Puppy importer brings in ‘defective’ animals, then leaves them at vet’s to be killed, says rescuer

An individual who imports puppies—perhaps from Hungary where there are many high-volume dog breeders—recently took two Jack Russell terriers to a vet in western Greece to have them euthanized because they were blind, according to a local rescue group.

Achaic Society for the Care of Animals president Anastasia Aravantinou said she is now fostering the two pups until they find adopters.

Aravantinou explained more about the puppies and the circumstances of their abandonment in the following interview with Animal Issues Reporter (AIR).

Interview with Anastasia Aravantinou, Achaic Society for the Care of Animals

Animal Issues Reporter (AIR): Do you know if the two puppies are related?  Are they from the same litter?

Anastasia Aravantinou: The puppies are not from the same litter. The baby girl is one month older but we rescued her one month later, as soon as we were told that there was one more.

AIR: Do you know if they are from the same breeder?  Or from the same pet shop?

Aravantinou: They come from the same importer. He abandons dogs at a veterinary clinic to be euthanized. The vet secretly finds homes for the dogs. The breeder and importer don’t even know that the dogs are still alive.

AIR: Do you know which country they came from?  Or which countries usually sell dogs to Greece?

Aravantinou: Their microchip numbers indicate that they come from Hungary.

AIR: Do you know which pet shop sold them?  Or were they bought through the Internet, or… ?

Aravantinou: We know that there is someone who imports them. I suspect it’s a private person, not an importer with documents and everything. Maybe he uses the Internet to find customers.

AIR: Have you been hearing about any other blind puppies coming from breeders to Greece or so far are these the only ones?

Aravantinou: No, I haven’t—not blind ones. But in general the breeders or the importers are working with vets who agree to put “defective” animals to sleep. There might be some who try to find animal welfare societies to give them the dogs for re-homing but this is all they do. They do not report the breeder or the importer.

We also have (my husband’s dog) a deaf American bulldog that was left to our vet to be put to sleep by the owner of the dog, not the breeder. The vet refused and she told us about the dog. My husband told her that he will adopt the puppy (at 30 days old). Our vet won’t put them to sleep. She will try to find a solution.

AIR: Why are they blind?  Born that way, or was there some injury or illness or… ?

We had them checked by a ophthalmologist (for humans) and he said they were born this way. He said that this might be a breed defect. We suspect that this is happening because of the inbreeding.

AIR: Did the people who bought them take them to veterinarians to be euthanized?

Aravantinou: No, the importer did.

AIR: Was it the same veterinarian or two different ones?

Aravantinou: Same veterinarian. The boy is 3.5 months old, the girl is 4.5 old. They come from different litters.

AIR: How did you find out about them? Did the veterinarian contact you and ask you to take the puppies into your program?

Aravantinou: A friend of a friend who knows the vet told us that he was in search of adopters for the puppies.

AIR: Is there any hope of treatment for the blindness or will they stay blind?

Aravantinou: No treatment can be done. They will stay blind. On the other hand they were born like that. They do not know that other dogs can see. They know me as a sound or a smell. Imagine them having an operation and them have to match my smell, my sound with me as an image. I think they would be so confused. I discussed this with the doctor and he said that it would extremely difficult for them to understand that they can see. How to explain to them what they see is what they used to smell or hear?

Anyway, if there was a treatment I would go for it, but there is not.

AIR: Are any adopters interested yet?

Aravantinou: Adopters no, fosters yes. They will go together to a very nice shelter we work with in Germany that will place them in new homes. The reliable families in Greece already have dogs and the ones who are searching for a dog prefer small ones—fluffy or purebred.

AIR: Any hope they might be adopted together?

Aravantinou: We will explain that they should be adopted together because they already know each other, they know how to play together. I want them to be adopted together.

I would love to keep them but I cannot. I have so many dogs to take care of and there will be always more that will need my help.

AIR: Bougatsa, the kitty in the video playing with the puppy is amazing. Is she always so gentle while playing with puppies or is she especially nice to these because they are blind?

Aravantinou: Bougatsa is one of my two cats. She was a stray kitten in a friend’s garden. She was playing there with the friend’s dogs. I adopted her immediately because I wanted a cat that is not afraid of the dogs and loves to play with them.

She is like that with all dogs except the American bulldog that chases her. I don’t let the two of them be in contact anymore because he cannot hear and he doesn’t know that she meows to him to go away.

She doesn’t know the puppies are blind.

AIR: About how many animals does ASCA rescue per year?

Aravantinou: ASCA rescues and re-homes 200 animals per year. The vast majority are dogs. We also rescue cats, horses and wildlife (foxes, birds, turtles)

We do not have a shelter and we foster the dogs in our homes. I foster in my home 15-25 dogs all the time.

The good thing is that through fostering in the home, we know how the dog will behave with other dogs, with cats, etc.

For example, I know how difficult a Jack Russell can be so there are strict rules for these two blind babies. They wake up at 7:00 a.m. and they go out to eat and play with the other puppies. They learn to share their food, to let another dog that is higher in hierarchy to eat first, etc.

They stay out of the house till the afternoon when I come back from work. Then they go into their crates and take a nap (two to three hours). Then they go out again and play till 10:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. Afterwards, they come in the house and back to the crates till the next morning.

By having this routine we ensure that they release all the energy and they do not destroy things or bark excessively etc. Plus when they get adopted they will know how to behave in the house.

To help ACSA with donations or volunteering contact Aravantinou at asca.email@gmail.com.

Visit ACSA’s Facebook page.

For more AIR on these two blind Jack Russell pups please see:

Rescued Jack Russell puppies don’t know they’re blind – watch them play

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Katerina Lorenzatos Makris is a career journalist, author, and editor. Credits include hundreds of articles for regional wire services and for  outlets such as National Geographic Traveler, The San Francisco Chronicle, Travelers’ Tales, NBC’s Petside.com, and Examiner.com (Animal Policy Examiner), a teleplay for CBS-TV, a short story for The Bark magazine, and 17 novels for Avon, E.P. Dutton, Simon and Schuster, and other major publishers.

Together with coauthor Shelley Frost, Katerina wrote a step-by-step guide for hands-on, in-the-trenches dog rescue, Your Adopted Dog: Everything You Need to Know About Rescuing and Caring for a Best Friend in Need (The Lyons Press).

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