Press Releases
From Animal Defenders of Westchester (ADOW)

We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.

Activists Call on St Jude's Hospital to reject Cruelty Donation - 'United Kennel Club' fundraiser trains dogs to rip apart live raccoons

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 12, 2015

CONTACT:
Kiley Blackman
[email protected]
www.adow.org

Activists Call on St Jude's Hospital to reject Cruelty Donation
'United Kennel Club' fundraiser trains dogs to rip apart live raccoons
 
Animal Defenders of Westchester (ADOW), along with other animal advocates, are calling for St Jude's Children's Hospital to reject any donation from the 'United Kennel Club.'  This Tennessee-based group is holding the 'Worlds Largest Coon Hunt to Benefit SJH' - in which dogs trained on live bait gang up on, catch and viciously rip up live raccoons, a 'family fun event' as they term it.  
 
Watch Annual Raccoon Hunt for St. Judes on Youtube.

Multiple calls to St. Jude's, emails and negative reviews on their website of this disturbing event and the fact that they are accepting blood money have gone completely unanswered. St. Judes has accepted money from this group for many years now and, like March of Dimes, hides behind 'saving children' to perpetuate such questionable practices.

According to Forbes, it raises more money than any other hospital (2/22/12):

We figure financial efficiency ratios and judged St. Jude to be among the least efficient on the list, due to a combination of overhead and not-low fundraising costs. The head of the National Center for Charitable Statistics, who created an annual study of fundraising costs at thousands of charities, says many organizations underreport their fundraising expenses because they are afraid of getting low marks from watchdog groups and the press. William McGinly, president of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, a professional group for fundraisers working in nearly 5,000 hospitals, says that big hospitals like St. Jude may say they spend less than they do because no ironclad standards exist on reported fundraising costs.

Furthermore, a look at their tax exempt disclosure forms reveals half their revenue taken in goes for salaries and benefits instead of patient care. See PDF.

Kiley Blackman, Founder of ADOW said, 'You think you've heard every depraved act of cruelty possible against animals...then it gets worse. Raccoons are intelligent, curious, affectionate little beings who harm no one. What kind of sick monsters have dogs rip up live animals and call it a 'family event'??!! Are they so bereft of ethics and decency in the south that they bring their children to watch this horror?? I wonder if they're taking the young residents of St Judes out to the massacre - or if they're even telling the kids where the money is coming from. Would St Judes accept money from NAMBLA, the notorious pedophile association? Would they accept it from the KKK?  Or does it just not matter to St Judes so long as those bucks keep flowing.  
 
'How is chasing, cornering and tearing an animal apart any different from dogfighting - because the victim is wildlife? If the victim of this gruesome activity was another dog or a cat, it would be stopped and its participants arrested!  In the 21st century, for a supposedly life-affirming organization to affiliate itself with torture is reprehensible. St Judes must finally speak up against this savagery and disavow any profit from it. Shame on St. Judes; this is an abomination for participants - and anyone who profits from it. I doubt that Danny Thomas would accept such egregious animal abuse, which makes a mockery of saving children.' 

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