Submission From Mary Jo Miles 9/12/09

Today’s second submission details an all-too-common PawMatch scenario: A potential adopter passes by a PawMatch site and feels sorry for an apparently depressed dog, adopts it, takes it to a vet, only to then find out that instead of suffering from “stress” or a “cold” the dog has distemper, parvo, hepatitis, etc. Adopter then contacts Andy to inform him that other dogs are at risk, and Andy, probably sloshed from a few mid-afternoon malt liquors, angrily calls the adopter a liar and refuses to refund the exorbitant “adoption fee”. In the end, the dog, long past the point of rehabilitation, dies. The adopter feels miserable, enraged, even guilty. It’s depressing as hell.

I adopted a shepherd mix from Pawmatch a couple of years ago for my stepdaughter.  The dog appeared listless and tired. I aksed the supposed manager of the group if the dog was ok, she told me was stressed from the adoption. Well, my stepdaughter fell in love with him and you know the rest.  We took him and that night his nose started oozing mucus.  By the next day, he was in terrible shape. On Monday, we took him to a vet, who diagnosed him as having distemper or kennel cough.  Having been through kennel cough with our other 10 dogs (yes, 10 dogs in the country and indoors frequently) I knew I could treat that disease with success.  We brought him home, thinking we could treat him with medicine and a vaporizor.  By that he was refusing food, I called our vet, who told me that he was sure the the dog had distemper for which there is no diagontic test.  He said that if we could get him to eat and he did not develop seizures, we might have a chance. Tuesday, we had to put him down.
I called Pawmatch that day to warn them that the other dogs from the adoption event had been exposed to distemper.  I was called a liar by Andy.  I got furious and told that now I wanted them out of business.  And after I got of the phone, I immediately emailed 7 on your side about the event.  I was called a few days later about being interviewed for a segment on Pawmatch. They came to my home and interviewed me.  I told my stories and showed them my well cared for dogs.  The segment aired around Thanksgiving that year. Even with another vet reporting that he had treated several dogs from Pawmatch with distemper and the fact that Pawmatch would not response to a request for comment from the reporter, no was taken action against this deplorable group.  If you are interested in viewing the TV segment, I believe you can call Channel 7.

Submission From L. Cohen 9/12/09

For all my talk on the deplorable conditions PawMatch dogs endure, it’s important that I mention the cats. Despite housing a relatively small amount of felines, PawMatch does its best to make sure they live in as much squalor as the dogs. It’s not uncommon to go to a PawMatch site and see a few cats stuffed in a wire crate all day, firing off projectile bloodsnot onto passersby. It’s all a part of their absolute sub-standard level of care. There is simply no way PawMatch can effectively treat different ailments the cats suffer, and it’s highly likely that they do not have enough (or any) doxycycline broth to effectively treat the cats. As anyone who’s worked with rescues before: If one cat gets an upper respiratory infection, all the cats get it. URIs are very contagious.

Anyways, enough of my rambling crap, here’s a great submission from L. Cohen, another person who’s witnessed PawMatch’s bullshit firsthand:

Hi:

I have been doing cat/kitten rescue for 14 years now and on numerous occasions, people have come to me after adopting from PawMatch with the following issues:

1.  3 different people after adopting a cat from PawMatch with the guarantee that the cat was spayed, have come to me to see if I could take the kittens their cat just had.  I asked who they adopted from and you know the answer.

2.  7 different people have adopted cats/kittens from me after the cat/kitten they adopted from PawMatch died.

3.  9 different people have come to me with cats/kittens that ended up having ring worm.  Guess who they adopted from?

4.  13 people came to me worried because the cat/kitten they adopted from you know who had bloody diarrhea.

All of these people first tried to get hold of PawMatch who never answered or returned their calls before finding me.

There were a number of instances prior to the ones I have documented.  The first few times, I thought nothing of it, but after a while, I started keeping track of the people who came to me after adopting from PawMatch.

I’d Like to Post YOUR Stories

I’m a lazy-ass bum with too many other things to work on right now. Sure, I’d love to pump the vitriol out at a fast pace, keeping the pitchfork-wielding public as angry as possible with the hope that a few of the crazier ones will kidnap all the animals and tear the place down, but it’s not in the cards right now. Send me your horror stories. I already have about a dozen. But I’d like to have enough material to keep people aware of what’s going on.

A Riposte to PawMatch’s Typical Bullshit

This is one I wrote in response to a PawMatch apologist, probably the manager or some other brainwashed employee.

