Images from the Wildside Kennels MySpace page that has since been taken down.
Rescue Groups Absent
UPDATE 02/18/09: Following a judge's order, Wilkes County Animal Control euthanized 146 pit bulls. On Monday, Judge Ed Wilson Jr. of Superior Court ruled that state law defines dogs as dangerous if they are involved in a dogfighting operation and a county ordinance requires that dangerous dogs be destroyed. A number of rescue groups had offered to place the dogs, but none of their representatives were at Monday's hearing when the judge was considering their fate.
The raid was the result of a 3-year investigation by the Humane Society of the U.S., in cooperation with Wilkes County Animal Control and the Wilkes County Sheriff's Office. Representatives of the Humane Society told the judge that the dogs should be destroyed, because they had been bred for generations to be aggressive. - Winston-Salem Journal, February 17, 2009
02/16/09: Judge Orders Dogs Euthanized
A Superior Court judge ordered the 127 pit bulls seized in the raid of Ed Faron's property, Wildside Kennels, be euthanized. Judge Ed Wilson entered the order after hearing arguments from Wilkes County officials, the prosecutor and the Humane Society of the U.S. stating that the dogs are dangerous and would pose a risk if adopted into homes. Also, Amanda Grace Lunsford, 25, the final defendant, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of cruelty to animals (Casanova's fiancé).
When Wildside Kennels owner Ed Faron failed to pay the county for the dogs' care after they were seized, a judge awarded ownership of the dogs to the county.
Faron, 61, pleaded guilty last week of 14 counts of felony dog fighting and was sentenced to 8 to 10 months in prison. His adopted son, Donni Juan Casanova, 18, pleaded guilty to one count of felony dog fighting and was given a suspended sentence of 6 to 8 months. - Winston-Salem Journal, February 16, 2009
02/13/09: Ed Faron Pleads Guilty to Felonies
Wilkesboro, NC - Ed Faron pleaded guilty yesterday to 14 counts of felony dog fighting and was sentenced to 8 to 10 months in prison. Faron also must serve a lengthy period of supervised probation, and may not own, possess or care for any dogs as part of the plea agreement. His adopted son, Donni Juan Casanova, pleaded guilty to one count of felony dog fighting. He was sentenced to 6 to 8 month in prison (suspended), and ordered to serve 24 months of probation.
Wilkes County has possession of the 127 pit bulls that were seized in the raid on Faron's Wildside Kennels property on December 10. The county was awarded custody of the dogs by a judge last month after Faron failed to pay nearly $53,000 the county had asked for their care. A large number of puppies have since been born, and the dogs are being held at undisclosed locations. According to the clerk's office, the court file yesterday did not include notice about the disposition of the dogs.
John Goodwin, the manager of animal-fighting issues for the Humane Society of the U.S., said a judge would decide the fate of the dogs later. The Humane Society worked for three years on the investigation, in cooperation with Wilkes County Animal Control and the sheriff's office. Goodwin said Faron was one of the nation's largest breeders of fighting dogs. He believes his conviction will show dog fighters that "even their godfathers are being prosecuted and sent to prison."
Goodwin also said the dogs have been bred for fighting and it would difficult and expensive to re-train the dogs, even the puppies, so that they could be adopted into homes. This common sense runs in stark contrast with a sizable promotional effort by Best Friends that claims Faron's dogs can be "rehabilitated" into family household pets. Goodwin added he believes a county ordinance requires the dogs to be put down. "It's not a matter of would, could or should. It's the law."
It's important to point out that Faron's dogs are top-notch, multi-generational game-bred dogs. Michael Vick's dogs were not.
As reported in a previous post, Best Friends' offer to have the dogs sterilized and to assist the county with placing them still stands. In the instance of Vicks' dogs, the United States government required each rescue group recipient (Best Friends, BadRap and others) to carry a 1 million dollar liability policy. If Faron's game-bred pit bulls were ever placed for the purposes of "rehabilitation" and adoption, it would only be reasonable to mandate a 1 million dollar policy PER dog.
The attempt by Best Friends to show the Vick and Faron dogs as "equally" capable of rehabilitation is a distortion of the truth and dangerous.
Related articles:
01/22/09: Best Friends Steps into the Ed Faron Dogfighting Bust to "Save" Unstable Dogs
12/23/08: Edward Faron of Wildside Kennels Has Been Charged by Authorities
11/03/08: Flashback: Best Friends Animal Sanctuary Refuses Care of Pit Bulls
I wonder if Scratchback Ailee will send him a cake with a file in it?
