In an effort to keep this kosher, I am going to avoid names, dates and breeds. I am still trying to get back in contact with the person who this is about, so I do not want to out them, when their case has seen relatively little publicity and is not common knowledge.
Where to start? It's, even now, months after the occurrence, difficult for me to get my head straight concerning this. I know the facts, know the dates, but still am astounded and often melancholy about the whole issue. I guess the best place to start is not even at the beginning, but in the middle.
Logging onto Facebook one evening, I found that a friend of mine(who is involved in rescue, follows many of her local rescue pages, and helps me keep track of the rabbits I have sold) had tagged me in a photo shared by a rescue. It was a breed that I formerly had, that I had gotten out of fairly recently. "Cute", I thought, and then I started reading his story. It was a sad tale of rabbits who were living in an empty house, who had been seized on animal cruelty charges. There were 12 animals taken in all, some rabbits, a few guinea pigs, a reptile. I felt bad for the critters, and condemned the owner(one rabbit was reportedly dead when removed, the rest were underweight, no food, no water - a typical story). I flicked through the pictures, hoping I wouldn't see one I'd sold there... And my heart started sinking. I recognized some of the rabbits, and could identify all of the breeds. I knew a person in the area's rescue who bred those breeds, all of them. I knew she had JUST started with guinea pigs, and that the guinea pigs she had were the same breed as was in the rescue. I felt sick to my stomach, just horrified.
Of course, my next thought was to google the case. It was all just a coincidence. My friend wouldn't treat her animals like this, she loved them! We talked about our critters all the time, and we had become friends because of them! We'd shared bucks, exchanged rabbits. She'd transported for me, I'd given her tips and tricks I'd picked up. Occasionally I would even give her rabbits simply to sell them in her area, because I wasn't having luck selling them here, and didn't want to resort to butchering them. I'd seen her less than a week before, we'd been texting just a few days earlier.
Google was no help. The initial articles were vague, uninformative. No real information. Okay, there was one thing that rooted the panic in my stomach just a little deeper... The initial raid happened right around the time that my friend had stopped texting me back. It had only been 2 days, though, and it wasn't unusual for us to go several days without conversing. It wasn't like we were omg texting all day every day. And then I started following the story follow ups... And I saw her name.
And still, I tried to convince myself it was all just a big misunderstanding. That someone with the same name, in the same area, just HAPPENED to have the same breeds of animals. It could happen, right?
Of course it couldn't. And it didn't. After chasing my tail for a while, I finally got some answers. A mutual friend told me that yes, it was the friend, that it was way worse than the news even made it out to be. That there had been, all told, 150 dead animals removed from the home, including a puppy.
Of course, at this point, I had a minor breakdown, and went into a deep funk for a while. I didn't really want to do anything but lay in bed. I cried a lot, I was angry a lot, I was hurt and confused.
See, this friend, we had had a road trip less than a week before the raid happened. She was picking up some new rabbits for herself, and a couple to transport, and I went along for the ride to pick up my own new rabbits. It was good times, we had fun, we chatted, we talked about the animals I had sold her, discussed how her puppy was growing. When she left, I sent her home with a few of my favourite rabbits.
Of course I was hurt. This was someone I thought was my friend. I had sold/given her a number of rabbits that I cared greatly for, that I thought were going to a good home. These animals were not on the rescue page, and I could only assume the worst. I had just given her a number of new rabbits, who also weren't on the rescue page, where were they? Again, nothing but the worst could be assumed.
Of course I was confused. We had, less than a week before, been discussing these animals, their health and wellbeing, their breeding habits, the training of the pup. She had just told me she was considering getting another dog. How could someone talk like that, carry on a front like that, when they had multiple dead animals in their home at the time?
At the time of this writing, I still have not heard back from my friend. She is refusing contact with most people, and there is no news coverage of her story.
And the story does not even end there!
i contacted the rescue that was getting the rabbits, with a list of ear numbers, descriptions, gender/breed/etc, trying to locate my rabbits. I was ignored, turned away, lashed out at. Because all I wanted to know was if they knew if these rabbits were there.
I contacted the OSPCA with the same information. Left my name and phone number for the investigator to speak to concerning the rabbits. I wanted closure, I wanted to know if my rabbits had ended up in the garbage pile with all the rest. I was assured the investigator would call me back in a day or two. I have yet to receive that call.
In the end, I still do not know what happened with the rabbits I sold her. I do not know how many animals died in her home, and I do not know what thought processes allowed her to justify her actions. I do not know why she collected so many rabbits, especially knowing how much some of them cost, simply to allow them to die.
What I do know is how she got away with it for so long without a breeder going "wait a minute..."
She bought from many different breeders, importing from areas where they wouldn't have contact with the majority of the other breeders she was dealing with.
She bought large groups of rabbits under the pretense of growing to find the best of the litter and selling the rest, or of buying the group for a better price and selecting those she wanted, with intent to sell the rest.
She did not allow people into her home - she would come to your home, or meet you somewhere, but she would not invite you to her home.
She did not maintain a website or facebook page, and would not provide photos of her rabbits on request.
Now, the warning signs I learned from this.
The lack of photos and website should have been a clue in. Admittedly, some people are not technologically inclined, however, being a friend of this woman, I offered to make her a website. She agreed, however never provided me with photos or information about her breeding rabbits.
The lack of breeding success. In the entire year we were friends, she never once bragged about a litter, she never once shared the joy of finding the nestbox full of pink alien things, nor the sorrow of a missed breeding or unsuccessful kindle. She didn't have concerns that this doe was too fat, or that buck was heat sterile, or any of the normal breeding related complaints.
She was buying in LARGE quantities. When the raid happened, I was told that someone had to cancel over 20 sales that she had pending, with delivery at a show. Whenever there was a transport going on, she would have some rabbits on it. She was buying out entire breeding programs.
That she was always buying new rabbits right before a show, with the intent to show them. Her rabbits that had shown before never returned to the shows. She was always going to shows, but never bringing rabbits from her home.
She lent me a buck once, and the poor guy showed up, skin and bones. She told me that she had just gotten him and he had gone off his feed due to the stress of being moved. I accepted the explanation, I wormed him, fed him up and in the 2 weeks I had him had him looking and feeling like an actual rabbit again. When he came, he was so starved for nutrients that he didn't even want to breed the doe he was there to breed.
There were probably a million other little warning signs I missed.
The long and the short of it is, I was completely duped by someone who was not caring for their animals. Not only was I duped, but many breeders who considered her a friend were also duped. And it is an awful feeling.
And now, I am left, sitting on the fence, angry, hurt, betrayed... and yet still wanting to believe that it is all a misunderstanding, that it was a horrific tragedy and not intentional neglect that caused those animals to die.
I still want to believe that the person I came to know, that the friend I made, is still a good person.
And yet I still can't help but be angry that those animals needlessly lost their lives, that she lied to my face, that she wouldn't even offer an explanation.
Rest In Peace, Bonnet, Quinn, Finn, Santana, Batbun, Robin, Anya, Petrie, Snow, Kenya, Charlie, the two litters of unnamed babies. You deserved better than you got.
All the best to my friend, or former friend, or what have you - I just hope and pray that she gets the help that she so obviously needs.
It's not easy to sit on the fence and try to see both sides of things... You usually end up with a fence post up your butt, and can't see eye to eye with anyone.