Adoptions Resume at Loudoun Animal Shelter

After a Dec. 14 hearing in Loudoun Circuit Court, custody of 54 dogs and one cat seized in Purcellville on Aug. 5 from a Maryland-based pet rescue operation was awarded to Loudoun County Animal Services.

Circuit Judge James H. Chamblin ruled Dec. 15 that Bonita Clark, founder of Towson-based Maryland Pet Match, did not provide “adequate care” for the animals she housed in a rented barn in Purcellville.

Clark was denied the right to own animals in Virginia for two years and ordered to repay Loudoun County for taking care of 55 animals for almost five months. Clark had surrendered another 17 cats on Aug. 5.

On Jan. 11, Clark faces 22 criminal counts of violating Loudoun’s kennel ordinance, a misdemeanor that carries a penalty up to $2,500 and 12 months in jail per count.

Many of the dogs will move to the adoption floor at the animal shelter on Charles Town Pike on Saturday, Dec. 16, just in time for Christmas. At least one dog, “Cupid,” went home Friday with his new adoptive family.

Lead Animal Control Officer Angela Chan said she discovered the animals, and ultimately took possession of them during a mundane administrative call on Aug. 5.

Chan was visiting a Purcellville resident who owns a “dangerous dog” to renew its annual permit when she heard barking and noticed about 25 dogs in a pen outside a barn on the property. The owner said he had used Craig’s List to lease his horse barn to a woman who needed temporary housing for rescue animals.

Chan approached the woman, whose minivan with Maryland plates was parked in the barnyard at the time, and initiated a conversation. “I said ‘It appears you may be operating a kennel,’” Chan said.

The woman, Bonita Clark, said that “If it was a problem, she could have them gone in an hour,” Chan said. “I could see that the dogs outside the barn had no shelter, and the enclosure was run-down, haphazard-looking, and slightly chaotic.”

Seeing three small puppies in an exercise pen near the minivan, she approached and picked them up. “Each one weighed about three pounds,” she said. “They felt almost hollow in your hand. They were infested with fleas and were not behaving in any way that was puppy-like. They were just limp.” The puppies, about three weeks old, had no teeth, no soft food available, and no visible dam to nurse them, Chan said.

With the temperature already climbing to 95 that day, Chan said, “there were two bowls of dry food and a bucket with maybe three-fourths of a gallon of water” available to the 25 dogs. They had no access to shade and could not enter the barn.

“I knew I was in for a long day,” Chan said, so she called Animal Control Officer Mark Stacks for backup. When he arrived, they documented the scene with photographs and wrote an inventory, numbering and describing each animal and its condition.

They then asked to enter the barn and found frantic cats in cages with bowls of fetid water, some fouled with urine, and empty cans of pet food. “Their litter boxes were filled with feces and urine,” Chan said.

Confined in stalls intended for horses animal control officers found more dogs, many of them infested with fleas and bacteria that were thriving in the heat and close contact with so many animals, Chan said.

The inventory reached 53 dogs, one so tormented from mange that he had “de-gloved “ his tail by removing the hair and skin, and 16 cats.

When a third animal control officer arrived, she went into the loft of the barn to find two more cats in crates, and “a dog with a horrible case of mange. There was no fur on its entire body, which was crusted over, and there was scabbing on the skin,” Chan said. “The dog was not socialized. It bit [Clark]. So on top of everything else, I had to take a bite report.”

Clark later told Chan she hid the three animals in the loft “because she knew we would want to take them,” Chan said. “The dog did not have a strand of fur on its body, but it was more important [to Clark] to hide it in a loft than to get veterinary care.”

After conferring with Stacks, Chan called Loudoun Animal Shelter Director Tom Koenig and told him she had found “numerous violations” and no veterinary care for any of the animals.

Chan said she told Clark, “This environment does not provide adequate shelter … under the law. I honestly think I need to seize them. They have needs, and you are not able to provide for them.”

Clark “was living in Annapolis and coming once a day” to tend the animals, Chan said, adding that Clark agreed to give up all but one of the cats. In all, 18 cats and 54 dogs were taken to the shelter or placed in foster homes.

After a court finding that only 10 of the dogs needed emergency care and were subject to seizure, Loudoun County Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Jason Faw filed to retry the case "de novo" in Loudoun Circuit Court. After a Dec. 14 hearing, Chamblin issued an opinion the next day.

Clark’s attorney, Robert Vernail, said no decision had been made about whether to appeal and declined to comment further.

"I am very disappointed in the judge's ruling,” Clark said Friday. "I was trying to protect the dogs. I am very hopeful they will find them all good homes. In truth they were all in good shape medically; there was nothing seriously wrong with anyone."

Clark said her pet rescue service is no longer operating in Maryland.

Thursday's court ruling frees the animal shelter staff to place the healthy animals for adoption and resume accepting pet surrenders, which were curtailed in August because of limited space. 

Chan said most of the seized dogs are thriving. One cat, Lin, makes its home in the office of a shelter director.

The first group of animals will be available for adoption from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, and Sunday, Dec. 18, at the Loudoun Animal Shelter, 39820 Charles Town Pike, Waterford, VA 20197.