Breeder to Face Courthouse Commotion Over Suffering Dogs

For Immediate Release:
March 2, 2022

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Wearing masks made from photographs of the neglected and suffering Jack Russell terriers documented during a PETA investigation into JRT John’s Jack Russel Terriers—where breeder John Jones was found mutilating crying puppies’ tails and claws without painkillers, leaving dogs in below-freezing temperatures, and keeping nursing mothers in urine-soaked boxes—PETA supporters will gather outside the Missaukee County Courthouse during the civil hearing to determine the custody of the 40 dogs seized from Jones’ property. The show of support for Prosecuting Attorney David DenHouten follows PETA’s four-day sit-in at the Missaukee County Sheriff’s Office. Jones is charged with felony cruelty to animals.

When:    Friday, March 4, 1 p.m.

Where:    Missaukee County Courthouse, 111 S. Canal St., Lake City

PETA provided the sheriff’s office with video footage and photos from the group’s investigation, showing the following:

• Jones severed puppies’ tails with forceps and cut off their dewclaws with nail clippers, without pain relief—as the puppies screamed in pain.
• Dogs were confined to cages outside in snow and mud. They had been given only a few handfuls of straw per dilapidated doghouse, leaving them shivering and miserable in the rain and snow, and since the wind chill dipped to minus 11 degrees, their drinking water froze daily.
• PETA’s investigator found one dog dead in a kennel with leaves and straw packed in his mouth. Jones hadn’t checked on the dogs all day and didn’t know that the dog had died. During the 11 weeks that PETA’s investigator worked at the kennel, he never saw Jones touch the dogs housed outside except to pick up the dead dog.

“These dogs deserve permanent, loving homes far away from urine-soaked boxes; freezing cold, barren cages; and Jones’ callous hands,” says PETA Vice President Daniel Paden. “PETA supports the prosecutor’s case to ensure these dogs’ permanent safety, and we won’t rest until this sordid breeder is banned for life from possessing animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.