By Neale Gulley
Niagara Gazette
WHEATFIELD —
One-time Wheatfield dog rescue operator Joelle Kott waived a scheduled court appearance Tuesday in Wheatfield Town Court regarding animal cruelty charges filed last month.
Kott was first arrested Jan. 29 on charges of child endangerment when more than 20 dogs — some suffering from a range of maladies — were found living in her home on Norman Road alongside two children, ages 12 and 2. One of the dogs was dead.
Another 24 dogs were at the time removed from PitStop Puppy’s dog rescue, which Kott ran in a rented former kennel at 3049 Niagara Falls Blvd. Since then, Niagara County Sheriff Capt. Kristen Neubauer said a “thorough investigation” also resulted in Kott’s arrest June 10 on six counts of cruelty.
Outside of town court on Tuesday about a dozen protesters waited with signs inscribed with phrases like “dogs demand justice” and “torture = jail time” alongside pictures of supposed blood, excrement and injuries from or incurred by dogs at the former rescue shelter. The group formed on Facebook in recent months, in part led by Lisa Liddle, a North Tonawanda resident who says she volunteered at PitStop Puppy’s from approximately October 2009 to the time the shelter was shut down.
Liddle claims Kott had been purchasing dogs and perhaps even breeding dogs for puppies in search of a profit despite the lack of space, heat and food.
“She was buying dogs on Craigslist. She was pulling females from out of state shelters ... this isn’t a case of a hoarder being overwhelmed ... this was methodical greed (and abuse),” Liddle alleges.
Those claims have not been confirmed by authorities. Liddle herself concedes abuse was likely not a goal but a consequence.
She said the Facebook group was formed to petition Niagara County District Attorney Michael Violante for stiffer charges and to keep the issue at the forefront of the public’s attention. The Facebook page, with more than 8,000 members, has a petition for harsher punishment signed by about half that many people.
“We’re just citizens, neighbors, we are not an official organization,” she said. “We formed mainly to make sure the animals are not put down and to make sure that charges are pressed.”
According to Liddle, homes or alternative shelter has been found for all the dogs so far. In January, Sheriff’s deputies and SPCA personnel reported 46 living animals were seized, 24 from Kott’s home, 22 from the shelter and one that was dead.
Liddle, said the total number of dogs in Kott’s care was closer to 60 and said she visited the home and witnessed conditions first hand.
“We went to a head over the dogs’ condition,” she said about the nearly three months she spent volunteering for Kott. “On one hand I was trying to be nice to her and on another my husband and I were going to re-light the kerosene heater at 3 in the morning ... she just kept taking more and more dogs,” she said.
Liddle said she called the SPCA Jan. 2, almost a month before authorities intervened, after forming her belief that Kott may have been attempting to profit from breeding puppies.
The growing suspicion that Kott had more dogs at her home was just one reason she said she was finally compelled to file a complaint, she said. Authorities in January said a different complaint prompted them to initially pay visits to both locations.
Kott’s appearance Tuesday on the latest charges was canceled after Kott, according to a court clerk, sent in a document waiving her right to the meeting. A future appearance will be scheduled.
The six most recent charges accuse Kott of overdriving, torturing and injuring animals while failing to provide adequate sustenance.
Kott is said to have kept far more animals than the shelter could sustain, many of them at her home, where conditions were described as deplorable by authorities.
“(The charges) are based on a co-investigation between the Niagara County SPCA and Niagara County Sheriff’s Department and based on detailed documentation from our veterinary tech Kari McAlee,” SPCA Board President Brandi Scrufari said of the almost five-month investigation. “The dogs were in various (states) and suffering from malnutrition.”
No food or water were present at the shelter or at Kott’s home, he had previously stated. Also, despite the presence of kerosene heaters at the shelter, temperatures were documented at 30 degrees when authorities seized the animals.
Scrufari said an autopsy concluded that the dead dog authorities took from Kott’s home in January had not eaten for at least 24 hours prior to the time of its death.
The latest charges include that incident as well as the equally severe mistreatment of five other living animals examined by investigators since then.
