I received this email from a woman who adopted a dog from Guzoo's 'Large Breed Dog Rescue' the first weekend of August. Her experience speaks volumes of the poor level of care given to the animals at Guzoo Animal Farm. Her letters are bolded, Irene Gustafson's are not.

I am writing to report an incident that happened to us this past weekend.
My husband and I have been looking for a new small dog to get for our family for a while now. We had applied to a few dog rescue organizations, and had been checking the SPCA, and other websites looking for a suitable dog, but had not yet found a good match. I recently came across the Kijiji website, which has a dogs for sale category. On Friday (the 3rd) I spotted 3 ads for small dogs for sale from GuZoo Large Breed Rescue. One was a ShihTzu, one was a Terri-Poo, and the last was a 3 legged Brussels Griffin. Although I had heard some bad things about this place I decided to contact Irene Gustafson to see if any of the 3 were suitable for us. Here is a copy of my original email, as well as her response....

Adopter:

I am inquiring about 3 of the dogs I saw listed.
The Terri-poo, the Shih tzu/havanese, and the Brussels. We are looking for a
small indoor dog to join our family. We have a 2 & 4 yr old, as well as 3
dogs, a Springer Spaniel, and a bird. So the dog would need a suitable
personality. Preferably cuddly and still playful, with no shyness, or snappiness.
Please let me know if any of these dogs might be suitable.
Oh, and we live on an acreage just outside Sundre. Thanks, (Name removed)

GUZOO:

Thanks for your email. Out of the three little guys I have here, the best match for you would be the Brussels. You might have read on the site she only has three legs, but she is outgoing, affectionate and has been around other dogs with no problems. House training might be an issue however. She will likely need training in that area.

The Terri-poo is a nice little dog, but a little on the timid side, something she might grow out of or not, it is hard to say. She is kind and playful and desires affection also. The Shih Tzu has already found a home.

If you think you are still interested, please phone.

Irene Gustafson
GuZoo Animal Farm
Box 898, Three Hills, AB
T0M 2A0
403 443-7463

ADOPTER:

Please note that in my email where it says 3 dogs should have read 3
cats. My typing mistake.

As you can see I made it clear that we wanted a good family dog. After receiving her reply email I phoned her to ask some further questions about the griffin. I didn't find out much more than what she said in the email, except that the dog had not been examined by a vet (in her words "for $50.00 it is Buyer Beware"), and she did not know ANY history about the dog except that she was brought to them by some friend of hers (a woman) who lives in Strathmore and gets unwanted dogs all the time.

When I asked about the missing leg she told me that it had been bitten off by the mother dog (although how she knew this without knowing any history???).

So on Monday, after I called Irene to see if the dog was still there and was told that she was and that 2 couples from Calgary had looked at her but she didn't fit their lifestyles, my family and I decided to go have a look at her. When we arrived a clueless office worker took us to see the poor dog. The first thing that struck me was the condition of the enclosure. It was very dirty, and there was 5 piles of feces, none of which looked fresh. Now, we had arrived at about 11 am, and I would have expected the cage to have been cleaned by then, but it didn't look as though the feces had been picked up for a couple of days, not to mention the overall filthiness of the cage.

The next thing I noticed was the dog. The office worker was trying to corner her to put a leash on her (they had no collar for her, just the leash tied to make a choke chain), but the dog kept running away, and was visibly shaking. So the office worker asked me to come in and help grab her. I did and managed to get the leash on her. The worker left the cage to see if Irene could come tell me more about the dog. Irene never did come out. She was far too busy putting away her groceries.

After I took the dog out and petted her a bit she seemed to calm down. Her coat felt and smelled as though she had not been bathed for a long, long time and had small mats all over. I could understand (sort of) the dog seeing a vet, but to not have been groomed even a little bit? I was appalled to say the least. And I knew then that we would not allow her to stay at that hellhole.

This poor little thing needed to be rescued from this so called rescue organization.

So we filled out the purchase form, paid our $50 without any sort of receipt I might add, and took her home.

