ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220013
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DRAPER
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
He says the kennel is an outgrowth of his ministry at Emmanuel Independent Non-Denominational Christian Church, which he established in July.
The kennel will take animals for placement in homes, said Weaver. "We wanted to do something in the church that was different from what a lot of churches do."
Because of a deadly virus among the animals, the kennel is now closed until April. By then, Weaver estimated, he would have 100 animals ready for placement, including the more than 50 dogs he has and new dogs he is accepting.
At the kennel, about 10 dogs are tied outside, a few more are caged in the basement, and dozens of puppies are held in outdoor wire cages.
Unable to get volunteer help, even from the dozen people who attend his services, he and his fiancee, Annette Jenkins, are caring for the dogs at a brick home that doubles as the church.
"So far, the two of us have run all this," he said. "We have not had the support for this that we thought we were going to get."
He sold dogs for $30 as pets, he said. Others could be used as guard dogs. He also plans a pet ministry in which a dog or puppy is loaned to senior citizens for companionship.
He advertised for puppies and dogs not only in Virginia but as far off as Tennessee, North Carolina and Maryland, often driving there to pick them up. In December, the kennel had 147 animals.
"If we did not take those dogs and puppies at that time, they would have been put to sleep," Weaver said. "We successfully placed over 70 puppies in the past two months."
But some of those animals proved fatally ill. And visitors to the kennel started complaining that the animals were not adequately fed and housed.
Weaver said he lost 27 animals to parvo, a virus that causes bloody diarrhea, dehydration and usually death. "We have the virus under control now," he said. "The virus only affected puppies, not large dogs."
He is not going sell dogs from the kennel until April because of the parvo outbreak making a quarantine necessary and completion of improvements required by the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office.
"We know them inside and out," he said. "We'll guarantee your puppy's disposition before its adoption. ... If you bring us the ugliest dog in the world, we will keep that dog here until it is either placed or it dies of old age."
Kennels, pet shops and all establishments boarding animals are governed under the state Animal Welfare Act, which sets out minimal requirements such as the number of times animals must be fed and watered, the lengths of tethers, temperature extremes to which they can be exposed and so on.
Localities can strengthen the state regulations with their own, but Pulaski County has not chosen to do so. Until these citizen complaints came up, the county's responsibility had ended with the issuance of a kennel license.
Jackie Collins, director of the New River Wildlife Center in Blacksburg, and Amy Gathman of Blacksburg first visited the kennel on a cold day near the end of January after reading one of Weaver's fliers.
They couldn't find Weaver, but said they found dogs tied at doghouses without food or water, and some 45 puppies crowded into two small pens with a single igloo-like shelter in each one. Some of the puppies seemed emaciated, they said, and at least one seemed unable to stand.
They went to the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office for an animal control officer. At first they were told that the county's two officers did not work on weekends, but eventually persuaded a deputy to call one.
The officer, Joyce Crowder, and a deputy accompanied the women back to the kennel, expressed concern about the conditions, but were unsure whether they had the authority to declare an emergency and remove the animals. They called in a veterinarian, who agreed that some of the animals needed attention. But county officials decided they had no jurisdiction to act.
Some veterinarians say they are concerned about the apparent lack of authority to investigate or act on complaints about inhumane treatment of animals. "We had a problem with who was in charge, who can enforce the state code," said Dr. Debra Call, a Radford veterinarian who has treated animals from the kennel.
Some state officials have the same concern.
"We were a bit - well, I don't know - taken aback by the lack of involvement by the county," said Dr. R.D. Whiting, program coordinator with the state Agriculture Department's Office of Veterinary Services in Richmond. His office sent some staff members as advisers from its Wytheville laboratory on an inspection of the kennel following the initial complaints.
Whiting said the Sheriff's Office seems willing to do whatever is necessary and, acting on advice from the state people, set up deadlines for improving kennel conditions. Weaver said he has met those conditions.
"We've kind of left it at that point, for them to decide what they want to do as far as any legal action," Whiting said. "I think the local people have to decide whose responsibility this will be down the road. And, when they get that decision made, I think things will function a little bit better."
Weaver said he had bought nine doghouses, built larger wire enclosures for the puppies and made other improvements. "I'd say, the past six days, we've put out $2,500 just for the dogs," he said.
He said he and Jenkins, who left her job as a social worker with Pulaski County Social Services after 81/2 years to join him in his work, have gotten a few donations of materials. He said they have been supporting it, using money from such enterprises as selling firewood, doing lawn care and recycling discarded metal cans.
"We just can't let these dogs be abandoned or die," he said.
"But he's gone out and solicited animals that would not otherwise die," said Call, the Radford veterinarian. People who leave animals because they are relocating, for example, would not put those animals into the street if the kennel did not take them, she said.
"I know I've seen some animals from there that weren't treated well, were not nourished well," Call said. "One puppy came in that was very ill."
The person bringing that puppy had been told it was wormed and had all its shots, she said. "Of course it came here and it had every worm known to man in it, and had what we think was parvo." With intravenous feeding and other treatment, she said, that puppy pulled through. So did another brought in with what appeared to be parasitic worms.
Two puppies taken to another veterinary clinic were the first from the kennel found to have parvo, and had to be killed.
Julie Kalchik of Dublin said she and a friend had gone to the kennel to look for puppies. She said Weaver became defensive when she remarked on their condition, and refused to sell her one.
She said her companion bought two puppies that Weaver guaranteed to be healthy, but which were diagnosed with parvo at the West End Animal Clinic in Radford and were too far gone to save. She said Weaver refused to refund the money paid for them.
Weaver said people who complain about kennel conditions should volunteer to help with it. "Up until all this stuff happened, we were picking up 25 dogs a week," he said. "And that doesn't count puppies."
Weaver, who said he graduated from Moody Bible College and 17 international correspondence schools, is from Maryland. He said he came to Virginia working on a homeless survey for his church, and decided to separate from that church and start one of his own. "I've been all across the country," he said.
Jenkins, a Radford University graduate, met Weaver after reading a column on homelessness he published in a Pulaski newspaper. The kennel, and the church, are at her home, which includes more than two acres of property.
Weaver wants to use that acreage for a bigger kennel. "We'd like to put up a concrete facility there to house 500 dogs," he said. "I'm going to be building that kennel myself." Even so, he estimates that it will cost $25,000 just for materials.
That project may not be seen as good news to those who have been concerned about the animals in the existing facilities.
"We're going to do it, with or without their support. You will see this kennel in operation, even if we do not get one single supporter behind us," Weaver declared.
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Kennell owners Annette Jenkins and Terry Weaver holdby CNBTippy and Juju, two dogs that were left there by a couple who was
relocating and could not keep them. PAUL DELLINGER/STAFF
2. A chained dog plays with its water pan at Terry Weaver's kennel
in Draper. PAUL DELLINGER/STAFF