Dog Returned As Group Relents: Chatham Family, Pet Together Again
By Leah Friedman, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
Jan. 18–PITTSBORO — A Chatham County rescue group gave Liza Terll her dog back Tuesday after the group’s president said three board members had received threats.
The story of Shelby, a Toto look-alike, has riveted readers of the Chatham Chatlist, a local Listserv. Some threatened to withhold donations to Best Buddies Companion Rescue and Adoption until the dog was returned.
The tale begins in November when the Terlls let Shelby outside to play with their two other dogs. Their backyard opens onto 300 acres of woods, Terll said.
Usually Shelby jumps at the door to be let back in. When she did not return, the Terlls feared the worst — that she was dead. “We thought coyotes had gotten her,” Terll said.
Terll did not check the Chatham County Animal Shelter and admits now that was a mistake.
“I wasn’t being neglectful,” she said. “I just didn’t think of it.”
Terll later learned Shelby had been there about a week before the Best Buddies rescue group took custody of her.
In December, the Terlls saw a couple holding their dog. The couple said they had just adopted the little brown dog from the rescue group. They whisked her to their car as Terll’s 6-year-old daughter Tess wailed, Terll said.
Terll wrote the couple a letter.
“Ever since Shelby disappeared I have prayed ‘God, please let Shelby be okay’ — I just neglected to add — and bring her home (another mistake on my part),” she wrote in the letter she provided to The News & Observer.
Soon after, the couple returned Shelby to Best Buddies. Terll contacted the group but was told she could not have Shelby back.
Carrie Griffin, Best Buddies’ president, said she and board members Katie Wasileski and Pam Sullivan denied the request because the family did not meet the group’s adoption standards. The dog was not spayed, she said, had no tags and had tested positive for a tick-born virus that can be fatal if untreated, Griffin said.
John Sauls, manager of Chatham County Animal Control, said the county shelter regularly contracts with rescue groups to help adopt animals. He said he has been working with Best Buddies for less than a year.
Sauls would not comment on this case, but he did say if a dog was at the shelter when a family reclaimed it, state law would require returning it to the original owner.
He said he may look at the Best Buddies contract and add a clause requiring the group to return an animal if the owner reclaims it.
Hours after Griffin told The N&O on Tuesday that best Buddies would not return Shelby, she called back to say the group had dropped her off at a veterinarian’s office for the Terlls to pick up.
Griffin said the board had received threats and it wasn’t worth risking their safety to keep the dog. She said Terll’s husband, George, left a threat on an answering machine and that she was going to file a complaint. As of Wednesday, neither the Pittsboro magistrate nor the sheriff’s office had a record of any complaint.
Terll confirmed that her husband had called the group but denied he made any threats. She said she was elated to get Shelby back and sorry things went as they did.
The veterinarian brought the dog to the house Tuesday.
“When I got home from work, Tess and my son were already in bed with the dog,” Terll said.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
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