PBC Animal Care and Control cites Big Dog Ranch Rescue for buying puppy mill dogs

WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control, struggling to cope with an overcrowding crisis that has forced it to euthanize dogs, has cited a dog rescue nonprofit for doing business with puppy mills.

Big Dog Ranch Rescue in Loxahatchee, one of the county’s larger rescue shelters, bought 581 puppies at two auctions, one on March 11 and another on April 3, said David Walesky, assistant director of the county’s animal control agency.

The purchases violated a county ordinance that prohibits an animal rescue shelter from making purchases of animals through puppy mills or breeders of dogs and cats. Walesky said his staff learned that Big Dog paid as much as $400 for some of the dogs.

The ordinance is designed to have humane society shelters buy dogs from the county. During March and April, when Big Dog bought the 581 puppies, it took only 16 dogs from the county shelter, Walesky said.

Said Walesky: “We need the dogs at our shelter to be adopted. We are still over-capacity, and taking puppies from puppy mills instead of from us is wrong.”

Animal Control issued a notice of violation to Big Dog. Walesky said no further action will be taken as long as the rescue group does not again violate the ordinance.

Why Big Dog Ranch is defending the puppy purchases

Big Dog Ranch Rescue said in an email that it was unaware of the ordinance, and the fee it paid to the puppy mills, which it declined to disclose, was to cover only the cost of health certificates.

"We did not enable the operator that had sent all of its dogs to be liquidated," said a Big Dog spokesman, referring to the provider of the puppies at the two auctions. The spokesman defended the puppy purchases as a humane action that saved the dogs from a life of misery.

“It (the purchase) freed these dogs from living the remainder of their lives in tiny, stacked cages as prisoners in a dark barn being forced to breed repeatedly. In essence this was their jail break, this was their rescue," he said.

Walesky said unlicensed and unregulated puppy mills operate “under the radar,” producing tremendous numbers of puppies. While the two breeders that Big Dog did business with have not been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Walesky noted that the county ordinance clearly says that rescue shelters are not to compensate breeders for dogs.

The county shelter is supposed to accommodate no more than 141 dogs. The count, as of Sept. 12, was 161, down from a high of 230 earlier this summer. Walesky attributes the reduction to publicity surrounding the overcrowding.

An 'emergency situation':Why Palm Beach Animal Control is forced to euthanize so many dogs

But the possibility continues to exist of dogs being put to sleep to make room for new dogs being brought in. The county shelter recently pleaded with private shelters to take one of its long-term dogs "to create critical cage space that will allow us to help others."

As of Sept. 12, Big Dog has taken 77 dogs from the county's shelter this year. Furry Friends has taken 186, Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League has taken 120, and Barky Pines has brought in 49.

A Big Dog Ranch spokesman said the rescue group takes in in 5,000 dogs per year, and many are local-owner surrenders that would have ended up in the shelter at Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control. “Additionally, we are often the first organization they (county officials) call to take their most critical cases, (such as) severely injured dogs that were hit by cars.”

The Big Dog spokesman noted that it trains and provides service dogs to veterans with PTSD and houses the dogs of active duty deployed vets for free so they don't lose them. In addition, Big Dog set up three animal shelters for pets affected by Hurricane Idalia, bringing almost 50 dogs to safety that had lost their homes in the storm.

“You would think those ongoing actions would merit some goodwill, but making this single ordinance violation an issue is apparently of greater political value to their management," the spokesman said, referring to Animal Control.

Mike Diamond is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. He covers Palm Beach County government and transportation. You can reach him atmdiamond@pbpost.com. Help support local journalism.Subscribe today