76 year old Woman Fights Undercover for Animals

She doesn't look like a dedicated undercover operative, this 76-year-old animal lover with arthritic knees. But she is. Now Helen Smith is expected to provide key testimony against a veterinarian who serves some of Pennsylvania's big dog-breeding kennels and who has been charged with animal cruelty on allegations that he mutilated a puppy's tail.

"I seem harmless," Smith said yesterday, describing how she gets around with a cane. In fact, "I'm not harmless at all."

On March 10, 2009, Smith went to Country Lane Kennels in New Providence, PA accompanied by an undercover officer from the PA SPCA. While there, Smith unexpectedly witnessed the act that led to a first-degree misdemeanor charge against Thomas F. Stevenson of the Twin Valley Veterinary Clinic in Honey Brook, PA. A police criminal complaint states that Stevenson treated a 9-week-old mixed poodle's already injured and bleeding tail by "soaking it in scalding water" and then cutting it off with shears "without sedation or prior numbing of the tail."

"The dog was screaming, and screaming, and screaming," Smith said yesterday. "You could see the blood. You could see the exposed bone."

Smith is the mother of Bill Smith, founder of Main Line Animal Rescue in Chester Springs (PA), which has strived to improve conditions for thousands of dogs in PA's puppy mills. As Bill Smith began to be more recognized, making it hard for him to get into kennels, his mother started taking his place.

Helen Smith has been infiltrating kennels for close to a decade, scoping out conditions, rescuing animals, and informing authorities of what she finds. Many places she visits are feces-laden warehouses where dogs are confined in small pens. Smith said yesterday that, given the publicity surrounding this case, her undercover career was probably over. The retired mother of three will continue to volunteer for Main Line Animal Rescue - and to follow her favorite TV show, Law & Order.

Source: philly.com