Chester County SPCA
Reviews and Complaints

I had the exact same thing happen to be re: the hospital. My dog got out on 4th of July in about 1997 and I called the SPCA and went there for 2 days looking for her every few hours I checked the stray building, adoptions, everywhere. Finally after calling every emergency vet in town I found she had been hit by a car and taken to the SPCA. I went down there and they said they did not have her. I finally found out she had been in their hospital the whole time dying! I MADE them open up for me after hours since I had been there since 4 pm waiting for someone to open the hospital to feed and/or medicate animals since it was 108 degrees that day! No one ever came. I called Gib Rambo at home and he sent someone to open the hospital. It was about 100 degrees or more in the hospital and when I went into the back cages to find my dog she was sitting there panting with all of the other dogs in the cages, with no water, no food and no IV when she even had an IV tube from the initial emergency vet. They were just waiting for her to die. Making matters worse there was a dead dog in a wheel barrow right inside the kennel room! It was horrific! I took my dog and left and took her to my vet who treated her for a broken spine, broken pelvis and multiple lacerations. The pain and horror she must have felt in that place is unspeakable. The general lack of care and compassion is astounding! I can only wish they would be shut down! It's an absolute hell hole. And, just a note, I have been there over the past few years on numerous occasions and not much has changed.

They have a 20 year history of lying, from my experiences with them. I have never had a pleasant interaction with them, even though I have adopted several animals from them over the years. Every time I've gone there, I've left disgusted and heartsick. The place is literally a hell-hole. Filthy, (you have to hold your breath) with urine and feces everywhere. Poor dogs lying in their own waste on cold cement floors, while comfy raised beds they could be laying on are leaned up against the wall. Animals with dirty water/no water.

One of the worst times dealing with them was about 20 years ago- a neighbor had trapped my cat, Roo in an illegal leghold trap (in the city!), and another neighbor saw the SPCA truck come and get him, and told me when I came home from work. I immediately went there, and everyone there denied he'd been there. I called and went there every day for weeks, and put up posters of Roo all over town, and they constantly denied he'd been there. One day I got an anonymous call from someone who'd seen his picture- they said they worked at the SPCA hospital, and that definitely, Roo had been there. They said he was brought in with a bear trap on his paw, that he'd had a broken leg, and that all the times I'd been there looking for him, he was at the hospital. They said that everyone at the SPCA knew that I was looking for Roo, and where he was. They said that because he was such an amazingly beautiful cat, he wasn't put up for adoption- he was given to someone through the back door. After that, I started regularly getting anonymous calls from people who said they worked there, had heard that a local station was going to be covering my story, and then proceeding to tell me all kinds of horrific things they saw while working there. Animals sold out the back door, live puppies in a barrel full of dead dogs, workers beating and kicking the animals, using drugs while working, animals being taken from the trucks, and instead of being held in the stray kennels, being put directly in the kill room. Saying that the majority of all cats were marked 'feral' so that they could be killed immediately. They told me that other people like me had complained for years, and nothing was done.

So, I went back and demanded to speak to Norm Minson and Gib Rambo, the directors. Both of them lied and said he'd never been there, and pressured me to find out who told me that. After months of them lying to me, I'd had it. I contacted my city council member, Brian Setencich, and told him my story. He went directly there, and then all the sudden they admitted he'd been there, but he'd been adopted out by a family with two kids and a huge house/yard that was a better place than my small Tower district home, so I couldn't get him back. They offered me a 'free cat', which I declined, stating that I wanted MY cat. Kudos to Brian for not letting up- he pressured them into giving him the address, and went there himself. It was actually a small one-bedroom apartment, upstairs, with a single mom and a girl. He told me this after he surprised me at my house by showing up (5 months after he'd been taken to the SPCA) in his big cadillac, with Roo sitting in the back seat! One of the happiest days of my life.

On another occasion, my 16 year old dog had died, so I went there to look for a new dog. They had several white west highland terriers there (it looked like a puppy mill had dumped them), and I chose one and paid for her to get spayed. I was told to come back the next day. The next day I came back, and was told sorry, she'd been adopted my mistake, and to choose another dog. Finally, I decided on a small cockapoo mix- and was told to come back after her spay the next day. I asked another worker if they had any westies left, and was told by them, oh, we did yesterday, but we had to put them all to sleep because they were vicious. ! So, the next day I come back, and no kidding, I get told that the second dog had been 'reclaimed by it's owner'. Which was really miraculous, since I'd been told the dog had been there for weeks. Out of sheer stubborness to save at least one animal, I left that day with a small apricot poodle, Adobe, who I ended up having for years.

This shelter needs to be closed, and new management brought in. It's mind-bogglingly filthy, and it's killing at least 80-100 animals per day, every day of the year, by their own admission (30, 000 pets per year, according to them). I don't know how they sleep at night.