Strange but true tales of attitude

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Nearly a year after refusing to
pay the Humane Society of Greater Akron
$150,000 annually for animal control service,
the Akron city council is reportedly moving
to set up a municipal animal control
agency––spurred by public outrage over an
April 12 incident in which health officials
boarded up the home of Bill Woolridge, 77,
with 27 dogs inside. The home was sealed
due to alleged unsanitary conditions discovered
by paramedics who responded to an
emergency call when Woolridge’s wife died.
Volunteers rescued the dogs the next day.
Akron city service director Joseph Kidder
called the HSGA request for $150,000
“exhorbitant,” but at 67¢ per capita, it would
have come to 43% less than the U.S. average
of $1.18 per capita paid for basic animal pickup
and impoundment. Akron had been paying
just $19,600 a year, less than 10% of the
cost of running the HSGA shelter.


A spring crackdown on freeroaming
dogs in Central Park, New York,
brought the separate ticketing of two Italian
countesses, Francesca Paolozzi and Carolyn
Dolgenos, who was handcuffed after refusing
to identify herself. Paolozzi was fined $500
for having five dogs off leash; Dolgenos was
fined $400, for having two dogs off leash and
noncooperation.
Samuel Roe, animal warden for
Parma, Ohio, has been given three days off
without pay for exposing a caged opossum to
sub-freezing temperatures all day in January,
and for releasing raccoons, skunks, and
opossums he picks up as a part-time nuisance
trapper behind the city garage. His financial
management of the shelter remains under
investigation by state auditors.
Cracking down on substandard
pounds in Arkansas, Arkansans for Animals
on August 11, 1995 obtained the arrest of
Manila police chief Joe Cagle for cruelty and
mayor Jimmy White for felony concealment
of public records. However, reports
Arkansans of Animals president Joyce
Hillard, “No trial has been held,” because
regional prosecutor Brent Davis “has refused
to do anything. When White was charged,
Davis asked for a state investigation because
he did not believe that humane investigators
could file such charges. Interestingly, the
police investigation not only substantiated all
charges made against White, but turned up a
number of other problems in Manila as well.”
Hillard asks that letters asking Davis to do his
job be addressed to him at 519 West Cherry
Street, Jonesboro, AR 72401.
The Southwest Missouri Humane
S o c i e t y ’ s New Year ‘96 newsletter raised
eyebrows with an item about the great life a
dog it adopted out has, chasing deer, birds,
and squirrels. The management never
responded to a card from ANIMAL PEOPLE,
pointing out that game wardens shoot
dogs on sight for running deer, while allowing
dogs to chase animals of any kind is not
humane conduct. We received complaints
about the item, as it circulated through the
midwest shelter community, into early May.
Responding to a May 10 call from
a school playground supervisor that a 71-
year-old man was burying two kittens alive in
front of the children, Metropolitan Toronto
constable Michael Martin ordered the man to
dig them back up. Underground for 50 minutes,
both survived.
Arguing that adopting out 299
dogs and cats in 1995 while euthanizing
nearly 1,600 was too much work, police
chief Gary Buchanan of Brenham, Texas,
has suspended the city pound’s adoption program
and has urged animal control officer
Theresa Wagner to euthanize all animals
received after 72 hours. Wagner has logged
60-hour weeks since her assistant had knee
surgery recently, while a part-time helper
quit. Buchanan argues that adoptions––and
shelter management––should be done by
Friends of the Brenham Animal Shelter, a
newly formed volunteer humane society,
which would receive a shelter subsidy of
$50,000/year.
Arguing that neutering adopted
dogs should be optional, because mandatory
neutering might lower the adoption
rate––which has not happened in any community
anywhere for which ANIMAL PEOPLE
has statistics––Medina County, Ohio, dog
warden John Shultz agreed on April 22 to
instead distribute certificates that may be
redeemed for $30 off the price of a $50 neutering.
Two-thirds of the discount will come
through use of coupons provided by the
Medina County SPCA, whose vice president,
Marjorie Muirden, has pressed to make neutering
compulsory.
The city council of Vinton,
L o u i s i a n a , whose substandard pound was a
longtime target of Legislation In Support of
Animals, has agreed to close the pound and
job out animal control to nearby Lake
Charles, which according to a LISA release

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