EDITOR'S NOTE: This version corrects the name of Principal Sally Koppinger and a reference to Ohio Coalition of Dog Advocates.
A Sylvania Catholic school is not backing down on plans to auction a puppy at its annual charity dinner despite a planned picket of the event Saturday and concerns expressed by the leader of the local humane society.
The Ohio Coalition of Dog Advocates is planning a picket at St. Joseph School Saturday afternoon before the 5:30 p.m. event to protest the school's plan to auction a mini goldendoodle. John Dinon, executive director of the Toledo Area Humane Society, said he met Thursday morning with the school to encourage them not to auction the puppy.
"I offered them an adoption certificate from the humane society that we would donate," Mr. Dinon said. "They could then sell that, and the adoption would be contingent on the approval of our adoption-screening process."
However, the group already has the puppy, which school Principal Sally Koppinger said it purchased from Country Mini Goldendoodles, in Frankfort, Ind., and is staying temporarily with one of the school's teachers.
As a compromise, the school has agreed to tell the top bidder for the puppy the placement is conditional upon the humane society approving its placement, Mr. Dinon said.
"So whoever buys the puppy will be buying it conditional on passing our adoption screening," he said. "They will have to fill out an adoption application that is identical to ours other than the agency from whom they are getting it. And an adoption contract that's identical to ours. And if we don't feel they are [an] appropriate home or if they have not planned appropriately for a new puppy, we will deny the adoption."
St. Joseph's is not the only Toledo-area church or organization to auction a puppy. St. John's Jesuit High School & Academy in Toledo, for example, will auction off what was described in an announcement as "The Perfect Puppy Package" with an AKC-registered Coton de Tulear puppy during its Feb. 11 fund-raising dinner.
Mr. Dinon said he didn't believe the Sylvania school had any "malicious intent" with its pending auction. "I think they are trying to raise money for a good cause and didn't understand some of the pitfalls of puppy auctions," he said. "The whole problem with auctions is it's spur of the moment and there's no planning and there's no screening. I think we have found a good solution to allow them to still raise some money but without putting the puppy at risk."
Unlike dogs and puppies adopted from the humane society, which are spayed or neutered before going home to their adoptive families, the puppy will be neutered "when it's at the appropriate time," Mrs. Koppinger said.
This is the sixth puppy to be auctioned by the school in the yearly event and previous auctions have not come under this much fire, she said. She had a "handful" of concerned calls and emails last year about the auction but was able to ease concerns by explaining that the puppy is guaranteed a good home, and she "personally knows each family" that the past puppies have gone to.
"These are not folks that we don't know," she says. "They are members of our parish that we worship with and pray with; there's no one at this auction dinner that I don't know personally." The dinner, which charges $75 a ticket, generally has about 300 to 350 attendees, she said. The high bidder in past auctions has paid between $2,000 and $2,800 for the puppy, which netted the school $800-$1,200 after paying the breeder for the puppy, Mrs. Koppinger said.
Mrs. Koppinger, who has received upward of 50 emails protesting the puppy's placement in the auction, said she believes the timing of the auction, which coincides with efforts by the Coalition to Ban Ohio Dog Auctions to gather the last signatures needed to get the anti-puppy auction issue before the legislature, has resulted in the church being "caught in political crossfire," she says.
Mrs. Koppinger said the humane society's offer of a gift certificate instead of a puppy would be considered for next year's auction because she sees "it's creating so much distress for people who have a legitimate concern about puppy auctions. And if what we do somehow compromises their efforts, than we have to rethink it."
Contact Tanya Irwin at: tirwin@theblade.com or 419-724-6066.