A volunteer at a beloved no-kill Brooklyn animal shelter filed a lawsuit accusing the nonprofit of shipping unadoptable dogs to their deaths down south to make way for profitable puppies.
The explosive allegations against Sean Casey Animal Rescue were included in a small claims suit filed by Dana Paoli, who’s trying to claw back a $1,000 donation he made to SCAR after the death of Gunther, a pitbull mix who was euthanized in Arkansas over “aggressive” behavior.
But volunteers say the 3-year-old white canine was more Clifford than Cujo and was sentenced to death for taking up kennel space.
“He was super-duper friendly. He wanted to meet everybody. The only real problem I had walking with him was that every single person we passed, he wanted to say ‘hi,'” said Paoli, a volunteer who estimates he spent over 200 walks with the “little snuggle cuddle bear” during its one-year stay at SCAR.
“He liked to stand up on his hind legs and put his paws on your waist. If he got revved up, he could start playing too hard, just like anybody.”
Paoli and other volunteers had a suspicion that Gunther would soon leave SCAR and even bade him their goodbyes the last weekend of March upon realizing he was coming up on his one-year anniversary at the shelter.
The longtime shelter has a $500 base adoption fee for dogs, with an additional $450 “puppy package” fee tacked on for younger, more easily adoptable dogs.
Gunther was shipped on March 29 to NovaStar Rescue, SCAR’s partner shelter more than 1,300 miles away in Dover, Arkansas, and euthanized four days later on April 3, with a veterinarian ruling that Gunther was “very aggressive.”
Paoli was shocked at the allegations, saying Gunther was one of the sweetest canines he had gotten to know over his five years at SCAR.
The Post talked with two other volunteers who echoed Gunther’s gentle and “sweet” character, saying he would playfully nip in moments of excitement, but was far from dangerous.
SCAR first labeled Gunther as “aggressive” in August 2025 when he was adopted and re-surrendered following a “biting” incident, leading the shelter to ask volunteers to sign liability waivers before walking Gunther.
When reached by The Post, Gunther’s owner would only say that the dog had aggressive tendencies, but said they were “manageable.”
“My sense is that when they wanted that space and the dog had been around for a long time before it went to Arkansas and the puppies came in,” said Paoli, adding that he was not in a financial position to adopt Gunther himself.
SCAR is a designated no-kill shelter, which means it has a placement rate of 90% or higher and euthanizes animals with untreatable illnesses or behavior issues after other options are exhausted.
Paoli filed a suit in Brooklyn small claims court last month over a $1,000 donation he made to SCAR three years ago, alleging that the shelter “holds itself forth as a no-kill animal shelter but does not act as such.”
SCAR slammed the lawsuit as “frivolous,” telling The Post Paoli was carrying out a misguided campaign to soothe his broken heart.
“He was very attached to Gunther and he loved him. I completely understand his anger and we do feel terrible for him. But being angry doesn’t make everything true,” said Sean Casey, the shelter’s namesake owner, adding that Gunther was also a staff favorite despite his “history.”
“Most of the time, the dog was wonderful and could be very sweet or affectionate and that’s what you see and that’s what you fall in love with and that’s what you get attached to. In other moments, he would just have these fits. A lot of them were out of nowhere.”
SCAR sent Gunther to NovaStar — which has a lauded history of aiding law enforcement in dog rescues — to give Gunther a “last chance” in its quieter southern landscape, Casey said.
The pair of shelters often swap dogs between their rural and urban locations to open canines with difficulty being adopted to a new audience, and several dogs have been successfully rehomed in different states.
Paoli’s lawsuit has ignited a keyboard warrior firestorm against both SCAR and NovaStar — with the overwhelming fury pushing NovaStar’s founder to quit her own rescue.
“I’m 70 years old and I don’t want to spend however much life I have left getting bashed by b–ches and whores that know nothing about me, my life or my rescue, and I’m just done … I quit, you win,” Terre Wood fumed in a Facebook post that blamed Paoli for her departure.
In a statement, NovaStar told The Post it would continue operating, stating: “We live in a world where the hate is louder than the love, and over time that takes a toll on the people doing the hard work every single day.”
SCAR’s lawyers expect the case to get thrown out and have raised the possibility of bringing a defamation suit against Paoli.
“We’re seeing this focused attack, because this person became close to a dog, where he misrepresents the nature of the dog and he misrepresents what happened to the dog,” Ezra Glaser, an attorney for SCAR, said.
