Kennel

The owner of the Chester County kennel that sold Vice President Biden his dog, Champ, received her third not-guilty verdict for dog-law violations Monday in District Court. Linda Brown, who runs JoLindy's German Shepherds - also known as Wolf Den Kennel - with her husband, Joseph Gauger, appeared before Bucktown District Judge James V. DeAngelo. "I can't get beyond reasonable doubt," DeAngelo said regarding allegations that the food and sanitation of the couple's Spring City kennel ran afoul of the law. Jeff Conrad, Brown's attorney, said after the hour-long hearing that state regulators have unfairly targeted Brown.

The chairman of the board and president of the American Kennel Club have written a letter to Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, asking him to withdraw Michael Vick as the team's recepient of the Ed Block Courage Award. The letter, from chairman Ronald H. Menaker and president and chief executive officer Dennis B. Sprung, is dated last Friday and urges the Eagles to select another player. The Eagles announced Dec. 23 that Vick was the unanimous choice of his teammates and he will be honored in March, along with the winners from the 31 other teams, at a dinner in Baltimore.

Animal-cruelty charges filed against a woman known for running a successful pack of sporting dogs have been continued until June and will be dropped if she complies with an agreement to clean and maintain her kennel in Roxborough. In July, the Pennsylvania SPCA raided the property of Wendy Willard, owner of Murder Hollow Bassets. The agency filed 22 citations against her for failing to adequately care for 23 dogs on her property, 11 more than allowed under city ordinances. Philadelphia Community Court Judge Joseph J. O'Neill negotiated the agreement between Willard and SPCA officers.

When Michael Schnoll sent his 7-year-old off to overnight camp for the first time, he knew he would do just fine. Newman would exercise, eat well, nap, and make friends his size and temperament. Not bad for a dog. He was, after all, going to Camp Bow Wow, a newly opened 10,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor doggy day and overnight facility in Cherry Hill. Tucked inside a sprawling commercial park, the camp - its lobby sports a fireplace and wood-cabin decor - provides pooches a place to run around and socialize.

Their conversations are one-way, but Debra Evalds knows Scarlett is looking forward to her big weekend. "If she didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't show her," Evalds says, confident she knows Scarlett's feelings as she prepares the 4-year-old vizsla for this year's Kennel Club of Philadelphia dog shows. On Saturday and Sunday, Scarlett and about 1,400 other canine contestants will compete for top-dog honors at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Montgomery County. Bill Burland, the shows' director, hopes that the venue, with its plentiful parking and spacious layout, will become a permanent home for the event, which has been staged at various locations in the area in recent years.

HARRISBURG - New standards governing cage size, exercise, and veterinary care go into effect today for the roughly 300 licensed commercial dog kennels in Pennsylvania. Under a law signed a year ago by Gov. Rendell, kennel operators who keep more than 59 dogs a year, or sell one or more dogs to a pet store, must house dogs in larger cages than before, and provide daily exercise and regular veterinary care for breeding dogs. The new law also forbids cage stacking and wire flooring in cages, and imposes kennel temperature requirements.

A federal judge yesterday upheld the constitutionality of key provisions in Pennsylvania's year-old law governing commercial dog kennels. The Professional Dog Breeders Advisory Council, which represents the state's commercial kennels, two New Jersey pet store owners, and a Pennsylvania dog breeder, sued the commonwealth on various constitutional grounds alleging, among other things, that kennel inspections constituted unlawful search and seizure and...

Caged cats line the halls of Camden County's animal shelter, and kennels are packed with pit bulls. As at many shelters, the recession has increased drop-offs, but overcrowding at the Blackwood facility, once home to the tubby media darling Prince Chunk, predates this bad economy. Since 2006, Camden County mayors have dreamed of doubling the shelter's size. Last week, architects tweaked designs that have been months in the making, while towns such as Lindenwold and Pennsauken made do with animal-control plans far from their liking.

Animal-welfare officials, acting under a new law, moved in yesterday and shut down a Lehigh County dog-breeding kennel with a history of abuse and filthy conditions. Agents of the state Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement and the Humane Society of the United States removed 216 dogs from the Almost Heaven Kennel in Emmaus. The noontime seizure came after Commonwealth Court had rejected kennel owner Derbe Eckhart's emergency appeal of his license revocation. "Our goal was to get the dogs out as quickly as possible," said Chris Ryder, spokesman for state Department of Agriculture, the dog bureau's parent agency.

A state judge yesterday ordered a Lancaster County kennel to close for six months and fined its owners $166,000 for repeatedly violating a four-year-old agreement with state authorities. Commonwealth Court Judge Barry F. Feudale called the business practices of Joyce and Raymond Stoltzfus "clearly deceptive" and "underhanded. " But he fell short of permanently shuttering the couple's CC Pets L.L.C. of Peach Bottom, as the state Attorney General's Office had requested at a hearing Monday.