Best Friends Network member Second Paw Rescue catastrophically stops working within a year of starting
PHILADELPHIA, Mississippi––If the roadway to hell for animals is paved with the good intents of misdirected people, Natalie Nicole Fancher Patten, 33, may be said to have actually raced past every possible exit at spectacular speed.
Founding Second Paw Dog Rescue simply past her 32nd birthday, Fancher/Patten, understood by both surnames, is a year later on dealing with likely felony disregard charges, In Defense of Animals’ Justice for Animals Project director Doll Stanley informed ANIMALS 24-7, for supposedly deserting an indeterminate variety of dogs––Stanley thought 60, from examining remains––to pass away in their cages of hunger and dehydration below the intense Mississippi summertime sun.
Mississippi Burning
Philadelphia, Mississippi, population about 7,200, has actually existed in infamy because regional members of the Ku Klux Klan, consisting of Neshoba County deputy constable Cecil Price, in June 1964 lynched civil liberties employees James Chaney, of Meridian, Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, 20, from New York City; and Michael Schwerner, 24, likewise from New York City.
Philadelphia, Mississippi, almost 60 years later on may have made even more withstanding infamy, a minimum of amongst animal supporters and dog-lovers, for having actually enabled the city dog pound to end up being “no kill” in 2022 by letting Natalie Nicole Fancher Patten “pull” a minimum of 40 dogs late in the year.
Doll Stanley
Some of those dogs, the majority of them pit bulls and pit blends, might have been amongst the skeletons in cages that Doll Stanley photographed.
A veteran of 37 years with In Defense of Animals, as one of the very first hires by creator Elliot Katz [see In Defense of Animals founder Elliot Katz dies at 86], Stanley has actually seen more than her reasonable share of cruelty and disregard cases up close.
Indeed, Stanley examined and assisted give a form of justice numerous of the most well-known puppy millers and bunchers of dogs for sale to labs ever.
High danger “rescues”
But Stanley was however seriously rattled by what she saw and photographed for evidentiary functions at the Second Paw Dog Rescue facilities on July 11, 2023, consisting of not just the dead dogs however likewise lots of pit bulls, among them chained to a tree, who were so aggressive that even as a long time pit bull rescuer, she might not go near them.
Even more distressing, Stanley informed ANIMALS 24-7, was that even as rescuers attempted to care for the enduring dogs, amidst the bones of others who may have been consumed by the survivors, individuals were still showing up anticipating to be able to drop off dogs, declaring to have Fancher/Patten’s consent.
And ignorant rescuers were wishing to have the ability to prevent euthanizing some dogs whom Stanley, as an extremely early critic of population control killing, evaluated as too hazardous, too incapacitated, and too transmittable to be kept securely to name a few dogs.
“I’m afraid euthanasia will be necessary in some of these cases,” Stanley said.
Incorporated in Texas
Second Paw Dog Rescue was initially integrated in Knox City, Texas, 75 miles north of Abilene, where William Joseph “Billy Joe” Patten, Fancher/Patten’s partner because 2020, worked for Victory Fleet Services, a truck upkeep business.
But Second Paw Dog Rescue does not appear to have actually ever in fact run in Texas, a minimum of with bundled not-for-profit status.
The recorded history of the organization started not long after Fancher/Patten on July 28, 2022 pointed out on Facebook that she was feeling sad due to the fact that, “I just found out not too long ago that the father to my 4-year-old passed away. I did not expect this today when I woke up. I know we had our differences and didn’t see eye to eye a lot,” Fancher/Patten said, “but it’s hurting me a lot more than I thought it would. I’m heartbroken. His kids, mom, dad, sister and the rest of his family are really hurting worse than I could imagine.”
Brock Wesberry
The deceased, Brock Wesberry, 34, of Ferriday, Louisiana, resembled Fancher/Patten initially from Lake Charles, Louisiana; completed at shot-put in high school; and since 2015, according to his Facebook page, was operating at Joe Reed Specialized Movers & Maintenance in Westlake, Louisiana, while studying prophetic ministry at the online AMI School of Prophets.
Not much appears to have actually come of that. In January 2018, around the time Fancher/Patten would have conceived with a kid who was 4 years of ages in July 2022, the Natchez Democrat reported that Wesberry, then 30, had actually simply been apprehended in Ferriday “on a bench warrant for failure to appear” in court on concealed charges, with bail set at $775.
Sociologists and psychologists who study hoarding habits have actually acknowledged for years that hoarding, whether of animals or anything else, generally starts coincidental with bereavement: the loss of a partner, kid, or parent.
