PETITION SEEKS CHARGES AGAINST PUPPY BREEDER

When Taffy came home with Larry Tidd and his family after being rescued from a Shannon County puppy mill, she wasn't too sure of her new surroundings.

"I think she had never known anything outside a rabbit hutch," said Tidd, president of the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri. "She didn't know what steps were, or staircases, and she really didn't know what the outside was."

Taffy, an American Eskimo breed, was one of 182 dogs seized in January by federal authorities from a breeding site at Birch Tree.

Officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. marshal's office raided the site, which was not properly licensed. Dorpha Evans operated the breeding kennel on property owned by Lee and Cheryl Hadaway.

Evans auctioned off more than 200 dogs earlier this month at a kennel she operated in Texas County, saying she was getting out of the business.

Valorie Nelson of Burfordville bought Spencer, a poodle puppy, at the Texas County auction.

She said she purchased the puppy because she didn't want breeders shopping the auction to buy the dog.

"He was dirty, he was bony; there was just no meat on him," Nelson said.

Spencer was the "runt" in the pen in which he was enclosed and apparently never got much food, she said.

"He's just now learning how to eat," she said.

Nelson and her friend and co-worker, Michelle Mann of Jackson, are circulating a petition demanding that federal charges be filed against Evans.

"I want criminal charges filed against her for operating an unlicensed puppy mill at Birch Tree," Nelson said. "I feel like revoking her license like they did won't deter her from continuing to operate unlicensed, inhumane puppy mills."

Prosecuting Evans would send a warning to other breeders operating unlicensed kennels, she said.

Cindy Eck, a spokeswoman for the USDA, said no charges have been filed but an investigation is continuing.

Evans said she was temporarily kenneling the dogs at Birch Tree while her Texas County property was under renovation. She also said the USDA was aware of the operation and that officials were trying to "railroad" her.

After seeing the Texas County kennel, Nelson said she doesn't believe that.

"It was so awful, I started crying the minute we got there," she said. "There was nothing under renovation."

Tidd, who participated in the rescue operation at Birch Tree, agreed.

"That this was a temporary situation, no way," he said. "These were long-term rabbit cages. It was not just today's dirt or recent dirt; it had been accumulating for a long time."

More than half of the dogs seized at the Birch Tree site had to be destroyed because of disease or health problems.

Mann said she'd like to see breeding operations more tightly regulated.

"They shouldn't be cruel like that to those animals," she said. "If they can't take care of them, they shouldn't be allowed to keep them like that."

Tidd said he has seen the petition "all over the place."

"I don't think there's anybody who was involved with this bunch of animals that isn't sympathetic to their efforts," he said of the petition drive.

"These puppy mills operate like a factory," he said. "These animals are being treated like machines that produce a product."