It’s a dreary Tuesday, 11:30 p.m. Andy Odam, Central Texas’ #1 Comical Stereotype of an Alcoholic Englishman, lays his dizzy head by the computer monitor, under the dark-brown light filtered through dozens of bottles of shitty beer. “Oi, fucket, y’know, back home, some tosser say somethin’, we’d fuck him up. Not here, though. Yank pricks won’t fess up to anything.” Several seconds pass before his American Girlfriend gives an ineffectual “yeah.” American girls, they’re all so naive, Andy muses to himself. Swooned so strongly by the English accent that they can ignore, even come to expect, the cloud of gingivitis covering every limey syllable. “But you know, American Girlfriend, even though you make a great tax shelter for me, what with having a useless job and all, and taking a handsome salary, allowing me to remain a 501(c)3 non-profit yet keep tons of the proceeds-I don’t know why I’m saying this to you as you are well aware of it but anyway- I’m just too stupid, or too drunk, I can’t really determine which anymore, to make a coherent response to these postings. Can you find some stooge to do it for us?”
“I’ll get right on it! Say, where’d your accent go?”
“Oi, notheng, you know. Iat’s the booze, hehe. That’s roight.”

And so now the PawMatch shill comes out of the woodwork, and it’s a doozy!

Look, your posting was so paltry and middlebrow that I was almost expecting a “Can’t we all just get along?” halfway through it, but then I got to the end and, holy shit, BAM! That’s pretty weak, it’s inadvertently admitting that “I am the lamest debater you will ever come across” – the Rodney King defense, classic. Worked well for him! Since I am the hypothetical abusive white cop in this scenario, I’ll go ahead and start with the head bashing:

I have worked at pawmatch before, and have some other insights to offer. It is a difficult job, and like all non-profits, it is a place that struggles to survive. Yes, they have sometimes tried to sell the “more valued” dogs such as purebreds, for higher prices. But, they have to make a living. In charging more when they can, they are able to save more of the “less valued” dogs often ignored by other rescue groups. It is true that they do not do home inspections prior to adoption. In a perfect world, this would be done. However, when you have little or no extra income, you cannot live in a perfect world. They do have to put down the sick and aggressive dogs at times, so no, they are not 100% no-kill. You should check out the statistics of municipal shelters however. At least one local shelter has a nearly 80% kill rate. Without groups like pawmatch that may have to do things less than perfectly, these rates might be higher. ( I am not attacking municipal shelters at all – they operate within their limitations as well)

This, at least when taken entirely out of context, is entirely reasonable. Well, sort of. But in context this is a setup, a nice “gotcha!” beginner – start with a strawman argument (Who’s saying no-kill shelters literally don’t kill? Who’s saying non-profit work isn’t the hardest motherfucking work in existence? Who’s arguing city shelters don’t have a disappointing euthanasia rate, etc.?) and then go from that premise. Now, since you’ve said something true, and everyone agrees with it, you must be the reasonable one! (burps) Yes, all of this that has been stated is factually true, but it is not part of the debate. The Roundrock Petco employee is not complaining about these things, I was not complaining about those things, the BBB is not getting complaints based on these things, parvo is not spreading because of these things, so let’s toss this one and move on! I’ll just pass on the last sentence of this paragraph, too. It’s fair enough, so you get one (1) shill dollar, redeemable with the upper management of many of your area’s dilapidated rural shelters. Let’s move to the next sycophantic paragraph, because that’s when it starts to get a level of bullshit worthy of a true and blue PawMatch employee:

Unfortunately, many people choose not to spay and neuter their pets, and things like puppy mills make the problem even worse. These are the real enemies, not the rescue shelters.
These are evil people, yes, but they are enabled only by crappy, careless, inept shelters with not enough vet techs (just so you know: ONE tech isn’t enough for Central Texas #1 Largest, Grandest, Most Adopted, Hugest Shelter in Existence) to do their own spaying or neutering. This forces said shelter to hand out xeroxed copies of an Emancipet “voucher”, so you can pawn the cost off of it on them, and not incorporate it into your ridiculously high adoption fee, something other shelters actually include, warranting the price and all. So what you have here is Central Texas #1 Largest Adoption Fee covering god-knows-what (not sterilization!), the costs being shoveled onto the fledgling but excellent organization, Emancipet, at best, or simply being ignored by the dolts who impulsively adopt through you, at worst.

There are probably many mistakes that pawmatch, and other rescue groups make daily, and some might even be as atrocious as putting down a dog for less than desirable reasons. But we have to keep the bigger picture in mind.

