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Nikiski dog breeders charged with cruelty
BORDER: Customs agents find 171 dogs and 11 cats stuffed into semi trailer filled with animal waste
By Jon Little
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: November 7, 2002)
U.S. customs agents working in the cold Halloween night at the Canada-Montana border thought something was amiss when they saw frozen urine caked to the outside of a 40-foot semi trailer. Then they heard the yapping of dogs. When officers poked their flashlights inside, they found 11 cats and 171 dogs packed in crates and up to 4 inches deep in their own waste, according to Montana's Toole County sheriffs. Most of the dogs were long-haired collies belonging to breeders Jonathan Lewis Harman, 49, and Athena Anne Lethcoe-Harman, 40, of Nikiski. The Harmans told officers at the U.S. port of entry at Sweetgrass that they were moving their kennel from Alaska to Arizona. The couple was immediately arrested. Each of the Harmans has since been charged with 182 counts of animal cruelty.
One of the dogs died during the weeklong journey out of Alaska, and several had to be carried out because they couldn't walk. The air inside the trailer was so thick with ammonia that sheriffs had to stand back and wait a while after they had opened the rear door. Inside, some dogs were stored in 66 wooden boxes built along the floor of the 40-by-8-foot trailer. The rest were inside airline kennels stacked three high and secured with bungee cords and nylon rope, officers said. Several kennels had fallen in transit.
"The animals were extremely dehydrated. Many were emaciated," said Deputy Sheriff Don Hale. "I've been a street officer for 14 years, and I'm not saying I've seen it all or done it all, but I've seen a lot of things and walked into situations most people would run from. When I came out of the trailer after taking my initial photographs, I wanted to cry. It was deplorable, absolutely deplorable."
About 20 firefighters unloaded the dogs.
"There was no ventilation in there," said Linda Hughes, director of the Humane Society of Cascade County. "There's no way they could feed them or clean them."
Toole County Search and Rescue workers, sheriff's deputies, humane-society employees and volunteers fed the dogs, separated the males and females and moved them into horse barns at Marias Valley Fairgrounds in tiny Shelby, Mont. The city has nicknamed its fairgrounds "Camp Collie."
Shelby, the county seat, is 36 miles south of the Canada border along Interstate 15 in this hilly, rolling northern plain dominated by wheat fields and dotted with oil rigs. One of the rescued collies has since given birth to eight pups, so the grand total of dogs is 179. That's a lot of collies for a town of 3,200 people to deal with.
"These animals are evidence, so, 24-7, we have to have someone there," Hale said. The sheriff's office broadcast a plea over the radio Friday night, and by Saturday morning residents were pouring into the fairgrounds, Undersheriff Donna Matoon said.
Some, along with a couple of 4-H groups, volunteered to feed and care for the animals; others brought dog food. By Saturday afternoon, residents and businesses had donated about 100 bags of chow, she said.
Volunteers feed the dogs at 9 a.m and 4 p.m., and are walking all the dogs on leashes, sometimes two or three at a time. The collies are drinking 300 gallons of water a day, Hale said. Those dogs that initially couldn't walk are doing fine, and all of the animals appear to be happy with the attention, he said.
On Wednesday, veterinarians were checking the collies' teeth and gums. Some were found to have ringworm and ear mites, but there was no sign of parvo, a highly contagious gastric disease that usually is fatal to dogs. Camp Collie is quarantined until the veterinarians are done with the tests, Hale said. The dogs are recovering quickly, but the legal case is in its early stages. Athena Lethcoe-Harman is a diabetic and had to be hospitalized after her arrest, so she was released Friday without bail, Hale said. Jonathan Harman posted $500 bail on Saturday. The couple drove out of Shelby in their blue Peterbilt truck, but the county kept the trailer and its contents as evidence. On Wednesday, Jonathan Harman was back at his Nikiski home, a remote one-story frame house at the end of a gravel road near the Agrium fertilizer plant. The house is almost hidden beneath old-growth spruce trees. A quaint, hand-painted sign of a collie and the kennel's name, Valiant Collies, is hung along the driveway.
The Harmans breed and sell collies for show and have a Web site that advertises their stock. Inside the house it is dusty and cluttered, with aging, 1970s-era furniture and stereo components.
A pile of burning trash was smoldering in the rain near the front door, and Harman was busily packing food and other belongings into cardboard boxes. A fit-looking man with short, dark hair and glasses, he was wearing a red chamois work shirt and jeans. He was plainly worried but politely declined an interview, saying his lawyer had advised him not to speak with anyone. Dilapidated fenced pens surround the house. More pens are nearby in the woods, said Nancy Henrickson, a Kenai dog groomer who walked through the property Tuesday, a day before Harman came home. The empty pens are lined with sawdust. Many are strung with electrified wires leading to jumper cables, presumably so they could be attached to a 12-volt car battery, she said.
An animal cruelty charge in Montana is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum penalty of a $500 fine and six months in jail. Judges also have the power to order convicts to forfeit their animals and pay restitution. They also may be banned from owning animals for the duration of their sentence, according to Toole County prosecuting attorney Merle Raph.
The earliest that the Harmans could be brought to trial in Montana would beDecember or January, Raph said, so Shelby could be collie country for weeks to come. The dogs can be parceled out, but not adopted, until the trial is complete.
It will cost an estimated $35,000 a month to care for the dogs, so the county has set up a fund and is seeking cash donations. Checks can be made to Toole County Communities Collie Rescue Fund, First State Bank, 260 Main St., Shelby, MT 59474. The bank's telephone number is 406-434-5567.
Reporter Jon Little can be reached at jlittle@adn.com or at 907-260-5248. The Associated Press contributed to this story.
may send a check to: Bethany Burke AWCA Treasurer 2807 Lee Trevino Court Shalimar, FL 32579
Make the check out to AWCA and in the memo note: collie rescue-medical, or stainless steel bowls or collie rescue general Thank you for all that you are doing,
Jean Levitt, President AWCA
Lisa King, Director AWCA Collie Rescue
See the conditions these Collies were forced to live in BEFORE they made their move.
