Well, the plot thickens about the Ryman English Setters in the Bucks County SPCA. The short story is regulations, deadlines, and quick decisions that may not have been the best. Before we get into it, please review this list of dogs still available. We need to find them homes right away.
Now, in response to the uproar they’ve caused, Decoverly Kennels posted their version of things here. They state that the dogs are from their kennel. They also say that the dogs ended up in the shelter because Decoverly Kennels did not comply sections of PA Act 119 (pdf), a set of regulations governing Pennsylvania dog kennels. In 2008, PA Act 119 was passed by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement.
According to Decoverly’s:
“The two biggest areas of the law that impact us are in relation to temperature and space requirements.”
OK. But the real problem they ran into was:
“We filed for an extension of time to deal with this space issue and were denied. Therefore to comply with the new state laws we were forced in a short time frame to reduce our overall population.”
I emailed the kennel for some clarification. Their responses to my questions were:
From the time your extension was denied, how long did you have to cut down on the number of dogs in your kennel?
We had roughly 2 months. However, all of the dogs were available for placement from the kennel for a minimum of several months on the younger dogs to just over 5 year with some of the older dogs. Being that our timeline had run out we were faced with a very difficult choice. To either have the dogs go to a no kill shelter or to have them euthanized. We choice the best option for our dogs to get into homes.
I don’t understand why your kennel choose the shelter route. Did you decide that this was the best option for the dogs?
I answered this in the first question. We have always put our dogs first and have tired to give them the best chances for getting into homes. When we were approached by the state utilize this no kill option it was brought to us by the Director of the Region.
So what is Decoverly planning to do now?
FROM THEIR WEBSITE:
“This summer we will undertake a $250,000 construction project to completely enclose our back runs so that we can meet the new temperature requirements. The bigger issue is that the current configuration of our kennel runs do not provide enough space for the number of dogs we currently have…”
So it sounds like they’re dealing with the issue. Hopefully, everything will work out — for the dogs and the kennel.
