New Fairfield/Sherman Animal Shelter Answers Critics after Backlash for Putting Down Husky

CONNECTICUT -- The New Fairfield/Sherman animal welfare society had to euthanize their first dog, the husky named Ryoko, in 47 years last month. What the private non-profit shelter didn’t expect was the firestorm that would follow after the Lexus Project latched onto the situation.
Since the husky was put down following an attack on a volunteer worker at the New Fairfield/Sherman shelter a day after being transferred there from a shelter in Yonkers, the Lexus Project has been launching a full-out attack on New Fairfield. What General Counsel for the Lexus Project, a legal defense for dogs, Richard Rosenthal, claimed was that he had contacted New Fairfield’s shelter about Ryoko repeatedly without any reply. The Project wanted to take full legal ownership of the dog after it was quarantined following the attack. He and two other anonymous sources claimed that the dog could have been saved and the attack was an isolated event under stressful circumstances for Ryoko after being moved around four times within less than a month.

However, the president and vice president of the New Fairfield shelter, Agi Pace and Mike Troiano, said that wasn’t the case at all. The two have been easily accessible for the Litchfield County Times, providing their private cell numbers to contact them to explain the situation. Troiano was the first to contact the Litchfield County Times following a voicemail left at the shelter and said that putting Ryoko down was not an easy decision or snap decision for them. In addition, Pace said has only one voicemail from Rosenthal on her phone, one where he only provides his name and callback number, but doesn’t say what agency he is affiliated with.

Troiano said that he did not see the attack by the husky on the volunteer but saw the damage after visiting her at Danbury Hospital. She was bitten in the face and had damage from “temple to temple.”

“It was an unprovoked attack,” Troiano said. “The dog was quarantined by the regional control office (animal control). [Ryoko] was temperament tested by the animal control officer and failed miserably. He was food aggressive with the temperament testing. In the course of their assessment, the dog attacked the tools with which they did the testing. Putting him down was their recommendation—we do not euthanize.”

Pace said she has been overwhelmed and frightened by the death threats and harassment she has received since the Lexus Project got involved. She said the Lexus Project has been posting to Facebook the shelter’s contact information and has posted her personal contact information, including every time she changes her cell phone number—she has had to change it three times since the incident—and even the company she works at full-time. In addition, she has had to file a police report as she has been receiving threats at all hours of the day and fears that the calls may lead to physical violence.

Pace said the whole situation could have been avoided if there had been full disclosure about the dog’s bite history from the Yonkers volunteer who set up the transfer. She said her shelter has had a successful working relationship with Yonkers since October. Since that time, New Fairfield has been able to place eleven dogs from Yonkers into adoptive homes. So, at the time, New Fairfield was comfortable with taking their dogs and getting them ready for adoption.

Ryoko arrived at New Fairfield’s shelter Thursday night and no less than 12 hours later, had attacked the volunteer before Pace was even aware the husky had arrived at their shelter. Pace also doesn’t know where the Yonkers volunteer, German Shepherd rescue worker or Rosenthal are getting their information, as the volunteer who was looking after Ryoko was not young or inexperienced but had been volunteering at the shelter for years, and despite having to get stitches and upcoming plastic surgery on her face, said she will continue to volunteer with the shelter.

In addition, Pace said Ryoko was not off-leash, but was on a lead, a type of leash. She said the attack came out of nowhere and the only reason the damage to the volunteer wasn’t worse was because the volunteer was experienced and with the help of another employee, she was able to push the dog off of her as he continued to attack and they were able to get him into a kennel.

Pace recalls the shelter being out of their element because as a no-kill shelter, they had never been in a situation where a dog would ever have been put down. She said Danbury Hospital reported the attack to animal control, who then put the dog in a 14 day bite quarantine.

At that point, Pace didn’t know the dog’s history and thought the attack was just an isolated incident so she began calling Yonkers during those two weeks to try to get them to take Ryoko back, something that they refused to do. At that point, she learned that after the husky was relinquished by his original family, he was adopted out and returned a week later because he had been nipping at his new family.

Pace said the situation has left her with so many questions. She wonders what the real story is behind the original family giving the husky up after supposedly losing their home. She said the husky, a pure-bred, would have cost them upwards of $5000 so why would they give him up for free? She said, awful as it is to say, they could have even sold Ryoko to try to help themselves with their financial difficulties. She said it has raised questions that Ryoko might have been aggressive towards them so they decided to give him up. This could have been reinforced with him being returned from an adopter less than a week after he was adopted from Yonkers. She said she was also uninformed by Yonkers that Ryoko had bitten one of the New York shelter’s employees as well, causing him to be labeled as rescue only.

“I can’t help but feel if there had been some truthfulness—we’ve placed multiple dogs from Yonkers,” Troiano said. “If there had been full disclosure, we would not have taken the dog in the first place. Yonkers just passed the problem. He was a dog that was not fit for human companionship.”

Troiano said the Lexus Project has been encouraging people to threaten their shelter.

“The Lexus Project has their own objectives,” Troiano said. “They latched onto this because they latch onto events involving animal euthanasia as a springboard for their own agenda to create awareness. My opinion is they are a fringe group. They intimidate, threaten and bully and they are not a group you can reason with or talk to.”

(The Litchfield County Times - March 07, 2014)