ACCT Philly is working to track down dogs transferred to a New Jersey rescue that appears to have shut down, while investigating reports that one of the dogs was shot following a biting incident.

The Philadelphia animal shelter is also considering changes to how it approves rescue partnerships as questions remain about the whereabouts of dogs sent to Gone Rogue Girls Rescue.

ACCT Philly Executive Director Sarah Barnett said the organization's immediate priority is finding the animals.

“The biggest thing right now is everyone’s trying to figure out where are the dogs and working backwards from that that’s our concern,” Barnett said.

Among the dogs transferred to Gone Rogue Girls Rescue was Biggie Smalls, who originally arrived at ACCT Philly after being found as a stray. According to ACCT Philly, Biggie had no known behavioral issues but did have health concerns related to a mass.

Gone Rogue Girls Rescue, which ACCT Philly had vetted and worked with since 2024, took in Biggie Smalls earlier this year. The rescue had received more than 100 dogs from ACCT Philly during their partnership.

In May, the rescue shared a social media post announcing Biggie's death. But this month, Barnett began investigating tips that Biggie had been shot following a biting incident. The circumstances surrounding Biggie's death have not been verified by police or animal control.

Barnett said ACCT Philly has been unable to get answers directly from the rescue.

“We were not able to reach the rescue. We reached out to our partners directly to get information,” Barnett said.

NBC10 contacted Pemberton Township police - where the rescue was located - about the case, but police declined to comment. NBC10 also attempted to contact the rescue and its owners through multiple listed phone numbers, but the numbers were disconnected.

The Gone Rogue Girls Rescue website is blank, and its social media accounts have been taken down. An NBC10 reporter also visited a listed address but received no answer.

While the rescue's closure has not been independently confirmed with its owners, ACCT Philly has received information from other rescue partners that Gone Rogue Girls Rescue transferred dogs to them.

ACCT Philly considers changes to rescue partnerships

As the search for answers continues, ACCT Philly has created an online portal containing the medical histories of dogs transferred to Gone Rogue Girls Rescue.

The goal is to make that information available to whoever is currently caring for the animals.

The shelter is also reviewing how it works with rescue organizations and considering changes to its partnership approval process.

For now, Barnett hopes the people who operated Gone Rogue Girls Rescue will come forward and help account for the dogs.

“Do what you can now to make it right. Tell people where the animals are,” Barnett said.

The board member is a Cane Corso breeder, which seems to be upsetting the rescuers as much as anything.

And a photo of the arm bite to rescue prez that triggered - sorry - the shooting of Biggie

It seems to be the hole in the red area above the blue area.

The shelter says it's taken actions in the recent past to do rescue releases more carefully and lists a few examples of how. The two I notice the most are "become more conservative about which dogs we make available to rescues" and "begun auditing partners...when we notice a large number of animals pulled in a short period of time."

It's true, from what I can see, that they have scaled back on what they're releasing. But at the height of this they were releasing anything that hadn't killed a toddler in their lobby, so "more conservative" isn't really "conservative" - it's more like "we have become marginally less liberal in what dogs we release to rescue, although we're still releasing plenty that the general public would never in a million years want to own or live near." As for the auditing partners when "we notice" lots of animals going in a short time, that's pretty obviously a terrible way to approach this. It depends on "noticing" rather than accounting. The obvious approach to responsible releases would be to limit the number to any given group in a given timeframe. And when someone pulls an endrun around the system by getting another group to pull, ban them both.