By Debra Fitzgerald
For The News-Chronicle
... He is all pine, and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
- Robert Frost
"Mending Wall"
A conflict dividing a shelter owner and some of her neighbors might prove that even good fences don't make make good neighbors when one side of the fence leads to million-dollar homes and the other contains 130 dogs of every conceivable size, shape and color.
Property owners who live near Rory Walter's All Creatures Home for Animals in Baileys Harbor are claiming that her shelter has devalued their properties by creating an eyesore, a nuisance, a safety hazard and a public health problem.
Walter, 53, said the concerns are unfounded and have been crafted to hide the real reasons for the claims: The neighbors who are complaining don't want to live next to an animal shelter, are intolerant of different lifestyles and will do whatever they can to get her out of there.
"I think it's just people don't like others to live differently," Walter said during an interview with the Door County Advocate on her property.
"They think I'm this crazy lady who lives in a barn. But I don't mind that they criticize, because it shows people that these animals don't just go away when you drop them over the fence. I stand by them for life. If they think that's eccentric, then I'm eccentric - and I'll stay that way."
For the past 22 years, Walter has taken animals that nobody else wants. She has 129 dogs, 28 cats and numerous other animals such as horses, llamas and pigs. A few years ago, after waiting for some lambs to be born, she was too tired to walk back to her dilapidated house through the cold, snowy night. Instead, she slept in the barn with the dogs and said for the first time in 18 years, she was warm.
"If I get up in the middle of the night, I lose my spot, but it was so wonderful the first time I did it, I just stayed," Walter said.
The dogs run freely within a large fenced enclosure spanning a part of All Creatures Lane, which leads to approximately 17 properties. But some of the dogs also roam freely at Walter's side as she works about the property.
These dogs jump up on passing vehicles, scratch the paint, and are a general nuisance to anyone who might walk down the road, the neighbors claim. They also complain about the clutter lining the road aside Walter's fence: bags of dog food, a Dumpster, old couches and chairs people have donated as "dog beds," and bags of other donated items such as blankets and clothing.
But it's mostly the dogs people pass as they drive down All Creatures Lane that Clint and Joyce Gereau blamed for having to reduce the listing price on their home - which they built on property they purchased five years ago - from $1.3 million in June 2002 to $949,900. The Realtor for Debra Pollatz's home on All Creatures Lane also concluded that after 30 showings, 60 inquiries, and many negative comments, the Walter property was responsible for the home's unsold status.
Other neighbors - like Kristen Peil, who is living at her parents' house north of Walter's - said the noise from the shelter is excessive, and that Walter's dogs regularly roam neighboring properties. To prove this point, Larry Hilgers, also an adjacent homeowner, took pictures of dog prints on his land after a recent dusting of snow.
"It's truly a health and safety issue," Peil said during a telephone interview. "I think her heart is in the right place, but I don't know how any one person can take care of that many animals and keep a handle on it."
Zoning enforcement
Though the neighbors have complained, it's Michael Walker, municipal valuer for Baileys Harbor and many other Door County municipalities, who has led the push for the county and the town of Baileys Harbor to control the shelter's population through existing zoning ordinances.
"This situation calls for a significant measure of control that has heretofore not been required of the property owner," Walker wrote in a Jan. 7 letter to the Door County Zoning Department. "Such laxness has placed the neighbors as economically held hostage [sic] by allowing Ms. Walter to create a 'Bangladesh' for animals in their back yard."
"I'm not trying to put her out of business," Walker told the Baileys Harbor Town Board on Monday, when the issue was discussed. "She obviously has a big heart and love for animals. But there needs to be control of the situation."
Walter was invited to, but didn't attend, the meeting, in which a crowd of people asked town supervisors questions about the shelter and pushed the board to act. In fact, Walter said that's one of her biggest problems with the complaints: Those who are making them have never come to her to express their concerns.
"I'm more than willing to work with anyone," Walter said. "But when they say they just want to resolve something, they should go right to where it is. Not once have they talked to me or been here. Instead, they're ganging up. This is about people trying to sell their homes. It's not us intruding on them - that's for sure."
Amazing rapport
Walter said she has an incredible support system of volunteers and donors who make her work possible. Several of them - including other neighbors who live on All Creatures Lane - talked about Walter's unselfish nature and large heart; about how she puts the animals above everything, even if it means walking around with duct tape on her shoes.
