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County officials remove dogs from Floral City Humane Society
Submitted by Special on Tue, 03/29/2011 - 8:50am.
Dr. Julie Rosenberger, the county's veterinarian, on left, checks out a puppy with Citrus County Animal Control Officer Laura Peckham on March 24. It was one of 31 dogs removed from the Humane Society of Florida facility in Floral City Thursday with consent of the employees. The former director of the organization, Margaret Nolan, had delivered 27 dogs she said she got in Perry, Fla., to the facility last week, and some of the animals were sick. The county Animal Control officers had been routinely checking the facility and working with the Humane Society staff after a February Parvo virus scare in the wake of a complaint that the group had adopted out a dog infected with Parvo, an extremely infectious disease in dogs.
Citrus County Animal Control officers removed 31 dogs from the Humane Society of Florida facility in Floral City on March 24, and took them to the Citrus County Animal Shelter for treatment and quarantine.
Twenty-seven of the dogs had been brought to the Humane Society of Florida Adoption Center and Thrift Store on U.S. 41 by the former director who had told Citrus officials a few weeks ago after a run-in at the facility over a possible Parvo outbreak that she had resigned from the organization, even copying them her resignation letter.
The other four dogs taken were from the 49 that were already at the facility. Those four were deemed sick and needing care by the county’s veterinarian. All the dogs were removed with consent of the facility employees. It was unclear why the facility accepted the dogs. Nolan told Animal Control officers she got the dogs at the Perry, Florida, animal shelter.
Nolan was issued 27 citations by Animal Control officers Thursday for failure to provide humane care. She was given a May 6 mandatory court appearance date on the violations.
In the run-in with county officials a few weeks ago, when Nolan was still the facility director, county officials had demanded and had gotten a voluntary quarantine on all the dogs at the facility after Animal Control officers and the county veterinarian checked out a complaint from Pasco County. The complaint was that sick dogs were being adopted out from the facility in other counties. A family that had a puppy die of Parvo virus had complained to Citrus officials, who then checked the operation.
Animal control officers and county Veterinarian Dr. Julie Rosenberger had responded at the time and Rosenberger had gotten some positive test results for the highly contagious Parvo virus. The then director Nolan agreed to the quarantine and to have the dogs checked by a vet and produce a report on their health at the end of the quarantine.
She resigned not long after but the staff remaining pledged to work with county officials to improve the operation, which Citrus officials said was happening. They dropped by routinely to check on the facility and Thursday found the new dogs.
A number of the dogs removed Thursday needed veterinary treatment for various reasons. Officials said they might go back and get one more dog that had appeared sick. The dogs were being kept separate from the shelters other animals.
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Not So Humane Society
This executive director of this "humane society" has been a blight on the Florida landscape for years. Anyone checking Citrus County Animal Control records, or doing a simple Google search for complaints against this individual or her previous organization - The Inverness Humane Society - will find over 100 pages to read. Selling sick animals is only the beginning.
Let's hope that the current court can deal with her more effectively than it has in the past. Those poor animals have suffered enough, as have the people who have had to deal with Ms. Nolan.