WARNING - Howling Wood Farms and Kona the stolen CzW

[lvlyeternity]

I would like to warn people about a rescue here in the the USA called "Howling Woods Farms" who deals in stolen animals.

In early 2012, I picked up a female Czechoslovakian Vlcak in Poland, Gran Oro Sol from "Atropa Bella Donna" kennel whom we called Kona. I purchased Kona as a possible breeding prospect, and she went to stay with (at the time my friend) one Debbie Leone in Westport, Connecticut. For the next few years, I transported and showed Kona to her UKC championship, and set up several health-test screenings for her among other things typical of co-owners to do. I saw Kona many times through the years and received near-daily updates from Debbie.

In late 2013, Kona was spayed as she did not mature into a dog we felt should be breeding material. In mid-2014 after hearing some inconsistent and bizarre stories from Deb about Kona (for example, saying that she had died after being attacked by a dog in the dog park), I found out that Debbie had instead unilaterally surrendered Kona to one wolf hybrid rescue in New Jersey, Howling Woods Farms.

We contacted Howling Woods Farms (HWF) right away in order to reclaim Kona. Since the beginning, HWF and its director Michael Hodanish has been nothing but antagonistic towards me. He refused to return Kona to us, even if we paid her adoption fee and even when we presented evidence of being her co-owners.

Ultimately, we attempted to enforce Kona's original Purchase-Sales Agreement (PSA) which was between Deb - our mistake - and her breeder, Ewa Zorychta-Malczewska, as it did outline the right of first refusal. We consulted with several attorneys and were poised to go ahead with legal action when Ewa withdrew herself from the case, citing that she would rather 'work with' the rescue rather than fight with them. As the PSA was between Debbie and Ewa, there was little alternative left for us, besides pursuing Deb in civil court for our own monetary damages.

Michael Hodanish has subsequently made public posts online acknowledging having 'stolen' the dog, and has said on screen-captured posts that he never works with breeders and has baselessly accused us of wanting to re-sell Kona. He laughably says that the PSA means nothing although he also expects his own "adoption contract" to be respected.

For more than a year Kona remained revolving between failed placements from this 'rescue'.

I decided to post about this now, because I feel it's important people know. Please let this serve as a warning about this joke rescue.