Hospital to Reunite Pets and Owners : Research Halted on Contested Dogs

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced Monday it has halted medical research on dogs that might have been obtained from pet owners by a man who misled them about their pets’ ultimate destination.

“We don’t want anybody’s pets,” said Ron Wise, a spokesman for the Los Angeles medical center.

The controversy began last week when Last Chance for Animals, a San Fernando Valley animal-rights group, charged that owners of pets being sold to research facilities had been told that the dogs and cats would roam on a 10-acre ranch.

An investigation by the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation discovered that a man had picked up animals from Valley pet owners after telling such a story. The man, a department spokesman said, preyed on owners who had placed newspaper advertisements seeking new homes for their dogs and cats.

The man sold the animals to two Sun Valley kennels, Comfy Kennel and Budget Boarding, which sold them to Cedars-Sinai, Loma Linda University and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda, authorities said.

On Monday, city animal-control officers removed about 40 dogs and cats from Budget Boarding after owner Barbara Ruggiero of Sylmar agreed to give the animals to the animal-regulation department. The animals included those that the department moved to the kennel from Ruggiero’s Comfy Kennel last week because she was operating that facility without a city business license, said Lt. Robert Pena of the animal-regulation department.

Animal-regulation officers had been guarding Comfy Kennel since Jan. 26 after several pet owners broke in and took five dogs.

“Cedars certainly knew nothing about this,” Wise said, referring to the alleged deception regarding the pet owners. He said he did not know how many animals the medical center received in January from the kennels. Ruggiero is licensed by the federal government to sell animals to research facilities.

Research on those dogs was stopped last Friday after Last Chance for Animals members clashed with security guards at Cedars-Sinai, Wise said. The hospital found out about the controversy at the time of the protest, he said.

Halting medical experiments on the dogs “certainly is going to have an immediate impact on some programs. I don’t know which yet,” Wise said. “It will create a research problem, but we’ll live with it for now . . . in the spirit of cooperation.” Cedars-Sinai has asked the animal-regulation department to resolve the issue by Friday so that research may resume at a normal pace, Wise said.

Dogs are used in experiments that primarily concern heart disease, he said.

To reunite animals at Cedars-Sinai with owners who now want them back, the medical center will provide the animal-regulation department with photographs and descriptions of the dogs. Owners can meet with animal-control officials to identify their pets, which Cedars-Sinai will hand over to the department for release to the owners, Wise said.

Bill Dyer, a spokesman for Last Chance for Animals, and about 15 other activists and pet owners converged Monday on Budget Boarding, as animal-control officers removed the dogs and cats for the trip to a city shelter.

Ruggiero agreed to give up her animals to the city out of “concern on her part as to how the animals were obtained,” Pena said.

The city’s East Valley Animal Shelter will keep the animals for public viewing for 30 days before putting them up for adoption, he said.

Police watched over the scene Monday at Budget Boarding after receiving reports of people trying to break in, Sgt. Ed Entwisle said.

About 2 p.m., a man was seen boosting a woman to the top of a gate. She reached over, opened the gate from an inside latch and allowed at least one person to enter. “We are going to enter the place to save the dogs,” she said. It was unknown whether animals were removed from the facility after that incident.

Nearly two hours earlier, however, an unidentified person did enter the kennel and take the pet dog of one employee, Pena said.

Dyer said Last Chance for Animals has identified at least 25 pet owners who were deceived into giving their animals to the man who sold them to Ruggiero.

Pena said investigators plan to contact dozens of owners whose names were gleaned from a list that Ruggiero provided investigators. It was unknown whether those owners gave their dogs to the man who reportedly told the phony story.

“Some people may have known what they were doing;, some might not have, and some might not care,” Pena said.

Ruggiero has told authorities that she did not know that the man who sold the animals to her had deceived pet owners about where the pets would go, Pena said. She has said she told the man not to mislead owners, Pena said.

Although efforts focused Monday on reuniting animals with owners who want them back, animal-control officials have identified the man and are looking for him, Pena said.

Ruggiero on Monday rushed from the door of Budget Boarding to a car amid jeers from animal-rights activists. She made no comment. Animal-control officials refused to disclose the name of her attorney, with whom they have been negotiating.

A spokesman for Loma Linda University said officials there do not believe any of the disputed animals are involved in experiments at the university.

A spokesman for the VA Hospital in Sepulveda said he was unaware whether any dogs or cats from Ruggiero’s kennels were being used in research.