Cruel to be kind

The animal rights activist who goes undercover in the startling HBO doc "Dealing Dogs" speaks candidly about his willingness to abuse some animals to save the lives of others.

By Andrew Adam Newman

Read more: HBO, TV, Interviews, Arts & Entertainment, Arts & Entertainment TV Interviews

Feb. 21, 2006 | "Dealing Dogs," the documentary about an Arkansas dog dealer who mistreats animals airing on HBO Feb. 21, has the requisite amount of hard-to-watch animal abuse. But the film is riveting, raising issues that transcend the kennel.

Pete (his name is withheld for fear of retribution) is an undercover investigator for an animal rights group, Last Chance for Animals, who gets a grunt job inside Martin Creek Kennel. For six months, he goes to work wired with audio and video recording equipment. The kennel is not an experimental lab where Pete is merely risking the ire of pencil-necked scientists. It's a middle-man operation where unwanted dogs and stolen pets are aggregated to be sold to labs. His co-workers, most of them members of the kennel owner's family, are short-fused -- big-guts and suspenders guys -- and they carry shotguns, for putting down dogs that are sick or ill-behaved.

What distinguishes this documentary from the typical "20/20" exposé is the depth to which it examines the moral and ethical quandaries Pete faces as he's amassing evidence to shut down the kennel. To expose the abuse, he not only had to put aside his vegan-and-no-leather lifestyle but also had to mistreat the dogs while under the watchful eyes of his co-workers. "To not only have to observe the horrific things that he saw but to take part in them," says Tom Simon, the seven-time Emmy Award winner who co-produced the documentary with Sarah Teale, Pete needed to have "a strong enough constitution to handle those kinds of moral dilemmas."

The Martin Creek Kennel investigation, which began in 2002, was Pete's first. It led to its owner, C.C. Baird, having his license to buy and sell cats and dogs revoked in 2005. The U.S. Department of Agriculture fined him $262,700, the largest fine ever imposed under the Animal Welfare Act.

Pete, who for the past four years has continued to work as an undercover animal rights investigator, has no permanent address, no pets, no romantic relationship. He will reveal very little about himself. He looks to be in his mid- to late 20s, but he won't say. He has no discernible regional accent. He says he's had some college but didn't finish.

For all the mystery, the filmmakers do conspicuously little to disguise Pete in the documentary. When he's interviewed, he wears a baseball cap and sunglasses, and it's hard to imagine not being able to pull him out of a lineup. Pete was hoping that HBO would blur his face and mask his voice, or allow him to wear something more concealing, like a ski mask. But, Simon says, "It was not acceptable to HBO -- and not acceptable to Sarah Teale and me -- for him to be totally obscured. Because it is a character-driven story about this guy as much as the investigation, it was important for the audience to be able to see his face."

Ultimately, Pete believes the exposure was worth it. "On the one hand I could maximize my future effectiveness as an investigator and not talk about my methods or do anything that might I.D. me," he says. "And on the other hand, I could get national exposure for an issue. I chose to do that."

Salon spoke with Pete last week on the phone. He is on another undercover assignment and wouldn't say where he was.

In the documentary, someone says that you don't look like an activist.

Yeah, that's true. If you see me on the street, you're definitely not going to think I'm an activist.

What am I going to think?

You're just going to think I'm the average guy, just Joe Fucking Schmo. There's nothing really striking about me. There's nothing about me that makes me stand out in a crowd at all.

How's the work that you do different than that of an undercover cop or humane agent?

I don't plant evidence, I don't change evidence, but I do whatever it takes to obtain evidence -- regardless of what the law says. There are a lot of good police officers out there, but most police are good old boys that don't care, most humane agents are good old boys who don't care, and the USDA is always against us. They never cooperate with animal rights activists or investigators in the slightest bit.

So you just do whatever it takes to get on the property, including trespassing, send off the footage to the press or the USDA, and then you create pressure for law enforcement to have to act. Now, the police will often really hate us for doing that, but my personal experience is that it's always better to ask for forgiveness than permission because 99 times out of a hundred the cops will burn us and not help us.

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