Frank’s Story

Frank unfortunately had an extremely rough start as a puppy. It makes me sick with anger still to think back to what was done to him. I had mistakenly placed trust in someone I had considered a close friend and sold Frank as a co-owned potential breeding dog to Jennah Langseth Bell, who runs Counting Crows Kennel in Alabama. At the time, we had known each other for about 4-5 years. When Jennah applied for a puppy from my Christmas Litter, I discussed with her several concerns I had about the wolfdogs she owned, including the deaths of two of her wolfdog puppies in the past couple years. Jennah informed me that one puppy had died unexpectedly from bloat, and that the other had been bitten by a rattlesnake and didn’t pull through. Both instances seemed to be unfortunate, but blameless, freak accidents, based on the information she gave me. Aside from that, she had appropriate wolfdog containment up, which she showed me photos and videos of, and she owned a few other low content wolfdogs and had the necessary experience to qualify for ownership. She was seeking a higher quality wolfdog, from health tested parents and documented lineage, to try to improve her program. I felt that my litter would be a good opportunity for her, so I approved her application to co-own a puppy as a potential breeding prospect.

Frank went home with Jennah when he was 9 weeks old (she named him “Enzo”). The day he left, he had gotten a health certificate from our veterinarian, which included being weighed and having a fecal test performed, so that he could be allowed to travel between states. Per our official vet records, Frank weighed 23 lbs. when he left us to go home with Jennah on February 28, 2021. On April 1, 2021, Jennah contacted the breeder of a young female dog she owned, named Rue. Earlier that day, Rue had broken out of her pen and into Jennah’s barn to kill a puppy from a litter Jennah’s wolfdogs had produced just prior to Frank going home. Jennah also admitted that Rue had also killed an adult female dog that Jennah used to own, named Annabelle. Jennah had concealed this and instead told everyone that Annabelle had been “rehomed” and was happy and doing well. Jennah had knowingly lied to me about the conditions and safety of her home and had purposefully withheld information from me that she knew would have disqualified her as an applicant for any of my puppies. As a result, she had signed all of my contracts in Bad Faith, which is a legal term that refers to dishonesty or fraud in a transaction. I informed Jennah that her co-ownership of Frank was revoked effective immediately. My husband, Dustin, drove from Texas to Alabama on April 2, 2021, to take physical possession of Frank.

The morning of April 2, 2021, Jennah took Frank to a vet, who administered his 3rd round of vaccines and rabies vaccine. She messaged me, claiming that he weighed 26 lbs. at his vet appointment. This alarmed me. I went and weighed Frank’s littermate siblings that we had kept: Myrrh weighed 41.1 lbs. Holly weighed 29.0 lbs. Eve weighed 26.6 lbs. Frank had always been right behind Myrrh in weight by only one or two pounds. All this time, Jennah had been gushing over how much Frank was growing and how big he was getting. For him to weigh the same as his smallest sister didn’t make sense. I called the vet that Jennah had taken Frank to, and they told me that, in fact, Frank had weighed 24.6 lbs. on their official records for his visit that morning. I confronted Jennah about this discrepancy, and she claimed that Frank had full access to food day and night.

Dustin arrived at Jennah’s house after dark. At first, she met Dustin at the front of her long driveway, with Frank and his belongings. Dustin needed Jennah to sign my repossession contract, notifying her of the revocation of all her rights to ownership for Frank, so Jennah lead Dustin up to her house, where she signed the form. As it was already quite dark, Dustin couldn’t see any of her property or the other dogs living there. Dustin left with Frank and drove 30 minutes to a motel, where he gave Frank a bath, due to him being very dirty. Dustin took videos and sent them to me after Frank’s bath. He was a skeleton under his fluffy puppy coat. When Frank got home on April 3, 2021, he weighed 26.8 lbs. on our home scale, and then he weighed 28.1 lbs. when we brought him to our vet on the morning of April 4, 2021. He gained almost 4 lbs. in three days, just from having access to food and water. Our vet was optimistic that he would not be stunted too badly in growth, since we were able to get him back onto a proper feeding regimen. Frank was evaluated by our vet with a comprehensive blood panel, fecal, and full body examination. He was determined to have a body score of 1. He would have died if he had stayed in Jennah’s care for even one more week. To this day, Jennah denies Frank being starved to the point of being a skeleton, even though we have official vet records and videos to prove it. She has shown absolutely no remorse for her actions and the harm she caused my puppy. None.

At the recommendation of our vet, we fed Frank small meals to start with, and gradually increased his portions until he was eating the correct amount for his age again. Over the next couple months, Frank slowly grew to surpass Holly and Eve in weight and size again, and he grew up to be a sturdy boy, although we do think he was stunted slightly in height. We have kept him intact so far, to allow his body the benefit of the growth regulation that sex hormones provide, in the hopes that it would help mitigate the damage caused to him as a puppy. He will be 3+ years old by the time he gets neutered, so he is fully grown and doesn’t need his “Christmas ornaments” anymore.