The three white dogs, two Shih Tzus and a poodle mix, cowered in the back corner of the cinder-block cage. While other dogs at the Humane League of Lancaster County's shelter on Lincoln Highway East yelped or bayed for attention, this trio looked uncertain and scared. When someone climbed inside the cage with them, they quickly scuttled into the far corner — as far away as possible.

Most dogs don't react this way, but for those rescued from breeding kennels, branded "puppy mills" by animal activists, it's common behavior.

All things considered, these dogs — among the 96 seized from an Ephrata dog breeder on Dec. 20 — are in pretty good condition. The poodle mix had some open sores on its skin; sometimes the dogs in puppy mills bite at one another, said Kerry Flanagan, the Humane League's vice president. Other times they simply develop skin infections.

But in general, she said, the physical condition of the dogs seized was good — and so was their "mental" or behavioral condition.

To be sure, none of these dogs were ready to be adopted the next day, though some did go up for adoption late last week. For the rest, it might take weeks or months until they are ready to be adopted.

Some are afraid of people, because their only interaction with humans involved being grabbed out of cages and tossed into others. Some — having spent their whole lives walking on wire flooring — can't or won't walk on linoleum.

The good news is that most can be rehabilitated, with the help of rescue groups who farm the dogs out to foster families. Some breeds take longer than others to bounce back. But almost across the board, "it takes a lot of time and dedication," said Lindsey Thrasher, rescue coordinator for the Humane League.

"All [mill] dogs, even if they look healthy, are damaged mentally," she said.

Some more so than others.

The Dec. 20 raid on the Ephrata kennel owned by Ervin Zimmerman came after a Lancaster County judge issued an injunction Dec. 5 giving Zimmerman 14 days to shut down. Though Zimmerman fought the injunction, his kennel license had been revoked by the state Department of Agriculture in 2007. He had been found guilty of 11 counts of animal cruelty and five counts of violating state dog laws in 2007.

"It's a tremendous victory," Flanagan told the Sunday News last week.

But a happy ending, it's not — at least, not yet.

Most of the dogs seized were small or toy breeds like Shih Tzus, poodles, cocker spaniels and schnauzers. When the dogs were brought to the Humane League, each had to be evaluated. Even though they were considered in good condition, some were pocked with sores and most had ragged ears and teeth.

Telling whether an animal has behavioral problems can be a little trickier than finding physical flaws.

"If you pick one up and it soils or bites you," said Flanagan, the dog is likely to have fairly serious behavioral issues. The League generally can't handle them right away, and reaches out for help.

The local Humane League has a cooperative agreement with the Humane Society of Berks County; Animal Rescue Inc., New Freedom; and other organizations that "come in and help us out with some of the worst, and the most unsocialized dogs," said Flanagan.

Dylan Heckert, Berks County Humane Society officer, agreed with Flanagan that the 31 dogs his group accepted were in fairly good shape, compared to some other puppy mill dogs the group has rescued. Even so, "those dogs are going to need a lot of TLC," he said.

"The males tend to be more responsive than females, because they're being handled more often," he said. "They're the ones being inspected by the breeders." But few of the dogs have anything resembling "normal" contact with people. As a result, "a lot of [mill] dogs don't really want to be handled at all," though aggression is rare, Heckert said.

Mostly, they're fearful and bewildered. Some breeds handle the stress differently. High-strung schnauzers tend to have the most difficulty recovering, said Thrasher. Shih Tzus have an easier time of things: "They want to be held and be near people all the time, so they come around a little faster," she said.

None are housebroken, regardless of age. "They've been in a cage 90 percent of their life," said Flanagan.

Beth Ludwig is the shelter manager for Animal Rescue Inc., which took in 11 of the dogs rescued from the Zimmerman kennel. "Dogs are usually human companions, but puppy mill dogs gravitate toward other dogs. ... They have a hard time adjusting to human contact, it's a different lifestyle."

That's where fostering comes in. Animal lovers willing to take in dogs with special needs are indispensable to rehabilitating mill dogs. The dogs are likely to hide in a quiet corner, to have never even seen a leash. Some won't eat whenever people are around. They've never been on a schedule, "and schedules are one of the most important things for a dog," said Flanagan.

Flanagan has begun handing out a copy of an essay titled "Rehabilitation of a Puppy Mill Dog," written by anti-puppy-mill activists Michelle Bender and Kim Townsend. It advises that mill dogs be separated from other family pets for a week, and notes that mill dogs might have more of a problem "marking" territory than other dogs, after having spent years in a small cage with other dogs constantly encroaching on their "territory."

"Occasionally," Bender and Townsend write, "we see the survivor who has survived the mill, but at such a great cost that they can never be 'brought around.' ... These 'broken ones' are the ones that normally never leave their foster dogs. Ironically, these types of dogs normally do very well in a group-dog setting. They seem to have shunned the world, and most certainly mankind, and have created their own little world without humans."

Flanagan said it's too early to tell whether any of the animals seized Dec. 20 will fall into that category.

But the good news, say activists, is that most dogs can bounce back — sometimes pretty quickly.

On Friday, Flanagan said 20 to 30 of the dogs were to be made available for adoption. In the coming weeks, more of them will be available. In each case, she wants the adopters to know the dogs' backgrounds.

Heckert, in Berks County, agreed. "People need to know it might not act like a 'dog' right away," he said. "It might act more like a cat."

Paradoxically, though, he thinks that might mean they will be adopted sooner than later. "It's the holidays and people are into the spirit of giving.

"It might take these dogs a while. It's a slow process. But it's working."

---

Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.
blog comments powered by Disqus