No, what’s that quote about staying on the big picture means having to lose focus, something like that? This is just shallow hallmark horseshit anyways & not a good diversion tactic: One (1) shill demerit, next:

Homeless, abandoned dogs are suffering and dying every day. And it’s certain that their life is worse on the streets than at pawmatch. It would be great if pawmatch had unlimited funds, and could do everything perfectly, such as cure all of the sick dogs, and treat any illness or injury. But again, the reality is that they don’t have unlimited funds. They often have to choose between the health of a few select dogs and saving the lives of hundreds of dogs. It is a harsh world with harsh realities, and if you don’t want to face those realities, then stick to the reputable “breeders” or adopt from one of the “breeded” rescue groups. These guys generally have more funds, and have more “desirable” dogs. (although the number they save is far less) There is nothing wrong with you if you cannot face the realities of this world……it may just not be for you. As for me, I really enjoyed saving these “forgotten” dogs, and I always felt good about what I was doing. Without groups like pawmatch, so many more thousands of dogs would not be here today. (Including my wonderful dog that I adopted from them)

MORE OF THIS PAP? Fuck this, come on, say something with substance you spineless twat. This is not good shilling! Everyone can read through it! One thing I must say, it really is incredible that a “former” employee of PawMatch actually recommends potentially getting a dog from a breeder. They can’t even hide their duplicity when their entire intention is to hide their duplicity. Another shill demerit, pathetic. NEXT!

I have maintained some contact with the shelter, and here a few interesting facts regarding finances and some of the recent posts.
1. Andy, whose name is being drug through the mud, has invested thousands of his own personal dollars into this shelter, works almost daily, and often gets paid nothing in return. He will inevitably lose his investment one of these days, but is OK with that. He is doing this for the dogs, not the money

Yeah apart from attempting to sell “food concepts” for like 12,000 dollars on craigslist (third link: http://www.google.com/search?q=512-963-0641), having sold purebred dogs in the past, and basically constantly engaging in shady business, deals, I’m sure Andy is, after all is said and done, a great, misunderstood philanthropist. Tell me, while your adult dogs are dying of parvo (which, medically speaking, is actually an impressive feat), your vans are decaying and nothing’s working, you’re not having to cover the costs of food, litter, bowls, sterilizations, heartworm prevention, most boosters – what exactly does that adoption fee cover?

2. The current manager is doing this on the side, while she attends school full-time, and has done most of it without pay for the last 3 months.
ONE THOUSAND (1,000) REDEEMABLE SHILL DOLLARS! This one is great! She’s going through school full time, managing Central Texas #1 who-gives-a-shit shelter, and not taking pay? How the hell does she afford to live? Wait, wait, wait, I think I just got an answer to question “what exactly does that adoption fee cover?” Thanks for connecting the dots for me. Wait, you fucked up didn’t you? So is that 1,000 shill demerits? Ok… I’ll stop with this demerits joke, it’s about as tired as a heartworm-infested PawMatch pup.

3. When the public so kindly donates food to the shelter, and when it is in excess of what the shelter needs, they may try to return it for cash that is then put towards the shelter’s other needs. Should they let the food rot instead of converting to something useful?
4. They have recently opened a store that is going to be a place to sell overflow donations (that are in excess of what the shelter needs), and those profits will again go back to the shelter’s other needs (eg medications, gas for vans) BTW, many other shelters do this as well. It’s a great use of resources.

Hahahaha, they’re hocking their donations for cash. Again, ugh. Let me tell you something also, other shelters DON’T DO THAT. If they do, I’ll refund you some shill dollars. Sorry, I meant to stop that joke. Still, I know none of the good ones in Austin do that.
Also, you’d just be selling fresh food back? How can you really make any profit off of it? Who wants it? If Andy’s such a philanthropist, living with his “unpaid” girlfriend/manager, he’d probably give it to a shelter that needs it. One that actually moves a lot of animals.

At any rate, bagged & canned food actually like, lasts, a long time. A really long time. It takes a lot of not-feeding animals, or not sheltering many animals, for that to become a problem. Take your pick.

I am not in any way related to Andy, and I am not a close, personal friend. I am just a reasonable person who is taking offense at the hatred that is coming out in these posts. It is obvious that they were posted by a former, disgruntled employee. I am sorry that you had such a bad time at pawmatch, but you must learn to give constructive criticism if you truly want to help someone or something change. Do you really think you are affecting any positive change at pawmatch by posting such negative things? Your first posts sounded somewhat reasonable, although the facts were spun, but your most recent post attacking the appearance of the lawyer was absolutely ridiculous. You totally lost me, and probably most of the public, with that one.

Look at him, he looks like the dad from Family Ties. He’s a total goober. Wait, let me rephrase that so it’ll pass under his automated craigslist libel scanner 9000: “In my opinion, though this should not have any bearing on his reputation, nor is it intended to be represented in any way as factual, Bill Gammon looks like a big fucking goober.”

