Our Animal Haus: Destroyed

Animal Control and Dr Pinero and staff at Our Animal Haus with Carolyne and Teddy on September 25, 2009. Everyone looks happy. A little over one month later, most of these animals that were vaccinated, treated, and groomed on this day, would be dead. How on earth could this happen?

Carolyne Mas once graced the airwaves in 1979 with her sax-driven anthem, "Stillsane", a song about holding on to one's sanity in the face of conflict. Today she faces that battle for real.

After working as a professional musician for over 30 years (her first paid gig was at the age of 13), Mas went on in 1998 to form an animal sanctuary in Nashville, Tennessee called "Our Animal Haus". The sanctuary was moved to Florida in 2004 after Mas' father died and she volunteered to care for her Aunt with Alzheimer's along with her grieving mother.

After finding a perfect location in Brooksville, the sanctuary thrived. Its residents included the original dogs from Tennessee, all of whom were elderly large mixed breed dogs, and cats who had AIDS and were HIV positive. Carolyne and her husband were committed to providing them with a safe and beautiful place for them to spend the rest of their lives. They also began to take in several exotic birds, some with special needs, as well as several horses, one of them blind. "Our Animal Haus" was becoming a safe haven for the unadoptable, unwanted, and special needs animals who otherwise would have had no place to go.

Beginning in February of 2009, Mas and her husband began to have several visits from Animal Control of Hernando County. One of the complaints had been prompted by a call from a recently fired and disgruntled employee. Unbelievably enough, another complaint came from a Facebook friend after seeing Carolyne's plea for donations. Still, Animal Control was friendly, even helpful, and everything was quite congenial.

On September 10th, Logan Neill, an Arts and Entertainment journalist for the Hernando Times, a branch of the St. Pete Times, requested an interview with Mas in response to an article called "Carolyne Mas: Her Animal Haus", which had come out in the Huffington Post on September 9th. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/holly-cara-price/carolyne-mas-her-animal-h_b_280216.html Mas granted this interview, even providing the name and phone number of one of her "friends" at Animal Control as a reference. After all, just 2 weeks earlier, they had said she was a "good sanctuary".

But...something wrong happened. In direct breach of his ethics as a journalist, Logan Neill, who had not even taken a tour of "Our Animal Haus", used the number given to him by Carolyne to instigate some sort of trouble. Although Mr. Neill denies having done anything of the sort, Animal Control claims just the opposite. Mr. Neill also stated that he was "skeptical" from the beginning, when confronted as to what his possible motive could be for causing such terrible destruction.

What ensued was nothing short of a nightmare. Logan Neill began to profit from the situation. He proceeded to write a series of slanderous articles for the Hernando Times, containing undocumented information and outright lies about "Our Animal Haus" and its owners. Animal Control began to seize the animals at "Our Animal Haus", first by taking Ginger, a 30-year-old mare, and then euthanizing her. They falsely claimed she was suffering from malnutrition and was instead 18 years old, despite her previous Vet records stating her birth date as 8/20/1979.

On October 30, almost 200 animals were seized from "Our Animal Haus" because of false allegations made by Animal Control, stemming from the euthanizing of Ginger. These animals included all of the dogs, all of the cats, perfectly healthy exotic birds, as well as healthy pure bred horses and ponies. Animal Control would end up putting down all of the elderly dogs and almost all of the cats, robbing them of living out the rest of their lives in peace. They would, however, go on to profit from the sale of the birds and the horses, and a handful of small pure-bred dogs.

Presently there are cases all across the US where Animal Control or the local humane society has acted outside the scope of local ordinances and illegally confiscated animals, from valuable show dogs and show cats, to well kept breeding birds, to thoroughbred horses.

Apparently these local officials have learned that they can achieve three goals:
1) adopt out (sell) animals and property for money,
2) receive donations from the public for their "good" work
3) receive commendations from their superiors

Therefore, they have financial reasons for "taking animals under color of law." However, they generally use the argument that the animals are abused, not properly cared for, starving, or treated cruelly. They are quick to euthanize any animals that will be too much trouble to keep and that cannot be adopted to the public for money. These many types of cases are being documented due to this outrageous assault on constitutional rights of animal owners in the U.S.

Carolyne's Fourth Amendment rights were clearly violated by the illegal search and seizure of her animals and expensive bird cages, and Animal Control fast-tracked her case, acting often without any official paperwork allowing them to do so, robbing Carolyne of her Fifth Amendment right to due process; She was never given enough time to secure an attorney.

Prior to Christmas, Carolyne and her husband found out through an email from Logan Neill, that she and her husband are being charged with 2 counts of criminal misdemeanor animal cruelty. This comes nearly 2 months after the illegal seizure of their animals, and despite the fact that they have irrefutable evidence of no wrong doing.

Through supporters of her case, Carolyne was able to find an attorney who has experience with these kinds of confiscations and issues of civil rights. She has been able to scrape together part of the money needed to retain him, but she still needs to raise more. Carolyne has paid dearly for the emotional loss of her long time companions, and the ones whom she sheltered from harm for so long. She will never see any of them again. Her name and reputation has been unfairly and unmercifully slandered by the press who gave her little time to tell her own story. You can help her finally get the justice that she so well deserves by going to "Our Animal Haus" at www.ouranimalhaus.org and making a donation, or by contacting her directly at samlorac@aol.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,
The Supporters of Our Animal Haus
www.ouranimalhaus.org