IN FOCUS: News from Sutton Studios

Issue No. 34

May 2010

SPOTLIGHT

Mark, Tracy & Ashton
(click to enlarge)

Mark, Tracy & Snickers
(click to enlarge)

Snickers and tears

We first heard about Molly Marino through our clients Mark and Tracy Wilks.

Mark and Tracy recently brought their new bulldog, Snickers, in for portraits. Since we'd done this once before (with their first English bulldog, Ashton) I was surprised when Tracy, seeing Snickers' portraits, burst into tears.

Now, don't get me wrong, the pictures were good, but Snickers was a young, healthy dog - not our usual object of teary outburst. Those usually go along with older dogs near the end of their lives.

Tracy explained to me that her tears came from seeing Snickers looking so relaxed, so at home, so healthy and so respected after the hell that Snickers had known most of her life.

Snickers' storyline is a classic rags to riches. In this month's In Focus (right) we look at the troubling, but informative, rags portion of the story.

That's what Molly Marino has done. Molly Marino owns three English Bulldogs. The story of Molly's first English Bulldog, Lucy, is also the story of the founding of the Chicago English Bulldog Rescue Society.

Our framing partners

REFLECTION & REFRACTION

Molly Marino wanted a dog. She'd finished school, moved to the city, got a good job, settled into her adult life working as a marketing director. Once settled, she noticed a dog-sized gap in her life.

After doing a little research on breeds, Molly settled on an English bulldog. She'd heard a bit about puppy mills and unscrupulous breeders, so she did her homework and found a dealer who could get her an English bulldog pup from a reputable breeder.

Molly brought her puppy home and at first, life looked very good.

Unfortunately Molly's new puppy Lucy Lu wasn't too healthy. Her vet told her the puppy was just 5 weeks old when she got it. Responsible breeders won't wean a puppy until 8 weeks. Molly's vet also told her that Lucy showed many signs of being ill-bred.

Alice (click to enlarge)

Molly's new best friend got sick, and she never really get better. After just two years Lucy had withered and died, emptying out Molly's bank account and breaking her heart in the process.

Something didn't seem right, so naturally, Molly got curious. Hadn't she made sure she was getting a healthy, well-bred dog from a respectable breeder? She did some more research into her puppy's origins and found more information about her breeder. What she found took her from curious to furious.

Her search had led her to a blog about Yorkshire terriers, where she read dozens of complaints and found hundreds of accounts of poorly bred dogs. Among the more serious complaints, she discovered that this breeder worked as an amateur surgeon.

When we say "ill-bred," it's not a class thing. It's not that the dogs don't look right or aren't pretty enough, not that they have bad manners. What we're talking about, ultimately, is suffering, and lots of it.

Molly took her findings and her complaint to the Texas attorney general (the breeder lives in Texas). She also notified the county District Attorney and filed a complaint with the Texas Better Business Bureau.

Tilly (click to enlarge)

Initially though, she had trouble making any headway. Evidence was scant.

Help soon came in the form of an "anonymous" tip from an unexpected source - a dog broker who had sold dogs bred by the same breeder.

That tip helped Molly's case tremendously. Six months after her own puppy died, Molly had her day in court and testified in a civil case against the unethical breeder.

Molly had dug deeply into the subject of puppy mills and what she found would horrify most people. Molly's testimony helped the jury understand that her case was not simply about Molly's having been duped, not about her being out a large sum of money, but about large-scale animal suffering and human heartbreak.

The next thing Molly knew, Inside Edition and Fox News wanted to interview her. Molly gladly agreed and began in earnest to put her marketing and PR skills to work spreading the word that buying dogs from puppy mills perpetuates a cycle of suffering.

Dogs used by puppy mill breeders (and used is the correct verb here) suffer horrible neglect and abuse. The puppies produced often suffer from genetic maladies that go along with a total disregard for sound breeding choices.

Breeding dogs receive very poor nutrition, no exercise and virtually no veterinary care - the bare minimum of each necessary to keep them alive and breeding.

Often the dams are kept in wire cages their entire lives, the cages stacked one atop the other. Their muscles atrophy from lack of use and the dogs in the lower cages live their lives in a shower of excrement.

Breeding dams produce litter after litter of puppies, and when they're no longer capable of producing puppies, it's not uncommon for breeders to take them out and shoot them or otherwise dispose of them.

The humans who buy puppy mill puppies suffer, as Molly did, from the heartbreak of watching a beloved puppy wither and die, and from the financial stress of vetting very sick animals.

When the dust finally settled on the Texas case and the calls from news agencies tapered off, Molly's life edged back toward normal. Once again Molly Marino noticed that dog-sized gap in her life.

Molly applied to a national bulldog rescue organization to adopt another dog. The day after she applied she received a call from that organization. They wanted to know if Molly would be willing to foster, to give a dog a home until it found its forever home.

Molly had become deeply involved in educating the public about English bulldogs. Her self-education got put to work pretty quickly. In a short time Molly not only found herself fostering bulldogs, but also busy reviewing applications for adoption, and doing home visits to prospective adopters.

Molly with Meatball,
Matilda Rose & Alice Bean
(click to enlarge)

Before too long Molly founded Chicago English Bulldog Rescue, where her background as a marketing executive has been put to tremendous good use. Molly is organized and savvy, and the organization she heads now serves Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Missouri. CEBR's operation has become the standard for breed-specific rescue organizations.

In a matter of months the CEBR went from placing two or three dogs each month to placing over forty a month. If you know just a little bit about English bulldogs you know they can be expensive to buy and expensive to maintain. You can spend thousands of dollars for a bully puppy - much more keeping it healthy over the course of its natural life.

So. If there's an English bulldog rescue society, then someone is throwing away really valuable dogs. Where do all these dogs come from? We'll look into that in our June newsletter.

David Sutton
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COMMUNITY FOCUS

Lake Shore Athletic Club: Paws and Flow Doga Class, Saturday May 8 Mark your calendar for the Paws and Flow Doga (yoga with your dog) class at the Lake Shore Athletic Club. For an inside look visit Pith and Vinegar, our Sutton Studios blog. Classes are once a month on Saturdays from 12-1. The May 8th class will host Channel 7's 190 North for a taping. Fans of Sutton Studios can take their first class, compliments of instructor Becky Solomon. Contact Becky at becky.solomon@lakeshoreathleticclubs.com for details. Laugh Your Tail Off - A Night of Comedy at Zanies, Thursday May 20 Need a good laugh? Support The Anti-Cruelty Society at Zanies Comedy Club and enjoy a fun night of stand-up and raffles. Registration is required, and tickets will sell out quickly, so get yours soon! Contact events@anticruelty.org.