“Tallini’s son, Timothy, who battles multiple developmental issues, wept at the loss of Valiant, his parents said.

‘It’s terrible,’ said Tallini’s wife, Pat. ‘He’s upset, he’s crying. You can’t separate the heart from the head.’” – from the NY Post article on PWP / MSA Security tearing away K9 Valiant from the Tallini family, out of spite.

(A note about our fundraiser on GoFundMe and PayPal to Bring K9 Mattie Home: Our gratitude to you for the huge weekend boost, we have surpassed the halfway mark! More below).

From Séamus: I knew Joe Tallini and his yellow lab Valiant. Joe would often relieve me in the early mornings at the Staten Island Ferry; I typically did the overnights. Mattie, ever the spunky pup, would usually try to cajole Valiant into playing with her. I always found it to be a hilarious scene.

So you can imagine the horror when I found out that the company took Valiant from Joe, a long-time employee and retired police officer. This happened only a few months before I left work at the company myself; I wondered if they would pull something like that with Mattie and me. (As it turns out, this is exactly what they did in my case, and without cause or explanation).

Joe’s situation is particularly tragic because his developmentally disabled son, Timothy, formed an especially strong connection with Valiant. This is as a result of the company’s own policy – PWP / MSA deliberately sets up a situation in which the dog is strongly bonded emotionally to not only to the handler, but the handler’s family.

This is great for everyone involved, as long as the dog stays with its family. But the company’s practice of arbitrarily removing long-serving K9s from their loved ones, with no sensitivity or natural human concern for the well being of family members… well, I think most people would agree that it’s immoral.

Let’s see what the company itself has to say (from MSA Security's own website) about this bond between handler, K9, and family:

 “After a hard day searching for explosives, it wouldn't be right to put an MSA canine in a cage. That's why MSA doesn't kennel our dogs. When their workday is over, they go home with their family.

Another thing we don't do is break up their routine by assigning them multiple handlers. We stick to our "One Dog, One Handler" policy. This ensures optimum performance, and keeps our dogs happy, healthy, and effective.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

The above policy genuinely reflects what the company’s philosophy was in the old days. But everything changed for the worse when Perella Weinberg Partners bought MSA and put CEO Glen Kucera in charge.

They kept the old exteriors for marketing and publicity purposes, but changed their internal practices to what you know now – tearing beloved dogs from the families who bonded with them over many years. They continue to keep contracts based on this slick public presentation and the inertia of their formerly superb reputation. But what goes on behind their closed doors is quite the opposite of what they present. In essence, PWP / MSA Security are predatory wolves in cute Labrador Retriever clothing.

Contrast the above publicly stated policy with what MSA Chairman Mike O’Neil told me face-to-face, and behind closed doors. This was during a meeting I had with him and the CEO in my first attempt to bring Mattie home last year. I had expressed to them my concerns for my wife’s health and the effect that separating Mattie from us would have: “We’re not in the business of taking care of spouses or other family members with the $20,000 asset that we invested all this money in.”

Then why have them bond with us in the first place, Mr. O’Neil?

The following further explains my thinking on the matter, from a letter I wrote last year to the Chairman and CEO:

“I am not alone in believing it is inherently immoral and unethical for MSA to have it both ways – having the dog become part of a human family for much of her life, then ignoring the handler’s long years of solid service and ripping the K9 away at a whim, leaving devastation at home in its wake. If you really want to be able to take away dogs and assign them to whoever, I suggest kenneling the dogs. The company and I are both against this because the dogs are happier, healthier, and work better when they live with the handler’s family. But at least it’s impersonal.”

Both in Joe Tallini’s case with Valiant and our own with Mattie, we’re not talking about young K9s fresh out of training that the company did not yet get their money out of. We are talking about dogs that have fully bonded with our families after many years of faithful service. We invested years with the company with the singular purpose of legally adopting the dogs that were already ours in reality. And there is no shortage of younger K9’s ready to take their place, so the company does not actually need Valiant or Mattie. Yet what little we had, our dogs, is what PWP / MSA took from us.

