We adopted a dog back in June of 2015 from the Heart of America Humane Society, and we have a fairly large complaint on how the conducted business and how they medically neglected her while under their care. I have filed a complaint with our local BBB, but we have received no response from them that addresses the business’s behavior. Moreover, I e-mailed the corporate center in D.C. directly, asking them to contact us about the complaint, and we have never heard from anyone. Rather, they took my e-mail and began sending me spam within 3 days of sending them the request. I never authorized them to send us spam charity solicitations. I've also filed complaints with our state attorney general, the DC attorney general, and our state to report medical neglect.
When we adopted her, she was presented as 10-years old, in good medical condition, and definitely housebroken, although she is partially deaf. The foster mother and the person who runs the local chapter brought her to our house. They stated that they took her in to the shelter three months prior and she had been out of the foster mother’ possession for about a week, because the person who adopted her brought her back due to the organization not detecting she was deaf, since this person had primarily bought her to alert her to potential break-ins.
When inspecting her, we immediately noticed her spine was protruding, her nails were so long that they were turning under, her back legs shook, and she had a partial limp on the right hind leg. We made the assumption the spine protruded because she wasn’t eating enough. The foster mother acknowledged she had noticed the problems with her back leg and thought it had been damaged due to abuse. I also noticed that the vet paperwork stated she was 13-years old, but the shelter marked through the age with the number “10”. She stated they had re-evaluated her age, and we assumed it was the vet who initially inspected her health. The foster mother had consistently seen her run while in her possession; therefore, they stated the age was changed for this reason alone. The adopted dog also looked like she had not been given a bath for at least three months. Moreover, the paperwork showed that the foster mother failed to give her Frontline and Heartguard on a regular basis; she gave it to her about every 45-60 days, and the last Frontline application was given the day after I inquired about her via v-mail. Both of these have to be given every 30 days to be effective. We decided to adopt her, because we believed she would be a good fit (our other dogs would help her get around by non-verbal cues). Finally, she stated she had taken her to the vet earlier on in the day, because she had noticed mucous in her stools. She stated the vet diagnosed her with a parasite, and she told us she would give us the medications prescribed. They also talked us into signing paperwork saying we had originally looked at her though PetsMart, because they will give them something like $15 for each dog adopted. I found her on Petfinder.com, but I went ahead and signed the document to help increase their donations, since they frequently complained about the organizations’ funds.
After adopting her, I immediately bathed her. She turned the tub completely black. As black as the tub was, she might not even been given a bath at intake, although they picked her up off the street. Next, I trimmed her nails, which helped her to walk better. She had accidents, as expected, because she was getting used to a new environment (so we thought). The next day, I contacted the foster mother and asked her for a copy of the parasite vet bill. After taking her to our vet to have her thoroughly checked out, Mariposa Wellness Center in Lenexa, KS, our vet stated she has spinal arthritis with a bulging disc, muscle atrophy in her back leg due to the bulging disc, which was why she limped. She recommended Dasuqin w/ MSM and a tart cherry extract daily. Since I believed the initial vet should have caught this, I decided to give him a call.
After calling the vet to leave a message, he called me back promptly. When I questioned what kind of parasite she was diagnosed with, he firmly stated that she was only given one as a precaution. From the microscopic level, all he could see was what looked like plant matter in her feces, so he gave it to her as a precaution. Rather, he believed the mucous was diet related, and he stated he told the foster mother that she needed to be on a low-residue diet. This was never relayed at adoption. When I inquired about her age, he stated he believed she was 13-years old, not 10-years old, because vets diagnosis a canine’s age by examining his or her teeth. So, the foster mother and the shelter manager just decided to change her age on their own; he would never have diagnosed it by how she ran. When I inquired about her limp, he stated the foster mother never brought this to his attention, which is ridiculous if she had thought abuse was involved. Finally, he point blank asked me if this organization performed a Heartworm test on her, and empathically stated they had not done one at his office. When I told him it reflected one was done on the paperwork, his tone sounded skeptical. So I also think to believe they never tested her.
When I confronted the foster mother about these issues, she wrapped it up to the organization not having the funds to medically treat their intakes. She re-iterated this by saying she personally paid the vet bill for parasites out of her own pocket. If the organization has no money to medically treat dogs, they surely should move rescues to another shelter that can support needed medical costs, especially if the organization suspects medical issues related to abuse. Moreover, they obviously don’t the money to money to bathe their animals, to trim their nails, or to give their rescues dog food that fits a prescribed diet. She also made flimsy excuses for the age change and she dodged questions about the parasites.
Over the course of a couple weeks, she continued to have accidents several times a day. When I confronted her via e-mail about the accidents, she stated her own senior dog had been frequently having accidents, so it was possible the rescue dog had been having them also, but she just didn’t catch them. So with that being said, if she wasn’t sure about housetraining, the organization should have never made this statement on Petfinder.com. Same goes for “in good medical condition”. By this time, I was fairly upset, because they misrepresented her all the way around. But considering the condition she was in when adopted her, we decided to opt to keep her, because she obviously would be neglected by the foster mother, who stated she would just keep her herself if we turned her over to them. Rather, I requested the shelter manager contact me via e-mail and stated we wanted the $100 adoption fee back, because we’d spend all that money just getting her back leg and spine in shape with supplements. She replied that they wouldn’t give us our money back and that the shelter manager refused to contact either of us. At that point, I filed a complaint with our local BBB.