Typically the hoarder is a socially separated person who prior to the start of mental disorder leading to hoarding already had great deals of family pets, or was associated with an animal-related profession such as dog-breeding, farming, or running an animal shelter.
(See Animals in chains: the hoarding mind.)
“Obsessive fear of death”
“Animal hoarders, like the haunted Scrooge, suffer an obsessive fear of death,” Perdue University teacher of animal ecology Alan Beck and coworker Dooley Worth assumed in a 1981 research study of 31 hoarding cases managed by the American SPCA and the New York City Bureau of Animal Affairs.
Hoarding animals, Beck and Worth recommended, provides the hoarder a sense of control over his/her already out-of-control presence.
More than 40 years and a lot more research studies by a lot more social researchers later on, this stays the dominating description.
(See “Rescue hoarding” cases frighten Iowa.)
Started from behind the 8 ball
Fancher/Patten remained in a poor position, as a mom of 3 kids under 4 years of age, with a high school education and neither obvious shelter experience or not-for-profit management background, to handle a huge brand-new dog rescue job.
Worse, on March 2, 2019 Fancher/Patten had actually shown Facebook buddies that she had actually been “diagnosed with stage 3a uterine clear cell carcinoma,” had actually started chemotherapy to combat it, and had actually suffered agonizing problems.
Nonetheless, days after pointing out Brock Wesberry’s death, Fancher/Patten revealed the development of Second Paw Dog Rescue, which quickly declared 369 Facebook “followers” and was noted online by the Best Friends Animal Society Network.
Most of the early Second Paw Dog Rescue posts––and a few of the last––consisted of Best Friends Animal Society logo designs, mottos, and images.
“No dog left behind,” however left sixty, plus some survivors
“Our goal is to save and rehabilitate every dog we can,” Fancher/Patten stated. “Our mission is to leave NO DOG LEFT BEHIND!”
By September 2022, Second Paw Dog Rescue was taking part in occasions promoted by the Best Friends Animal Society Network, consisting of the Tractor Supply Company’s National Adoption Day.
On September 11, 2022, the twenty-first anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C., Fancher/Patten was “very pleased and excited to announce we are purchasing seven acres in the country to expand our rescue and also are going to be opening up a dog sanctuary for the ones who can’t or don’t get adopted out to live out the rest of their days loved, safe and happy!
“We are also in the discussion part of opening up a dog park that will be open to the public for people to bring their fur kids,” Fancher/Patten said, prior to appealing for contributions of “outdoor kennels, dog houses, chain link fencing, concrete/quick Crete, pea gravel, sheets of tin, large tarpaulins, heavy duty t-posts, pallets in good condition, toys, collars, dog food etc.”
“Let’s reach Best Friends’ mission of No Kill 2025”
A day later on, Fancher/Patten prompted, “Let’s reach our goal and Best Friends Animal Society’s mission of NO KILL 2025. Adopt, don’t shop, and save a life!”
Four days after that, on September 16, 2022, Fancher/Patten advised readers that “Today starts Best Friends Animal Society National Adoption Weekend. Today through Sunday, Second Paw Dog Rescue is partnering up with Philadelphia Animal Control to help clear the shelters!”
But if Fancher/Patten anticipated significant help from either the Best Friends Animal Society or anybody else other than the regional Tractor Supply store, it was obviously not upcoming.
Tractor Supply contributed numerous bags of dog food.
“In desperate need” within 6 weeks
By October 6, 2022, Fancher/Patten was already “pleading for help! We are in desperate need of kennels and are in desperate need of fosters,” Fancher/Patten stated.
“We are doing everything we can to keep our local AC [the Philadelphia animal shelter] at the NO KILL status they have been at for over a year,” Fancher/Patten said.
“We run primarily off our own incomes and grants,” Fancher/Patten included, without explaining who or what entity may be making grants to an organization which did not have actually integrated not-for-profit status yet, “but our grants won’t be in til January. The situation we have on our hands to keep the local AC no kill status will not wait til January!”
Eventual invoice of any grants of significance, in January 2023 or ever, appears to have actually disappeared than wishful thinking.
Why did a rescue in Newton, Mississippi take in a heartworm-positive dog from Memphis?
On October 12, 2022, Fancher/Patten revealed that, “We are fixing to be moving on the new property in Newton, its 9 acres, and will be opening up a sanctuary as well once we get settled in. We are reaching out for donations so we can be able to facilitate more dogs at the rescue!”
Tractor Supply sent more dog food.
