UNLUCKY DOGS IN HER CARE
Pup rescuer hounded by ‘sick’ claims
A dogfight has erupted between a Manhattan animal rescue and a former employee who claims the group left vulnerable pups suffering.
Waldo’s Rescue Pen founder Emily Dyson has allegedly been fostering out seriously sick animals and several died on her watch, sources claim.
In one case, four puppies died of the highly contagious canine parvovirus, said Michaela Mele (right), a former employee and board member.
“She said she was treating them in whatever way she could. They never saw a vet,” Mele alleged.
Dyson called the deaths “heartwrenching” and said she had been communicating with a vet, noting, “The dogs’ symptoms were not consistent with parvo.”
To have the tragedy “thrown in my face publicly while suggesting it was somehow deliberate on Waldo’s part is just depraved,” Dyson said.
Mele also said that when dogs have died, Dyson “has wrapped them up in bags and put them in a dumpster.”
Dyson called the claim “flagrantly untrue and defamatory.”
Mele described Waldo’s as an operation mostly run out of Dyson’s lowerManhattan apartment, where sick dogs allegedly didn’t always get vet care, but adopters were charged up to $550, typical of many rescue groups.
Like many small animal rescues, Waldo’s brings in dogs from Southern states. Early one Saturday last month, Dyson and volunteers met a van filled with crated dogs at South Street Seaport.
At least five complaints have been filed against Waldo’s with the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. Dyson said she wasn’t aware of the complaints, but suspected they were filed to harass her.
Waldo’s is registered with the state, as required by law, but a department rep noted the agency does not inspect rescues, as it does pet dealers. Lauren Nute, 30, said she volunteered to foster Bleecker, a poodle covered in waste, but found him “extremely riddled” with heartworm, suffering from an ear infection and in need of dental work.
When she took Bleecker to her own vet, Dyson blew up and took the dog back, Nute claimed.
Dyson said dogs are rescued from “horrible conditions” and must be cleaned up by fosters because Waldo’s relies on volunteer help.
She noted that she paid Bleecker’s vet bill and personally fostered him after that. The dog has since been “adopted into a wonderful loving home” and is “thriving,” she said.
Dyson said she took the dog after Nute became “difficult and intransigent.” Nute complained to the state.
Isabella, 22, said her Waldo’s foster pup, a 7-year-old poodle named Hansel, “was clearly very ill” and died two weeks after she took him in.
“The people at the rescue seemed shaken and promised they would meet to re-evaluate things, but I don’t think I will ever recover from seeing his dead body in my hallway,” said Isabella, who declined to give her last name.
Dyson said she was unaware of the severity of Hansel’s illness and blamed Mele, who had been monitoring the foster dog.
Mele, meanwhile, said that after she was mauled by a rescued pit bull, Dyson responded by paying her ER bill and asking, “You’re not going to collect worker’s comp, right?”
Dyson denied the allegations, calling Mele “a bitter, disgruntled employee blindly seething for retribution” whom she recently fired for moving out of state.