Hello Fellow Dog Fanciers,

 I have a story to tell about a private rescue of 17 dogs represented as purebred Norwich Terriers.  

 A Norwich Terrier fancier,  Ellen Lucas from Tulsa OK, recently went to a dog auction in MO after finding out there were 17 Norwich Terriers listed in the catalog to be offered for sale.  The seller listed 200 dogs for sale, stating they were downsizing their stock because they need to repair damage to their facility from a hurricane or tornado.   There were a total of 450 dogs offered at auction that day. 

 When Ellen got to the auction site, she discovered the dogs were almost all a black brindle color and appeared to be Cairn Terriers.  Yet, unbelievably two of these adult dogs, both females, were AKC registered Norwich Terriers.  Only one dog was red and she was not one of the AKC registered dogs.   All the dogs’ tails were docked.  Six of the dogs were 5 month old puppies; one of the AKC registered bitches had a litter of 5 four week old puppies; the red bitch had just recently lost her litter of 3 pups.  The rest were adults. 

 Ellen was appalled at the situation and feared there would be another puppy mill person there to purchase these dogs and continue the fraud of selling Cairn Terriers as Norwich Terriers.  Considering two of the bitches were AKC registered, it is a serious threat to the gene pool and the AKC Norwich Registry.  Ellen's fears came true as there was a puppy mill person there prepared to purchase the dogs.  Ellen bought all 17 dogs.  At first she considered only purchasing the females but she could not bear leaving any of them behind to live in a puppy mill. 

Considering these dogs were not Norwich Terriers, the Norwich Terrier Club of America could not help.  Cairn Rescue was contacted, but they have had so many dogs turned into Rescue recently that they were full up and had no foster homes available or funds to offer. 

All the dogs were initially taken to Ellen's vet for health check-up, neutering and spaying of adults, and worming and vaccinations.  Fortunately, all the dogs were in surprisingly good condition and all seemed to be well-socialized. 

Two Rescue Groups (TX and MO) were contacted that took the 5 month old puppies and they have been successfully adopted.    A Norwich fancier in MI took the bitch with the 5 four week old puppies.  Volunteers pitched in to help with the transports.  The adults were kept with a professional dog handler in OK who boarded them until permanent homes were found for them. 

A breed specific DNA test has been done on one of the dogs that is AKC registered Norwich Terrier (the two are litter sisters) and the results are that she is a purebred Cairn Terrier.  The Norwich Terrier Club of America has been advised and they are working on this problem.  They are happy to have access to the dogs, the registrations, and the DNA results.  It will help them tremendously with the entire situation of Cairn Terriers being sold as Norwich.

Please feel free to share this story. 

Dana Esquibel
Tinytowne Norwich Terriers