Written by PETA
Shortly after the North Carolina Department of Agriculture announced that it was launching an operation to transfer the animals out of All Creatures Great and Small this month following the release of a seven-month long PETA undercover investigation which revealed nightmarish conditions at the no-kill shelter, our Cruelty Investigations Department received the following e-mail from the investigator who had last spent time on the inside at ACGS, confirming that it was all worth it:
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 6:14 PMSubject: Heroes
Hello all-
I want each of you to know how wonderful things are turning out at the property formerly known as acgs. Every second that we spent every long night at the office or miserable day in the rain was so worth our effort. The animals that we helped there are exponentially happy and so much more at peace now. The Dept. of Ag…and other volunteers have turned the situation around almost a full one eighty in the last 32 hours. The animals on the hill and in the kennel have been relocated to pens where they no longer fight with their neighbors. The dogs outside with no shelter have been brought in out of the elements. The food, water, hay, sawdust, peanut butter treats, meds, and love have been flowing like these animals have never known before. There is very little barking and so much less commotion. This is truly a different place now. I wish you all could be here with me to see it. Things are not perfect yet but all is being addressed quickly and concisely. I can hardly hold back the tears for the joy at knowing how valuable our time was to dogs like Hammer who has finally been given vet care. I have gotten to know a young female pit named Lilly over my time here. She was always very excited to see me come into her unprotected outside pen, but today I took her out for her first walk in what seemed to be years. She was so scared at first that she cowered and crawled but after I had her out for a while she jumped into my chest and wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me for the longest time, kissing my chin. She is now in her own ten by ten on the hill full of saw dust, hay, and new food and water bowls, and will be moved in very soon as she is sure to be deemed adoptable very soon. I am overwhelmed with all that has happened here and I know many of you have worked much longer on this than I have. If no one else says this, THANK YOU, to each of you, from the the bottom of my heart and on behalf of the animals who can not say it the same way as you are all heroes for them! Thank you for the work you have done here. I am proud to have worked with each of you on this. If there is anyone who you would like to share this with please do so, as all who have been there in thought and concern deserve to know how important it truly was.
Sincerely,
This case has been a decade in the making, with a steady stream of complaints about substandard conditions and terrible suffering at the no-kill shelter in North Carolina, but this week, shortly after the release of a seven-months long PETA undercover investigation into All Creatures Great and Small, the animals languishing in the shelter are finally getting the help that they have desperately needed. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture has announced that it will be launching an operation to transfer the remaining animals—almost 300 of them—out of this hellhole and into pre-approved animal sheltering organizations, and closing ACGS for good due to ongoing, persistent violations of the animal welfare act.
This is a big victory for the animals who have suffered from overcrowding, disease, and untreated injuries at the shelter, and a testament to the hard work and perseverance of the undercover investigator, whose harrowing footage of conditions inside the operation broke this case wide open after seven years’ worth of red tape prevented All Creatures Great and Small from being shut down following a series of failed state inspections as far back as 2001.
We were thrilled to learn that these animals have finally gotten a reprieve, but there’s still work to be done on this case, specifically the filing of criminal charges against the operators of the facility, who have thus far not been held accountable for the shocking neglect and mistreatment of the animals in their care. You can find info to contact the Henderson County District Attorney and urge him to get on with that on this page.
And if you haven’t seen it yet, this is the video from PETA’s seven-month investigation into the shelter. Sadly, these sorts of conditions are an extremely common sight in no-kill shelters like ACGS, which take in more animals than they can manage and refuse to give suffering animals in their care a humane release.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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