Posted on 09/27/2005 8:12:43 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
South Carolina - A group of Lowcountry Animal Lovers is back from New Orleans with 25 furry survivors in need of a home.
The Humane Net Team is made up of volunteers from several Lowcountry Rescue Organizations.
The group spent 9 days in New Orleans rescuing animals left behind and distributing a truck load of supplies.
"We handed out food and crates, towels and they're begging for more. They don't have anything left, nothing. We brought 25 animals back that we rescued out of houses were people couldn't take them with them," says Barbara Bryant of the Humane Net Team.
If you'd like to become a new pet owner, contact Joy Davis with Lowcountry Animal Rescue at 821-3175.
Though many hurricane pets are finding a happy ending others are not.
A Hurricane Katrina Evacuee had to flee his Mississippi home but the shelters would not allow one of his family members to enter, Shuma, the family dog.
The family had no choice but to choose the shelter over their pet, and took Shuma to an animal shelter in Independence.
John Wyrick is trying to start a new life in Missouri but he may have to do it without Shuma.
That's because a woman who volunteered to take in the German Shepherd has refused to give it back.
Wyrick has a serious back injury that limits his abilities.
He raised and trained Shuma to help him with his daily routine.
A volunteer convinced Wyrick to sign the dog over to her for the time being.
But just weeks later, Lynn Nevills refuses to give the Shuma back saying her family is now attached to the dog and Wyrick should get a new one.
Local, Kansas City, residents have tried to help the Wyricks get Shuma back but Nevills refuses to negotiate.
Thanks for the pings!
Not so sure about Shuma being in a Loving home, Hair. The real (first) owner has been on the radio today, and it turns out that Nevills lied to get the dog; she told Wyrick that her husband was a police officer and the dog would be trained as a drug dog but it turns out that Indpendence PD doesn't know who she is and has no police officer by that name.
The general thought around here is that Shuma is going to be turned into a breeder dog. Turns out that she is only 14 months old, not 14 years old, and Nevills has all her registration papers. Missouri is famous for our lousy puppy mills.
He was pushed by a desperate circumstance, and she's a jerk for not giving the dog back under the kind of pressure she's gotten.... If there's a way to appeal to her to change her mind, that's a good thing to try to do.... but lets not just make up facts and law as we go.
He has an ethical and human-interest case for her to reconsider. But he has no legal case. Can you imagine a shelter trying to adopt out dogs to people under the circumstance that signing the dog over only means 'unless the previous owner changes his mind some weeks or months from now and wants the dog back'?
That's all I'm saying.
Huh.... so the story gets even more convoluted.
Who knows how it will end up.
Please check out (different thread) comment 1 it might clarify a few issues.
I used to live in KC and know the type of Indepedence trash this woman is. I bet she's running a meth lab in her kitched.
I demand it on a regular basis. I despise people who purchase "purebred" pets while millions are being euthanized in shelters. Frankly, I think the answer is not to prohibit breeding, but to prohibit the sale of cats and dogs. We'd quickly find out how many breeders are "responsible people who really care about the animals and the tradition of the breed" -- I'd estimate less than 1% would continue breeding, if they couldn't sell the animals at a profit.
bttt
God Bless you for the work you do.
Nope. Contracts are not valid if entered into under duress. Clearly, a disabled man who is faced with the choice of "signing over" his beloved dog, or abandoning or euthanizing it, is signing under duress. I hope somebody helps this man take this obnoxious lady to court. She'll lose so fast it'll make her head spin.
Meanwhile, she should be FReeped mercilessly.
Very interesting.
So she obtained the dog under fraudulent claims.
Extreme duress used to be applied to people who were ~tortured~ into confessing to crimes. You know.... breaking people's fingers, threatening family members, electrical probes. Now 'extreme duress' is moving somewhere where they don't allow pets? That's who 90% of the dogs signed over to shelters came from.
Look, don't make me minimize the man's situation. I know his situation is hard.... Everything lost to a hurricane, he is forced to relocate with family somewhere else. One of the choices he made, that he now regrets, was to sign over the dog, but 'stressful' is not 'extreme duress' in terms of the law. All he's got is a good emotional case. She ~should~ relent and give the dog back, but you won't get there bey twisting the law, that's the best way to ~lose~.
I think we are on the same page. I am actually ticked off at the reporter for not doing a bit more digging on the story. There are many unanswered questions. I do not doubt the he signed away Shuma. I also have no doubt that it might be legally binding.
Having said that, if there is someone who has offered their legal where with all to help explore his options I say go for it.
14 months or 14 years Shuma was the family pet. It was loved and loved enough that they weren't going to turn it out on the street either from the hurricane or from relatives who denied Shuma to stay at their home.
Nevills is morally bankrupted. To say the family has bonded as the reason for keeping the dog says so much of her character doesn't 14 months of bonding trump 3 weeks? She also went on the radio last week saying that Wyrick had lied of his being a hurricane victim. He is but it is tough to un ring the bell.
I do appreciate all point's of view. I just hope public pressure will help her do the right thing.
Thank you for doing the good work you do.
Most dogs that are signed over to shelters as abuse cases are under duress. "Sign the dog over or we'll arrest you for neglect and abuse" is a pretty common tactic.
Now, if, as LSA said above, she lied about where the dog would go, then maybe there's a case to invalidate the contract.
What radio channel was he on? Just curious. Perhaps he was uncomfortable while at the shelter and Nevills thought this was a way to assure Wyrick that the pup would be raised to do great things, that his circumstances have given Shuma a new path.
The pup is not from a local puppy mill.
There's so many questionable and contradictory facts coming out, I'm reluctant to take a side... to do so requires us to accept the facts we want to think are true, and argue against facts we don't like.
Right now, we don't know even how old the dog is for sure. Who knows for sure anything else?
We do know, the age of the dog is 14 months. It was incorrectly reported by the The Examiner (they have also filed a correction) and when the reporter from KCTV contacted me he also corrected the age of Shuma.
What other facts would like you to know. If I do not know I will pose them to the reporter for his future articles.
He was on 980-AM, the Darla J. Show. Interestingly enough, the sister-in-law-to-be of Ms. Nevills called in and said that Nevills was at the Independence shelter to turn in a cat, while Wyrick said there was no cat, Nevills told him she was there to adopt a dog. Story just gets curiouser and curiouser.
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