Over the course of the next month, we began to take notice that her behavior wasn’t improving, and we started keeping track of her symptoms, including frequently eating feces. When discussing this with the vet, we both came to the conclusion that she has canine cognitive dysfunction. So, besides putting her on the other supplements, we changed her diet to Acana Pacifica from Nature’s Variety Turkey and Duck, because the former is higher in Omega 3s and protein. We put her on a vitamin supplement. And we added a fish oil supplement. Finally, we added curcumin. Although some of the symptoms lessened, other symptoms persisted, including, but not limited to, eating feces and having accidents in the house 1-3 times a day. The vet recommended euthanizing her if the symptoms worsen. Here is the list of symptoms:
dogdementia.com/symptoms/
Now obviously, if she was in the foster mother’s care for almost three months, she should have noticed these problems. She didn’t or just ignored them. And the more I think about it, I’d be willing to bet that she noticed her eating feces and took her to the vet for a parasite check. So I e-mailed the organization to see if they would be willing to take her back and euthanize her, because I didn’t feel at the time that we should have to pay for that as well.
She never e-mailed me back, but forwarded the issue to the shelter manager. He stated they would take her back, sand when I took the time to reiterate all the problems, he failed to address or apologize for any of the concerns. He merely stated by e-mail that he was sorry her health was getting worse. It hadn’t gotten worse—it had actually improved since being the foster mother’s care, especially the condition of her spine and legs. I told him we were going to try one last thing: we were going to take her off of the curcumin supplement, since it had been improving some symptoms, and we were going to place her on Lifevantage for canines instead (curcumin is also in this supplement). If this failed to work well within 8 weeks, we would turn her over for euthanization.
Since then, we decided to just euthanize her ourselves when and if that days comes. It doesn’t seem right to turn her over to an organization that took her health concerns like a grain of salt. Rather, I decided to write a complaint to the Human Society’s headquarters in DC. But rather than getting back in contact with me, the organization signed my e-mail up for spam charity solicitations without my consent. That was the last straw, so I decided to file a complaint with your office and the BBB of DC.
The Heart of America Humane Society Reviews
We adopted a dog back in June of 2015 from the Heart of America Humane Society, and we have a fairly large complaint on how the conducted business and how they medically neglected her while under their care. I have filed a complaint with our local BBB, but we have received no response from them that addresses the business’s behavior. Moreover, I e-mailed the corporate center in D.C. directly, asking them to contact us about the complaint, and we have never heard from anyone. Rather, they took my e-mail and began sending me spam within 3 days of sending them the request. I never authorized them to send us spam charity solicitations. I've also filed complaints with our state attorney general, the DC attorney general, and our state to report medical neglect.
When we adopted her, she was presented as 10-years old, in good medical condition, and definitely housebroken, although she is partially deaf. The foster mother and the person who runs the local chapter brought her to our house. They stated that they took her in to the shelter three months prior and she had been out of the foster mother’ possession for about a week, because the person who adopted her brought her back due to the organization not detecting she was deaf, since this person had primarily bought her to alert her to potential break-ins.
When inspecting her, we immediately noticed her spine was protruding, her nails were so long that they were turning under, her back legs shook, and she had a partial limp on the right hind leg. We made the assumption the spine protruded because she wasn’t eating enough. The foster mother acknowledged she had noticed the problems with her back leg and thought it had been damaged due to abuse. I also noticed that the vet paperwork stated she was 13-years old, but the shelter marked through the age with the number “10”. She stated they had re-evaluated her age, and we assumed it was the vet who initially inspected her health. The foster mother had consistently seen her run while in her possession; therefore, they stated the age was changed for this reason alone. The adopted dog also looked like she had not been given a bath for at least three months. Moreover, the paperwork showed that the foster mother failed to give her Frontline and Heartguard on a regular basis; she gave it to her about every 45-60 days, and the last Frontline application was given the day after I inquired about her via v-mail. Both of these have to be given every 30 days to be effective. We decided to adopt her, because we believed she would be a good fit (our other dogs would help her get around by non-verbal cues). Finally, she stated she had taken her to the vet earlier on in the day, because she had noticed mucous in her stools. She stated the vet diagnosed her with a parasite, and she told us she would give us the medications prescribed. They also talked us into signing paperwork saying we had originally looked at her though PetsMart, because they will give them something like $15 for each dog adopted. I found her on Petfinder.com, but I went ahead and signed the document to help increase their donations, since they frequently complained about the organizations’ funds.