Second Paw Animal Rescue on November 6, 2022 invited a heartworm-positive dog from Memphis Animal Services, 224 miles northwest.
And other rescuers ended up being included. Posted Polly Hall, of Philadelphia, Mississippi, on November 7, 2022, “My friend Natalie Patten is setting up her nine acres that’s going to be a dog sanctuary. She will be able to pull the dogs from Philadelphia animal control when they get full. She will be able to help with any unwanted animals in our area. But right now she’s in a big need of pens and extra large kennels. If you know anyone that has any that would like to donate or would like to sell please let me know.”
“We have pulled & saved over 40 dogs” with mange, hookworm, & malnourished
Exulted Fancher/Patten on November 12, 2022, “The other day we pulled 14 dogs from a local very high kill shelter. We pulled another five today!”
Twenty-5 dogs from Second Paw Dog Rescue were “headed to the northeast!” a month later on, Fancher/Patten reported, thanking “Paw Pals of Hale Center, Saving Grace Pit Bull Rescue of Lubbock, Texas, Forever Changed Animal Rescue, Second Hand Dog Rescue, Inc.” and Project Freedom Ride.
“We have pulled and saved over 40 dogs, not including the young puppies, from a local very high kill shelter,” Fancher/Patten upgraded on December 17, 2022. “By doing this, we have been able to keep them 100% kill-free for the first time ever.”
But “The majority of them have mange, hookworms, and suffer severely from malnutrition,” Fancher/Patten acknowledged.
Too broke to do spay/neuter
Experienced fundraising events understand that as much as half of the yearly donor assistance for any not-for-profit organization shows up throughout the month in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Income received throughout that interval more-or-less determines what the organization can anticipate to do throughout the next year.
Second Paw Animal Rescue, nevertheless, confessed by February 11, 2023 that “finances are getting very tight. We have had a lot of medical cases here lately,” Fancher/Patten said, “not to mention an outbreak of canine flu that we are just now getting over. Also on top of that donations since before the holidays have majorly slowed down. We try our best to pay for everything for the babies out of pocket ourselves, but right now we are needing help.
“We are trying to raise money right now to cover eight spay and neuter surgeries for our rescues,” Fancher/Patten included, “trying to get everyone ready for our upcoming meet-and-greet adoption event at PetSmart in Flowood, Mississippi.”
Spay/neuter must be very first concern
A generation earlier, as not-for-profit spay/neuter programs decreased the volume of animal shelter euthanasias from as lots of as 23 million each year to hardly 2 million in between 1980 and 2000, sanitizing dogs and cats was commonly acknowledged as the very first concern for anybody attempting save animals’ lives.
There was near-unanimous contract at the very first No Kill Conference, kept in Phoenix in September 1995, that if a no-kill shelter or rescue might not pay for to purify or sterilize an animal, it must decline or “pull” the animal in the very first location.
The late Elaine Adair, 1950-2019, established the Mississippi Spay & Neuter Alliance in 2002, relabelled MS-SPAN in 2005, sanitizing as lots of as 3,700 dogs and cats each year for shelters and saves throughout the state.
(See Obits: protectors of cats, dogs, wild horses, bees, crabs, & elephants.)
MS-SPAN still exists and is still active, running a low-cost dog and cat sanitation center in Richland, Mississippi, 63 miles directly west of Newton.
But Fancher/Patten obviously did not get the spay/neuter message from the Best Friends Animal Society Network, her online coach, rather continuing to take in increasingly more animals.
On February 17, 2023, for example, Fancher/Patten published, “We have been contacted by animal control about a hoarding case. They asked us to help. So tomorrow we are going to be picking up 18 less-than-five-week-old puppies, four adult dogs, and a pot-bellied pig.
“This is going to put a major strain on the rescue financially,” Fancher/Patten confessed, “but when we say no dog left behind we mean no dog left behind.”
Closed the door on March 9, 2023
By February 20, 2023, Fancher/Patten discovered herself attempting to handle what “the vet said is one of the worst case of hookworms he’s ever seen in his 20-plus years of being a vet.”
The hookworms killed a minimum of 8 of the puppies.
Fancher/Patten prepared for even more veterinary expenses of more than $200 each to sanitize 3 of the adult dogs, and acknowledged that a person of the female adult dogs she had actually intended to receive “was very aggressive towards strangers, so a family member is fostering her.”
On March 9, 2023, Fancher/Patten lastly confessed she remained in over her head.
“At the moment we have 54 [dogs] at the rescue,” Fancher/Patten published. “That’s 54 that we have to feed every day, that’s 54 that we have to get shots, dewormed, about half of them heartworm treatment due to being heartworm positive, and spayed and neutered. We care for these rescues 90% mostly out of our own pockets. Donations have been very few and far between these past few months.