If you really believe in your heart that pawmatch is completely evil, then follow proper channels to do something about it. Posting anonymously on Craigslist is cowardly, and leaves no room for formal inspection of your claims. You say the animal inspectors have been called, and found nothing significantly wrong. Could there be a reason for that? Maybe there really are no evil things happening there. Maybe they’re just a shelter who is doing the best they can with what they’ve got, and although less than perfect, they are passing inspection for a reason. Again, if you feel that places like pawmatch are so terrible, become an inspector and shut them down if they truly are violating the law.

Yeah, I’m not taking that bait.

Finally, I just want to say this. We are all animal lovers, and we all want to help these homeless and forsaken animals. Please direct your time and energy to something useful, and not towards this. If we all fight this much amongst ourselves, then we will tear each other apart completely. Places like pawmatch will close, and then where will we be? Much worse off. Let’s try to educate the public on spaying and neutering their pets, and let’s try to fight the puppy mills. Of course, you may choose to spend your energy however you want, and you may even respond to this telling me how stupid, terrible, and ugly I am. However, that will get you nowhere, and will certainly not benefit the dogs that you say you want to help.

Peace all, and can we please just get along?

Fuck you, you are stupid, terrible, and ugly, indeed. You did not address shit about PawMatch’s complete lack of ethical standards, horrible neglect of dogs, dodging of every possible applicable Shelter Law. Their manipulation, Odam’s awful breath. Why even take these comments seriously? No one does, and that’s why PawMatch’s rep is in the gutter.

An Open Letter to Sue-Happy Shithead William Gammon

To William “Andy’s Bitch” Gammon

“

Original file name: "CraigslistM4Mprofile.jpg"

So the attorney who represents PawMatch has been sending threatening e-mails to people posting legitimate complaints about their dump of a shelter. For those who don’t know, PawMatch is Central Texas’ #1 Shelter for adopting Parvo Pups and Distempered Dogs. It is owned by the most dishonest, duplicitous, unscrupulous manchild on Earth. It is a coccidia-infested diarrhea stain on Austin’s animal welfare community. Never, ever adopt form PawMatch. Just wait for something terrible to happen at one of their sites and contact the SPCA. Go to their shelter during daylight hours and take pictures until they ask you to leave. Respond to their job postings, lie enough to get hired (he’ll hire anyone), take pictures, vids, document everything. Do whatever it takes. But keep it as legal as you can. Otherwise, you may get an e-mail from Gammon referring you to the libel section of his circa-1999 Geocities-esque website.

PawMatch has to resort to petty legal threats from some board non-certified hack of a lawyer to keep people from stating defensible, factually true criticisms. At any rate, I’d like to post my response to his stupid e-mail, and would encourage everyone who simply hasn’t sent the e-mail straight to their “spam” folder to do the same.

Hahaha!

I know these messages are sent out en masse to intimidate people who have posted perfectly legit complaints about Andy Odam’s Used Dog Emporium, and that I’m “taking the bait” by responding to it, but holy shit is this rich! I’ve already sent Andy an insulting e-mail from this address before, so there’s no secrets to keep here anyway.

I can tell from your horribly designed website (nice outdated flash design and Matrix-eque graphics – 1998 wants its aesthetic back) that

A.) You’re not certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Admittedly, that’s not that big of a deal – most hacky, second-rate lawyers who scour anonymous internet personals sites probably never bother passing this anyway.

B.) When alone, presumably when the wifey is out, you put on cargo short shorts and a matching shirt, making you look like a gay Iraq War veteran who’s retrofitted his former sand-tone camo to look extra MiliGay for, I don’t know, perhaps another section of craigslist you may scour regularly.

C.) To make up for Point B., you’ve internalized this hyper type-a masculine libertarian, government-get-off-my-back, fuck-you-if-you-smear-my-friends, personality. The affected aggressiveness is pretty transparent.

Of course, I know you’ll respond to this, forward it to Andy “Parvo Pups” Odam, you two will get drunk together (paid for by PawMatch profits), talk a lot of big shit, threaten this or that, but in the end, I do not give a fuck. You cannot sue for libel, you can’t find out who I am unless I give you the information (I wouldn’t do something so utterly idiotic, no matter how “cowardly” you alledge it is), you cannot do anything other than copy and past the wikipedia entry on Libel Laws in some vain attempt to intimidate me with legalese.

Also, you look like the dad from Family Ties.

— On Tue, 6/30/09, Bill Gammon wrote:

From: Bill Gammon

Subject: Want to help reduce PawMatch’s influence?

To: comm-mkzzu-1247554964@craigslist.org

Date: Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 4:39 PM

I am an attorney in Austin who represents PawMatch. Please contact me regarding your post on Craigslist.

Bill Gammon

http://www.williamgammon.com

512-472-8909