After adopting her, I immediately bathed her. She turned the tub completely black. As black as the tub was, she might not even been given a bath at intake, although they picked her up off the street. Next, I trimmed her nails, which helped her to walk better. She had accidents, as expected, because she was getting used to a new environment (so we thought). The next day, I contacted the foster mother and asked her for a copy of the parasite vet bill. After taking her to our vet to have her thoroughly checked out, Mariposa Wellness Center in Lenexa, KS, our vet stated she has spinal arthritis with a bulging disc, muscle atrophy in her back leg due to the bulging disc, which was why she limped. She recommended Dasuqin w/ MSM and a tart cherry extract daily. Since I believed the initial vet should have caught this, I decided to give him a call.
After calling the vet to leave a message, he called me back promptly. When I questioned what kind of parasite she was diagnosed with, he firmly stated that she was only given one as a precaution. From the microscopic level, all he could see was what looked like plant matter in her feces, so he gave it to her as a precaution. Rather, he believed the mucous was diet related, and he stated he told the foster mother that she needed to be on a low-residue diet. This was never relayed at adoption. When I inquired about her age, he stated he believed she was 13-years old, not 10-years old, because vets diagnosis a canine’s age by examining his or her teeth. So, the foster mother and the shelter manager just decided to change her age on their own; he would never have diagnosed it by how she ran. When I inquired about her limp, he stated the foster mother never brought this to his attention, which is ridiculous if she had thought abuse was involved. Finally, he point blank asked me if this organization performed a Heartworm test on her, and empathically stated they had not done one at his office. When I told him it reflected one was done on the paperwork, his tone sounded skeptical. So I also think to believe they never tested her.
When I confronted the foster mother about these issues, she wrapped it up to the organization not having the funds to medically treat their intakes. She re-iterated this by saying she personally paid the vet bill for parasites out of her own pocket. If the organization has no money to medically treat dogs, they surely should move rescues to another shelter that can support needed medical costs, especially if the organization suspects medical issues related to abuse. Moreover, they obviously don’t the money to money to bathe their animals, to trim their nails, or to give their rescues dog food that fits a prescribed diet. She also made flimsy excuses for the age change and she dodged questions about the parasites.
Over the course of a couple weeks, she continued to have accidents several times a day. When I confronted her via e-mail about the accidents, she stated her own senior dog had been frequently having accidents, so it was possible the rescue dog had been having them also, but she just didn’t catch them. So with that being said, if she wasn’t sure about housetraining, the organization should have never made this statement on Petfinder.com. Same goes for “in good medical condition”. By this time, I was fairly upset, because they misrepresented her all the way around. But considering the condition she was in when adopted her, we decided to opt to keep her, because she obviously would be neglected by the foster mother, who stated she would just keep her herself if we turned her over to them. Rather, I requested the shelter manager contact me via e-mail and stated we wanted the $100 adoption fee back, because we’d spend all that money just getting her back leg and spine in shape with supplements. She replied that they wouldn’t give us our money back and that the shelter manager refused to contact either of us. At that point, I filed a complaint with our local BBB.
Over the course of the next month, we began to take notice that her behavior wasn’t improving, and we started keeping track of her symptoms, including frequently eating feces. When discussing this with the vet, we both came to the conclusion that she has canine cognitive dysfunction. So, besides putting her on the other supplements, we changed her diet to Acana Pacifica from Nature’s Variety Turkey and Duck, because the former is higher in Omega 3s and protein. We put her on a vitamin supplement. And we added a fish oil supplement. Finally, we added curcumin. Although some of the symptoms lessened, other symptoms persisted, including, but not limited to, eating feces and having accidents in the house 1-3 times a day. The vet recommended euthanizing her if the symptoms worsen. Here is the list of symptoms:
dogdementia.com/symptoms/
Now obviously, if she was in the foster mother’s care for almost three months, she should have noticed these problems. She didn’t or just ignored them. And the more I think about it, I’d be willing to bet that she noticed her eating feces and took her to the vet for a parasite check. So I e-mailed the organization to see if they would be willing to take her back and euthanize her, because I didn’t feel at the time that we should have to pay for that as well.
She never e-mailed me back, but forwarded the issue to the shelter manager. He stated they would take her back, sand when I took the time to reiterate all the problems, he failed to address or apologize for any of the concerns. He merely stated by e-mail that he was sorry her health was getting worse. It hadn’t gotten worse—it had actually improved since being the foster mother’s care, especially the condition of her spine and legs. I told him we were going to try one last thing: we were going to take her off of the curcumin supplement, since it had been improving some symptoms, and we were going to place her on Lifevantage for canines instead (curcumin is also in this supplement). If this failed to work well within 8 weeks, we would turn her over for euthanization.
Since then, we decided to just euthanize her ourselves when and if that days comes. It doesn’t seem right to turn her over to an organization that took her health concerns like a grain of salt. Rather, I decided to write a complaint to the Human Society’s headquarters in DC. But rather than getting back in contact with me, the organization signed my e-mail up for spam charity solicitations without my consent. That was the last straw, so I decided to file a complaint with your office and the BBB of DC.