"I have grandchildren, and the dogs have never been on our property or bothered us," said Marge Beattie, an All Creatures Lane neighbor of Walter's since 1991. "It's definitely an ongoing thing between a few people up here. It's a personal thing with them. But they need to look at the value of their property and the condition of the road before they look at her facility."
"I don't like it either that people drop garbage and old furniture," Beattie added. "But everything is dropped on her doorstep. It's criminal what they do to her."
Walter said the dogs are secure within their fenced enclosure, but she can't control the dogs people drop off before she knows they are there.
Some of the dogs can jump the enclosure; these - about 35 of them - she packs into her truck when she runs daily errands. But she plans to have a six-foot fence built for the jumpers, and to get the dog food and other donations off the side of the road by installing a second driveway.
Every dog is spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and given rabies shots, Walter said. The dogs are allowed to be adopted - if they weren't, she said she'd have 3,000. She also euthanizes dogs that are too old, unhealthy or too aggressive.
Jennifer Jasper, a veterinarian at Peninsula Veterinary Service in Sturgeon Bay, regularly treats Walter's animals and visits the shelter. Jasper confirmed that all Walter's animals are spayed and neutered and that they receive rabies shots. She wasn't sure, however, if they were vaccinated annually.
Since nearly two-thirds of Walter's dogs are age 10 or older, Jasper said she performs a lot of lump removal surgeries and sees a lot of skin, thyroid and ear problems among the dogs - but nothing "proportionately out of the ordinary." And overall, the animals "seem happy and well fed."
"We don't consider it neglect or a collector situation," Jasper said. "She just wants to take care of the animals the best she can. And she has an amazing rapport with the animals. The way I've seen her interact with them, I wouldn't worry about her safety at all."
County help asked
The board was generally supportive of Walter and her work. However, it was also the board's opinion that the shelter was in an overflow situation, that it could be creating a nuisance for neighbors, and that excessive amounts of excrement and a potentially failing septic system could adversely affect the groundwater supply.
"Nobody wants to be the bad guy, but something's got to change," said Barbara Anschutz, town supervisor.
The supervisors decided they would contact the county and ask it to work with them and Walter toward a resolution acceptable to all parties. "We don't want drastic enforcement right now. We want to work with her," said Peter Jacobs, town supervisor.
Baileys Harbor attorney Randy Nesbitt cautioned the board that the county would be "skittish" about enforcing the ordinances that pertained to Walter's situation.
"I don't mind if they're skittish, as long as they're cooperative," said Jim Parent, town supervisor. "I'm skittish, too."
Boxes of puppies are left on her property, abandoned dogs chained to her fence, a dog with a broken leg dumped in her driveway.
"I had a horse left in my barn once," said Rory Walter, owner of All Creatures Home for Animals in Baileys Harbor. "I walked in and, 'Hello!' there it was. And I thought, 'How did they do that?'"
Though Walter's shelter with its 129 dogs and numerous other animals is under scrutiny, even those who want the government to intervene to control the shelter's animal population acknowledged that the community is the problem, not Walter.
"I was astounded that that many people would abandon their animals," said Michael Walker, municipal valuer. "They are the real villains."
Local governments have contracts with Walter to bring her their strays. Even the Door County Humane Society - which Walter began and served as president of the board for the first year - likely contributes to Walter's animal population.
"Even as people were complaining, governments were dropping off animals because they had nowhere to go," said Bette Anderson, a supporter of Walter who's been involved in animal welfare for 45 years. "Now Door County has the same situation: a no-kill shelter. It makes me angry that she takes their overflow, and the Humane Society can be heroes and say they are a no-kill shelter."
Not technically a "no kill" shelter, the Humane Society does have a limited-admission policy: Pregnancies are not terminated, time limits are not imposed on a healthy animal's length of stay, and the nonprofit agency will do whatever it can to cure a sick animal.
As a result, the shelter turned down up to 50 animals last year that people had wanted to surrender - animals that might have ended up on Walter's doorstep.
"She didn't want that many dogs; she didn't ask people to drop them off," said Toni Muszynsky, an owner of a kennel at County Roads A and EE who regularly volunteers at Walter's shelter.
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