This letter is in response to your article in The Chronicle entitled, “Sanctuary sues local SPCA for return of 45 seized animals,” dated April 2, 2024. I am outraged at the accusations that this organization is involved in a “money-making scheme” to seize animals from good homes.
First, a little something about me. I had previously owned a successful, upscale salon in Rockland County for 25 years, where I was instrumental in cat rescue in the hamlet of Congers. Upon retiring from ownership, I have been a volunteer for the Hudson Valley SPCA for the last 14 years, first just dropping off cat litter, but now contributing most of my days to the rigorous, and often heartbreaking, work that encompasses this shelter.
HVSPCA is a no-kill shelter that provides food, shelter, medical care, companionship, and adoption services to animals who are forgotten, neglected, abused, and abandoned. They do so on a shoe-string budget, relying primarily on donations and volunteers. Specifically, Joan Kay and Matt Hughes have done God’s work for the most severely neglected animals. I have personally watched Joan Kay sprint across the NYS Thruway to rescue a wayward German shepherd and carry half-dead dogs into emergency care. I have assisted Matt Hughes in rescuing dogs from a frozen house, abandoned without warmth, food, or water. This shelter provides whatever is medically necessary, especially for starving, emaciated animals such as Camo, who are brought back from near death; the expense is staggering, yet donations keep it going. These are people with hearts of gold.
For Noah’s Park and [the other respondent] to make the baseless accusations that this is a “money-making scheme” is an outright slander on an organization that sacrifices 24/7 for the many animals that come into their care. This shelter would never seize animals that are properly cared for, and they only act when credible good Samaritans make a very difficult call for help on behalf of the defenseless. I am not alone in vouching for the exemplary characters of Joan Kay, Matthew Hughes, and Eugene Hecht. These people devote their lives to saving innocent creatures who are harmed, inadvertently or purposely, by their humans. For this reason, this is the only shelter I have chosen to work with, and I will continue to advocate for them and the amazing work that they do every day of the year.
Ronald G. Troiano
New Windsor