Massachusetts: Dog breeder Kim LeMaire says she loves animals, but she can't stop abusing them

MASSACHUSETTS -- Conflicting images of dog breeder Kim LeMaire came into focus this week as more details surfaced about the woman who lived for three years in a filthy Red Roof Inn motel room.

Clients and friends of the Wayland woman don’t deny she loved the white Maltese dogs she bred and kept as pets. But at least four people who paid LeMaire $900 deposits as long ago as March, and have yet to receive puppies, say they were scammed.

"Something's wrong and she needs to pay for it," said Mashpee resident Jean Callahan, who had already bought a pink, Betsey Johnson, rhinestone-studded carrier for Lexi, the name she chose for her future puppy.

Jean Callahan, of Mashpee, with new dog case she bought for
Maltese and her current dog, Bijou, a Bichon Frise.

Meanwhile, other former customers describe how LeMaire, 66, bounced from motel to motel in MetroWest, always living in rooms packed with dogs, feces and trash. Their accounts contradict that of Red Roof Inn officials, who maintain the room was clean until very recently.

A newly released report from Framingham Animal Control said the 19 dogs removed from the Red Roof Inn last month were so soiled with feces and urine that experienced dog rescue workers gagged and had to take a break from shaving off clumps of matted hair.

Meanwhile, mixed messages swirled Friday about whether the dogs will remain at the animal control kennel or be given to the people who paid for them.

Callahan is one of at least four people who paid LeMaire for a dog. She wrote a check for $900 to LeMaire on March 7. Now she doubts she’ll get her money back, and said she doesn’t want one of LeMaire’s sickly dogs.

"I am very upset about the $900, but not as much about that as about the cruelty to animals," she said.
 
Josephine Sarnelli, of Westfield, paid LeMaire $1,700, a deposit for two dogs. She was supposed to pick them up July 27, but that was the day after EMTs took LeMaire to the hospital from her motel room. LeMaire's son has said his mother suffered a heart attack and spine hemorrhage.
 
Reached briefly by phone Thursday, LeMaire said she was still in the hospital. She declined to answer questions.

Hinda Goodstein, of Brookline, also paid LeMaire $900, but this week said she doubts she’ll ever see the money again. Kimberley Mazzone, of Needham, also paid LeMaire a deposit and hasn’t received a dog.

All the women tell the same story, of LeMaire offering different excuses about why customers couldn’t see the dogs at her home before buying them. Sometimes LeMaire went to customers’ homes, but most often she invited them to the home of an elderly couple in Newton whom she claimed were her aunt and uncle.

The woman, Roz Smith, Friday denied being related to LeMaire, saying only that they were close friends. She said she let LeMaire show dogs there as a favor and was not paid.

But one woman said she has seen first-hand how LeMaire lived, in the various motel rooms.

Connie Bubar, of Presque Isle, Maine, with four
Maltese dogs from Kim LeMaire. Left to right:
Saga, Olga, Helga, Inga.

Connie Bubar, of Presque Isle, Maine, who owns four of LeMaire’s dogs, visited her not only in the Red Roof Inn on Rte. 30, but at the Red Roof Inn in Southborough near I-495 and at the Motel 6 in Framingham on Rte. 9, all in 2010.

Bubar said she picked up her fourth dog at the Rte. 30 Red Roof Inn, where LeMaire lived until last month, in June 2010.

"That was the one that was the most deplorable of all," she said, describing how she couldn’t bathe the puppy because there was so much feces on the bathroom floor.

"Her toilet was up to the top with poop and everything," she said.

Three of the four dogs have liver shunts, she said, a medical condition she said has cost her thousands in veterinarian fees. Bubar bought her first two dogs and LeMaire gave her the second two, making Bubar promise not to sue or blackmail her.

Breeders are not required to be licensed or registered in Massachusetts, but people who own more than four dogs must register with their city or town, a spokeswoman from the Department of Agricultural Resources said Friday.

Mary-Leah Assad said LeMaire did not have a kennel license. The department has an extensive file on LeMaire, but is in the process of redacting private information before making the file available, Assad said.

Barbara Kovalchek, of Westford, owns two Maltese from LeMaire: Rocky and Sparky. She said LeMaire asked her to meet at a gas station on Rte. 9, near the Southborough Red Roof Inn in 2010, to pickup one dog.

Barbara Kovalchek's LeMaire dog Sparky.

Kovalchek also met LeMaire at Smith’s house in Newton, and began to realize something fishy was going on.

"I just think this woman who portrays herself as the best animal lover in the world, is the worst woman," Kovalchek said.

Kovalchek has photos she took of LeMaire’s dogs in the motel room in 2011. Their faces, feet and tails are stained brown and one dog’s torso was shaved because the fur was so matted. Her dogs have health problems, as well, Kovalchek said.

"I feel like I saved a dog from going back to Kim’s squalor conditions," she said.

She said she believes the Red Roof Inn is lying about their knowledge of LeMaire’s filthy room.

 

 

 

A corporate spokeswoman for the Red Roof Friday said the motel chain stands behind its original statement, which said housekeepers cleaned LeMaire’s room every three days.

"We stand by the initial timeline," said Lindsey Norris, senior account executive at Hill + Knowlton Strategies. The timeline said motel General Manager Dan Fritz was in LeMaire’s room in late June, after it had been "deep cleaned" in late May.

Fritz was in the process of evicting LeMaire when she was taken to the hospital.

According to the newly released report from Framingham Animal Control, it took experts more than four days to calm and groom the dogs.

On July 31, an animal control officer, two state officials, a veterinary technician and a Boston Animal Rescue League officer worked together, wearing Tyvek suits, boots and gloves, for more than three and a half hours to examine, bathe and groom the puppies.

"A mass of packed feces matted around the rectum, causing several seasoned members of the team to gag, had to be painstakingly shaved off of the dog," the report said.

Meanwhile, other customers of LeMaire say they had no problems with her dogs.

"Both times, with both dogs, it was perfect," said Hal Tepfer, of Lexington.

Tepfer described LeMaire as "quirky," but said the process of paying the deposits and picking up the dogs at a vet's clinic was flawless.

John Romano, one of seven references LeMaire provided clients, said Friday he has had no problems with the two dogs he bought from LeMaire five and six years ago. He said LeMaire delivered them to his home.

The women who have not received their dogs, after learning how LeMaire lived, said they are baffled by the six-page contract LeMaire asked them to sign, which asks clients to agree to a meticulous method of caring for the animals. The contract asks owners to feed the dogs special food, select a quality vet and let the dogs sleep in owners' beds for at least two weeks.

Rocky, a Maltese from Kim LeMaire,
owned by Barbara Kovalchek, of Westford

"It was clear to me that she loved these dogs," said Goodstein, the Brookline woman, who also met LeMaire at Smith’s house in Newton.

The women said Framingham Animal Control told them they won’t be able to receive the dogs at least until an investigation of the situation is complete, and may have to go to court to get their money back.

But that information was contradicted by text messages Callahan and Sarnelli received Friday from LeMaire and her son, which said they intended to distribute the dogs soon.

The animal control report also names another woman, Lisa Joy Robbins Smith, who lives on Danforth Street in Framingham and told police she is LeMaire’s assistant, and a dog groomer and babysitter. The day after LeMaire went to the hospital, Smith told animal control officers two of the litters of puppies were hers.

A man who answered the door at Robbins Smith’s home Friday said she was unavailable.

(The MetroWest Daily News - Aug 18, 2013)

Earlier:

• Woman, 6 dogs found living in squalor at Framingham motel