KRDO, the ABC affiliate in Colorado Springs, is reporting that state authorities have issued a cease and desist order to Theresa Strader, the founder and executive director of National Mill Dog Rescue.
The revelation comes just days after my investigative feature appeared in HuffPost taking a deep dive into the group’s business practices.
The cease and desist order demands that Strader stop the unlicensed practice of veterinary medicine, and specifically states that Strader has, among other things, “administered vaccinations on animals without licensed veterinarian supervision, and used a licensed veterinarian’s signature stamp on vaccination certificates without the veterinarian’s permission.”
My HuffPost article reported that Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies is investigating a claim by National Mill’s former marketing director, Jene Nelson, that Strader “has been practicing veterinary medicine without a license and falsifying rabies certificates. In Colorado, practicing veterinary medicine without a license is a misdemeanor on the first offense and a felony on second and subsequent offenses. ‘Conservatively, hundreds of dogs have been given their rabies vaccine by Ms. Strader,’ Nelson wrote in her complaint to the Department of Regulatory Agencies. ‘Realistically, the number is in the thousands.'”
Strader wrote June 29 on the National Mill Facebook page—prior to my article even being published—that it would be “riddled with lies, bias and inaccuracies.” According to the KRDO news report, the state had already issued its cease and desist order, on June 28, when she wrote that Facebook post.