth Clifton photo)
Greyhound Friends complied, but objected that pet stores and nonprofit animal shelters were subjected to the new requirements, while breeders were exempted.
“No one wants to bring in sick dogs,” Coleman told Boston Globe reporter Jose Martinez in 2011. “No one wants to bring in a diseased animal. But we need rational rules that apply to everybody.”
“Underground situation”
Wrote Martinez, “The isolation rule, Coleman said, has added $50 to $100 to the cost per dog for rescue organizations, which already scrape by on donations. As a result many adoptions occur on the sly.”
Observed Coleman, “They’ve created this underground situation where the dogs come in and the adopters meet them at the state line.”
(Laurie Ann photo)
Won felony conviction of abusive adopter
Ironically, in view of the charges she now is facing, Coleman in 2008 helped to win the landmark felony conviction of a man named Kevin Schneider for abusing and then abandoning two greyhounds he had adopted from Greyhound Friends.
“Schneider pushed one dog named Talca from a moving SUV in Connecticut,” reported David Riley of Gatehouse News Service, “and left the other dog, Sari, under a bush near a Rhode Island hospital. Sari died from severe malnourishment days later. Talca recovered and was again adopted.”
Merritt & Beth Clifton
Pleading guilty in Newton District Court, Schneider plea-bargained a sentence of 18 months in jail, with 60 days to be served and the balance on probation.
“I think it’s the best we could get,” Coleman said at the time. “I think that it strikes a chord. I think it makes people aware that cruelty is a serious offense.”
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Helen Banks, 87, founder of Second Chance for Greyhounds
I am sorry that the poor lady is being persecuted. I am sure she has been doing her best to give these animals a better life, but things have overwhelmed her a bit. We at KSPCA usually have more than one dog in a kennel because we have found that dogs are much happier when they are not alone. Running a shelter can be quite overwhelming at times as we become a dumping ground .and we want to help as many animals as possible. Why should she be condemned? The dogs in the photos all look healthy and well fed.
The greyhounds in the photos were photographed at a variety of times and places, none recently at the Greyhound Friends kennels. Far from being “persecuted,” Louise Coleman has had many years of warnings to rectify conditions, and Greyhound Friends has enjoyed a substantial income over these years––more than $900,000 in 2014, according to IRS Form 990, $313,000 more than expenses, finishing the year with assets of more than $1 million. In short, the resources were there to make the necessary improvements.
Our state is currently considering a measure that would effectively end greyhound racing within its borders. Seeing the dogs being hauled around in their unheated kennel trucks has long bothered me. You can often hear them whining and yelping from their small cages as the trucks go down the street.
I know a few people who have adopted retired racing greyhounds. They are quiet, shy and gentle dogs. They can have health problems from their years racing and also being used as breeding stock. Bad teeth are a big one.
Greyhound racing has severely declined in popularity in our state. Most of the few remaining fans are senior citizens. When most people say they are going to the “track,” it’s to play video lottery and casino games. I know a lot of people who do that, but none who bet on the dogs. That said, I am a pessimist. Our state isn’t a big one for animal compassion, and we are years behind many other regions of the country in even basic animal welfare and spay/neuter. The greyhound breeders and industry folks appeared at the Capitol waving signs with slogans like “Let our furry friends run,” as if they are doing the greyhounds a favor or something. I feel as if the Governor will waffle on the issue and allow the industry to keep going, even though it’s a lot of expense for little return.
As a volunteer with the foster-based rescue PittieLove Rescue, we were asked to help find a home for a pit bull named Emma, who had been at GHF for roughly two months. A Greyhound Friends volunteer had quietly reached out to see if we could help Emma, because she felt the dog was not getting the care she needed there.
We were surprised to find that Greyhound Friends had no record of Emma being tested for heartworm, either prior to being brought into the state or during the nearly 60 days she was at their kennel. PittieLove asked that the test be done prior to Emma being moved into our care. We then learned that Emma was suffering from heartworm, as well as a tick-borne illness.
We found a foster home where Emma could live while she received treatment. When I arrived at GHF to pick her up, I found that all of their kennels were full and Emma was crated in a back room with three hounds, all in crates far too small for them.
I took Emma to her foster home. She arrived dirty, too skinny, embedded with engorged ticks, and scratching at her ears from an infection. These are things that we expect when a dog is rescued from living on the streets, or from being in a bad home. Those are not things you expect when you get a dog that has been in a rescue for two months.
Emma also had an awful cough — which is a symptom of heartworm disease. PittieLove immediately scheduled an appointment with a veterinarian, who found that Emma showed signs of permanent heart damage.
The Massachusetts Department of Agriculture recently wrote about Emma (formerly named Diamond) as part of an extensive report about the conditions at the GHF kennel. The inspection reports are accessible at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6qzXh2Sbk0ZdnppQmphN1ZPS0xDNXhzOXhwa1pzTUNIRnp3/view
PAY ATTENTION! This is clearly the result of a small group of angry people with grudges against this woman having succeeded in their revenge tactics against her. Yes, KARMA will get those few people, but that is not going to take care of this poor woman who has been saving dogs for decades and deserves better than this. Now I do not know this woman personally and I will admit she comes off a bit odd, but that is not a crime for goodness sake. God forbid someone should be a saver of animals and be odd. (As if anyone saving animals in our time is not a bit odd.)
The dogs’ kennels might have been small (I don’t know as I have not seen them in person for myself), but even so the rest of the charges against (chipped paint, rust on a metal gate, poop in a dog run? Come on. And anyone who knows racing greyhounds knows that hookworms can come back even after repeated treatments), imo, to warrant a felony cruelty case with a 7 year prison sentence possible against her, especially considering the context and ESPECIALLY when people every single day in the United States abuse animals and don’t spend a day in prison for it!
People need to pay attention to context and realize that there is a witch hunt going on. There is a very serious sickness highlighted here when the people going after this woman are not satisfied by her having first been publicly humiliated by her own local news reporters, then her having resigned from the rescue she founded and devoted herself to for 30 years. Oh no, that is not good enough. They must have blood, in the form of a hard working, animal-rescuing senior citizen being sent to prison. Disgusting.
I am personally acquainted with Louise Coleman, and have written about her positive accomplishments many times over the past 30 years. That she faced felony charges for alleged neglect of the animals in her care was sad and disappointing, but is difficult to credibly attribute to conspiracy theories in view of the many different agencies involved in doing the investigations that led to the charges, and in view that Coleman had received many warnings over many months to rectify conditions which should not have been allowed to deteriorate in the first place. Incidentally, this sort of situation is not at all unusual, and even has a name, “founder’s syndrome,” meaning a case in which a founder has built a successful organization, but for some reason becomes no longer able to keep up with the demands of running it, while balking at making the changes necessary to keep it running properly, whether by downsizing, taking on more help, turning over the leadership to others, or simply shutting down. (See Settlement of alleged neglect case at ISPMB could set up a repeat for details of another alleged “founder’s syndrome” case.)