Caboodle Ranch shut down, owner charged with cruelty to animals

Dear Animal Advocate,

A part of Lilly's iris protruded through her ruptured cornea, a painful condition that was likely caused by an untreated infection. Lilly suffered for months before she finally died on January 31, 2012.

Imagine that your family has packed you up and shipped you across the country to a total stranger. You are surrounded by others who are also stressed, terrified, and confused. The stench is overwhelming, and disease is rampant. You cannot get away from the insects—they swarm around you, cover your eyes, and fly into your nose. There are maggots and roaches in the food. When you fall ill, a stranger forcefully grabs you and scrubs your face with a Clorox wipe, burning your eyes. You wonder why your family did this to you, and you do your best to cope and survive.

This is just a glimpse into what hundreds of cats likely went through when they were left at Caboodle Ranch, Inc., a "rescue sanctuary" in Madison County, Florida. PETA's latest undercover investigation exposes the reality that nearly 500 cats confined to the "no-kill" facility faced each day: an essentially one-person operation with no paid full-time help that subjected animals to severe crowding, filth, disease, neglect, suffering, and a miserable death. Based on PETA's evidence, officials are seizing Caboodle's animals and charging its founder and operator, Craig Grant, with cruelty!

PETA's video shows that Grant denied cats effective veterinary care for rampant upper-respiratory infections, sometimes with fatal consequences. PETA's investigator routinely brought to Grant's attention the suffering of individual cats at the facility, but requests and offers to rush even dying cats for emergency medical attention were often dismissed. Grant left Lilly whose iris protruded through a ruptured cornea, to deteriorate for four months. She lost vision in the eye and became critically ill. Lilly died, without veterinary care, on January 31.

PETA's investigation found that Grant allowed cats who were sick with fatal, contagious illnesses to roam freely and come into contact with cats not known to be ill; that cats were easily able to escape the facility's perimeter fence; that Grant roughly rubbed cats' faces with Clorox wipes to "clean" them; that Grant intentionally hid cats who were in obvious need of medical care that he was not providing; that cats had gnats and other insects swarming around them and were forced to endure disgusting living areas covered with vomit, trash, and waste and infested with roaches and maggots; and that Grant allowed cats to breed. In addition, cats' remains were left to rot on the facility's grounds—PETA's investigator found bones in the woods on Grant's property.

Read more about PETA's findings and watch our undercover video here.

A dangerous bill is currently making its way through Florida's legislature. Animal shelters would be forced to hand over animals to self-proclaimed, unregulated animal "rescues" like Caboodle if the misleading "Animal Rescue Act" (S.B. 818 and H.B. 597) becomes law. PETA is calling on the bill's sponsors to withdraw the legislation. Please help us make sure that this happens by contacting legislators now.

Thank you.

For all animals,



Daphna Nachminovitch
Vice President
Cruelty Investigations Department
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals