Not to be outdone by its competitor, Riner & Associates also excelled at destroying the dental health of dogs at its facility, located in Nowata, Oklahoma. Inspectors found beagles with red and inflamed gums and heavy tartar buildup on their teeth, which were also caked with hair and debris.
An injured male beagle, who couldn’t bear weight on his left hind leg, limped across the well-trodden dirt of a sparse outdoor enclosure, where planks of a collapsed wooden structure—supposedly there to provide shade—lay strewn across the ground. The dog had become lame after a “tussle” with another dog, a Riner staff member stated. The facility was merely monitoring his condition.
Ticks clung to the side of one beagle and the inner ear of another, whose tilting and shaking of the head signaled discomfort. Workers had observed the first beagle’s condition two weeks earlier but had done nothing to alleviate it.
Other beagles suffered from red lesions on their bodies and “cherry eye”—a condition in which a dog’s third eyelid pops out and bulges from the eye opening. The lesions on the back of one beagle, Glenn, were 1.5 inches long and clearly visible against his short black fur, but Riner staff hadn’t even noticed them.
In April 2019, inspectors observed that the coat of a tabby cat named Sophie had become thin. By March 2020, only 25% of her fur remained and her exposed skin was pockmarked with reddish, scabbing wounds.
Cats with cloudy, scarred eyes peered out from dismal metal cages. Others had ears sullied with black debris.
The eyes of a black cat named Cry Baby oozed with mucus.