Very important point made in this article by Dogsbite…… the Vick dogs were NOT from pure game-bred lines. Vick was an amateur, he was ghetto-trash trying to be a player…anyone could see he had a bunch of scatterbred dogs by the wildly differing conformation of the “Victory dogs”. He was too stupid to understand what he was doing, and was probably taken advantage of by people charging him big money for dogs that the owners claimed were fighting dogs. He really didn’t know the difference.
The fact that some of these dogs were NOT highly DA doesn’t prove a thing about pit bulls in general….pit bull is a catch-all term for a junk breed that encompasses game-bred, AmStaff, Ambulls, APBT’s, and every combination of the like. Some of the Vick dogs may not have reached sexual maturity, and could become highly DA later on. A few of them were not game bred dogs, and may have won the genetic lottery by being atypical, and were dog tolerant, or even dog social.
The bottom line is this……if and when some of the celebrity Vick dogs go after another dog, maul a neighbors beagle to death, or kill the family cat; do you think the public will hear about it? Does anyone think that BadRap will call a news conference if a Vick dog kills the neighbors Chihuahua? Whose going to call the Today Show when a Vick dog becomes “hot”, and starts lunging at other dogs when on leash?
The public will never really know the true temperament of those dogs….we have been spoon fed bits and pieces of this story by the media, just what the BadRap folks want us to see.
The merchandise that Best Friends sells (their gift store, website sales, mailing sales) DOES NOT go to support the sanctuary.
The money from merchanise sales goes to INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE, as profits to them personally.
http://bestfriendz.wordpress.com/
The people who founded Best Friends will use the Faron pit bulls to sell merchandise to make a personal profit.
This is NOT charity.
I checked out that site! It hasn’t been posted to in a while. TOO BAD! The title is classic: “Worst Friends”
Trigger, I saw in a comment left on a recent article about Paul Berry being fired that many employees of Best Friends have quit in disgust at poor quality senior management and other complaints
There is a mess at Best Friends, and lots of activity they are trying to keep hidden
But the one thing they do keep managing to do is working to shake down cash
“Shake down,” such an appropriate term…Find that comment if you can and post it!
The comments by the nutters wanting to save the dogs is pathethic – they are so uneduacted and completely out of touch with reality. And now they believe HSUS has a vendetta against pit bulls – the conspiracy theories they create is never ending.
Best Friends and Nathan Winograd (along with their breeder and dog fighter buddies) have maligned HSUS because BEST FRIENDS AND WINOGRAD WANT DONATIONS TO COME TO THEM INSTEAD
Best FRiends and Winograd lie about other groups to smear them, so Best Friends and Winograd can steal some donations and PROFIT.
Even though Best Friends and Winograd do nothing concrete for animals, and now actually hurting them.
Best Friends can’t even succeed at making animal cruelty a felony in their own state, Utah!
They and Winograd actually are aiding and abetting animal abusers, hoarders, fighters.
It’s just a big money grab.
You’re kidding!
“Best Friends can’t even succeed at making animal cruelty a felony in their own state, Utah!”
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It’s so unclear what side of the coin this group is on.
Judge orders that pit bulls be destroyed — County law requires action; Humane Society, others back the court’s decision
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http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/feb/17/judge-orders-that-pit-bulls-be-destroyed/news/
Ledy is quite a piece of work:
“Those dogs are going to be killed solely because of prejudice,” said Ledy VanKavage, an attorney for Best Friends Animal Society…They should be judged as individuals just as people are,” VanKavage said. “It’s a massacre.”
Wilkes Animal Control Director Junior Simmons told the judge that some of the dogs that were puppies when they were seized in December are already showing aggression toward each other. “They’re not just play fighting,” he said. “They’re starting to draw blood.”
Not your Vick dogs!
146 of Faron’s dogs were destroyed since there was no dowry…The hollow offer to take them was enough to rally the dupes in the pit bull movement.
“A number of animal rescue groups had offered to place the dogs, but none of their representatives attended Monday’s hearing when the judge was considering a ruling.”
http://hamptonroads.com/node/498512
The nutters are claiming it was big conspiracy to kill off this fighting line and that the rescues were improperly kept out of the disposition hearing…
If there was a Million dollar dowry that came with these dogs like in the Vick case, you can bet there would have been a sea of lawyers pimpin’, backstabbin’ and scratchin’ to gain custody of these dogs.
Good to see that DA is not OK is this county.
Oh this is disgusting! Casanova has made a promotional YouTube video selling “Wildside” kennel goods. Like most true game-doggers, he can’t spell: “humaine society”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWj51S41W0U