This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Animal Rescue Re-opens Humane Investigation Unit

Libertyville-based Animal Education & Rescue announces it will restart efforts to stop animal abuse and neglect.

After cancelling its humane investigation efforts nine months ago, Animal Education and Rescue founder Sandy Wisniewski recently announced that they will breath new life into their mission to put a stop to animal abuse and neglect.

“Those of you that were volunteers with us nine months ago, you might remember getting a letter from us stating that we were closing our humane investigation unit,” Wisniewski said. “I’m going to talk very frankly about that so everybody understands where we were at and what a tough decision that was for us to make.”

On April 16, during an adoption  at , Wisniewski showed volunteers and participants photos from five years of cases they investigated and shared the stories behind them.

Find out what's happening in Libertyvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Daisy, a dog that spent all five years of her life tied to a tree stump at her home in North Chicago, was rescued and adopted to a home in Libertyville.

Wisniewski had tears in her eyes as she told the story of a Great Dane they named Duke, who only stood up once while in their care. He was so severely sick, they had to humanely euthanize him.

Find out what's happening in Libertyvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Finally, she came to the case of a neglected dog in a Rolling Meadows residence.

“There were very bad conditions. We suspected alcohol and drug abuse in the entire family,” Wisniewski explained. “We took this dog, and unfortunately, a few days later the suspects and their adult children showed up at my personal residence.”

Wisniewski demanded that they leave her property, and they refused, at which time she called the police. Wisniewski says police officers came to her residence to investigate, but refused to remove the suspects and that the suspects told the police that Wisniewski had stolen their dog.

“As you can see, we have enough dogs, we don’t need to go stealing people’s dogs,” Wisniewski said. “Rolling Meadows police got involved and started threatening to charge me with a felony for kidnapping a dog. This whole thing was probably the worst thing I’ve ever been through.”

Wisniewski explained that at the time she was fighting for custody of her grandchild and the accusations and threats of jail time were terrifying her.

“So with all that going on, I decided to close the humane investigation unit of Animal Education and Rescue,” Wisniewski said. “But ultimately, I’m very stubborn and will do everything I can to turn something horrible into something good.”

Wisniewski revealed that three months ago, she realized she had to continue to help save animals in abusive situations, and decided that educating the public was the first step. As the first element of Animal Education and Rescue’s revived efforts, they will now offer an Abuse and Neglect class to the public.

“I’m going to teach people everything I know about animal neglect,” Wisniewski said. “So that people know the laws.”

In addition to the classes, she has also started another division of her organization focused on humane investigation. This unit will have a different name, so that her personal information will be protected.

Stephanie Chizek, who has worked with Wisniewski for three years, will return to conducting animal investigations, and Wisniewski hopes with her classes, she will add new members.

“I’m very relieved,” Chizek said. “We kept getting the calls and we had to transfer them to local animal control, police departments, or other shelters. And they’re overwhelmed.”

According to Wisniewski, Saturday was one of their more successful events, with several adoptions taking place. Two of the adopted dogs, Kanga and Roo, were found in a cardboard box in a dumpster.

More information about the Abuse and Neglect classes and Animal Education and Rescue’s work can be found at www.aear.org.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?