After about an hour or so at our house it became apparent that 'Honey' was very hard of hearing. I looked closer at her ears and thought they looked very strange. I could see no visible ear canal. But because I have had no experience with small griffin type dogs I did not know if that was normal. I was also concerned about her swollen genitailia, but she was in heat so once again I didn't know if that was normal. I just knew that it didn't look like any other female dog I'd seen. But regardless, I phoned our vet and she came out to examine Honey, and vaccinate her (I didn't want to expose my other dog to her until I was sure she was healthy). My vet commented about her poor condition regarding her coat, and nails (and this was after I had bathed her and brushed some of the mats from her back).And then was shocked to see the condition of her ears. Her ear canals were almost totally closed due to repeated ear infections, and would require daily cleaning but would still likely be painful for her, or the other option was surgery with an estimated cost of around $2000.00. At this point we were still willing to keep Honey and check into the surgery for her. So we had her vaccinated and had planned to get her in to get spayed ASAP.

Later that day after things settled down a bit I noticed that Honey would now let no one near her except myself. At one point she actually growled at my husband when he came into the house. Then later she was lying on the couch beside me and my 2 yr old was trying to get up too when she suddenly snapped at his face. I thought that she had actually bit him, but I didn't see any blood. After calming my child down and talking to my husband we decided that if she displayed any more aggression that we would have to surrender her. At this point I was quite worried because my 2 yr old had not done anything to provoke the attack. He hadn't pulled her fur, or poked her or anything else of that nature.

Shortly after the incident with my youngest she was lying under the kitchen table where my kids and I were sitting. My 4 yr old got off his chair and was about 3-4 feet away from Honey (I had told them both to not try to pet her again until I said it was ok) when he looked under the table. She again lunged and snapped at him.

After that she was kept in our bedroom for the safety of my kids. The next morning I made calls to try to find a place for her right away. I was scared for my kids, and did not want them to become scared of dogs (our other dog, the Springer, is great with them) so I wanted her out as soon as possible. The first one that I was able to contact was the Calgary SPCA, and they agreed to take her. When I took her in and they did their initial exam, besides the missing leg and closed ear canals she also had prolapsed genitailia. They estimated around $4000.00 in surgery. Buyer beware indeed!!

This was a terrible, heartbreaking experience for both me and my family. But to have left her at GuZoo was not an option. I feel horrible that other people out there may have to go through the same type of ordeal that we did, and after speaking with the admissions staff at the SPCA I know I am not the only one to be mislead.

How this family can continue to operate under the guise of a Rescue Organization is deplorable! I have filed a complaint with the Alberta SPCA, and I also notified Irene Gustafson about what happened.

This was her response.

GUZOO:

I am sorry about the Griffin female. I don't know what to say. Please understand we do the best we can, we choose to keep our adoption fees low and the only way we can do that is not to offer vet examinations for each animal. I don't knowingly adopt out sick or diseased animals, but I am not a vet and can only make a judgement call. Obviously I judged poorly in this case.

We tempermant test each dog and I can assure you we would NEVER adopt out a dog if we had reason to believe he/she has aggressive tendencies. I worked with that dog personally myself, and never did she ever give me reason to believe she would snap or bite.

Yes I know the dog was in need of grooming, but that is a service we simply cannot provide here. I don't think it is asking too much of new dog adoptees to bath their own dog. It can be a form or bonding and getting to know each other.

I am sorry you feel the way you do about our facility. We get many happy
emails from people who simply love their new companion. I am sorry you had such a negative experience here at our rescue.

Irene Gustafson
GuZoo Animal Farm
Box 898, Three Hills, AB
T0M 2A0
403 443-7463

I would point out her statement that they cannot provide grooming to the dogs. As far as I know this is a basic requirement for most dog breeds, and to prevent access to basic needs would seem to be a case of animal cruelty and/or neglect, would it not???

Anyhow, sorry this was so long, but I wanted to get it all down while it was still fresh in my mind. And I hope to be able to prevent any other kind hearted people from having to go through this situation. Oh, and I am not an animal activist, nor do I support PETA. I'm just a regular animal lover who can't stand to see them in distress.

Thanks for your time,
Bonnie

** P.S. I have also contacted Canada Revenue Agency because of the fact that I was given no invoice, no receipt, and no GST was charged. If animal cruelty doesn't get the governments attention maybe tax evasion will!!!