Carol Crocker Update

We wrote a post on September 13th about Carol Crocker of Rainesville, Alabama. She has been the unofficial county shelter for a number of years but was suddenly taken to court by the city to force her to get rid of all but 3 dogs on her property. If she loses her appeal all the dogs will be removed and killed.

So, animal lovers posted and networked, and rescue groups arrived to assess the situation and see what can be done to help her. That was why I posted, to help spread the word.

This Thursday we received a copy of an email received by a friend from Dog Pack Rescue, and we asked if it is okay to post it. We sent a copy of this to a Georgia group that had just gotten the word and started an email campaign, telling them the dogs are safe because of this message: John was at Carrol Crocker's today in Rainsville and she told him that Best Friends came to meet with her, and they are coming on Sunday to remove all but three dogs from her shelter. They promised that no dog would be euthanized, some will be placed with rescue groups and some will go to Utah.

Friday, we decided before posting we would try to contact Best Friends to verify this information. We received this response:
Thank you for your concern regarding Carrol Crocker and her rescued dogs in Rainsville, Alabama. The Animal Help Department at Best Friends has been working with the rescue community to continue to put out the word about Carrol's dogs and to assist with networking to find homes for them. A couple of weeks ago we issued one of our member alerts to a very wide area, and there are a number of other alerts issued by other people concerned about Carrol and asking for assistance.

At this time our Sanctuary is full, and at times like this we try to use our Network to spread the word about animals in need.

We will continue to work with the rescuers closest to the situation to see if further publicity will help. At this time, because posts about Carrol have circulated so widely, we feel it is best to await the response to the information already in circulation. We will be checking in with Carrol to determine her needs as this moves along. Again, thank you for your compassion about Carrol and her dogs.

Well, we don't know about you, but we find this confusing. So we again emailed Best Friends. We wrote: There is some kind of a misunderstanding. Perhaps Carol Crocker was thinking of another rescue group coming in Sunday to pick up the dogs or ...... But there is quite a gap between this message and yours. Since others have read and passed on this message and I passed it on to a rescue group here in GA that Carol's dogs are already rescued, I feel terrible.

Is it okay to pass on your the information in your email message? Perhaps even to post it tomorrow? Because according to what you're telling me, Carol's dogs are still in jeapordy.

There was no response. So we're posting it anyway because it appears Carol Crocker does still need help.

As to Carol Crocker's dogs, your guess is as good as ours right now as to what is actually happening. We hope she is receiving the help she needs for those animals. And then we hope she will accept some help for her own circumstances. If we wore hats, we would tip them to this wonderful woman!

You can read our original post here.