Cruelty charges derail breeder's dream
Deborah Tetley
Calgary Herald
Sunday, December 15, 2002
Athena Lethcoe-Harman is reunited with a few of her dogs at the search and rescue headquarters in Shelby,Mont. She was travelling with the dogs from Alaska to their new home in Arizona when they were stopped at the United States border and charged with 183 counts of animal abuse.
Athena Lethcoe-Harman with a few of her dogs at the fairgrounds in Shelby, Mont.
CREDIT: LORRAINE HJALTE, CALGARY HERALD
A couple of eight-week-old collie puppies take a rest. The dogs are part of a large group getting a lot of love and attention from volunteers in Shelby, Mont. They were rescued from a poorly ventilated semi travelling from Alaska to Arizona.
As she pulled away from her Alaska home and looked to the future, longtime collie breeder Athena Lethcoe-Harman was confident she was en route to realizing a three-year dream.
She, her husband, Jon Harman, and friend Jon Krekt were bound for the warmth of Arizona, free of the deep freeze that is Kenai with an eye on rejuvenating their dog-breeding business.
Little did Lethcoe-Harman know the days ahead would deliver an $8,000 vehicle fire, a mountain of allegations of animal abuse, a pending jury trial, visceral outrage from breeders and pet owners across North America and the threat she might lose her dogs.
"My whole business, my whole career, my whole life is flashing before my eyes," the 40-year-old woman said recently while awaiting trial in Shelby, Mont. "I have been charged, tried, convicted and hung."
So, it is with trepidation Lethcoe-Harman, a well-known collie breeder to those in the business, agreed to an interview with the Herald.
She's already pleaded not guilty to 183 charges of animal cruelty and a six-person jury is expected to decide her fate
Jan. 21 and 22. She fears, even if found not guilty, she'll never fully recover emotionally or financially. On the other hand, she's ready to try to dispel widespread belief she's little more than an animal hoarder.
"I'm not a nut," she says.
In an animated and emotional conversation -- with her mother by her side -- Lethcoe-Harman explains her version of events over the past month.
"My imagination is not good enough to have created in my mind what is actually happening," she says. "It was a nightmare from the moment we pulled up to the border."
The Harmans were charged with 183 misdemeanour counts of animal cruelty after customs officers at the Canada-U.S. border near Sweetgrass, Mont., pulled over a tractor trailer.
It was at about 11 p.m. on Halloween night and they were about eight days into moving their collie breeding operation from Alaska to Arizona.
Authorities allege the 171 dogs and 11 cats housed in airline carriers and homemade wooden crates were dehydrated and emaciated. Some of the crates had fallen over during transport and several dogs escaped upon inspection. Several were young puppies and seven others were born the night of the seizure -- five of which lived.
One dog was found dead and it's been reported there were 10 centimetres of urine and feces on the trailer floor. Some of the animals were said by a local veterinarian to be filthy, several had bleeding gums, two had ringworm and others were later found to have giardia.
The dogs are being cared for by volunteers at the fairgrounds and will remain in custody until the court decides their fate. The maximum penalty for a misdemeanour in Montana is a $500 fine or up to six months in jail.
Lethcoe-Harman says her troubles began the second day into the 6,100-kilometre trip. While she and her husband rode in the truck with a pregnant bitch in the cab and
170 dogs in the trailer, Krekt was travelling behind in a modified ambulance, towing a trailer.
She says her friend, in addition to the 11 cats, was hauling supplies -- including dog and cat food, grooming equipment, vaccination papers and American Kennel Club papers -- among other personal belongings.
At about 10 p.m. on Oct. 24, the engine caught fire and both units burned to the ground. Krekt rescued the cats from the trailer.
"My whole life was in that truck," Lethcoe-Harman says. "Water buckets, food, grooming supplies, pooper scoopers, medications."
An Alaska State Trooper's incident report dated Oct. 24, states the truck caught fire on Glenn Highway, 170 kilometres west of Anchorage. The report states both truck and trailer were destroyed.
"Arson is not suspected and no foul play was involved," it reads. The damage was estimated at $8,000 US and the trooper recorded that rabies vaccine papers were also destroyed.
That same day, less than 10 hours earlier, the Harmans had received a written warning from Anchorage Animal Control officers to produce rabies vaccine papers, within 24 hours.
"They were inspected for negligence and unsanitary conditions and didn't have proof of rabies vaccines," says AAC spokeswoman, Erin Myers.
They were issued a written warning to clean the crates and produce papers. "When the officers went back in the morning, the owners were gone," Myers says. "We never saw the papers."
Lethcoe-Harman says she and Krekt were running errands while her husband was walking the dogs when AAC dropped by. She says she was under the impression officials weren't adamant about seeing rabies papers.
"It was either move on or come up with papers, so we left," she says.
And so it was that the Harmans continued on, despite losing supplies and crucial paperwork.
"Going back wasn't an option at this point," she says. "We knew we were facing a tougher trip, but were determined to manage."
She planned to buy food for the animals along the way and had her veterinarian in Kenai fax rabies records to a business in Tok, Alaska.
Krekt, having lost his luggage in the fire, ceased his involvement in the trip.
