I'm crossposting this to Health & Behavior since there is a woman there
who is trying to place a Leukemia positive cat and was talking about
going out of state.

Megan

Original Message:

Ladies and gentlemen:
I want to remind everyone just how IMPORTANT it is to research The
places you send your animals to.
http://www.io.com/~aware/KWfiles/FinalWebPageOnKW-ARC.html
Please take a look at this page. It is horrifying.

I have written emails to friends encouraging them to make small
donations so that there can be an end put to this continuing charade.

I have actually sent kitties to this place, believing that they were
what they said
they were during one of the very few times I was ever able to talk to
them.

I have no idea what has happened to my precious babies that she promised
to take such good care of. I have no idea if they went to a research
lab, a dog fight,
a hoarder, or if the kittens (about 5 months old) were set loose in the
woods to be eaten by wolves or to starve.

I gave them to her because she promised homes in the Angel Kitty
program, which
I now realize does not exist, and probably never did. It was supposed to
be for placing Feline leukemia positive kitties in appropriate homes.

Please help stop ARC in Midlothian, Texas. Tell all your friends and
associates about this nightmare of animal suffering and the 20 years of
lies and the growing number (she still gets animals from the local
shelter) of innocent victims that this woman/group CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR.
So, again, if you send an animal to a rescue group, please check them
out. I have found over time that this woman is very secretive, and gives
little or no information on the whereabouts of the animals entrusted to
her.

Sincerely,
Chelle

                                   

(snip)

I am SO thankful our group has never sent any ferals to ARC!  Here is
a copy of an e-mail from another person with knowledge of this "fake
sanctuary":

    Tue, 23 Mar 2004 16:08:16 -0800 (PST)   
From:     Liz Morris <austinsiameserescue@yahoo.com>   

After we sent out a message last month about ARC (Animal
Rehabilitation Center), several people contacted us to tell us they'd
known about the conditions at ARC for years and knew not to send
animals there, but they didn't know what else to do about it. Well, we
do. We need to drag Karen Wakeland into court and find out exactly
where all these animals have gone. And we need your help to raise the
last few hundred dollars of the $5,000 retainer to hire the attorneys
in Dallas who will handle the lawsuit -- any amount you can send will
help!
 
Visit http://www.io.com/~aware/KWfiles/DonorPledges.html to read the
full story and find out where to send a donation to help shut this
place down. ARC is what animal cruelty investigators call a
"pseudo-sanctuary" – it claims to be an animal sanctuary but if you
look at the photos at this link you'll see why Karen Wakeland refuses
to allow visitors. There is no running water, the structures are
falling apart, and the animals roam freely, despite the fact that she
solicits FeLV+ and FIV+ cats and claims to keep them "indoors only."
Most damning of all, she cannot produce *one adopter* for any of the
hundreds of animals she says she has "rehabilitated and rehomed" in
the past several years – and she's been operating like this since
1982! Anyone who has sent an animal to ARC and tried to locate the
animal afterward knows what happens – your phone calls are ignored.
Try it: ARC's number is 214-244-4497. If you succeed in visiting an
animal you gave her, we'd like to know about it because it hasn't
happened yet. Not once. We don't know where your animals and our
animals and all the other homeless animals have gone, but they're not
at ARC. We have some ideas, and none of them are happy endings. Until
we file the lawsuit, we won't know for sure.

Because so many of ARC's former donors have figured out that ARC is a
scam, they've stopped sending money. So instead, Karen Wakeland has
stepped up her fundraising efforts and is mailing out monthly
solicitation letters, disguised as "newsletters" (some of you have
sent us her January and February 2004 mailings), filled with chatty
descriptions of the wonderful work ARC is doing, itemizations of her
monthly expenses, thanks and praise for her diehard supporters, and
pleas for more money and donated items – like "two washing machines,"
when she doesn't even have running water! If you receive these
newsletters, you'll notice there's very little in them about the
animals – just some photos of cats, and an occasional bird, that are
probably long gone, accompanied by requests for (guess what!) MORE
MONEY to sponsor them, to the tune of $25 to $50 per month – when
she's claiming to receive donations of almost $8,000 *per month*!
There were approximately 60 animals on her property when the SPCA
inspected ARC last year (after receiving complaints about ARC from
rescuers and donors), and the investigator ordered her to reduce that
number to 20. Either she's refusing to comply with the SPCA, or she's
using those donations for something other than the animals. 

You decide.  Is this the behavior of someone who is truly devoted to
animals? Or is it just a clever way to make money by manipulating
those of us who truly love and respect animals and who desperately
want to believe the best about someone who claims to feel the same?

Thanks for reading this message and feel free to share it with others
who need to know. 

Most importantly of all:  Before you give ANY animal to ANY person or
organization, and before you give money to such an organization,
thoroughly investigate it IN PERSON and make sure it is a safe and
healthy environment.  Then follow up IN PERSON to make sure it stays
that way. Any resistance to your questions is a red flag that
something is not right, so don't take "no" for an answer. Thanks to
ARC, we've learned that lesson. We sorely regret that the animals we
sent there had to pay the price for our belated wisdom.

Liz Morris

Austin Siamese Rescue

Yes, it is difficult to read.  There are a couple of other links in
rec.pets.cats.misc (under the thread "When a sanctuary is not") that you
might want to read.  These URLs concern the same facility and were also
contributed by the Chelle, the OP of the current thread.

MaryL