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HSUS Targets Rescue a French Bulldog, Wendy Faith Laymon

Rescue a French Bulldog website, showing stolen photo of Michelle Tippet’s departed French Bulldog, Stu

 

I have written extensively in the past about Wendy Laymon (aka Wendy Faith Laymon aka Faith Laymon) and her fake French Bulldog rescue, ‘ Rescue a French Bulldog’ – www.rescueafrenchbulldog.com

Wendy Laymon is a notorious, convicted puppy miller, despicable enough to have earned herself a place on the Humane Society of the United States list of Missouri’s Dirty Dozen Worst Puppy Mills . That’s quite a feat, considering how much puppy mill competition there is in the state of Missouri.

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Wendy Faith Laymon & Her Fake French Bulldog Rescue, Part 3

In part two of “When is a Rescue Not a Rescue?“, I detailed how a few French Bulldog fanciers, working together, discovered that Wendy Faith Laymon (or is that Faith Layman? She has so many names on the go, it’s hard to tell) was behind the new “rescue” group, ‘Rescue a French Bulldog‘.

A background search on Wendy turned up some disturbing news – a history of puppy milling, with convictions for poor care of her dogs, licensing violations, and a host of other charges. Even the USDA finally said “enough is enough”, and suspended Wendy’s license until 2012. Considering the kinds of filthy conditions that the USDA doesn’t seem to have a problem with, you’re left fairly staggered when you contemplate just how bad Wendy Laymon’s kennels had to be to piss them off this severely.

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Wendy Laymon French Bulldog breeder scam

Wendy Faith Laymon and Rescue a French Bulldog, Pt 2

 

In Part One of “When is a Rescue Not a Rescue?“, I discussed how many red flags the website for “Rescue a French Bulldog” had raised within the French Bulldog rescue community. None of us were sure who was running this new ‘rescue’, but all of us had a really, really bad feeling about it.

One of our intrepid investigators decided to phone the 800 number on the Rescue a French Bulldog website. The call was returned by someone who called themselves “Wendy”, and just happened to be calling from a phone number which traced back to Wendy Faith Laymon’s internet puppy selling website, http://frenchiepuppies.com.

Wendy Laymon (aka Wendy Faith Laymon, aka Faith Laymon, aka Wendy Layman, aka Faith Layman) had been all over my news alerts lately — I track every incoming news article which has the words “French Bulldog” in it, and all of a sudden, it had seemed like every other ‘article’ was a self aggrandizing press release from Wendy Laymon (or from Wendy “Faith” Laymon, in some cases), talking about how she was “living the American dream” by breeding French Bulldog puppies, or touting her latest litter of Frenchie puppies. It all seemed awfully odd, but I just chalked it up to yet another commercial dog breeder, desperately trying to pimp their puppies. Sadly, we’ve had an awful lot of those in the last year or so – breed popularity will do that. Suddenly finding Wendy Faith Laymon associated with a ‘rescue, however, made us all decide to dig just a little bit deeper – and there was lot to dig through.

Wendy seems to have been in dogs for years – but not in a good way. The earliest records we could find of her seemed to all be from Washington state, and revolved around “Shadow Mountain Kennels”. The news wasn’t good.

From the Humane Society Article “Missouri’s Dirty Dozen“, which details the offenses of the twelve worst commercial dog breeders in MO –

In Snohomish County, Washington, Layman reportedly lost her kennel license and was sued in small claims court approximately 15 times for charges related to selling sick puppies and misrepresentation issues. The majority of the cases were in the late 1990s and in 2000. Reportedly, she was convicted and sentenced to jail time in Washington state and was restricted from owning any animals as part of her release. She then moved to Missouri.

Most recently, on March 27, 2009 the USDA levied action against her (dba Shadow Mountain Kennel) under docket #08-0089: http://www.da.usda.gov/oaljdecisions/090403_AWA-08 She was fined $7,125 (held in abeyance) and banned from holding a USDA license for three years.

Although Laymon has been banned from holding a USDA license until at least 2012, while previously licensed as a B dealer she was cited for numerous violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including excessively matted dogs, dirty conditions, inadequate housing and records violations.

Despite her dishonorable history, Laymon currently holds a MO state kennel license. She has some of the most numerous MO Department of Agriculture ACFA violations of all state-licensed sellers (at least 36 violations since 2008).

HSUS investigators found that Laymon sells puppies (or has done business) under many business names, none of which are registered as fictitious business names in the state of MO as of April 2010, including:

•Shadow Mountain Ranch (name used on her current MO license)

•The Bulldog Connection (www.thebulldogconnecion.com/)

•Frenchie Babies (www.frenchiebabies.com/)

•Web Frenchies (www.webfrenchies.com/)

•Love My Bullie (www.k-designco.com/lovemybullie/)

•A French Bulldog (www.afrenchbulldog.com/)

During a routine state kennel inspection on 02/10/10, the Animal Health Officer inspecting Laymon’s kennel noted that “the last inspection conducted by the attending veterinarian was January 2008,” more than two years before.

Read more here.