“It is with a very heavy heart that we say we will not be able to take any more in right now,” Fancher/Patten said.
Winona dog shootings made Fancher/Patten forget her words
But within 4 days Fancher/Patten appeared to have actually forgotten her own words.
On March 8, 2023, Doll Stanley’s home town, Winona, Mississippi, more than 100 miles north of Fancher/Patten in Newton, turned management of the worn out six-cage city animal shelter over to the cops department.
Police chief Roshaun Daniels employed as animal control director Vidal Anderson, son-in-law of mayor Aaron Dees.
“Chief Daniels was concerned that the city pound was at capacity and most of the dogs had been impounded far beyond the city’s 10-day holding period,” Stanley informed Mississippi Clarion Ledger press reporter Joshua Williams.
Anderson shot from 6 to 8 dogs on March 9, 2023, supposedly consisting of a mom dog and her puppies.
Doll Stanley made the shootings public
After Stanley and others discovered of the shootings and made them public, a statewide media furor took place.
“We are infuriated, enraged and heartbroken over this!” fumed Fancher/Patten on March 13, 2023. “We will be making some phone calls in the morning,” Fancher/Patten vowed, “contacting the city of Winona to extend our help so they don’t have to shoot any more dogs and puppies tied to the bumper of the animal control officer’s truck.”
Responded Nandra Dennis of the North Mississippi Shelter/Rescue Connection, “I’m not surprised by the recent Winona post. Montgomery County,” of which Winona is the county seat, “has a problem. Animal abuse is not being prosecuted. A renter on our family land left without notice, leaving a dog in a kennel next to the front door. The kennel door was blocked with a brick. The dog starved/thirsted to death. The sheriff was called out. He claimed we would not be able to prove the owner placed the dog in the kennel. The remains still had the dog’s collar with her name––Lucy––and the owners’ [telephone] number.”
“Laws need to be changed here in Mississippi”
Replied Fancher/Patten, “Between this and what happened in Winona, something has to be done. Laws need to be changed here in Mississippi.”
Within another 100 days Fancher/Patten’s words would have a paradoxical ring.
Meanwhile, Fancher/Patten reported the list below day that Second Paw Dog Rescue remained in immediate ‘need of dog food donations. We aren’t getting them from a regional store like we utilized to,” Fancher/Patten explained. “They are having to alternate us with another rescue and we really depended on that donation weekly to get us through and it was the only place we were getting donated dog food,” with 54 dogs still on the facilities.
Tee Shirts & a raffle
Later in March 2023, Fancher/Patten attempted to offer tee shirts and promote a raffle to raise funds.
Selling tee shirts and running raffles are techniques that a big organization with a considerable donor base may be able to utilize effectively to generate additional money, along with sending out regular online and direct-mail advertising interest recognized donors.
Such techniques are extremely not likely, nevertheless, to achieve much in a rural county of less than 10,000 individuals, consisting of more homeowners excited to dispose undesirable animals than homeowners ready and able to help a regional rescue feed them.
Second Paw Dog Rescue was on the edge of collapse.
“We have had a lot of calls and messages this past week from people needing us to take in dogs,” Fancher/Patten published on April 16, 2023. “It takes everything out of our own pockets every week to care for the ones we have.”
On May 27, 2023, Fancher/Patten upgraded, “We still have our raffle basket going!! We have sold very little tickets,” she confessed.
“Need crew to clean”
ANIMALS 24-7 discovered no additional updates from or about either Second Paw Dog Rescue or Fancher/Patten till Polly Hall on July 10, 2023 published, “Need a crew that is able to clean a mobile home that was trashed by someone who was trusted and now regrets. I won’t go into the story but if you know if anyone that does this, please let me know.
“Asking for a dear friend.
“I am getting a lot of messages and text asking about this,” Hall said. “I feel I just need to be honest right here to everyone. This is a mobile home that the person that was staying there brought in numerous dogs and the way I understand it, there is feces everywhere! The dogs are being confiscated.”
The circumstance, Hall said, “may need a hazmat suit and a lot of bleach, even a pressure washer.”
Was that in fact about Second Paw Dog Rescue?
ANIMALS 24-7 does not understand for sure, however Stanley, a relied on source for 35 years, later on the exact same day called us with a comparable description of the Second Paw Dog Rescue disaster.
Where Fancher/Patten and her partner Billy Joe Patten are appears to be anybody’s guess.