My case and Joe Tallini’s case made the news. But most other handlers and dogs who have suffered from the company’s cruelty are completely unknown to people at large. They and their families suffer in private, but they suffer no less than us. The company must stop doing this to the humans and dogs who earn them their millions and billions; they must clean up their act if they wish to salvage any shred credibility.

Despite PWP / MSA being so vindictive, we have no desire to be vindictive ourselves. WE JUST WANT OUR DOG BACK. This is simple matter of right and wrong, good and evil. And we will continue on until Mattie comes home and we can move on with our lives.

I have more to say on this topic throughout the week. Stay tuned for updates, most likely this Thurs. evening & Sat. morning (please don’t me to the exact days in case of unforeseen circumstances!) …

WAYS TO HELP

1) THE FUNDRAISER (links here and below). Make a donation to Bring K9 Mattie Home through GoFundMe or PayPal. We are three-fifths of the way to our goal! Every penny goes to Mattie. We are offering to buy her back from the company for their stated price of what it cost to train Mattie, along with any associated costs. In addition, MSA has a habit of legally turning over the dogs to their handlers when the dogs are physically broken down. All medical expenses have to be borne by the handler’s family. Maybe it’s not right, but that’s how they work.

Before we go on, I want to express my family’s deep gratitude for the huge boost we got this past weekend. In our update on Saturday, March 7, we thanked everyone who donated so far to get us to just shy of the halfway mark to our goal. Within two days, we shot past the halfway point and now stand at 61%!! We are getting close faster than we imagined xoxoxo

2) CONTACTING THE PWP / MSA BOSSES. Send an email or give a call or text to the corporate bosses through the means of contact listed below.

They hear you, and it’s having an effect.

*NOTE* These guys listed here are the head honchos, but the list is not exhaustive – many other PWP and MSA contacts can be found through your favorite search engine (Google, Bing, etc.). We don’t list them all here because our email updates would end up being too long, but please feel free to contact anyone else at the company you can find!

3) SPREAD THE WORD! If share what you think of MSA and PWP on Google Reviews, or simply tell your friends and family, I believe the positive effect would end up being exponential.

And since MSA-trained K9s being sent overseas to terrible fates (read: PWP / MSA Security sends dogs to torture and death in Jordan) is a matter of national public interest and your tax dollars, contact your Congress members – Representatives and Senators – about the fraud that PWP / MSA Security is pulling on the American people.

________________________________________________________

Relevant links and contact info are contained here below. THANK YOU ALL, GOD BLESS AMERICA XOXO

We would be so deeply thankful if you would consider making a donation to our fundraiser to Bring K9 Mattie Home:https://www.gofundme.com/f/bring-k9-mattie-home 

If you prefer to donate through PayPal, here's our link:https://www.paypal.me/seamusk9

And please let MSA & PWP know how you feel about this! Direct contact has a positive impact. CONTACT INFO:

CEO Glen Kucera (the man who made the decision to take Mattie away), 973-981-1275; gkucera@msasecurity.net

Chairman Mike O’Neil (the company’s public face), 516-491-9721; moneil@msasecurity.net

VP of Global Operations Justin Kelley (the guy in charge of all MSA K9s in the world), 860-559-9208; jkelley@msasecurity.net

K9 Training Director Mike Wynn (the person who moved Mattie across the country, out of spite, to keep her from her family), 917-923-5508; mwynn@msasecurity.net or msak9@msasecurity.net

The Perella Weinberg people who own MSA keep themselves relatively insulated; they are billionaires after all. So while we don't have their direct numbers, here are the emails of the fellas who oversee MSA:             

Chip Baird,cbaird@pwpartners.com                                                           

David Ferguson, dferguson@pwpartners.com                                     

John McKee, jmckee@pwpartners.com

Perella Weinberg Partners (PWP) main number, 212-287-3341 (Heads up: PWP falsely claims that Mattie is an MSA internal issue, that they have nothing to do with it. This is false - they are intimately involved with MSA's operations!).

MSA Security main number, 212-509-1336

And of course, we welcome and encourage your feedback. Our email is: k9mattie@yahoo.com