Cavalier at center of tug of war between owner and dog group

Welshpool, UK, May 4, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Five months after being rescued from a breeder stock auction in Missouri, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Gideon has yet to be released by the people who purchased him in the name of a Cavalier rescue organization and now refuse to give him up to his rightful owner.

Gideon’s story began in England in 2007, where he was one of a litter of five bred by Maggie Dawson of Welshpool, UK, Dawson sold the pup to Terri Easterbrooks of Lineville, AL, after checking references and receiving assurances from other breeders she knew that he would be going to a good home. Gideon’s sales contract specified that if there came a time that Easterbrooks couldn’t keep him, he was to be returned to Dawson. The women kept in touch for several years, but eventually Dawson no longer received responses to any communications.

"I just hope to get Gideon to my friends where I know he will be loved and treated well and I can go and visit him," says a distraught Dawson.

Maggie Dawson

She was stunned, however, when an American friend notified her that a dog bearing her kennel name, Pomelo Gideon, was among 98 Cavaliers being auctioned in Missouri. She contacted the auction house and offered to purchase him but was refused. Friends from Kansas offered to attend the auction and purchase Gideon on her behalf. Dawson sent them £1,000, and another friend contributed another $1,000. They hoped the more than $2,000 would be enough to reclaim a 7-year-old dog.

Cavalier Rescue USA, which was involved in the rescue operation, knew that Dawson’s friends would be bidding for Gideon and assured her that the group would not bid against them. But a private social club in Birmingham — which was originally associated with CR USA — did just that and claimed Gideon for $4,300, even though they were aware that Dawson was trying to retrieve him herself and had also agreed in writing not to bid against her representatives.  To do so, they used donations made by Dawson’s friends worldwide, including breed clubs in the UK, in the belief that they would be helping her to get her dog back.

The Birmingham locale group then placed Gideon in what they described as a temporary foster home. When CR USA directed them to hand Gideon over to Dawson’s friends, they refused, despite the verbal and written promises and agreements between CR USA, members of the Birmingham team on the ground in Missouri, and Dawson that her friends would purchase Gideon directly; and then despite the CR USA-approved adoption application of her friends for Gideon after he was placed in foster care.

Cavalier Rescue USA has severed connections with the members of the group in Birmingham who had been its representatives for this operation. Maggie Dawson continues to pursue every avenue to resolve this situation.

For more information, please visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/1572517666329969/ or contact Maggie Dawson at [email protected].