Cruel Animal Shelter Still in Operation

We showed you these angry dogs, kept caged night and day in a dark basement...hidden camera video of thin and needy cats. We shared the stories of former volunteers and employees who described a lack of food, medicine, veterinary treatment and basic care. We described the overwhelming odor of urine, waste, and filth.

And we showed you image after image of what appeared to be ailing, sick, and diseased animals.

Following our expose of Pet Rescue Inc., a so-called "no-kill" shelter in suburban Bloomingale, the Illinois Department of Agriculture took action.

It's the state agency that licenses, monitors and inspects animal shelters, and it charged Pet Rescue with dozens of violations of the state animal welfare act--enough to shut them down for good if proven true.

The DuPage County State's Attorney also stepped in, filing 20 criminal charges against the shelter's proprietors, Dale Armon and Penny Horak. Sharon Seremek, a former Pet Rescue Inc. volunteer since summer of 2007 says there were 75 deaths there.

The village of Bloomingdale has been bombarded with still more complaints, resulting in Pet Rescue being cited with local code violations.

McHenry County officials searched and inspected yet another pet-filled property of Armon and Horak and found dead animals and filthy conditions.

And the state Attorney General's office said until Pet Rescue properly accounted for its finances as a non-profit, it could no longer solicit funding, donations or grants.

That's a lot of government claiming to be doing a lot of things about Pet Rescue Inc.

But nearly a year after we broadcast our first report about the shelter, the wheels of justice are turning ever so slowly. Court dates have been repeatedly delayed, appeals have been filed and pet rescue continues to operate. Kris Nesheim is a former pet rescue volunteer.

She said: "This is unacceptable. Somebody needs to stop them." Former Pet Rescue Inc. workers are upset with what they say are either glaring oversights or downright incompetence on the part of the Department of Agriculture.

Last year, for example, when we informed the official in charge of overseeing Pet Rescue's inspections that the shelter did not have running water, she told us we were wrong. Dr. Colleen O'Keefe of the Illinois Department of Agriculture told us: "In fact I know there is running water."

But that wasn't the case this past March when a state inspector brought in by Bloomingdale officials cited Pet Rescue with nine water-related violations.

Cherie Travis is a animal law attorney. She says: "There's something wrong here...The Illinois Department of Agriculture doesn't do its job in regulating the shelters that it licenses."

She says the issue is far bigger than just Pet Rescue. She's just examined hundreds of Department of Agriculture inspection reports from other Illinois shelters filed within the last year, and she's appalled by what she's found.

She says: "It's amazing to me how frequently a citizen will say the place is filthy, the animals are not well and the inspectors always say everything looks...There should have been vet records requested and there should have been violations."

Even more astounding, Travis says she's also found dozens of inspection reports of Illinois shelters that were turned in completely blank.

As for Pet Rescue Inc., it's now open only one day a week for just a few hours. Shelter insiders say the hundreds of animals here rarely ever see daylight.

Pet advocates Fanni and Kris say: "They're always caged." "Yeah, and they grow old there."

And some observers believe Armon and Horak are more interested in hoarding animals than providing them with a new and loving home.

Cherie Travis says: "People who take on more animals than they can manage that there might be an underlying medical or psychological issue..There's something wrong here, it's not the way a shelter should be run."

In fact just this week, during a visit to Pet Rescue, three people sent in undercover by Fox Chicago were all told they were unsuitable candidates for a pet adoption, that not a single cat at the shelter was even available for adoption, and that they could only look at the animals through the shelter's outside windows.

We tried to get a response from Pet Rescue but no one would talk with us.

Cherie Travis says: "They are going to let the animals suffer until they die. That's the approach Pet Rescue takes...There is something fundamentally flawed with the fact that this has been going on as long as it has."

And then there's piles of reports filed with various government leaders about Pet Rescue Inc. that date back to the early 1980s.

Yet just yesterday, the village of Bloomingdale told me not a single accusation of wrong doing had ever come to its attention until last year.

We've also provided the Attorney General's office with documents that may provide evidence Pet Rescue continued to fundraise and accept donations, despite its non-compliance with the AG's requirements.

They tell us they continue