Does this sound like the kind of person who suddenly decides, out of the goodness of her heart, to devote herself to helping homeless French Bulldogs? We didn’t think so, either, and so it wasn’t surprising to find myself directed to the website of someone who had intimate business dealings with Wendy, and nothing good to say about her.

The bad news was about to get much, much worse.

Wendy Laymon and Rescue a French Bulldog – “When is a Rescue Not a Rescue?”

Part One || Part Two || Part Three

Wendy Laymon French Bulldog breeder scam

When is a rescue not a rescue? When it’s Wendy Faith Laymon’s Newest Scam- Rescue a French Bulldog

Have you ever wondered “When is a rescue not a rescue?”. The answer is simple – when it’s Wendy Laymon’s Newest Scam- Rescue a French Bulldog.

I’ve written before in the past about various types of internet scams and cons that revolve around ‘adopting’ homeless French Bulldogs (or English Bulldogs, or Yorkies, or other pricey, popular breeds).

One of the scams I described is the “Fake Rescue Scam” —

The con: This one is slick, and preys on our tendencies as loving dog owners to want to help out dogs in need. The con men set themselves up as a ‘rescue’, claiming to have dogs that they’ve liberated from puppy mills. The trick here is the price – $3,000 and up, in some cases, to ‘adopt’ a dog from a rescue. What you’re actually doing, of course, isn’t ‘rescuing‘ or ‘adopting‘ –  it’s buying. You’ve bought a dog from a puppy mill, for a typical high ticket price, and no health guarantee (after all, you didn’t buy that dog, you adopted it, and caveat adopter). The profits go right back into the mill’s pockets, and allow them to pump out more sub standard puppies.

Commonly found: All over the web. YouTube is littered with videos for places that claim to help ‘rescue’ Bulldogs and Frenchies from Thai puppy mills, or Dog Farms in Ireland, or midwest commercial kennels. A search on ‘rescue a French Bulldog’ will bring up blogs and websites, all touting high priced puppies in need of  “adoption”. I’ve also received several direct mails from groups claiming to be “Rescues” or “Sanctuaries”, in one memorable case soliciting donations for a ‘Sactuary for the homeless French Bulldogs of Thailand’. The idea of packs of homeless, feral French Bulldogs roaming the streets of Thailand would be funny, if this wasn’t such a cruel scam.

Avoiding this scam: Learn to differentiate between a real rescue group, and a company selling puppies. A legitimate rescue will be well organized, well established, and often times a registered charity. There will hardly ever be cute young puppies available, since there’s no lack of homes waiting for adorable puppies. Most rescue dogs are older, with many in need of veterinary care.

As with the other scams, use common sense!

Why does this group always have a never ending flow of young puppies? Where are the needy adults and older dogs commonly placed through rescue? Are they a recognized charity? Will their national breed club vouch for their legitimacy? If they can’t answer all of these questions to your satisfaction, just say no thanks. Give your money to a rescue group that will actually use it help dogs, instead of using it to breed more of them.

Recently, I ran across the website for Rescue a French Bulldog,  a new internet based French Bulldog “rescue” that set off all of my warning bells.

The bottom right hand corner of the front page of their website featured a distinctive looking brindle pied dog, poised in mid jump. It was Gary (aka “Gary, not from France”), Michelle Wynn Tippets recently deceased and much missed Frenchie. I contacted Michelle, and received an almost instant reply – No, she had NOT given them permission to use her photo, and No, they did not ask for it. What kind of rescue uses stolen photos? The more I looked,  the more wrong almost everything about this ‘rescue’ seemed to be.

While their website is emblazoned with paypal donation buttons asking visitors to help ‘care for’ their dogs in need, everything else on the page sets off warning bells. Their website proclaims them to be not just a 501(c)3, but also a “licensed shelter”.

A licensed shelter?

I know a lot of Frenchie rescue groups, and they’re all getting by on a shoe string budget and a prayer, but these guys have already set themselves up some sort of Frenchie sanctuary? The French Bulldog community, and the French Bulldog rescue community in general, are a close knit bunch. If some sort of philanthropic Uncle Moneybags had endowed a home for wayward Frenchies, we’d all know about it. Instead, the Frenchie grapevine was remarkably silent about “Rescue a French Bulldog” – none of us had ever heard of them, none of us knew of a dog they’d placed, and all of us were instantly suspicious, and our suspicions only grew when we looked at their “Available Dogs” page.

Rescue a French Bulldog had to be either a scam, or the luckiest Frenchie rescue group on the planet.

While the rest of us get the dogs that no one else wanted, Rescue a French Bulldog’s dogs were all young, healthy and apparently “perfect”.  No seniors. No handicapped dogs. No special needs dogs. No dogs returned for behavioural issues. As someone who deals with rescue on an almost daily basis, I know that the odds of a rescue having nothing but perfect dogs available for adoption are akin to the odds of winning the power ball lottery. Twice. On the same day.

Obviously, something was up with Rescue a French Bulldog, but none of us were really sure what. In the next day or two, we’d find out that it was even worse than we’d thought, and it all had to do with a Missouri commercial breeder named Wendy Laymon – aka Wendy Faith Laymon.

Wendy Laymon and Rescue a French Bulldog – “When is a Rescue Not a Rescue?”

Part One || Part Two || Part Three