According to Lethcoe-Harman, her journey from that point was relatively uneventful, even as she crossed the U.S.-Canada border. She says they pulled into the border at Beaver Creek, Yukon "ready to show everything." Instead, they entered without incident.
Although a spokesman for Canada Customs would not comment on this instance directly, citing privacy legislation, he says officials were obviously satisfied paperwork and background checks were in order or they would not have been allowed to proceed.
"Everything done was in accordance with the way we do business every day," said Dan McGrath, of the West Coast and Yukon district. "We see enough breeders that we expect to see large numbers of animals, so kennel moving isn't an unusual situation."
However, given the subsequent allegations and circumstances that transpired at the Montana border, he admits employees will be ever mindful.
"This has not escaped our attention," he says. "Hindsight is always there and when we have a situation where we have reminders it affects everybody."
Several days later, on Oct. 31 -- the same day of the seizure at the border -- the Harmans would once again be questioned by authorities and allowed to proceed.
Despite the work involved with caring for animals, the hours spent driving, and monitoring her blood sugar for her diabetes, Lethcoe-Harman says she remained focused throughout the trip. She was excited to resume her breeding operation on 28 hectares of her parents' property in Arizona. She'd already built kennels and shelters for the dogs, she says.
She fed and watered the dogs diligently along the trip south, allowing them plenty of time to exercise and cleaned their cages regularly.
"They were walking twice a day and never out for less than nine hours," she says.
She says the animals were walked in giant pens on whatever open spaces the couple came across. While 30 or so dogs walked, others were fed and kennels were cleaned and so the rotation continued. Since her husband, Jon, did all the driving, he would typically sleep while she tended the animals.
She says she bought "three or four bags" of dog food at a time at grocery stores in towns along the way, because she had no room to store bulk food.
(Since the seizure, the dogs have been eating almost 180 kilograms of donated dog food between two feedings each day, volunteers in Shelby say.)
Lethcoe-Harman insists the dogs were well-fed and healthy throughout the trip.
"Except for the ones who were dropping weight before we left," she says. "Some of the young, smooth ones, I could tell they were dropping weight before the trip, so I increased their food before we left."
At 12:30 p.m., Oct. 31, the same day the Harmans would be detained at the border, they were questioned by RCMP in Nanton after receiving a complaint about dogs barking in a trailer parked along the highway.
Const. Dan Palmer said he checked out the truck and noticed nothing untoward.
"I heard four, five, maybe six dogs barking in the box of the truck and saw nothing unusual," he says. "There was nothing suspicious."
He tracked Lethcoe-Harman down while she ate lunch and her husband slept.
"I asked her how many dogs and she told me about 75," he says. "She seemed forthright at the time."
Lethcoe-Harman says she can't remember what she told the officer about the number of dogs.
When asked by the Herald if she walked, fed or watered the dogs after she was questioned in Nanton, she replied: "No, we did it before lunch."
It wasn't until about 11 p.m. that the truck pulled up to the border at Sweetgrass-Coutts, for what began as a routine inspection. When U.S. Customs officers opened the back of the truck, several dogs jumped out and the smell of ammonia was overwhelming, Toole Country Sheriff Kevin Gates says.
Lethcoe-Harman agrees the optics of the situation are, at the least, disturbing. "I admit it didn't smell good and the dogs were dirty to start with," she says, adding it had rained for 30 days straight in Kenai and the dogs became muddy. "But the urine they said was leaking and frozen to the truck, was actually Pine Sol," she says.
The animals weren't brought to the fairgrounds until after 4 a.m. Meanwhile, the Harmans were charged with five counts of animal cruelty and taken to the sheriff's office. At one point, Lethcoe-Harman, a diabetic, was hospitalized then released on her own recognizance. Her husband posted $500 bail. The additional charges were added the next morning.
"I was scared and overwhelmed and totally stunned," Lethcoe-Harman says. "I couldn't believe what was happening. After all our hard work, the only things I had ever walked with and talked with and loved were being taken from me."
The woman's mother, Nancy Lethcoe, says her daughter is not only a professional breeder, but a loving owner who even allowed dogs to roam in her home. "To accuse her of animal abuse is just not right," she says. "Accuse her of house abuse, yes, but animal abuse, never."
Jean Levitt, president of the American Working Collies Association, was in Shelby last week overseeing professional grooming of the animals. She says the majority of breeders and each of her "top 10" across North America keep fewer than a dozen dogs.
"A breeder of the finest quality dogs only keeps about four to six and produces about two to three litters a year," she says.
"Anything more than that I don't consider a fine quality kennel."
Levitt says an operation the size of Lethcoe-Harman's would require a staff of many.
"This operation is, by far, the biggest I have ever known of."
Lethcoe-Harman agrees caring for the dogs is time-consuming. She says she spent 16 hours a day with the animals. However, it wasn't supposed to be this way, she says.
"I didn't want to move this many dogs because I never intended to have this many."
One contributing factor to the volume, she says, is her refusal to euthanize an animal. "There are many breeders who . . . will put the animal down when they are no longer part of the breeding program," she says. "I wouldn't put old dogs down -- they've given too much for me."
© Copyright 2002 Calgary Herald