Dog back with family as group relents

PITTSBORO -- A Chatham County rescue group gave Liza Terll her dog back Tuesday after the group's president said three board members had received threats.

The story of Shelby riveted readers of a popular local Listserv this week. Many berated Best Buddies Companion Rescue and Adoption for not returning the dog. Some threatened to withhold donations until the dog was returned.

"Let me tell you something," Linda Allred Cooper wrote on Chatham Chatlist, "if Shelby were my dog and ... we wouldn't get her back -- we would all be meeting down at the Court House with lots of lawyers and judges."

The story begins in November when the Terlls let Shelby outside to play with their two other dogs. Their backyard opens onto 300 acres of woods, Terll said.

Usually Shelby jumps at the door to be let back in. When she did not return, the Terlls feared the worst -- that she was dead.

"My husband had seen signs of coyotes in the woods, and we thought coyotes had gotten her," Terll said.

Terll did not check the Chatham County Animal Shelter and admits that was a mistake.

"I wasn't being neglectful," she said. "I just didn't think of it."

Terll later learned Shelby had been there about a week before the Best Buddies rescue group took custody of her.

In December, while shopping for a Christmas tree, the Terlls saw a couple holding their dog.

The couple said they had adopted the dog from the rescue group several hours before. They whisked the little dog away to their car while Terll's 6-year-old daughter Tess wailed, Terll said.

Terll then wrote the couple a letter. "Ever since Shelby disappeared I have prayed 'God, please let Shelby be okay' -- I just neglected to add -- and bring her home (another mistake on my part)," she wrote in the letter she provided to The News & Observer.

Soon after, the couple returned Shelby to Best Buddies, and Terll contacted the group to see how to get her back.

The rescue group told her the dog would not be returned to her family, Terll said.

Carrie Griffin, Best Buddies' president, said there were several good reasons why.

The dog was not spayed, she said, and it had no tags. Shelby also had tested positive for a tick-born virus that can be fatal if untreated, she said.

Griffin said she and fellow board members Katie Wasileski and Pam Sullivan denied the family's request because the family did not meet the group's adoption standards.

None of them had met with the family, visited their home or had the Terlls fill out an application, as the group requires for its adoptions. "We already know they don't meet the criteria without meeting them," Griffin said Tuesday morning.

But hours later, Griffin called the newspaper back to say it had dropped Shelby off at a local veterinarian for the Terlls to pick up.