NY Animal Rescue Group In Court Fight To Reclaim Connecticut Dog

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — A Bayside animal rescue group is waging a three-state legal battle to reclaim a brown spaniel mix named Lambsy, arguing that the dog's new owner flouted the group's strict instructions on how to care for the pet, according to court records and news reports.

Abandoned Angels Cocker Spaniel Rescue Inc. is suing Connecticut woman Cheryl Baity for custody of the six-year-old pooch in a case that the Stamford Advocate has called "one of the most contentious civil cases in the state."

The trial began this week in Connecticut Superior Court.

The lawsuit centers on the rescue group's claims that Baity, who was approved to foster the dog in October 2018, violated instructions to keep Lambsy in her fenced yard for two weeks to help the pup get acclimated to New England, where the dog had just moved from Cyprus, the lawsuit says.

Instead, she took Lambsy for a walk in Tilley Pond Park in Darien, where the dog broke away from her and went missing for a week, the rescue group says in its complaint.

After Lambsy ran away, the rescue group started investigating Baity's claims in her adoption application and learned that she had lied that her three previous dogs died from old age, the suit says.

In fact, the rescue group claims, Baity had run over and killed one of her dogs, and another had died from renal failure, because Baity refused to give the dog antibiotics for an infection.

Baity denied those claims in an interview with the New York Post.

"It is a lie to create a smoke-and-mirror story," she told the Post. "It is the cruelest thing to say to someone, because I spent thousands of dollars in medical care including holistic treatment."

Abandoned Angels contacted local police in an effort to reclaim Lambsy, but Baity had taken the dog to New Hampshire, where police did nothing more than confirm that the dog was still alive.

The rescue group reached out to Baity in November 2018 asking that she return Lambsy, but she never responded. She then tried to send the group a $300 payment to adopt the dog, but the group returned it, according to the complaint.

— By Maya Kaufman, Patch Staff; this story first appeared on Bayside-Douglaston, NY Patch