Animal control & rescue

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Midwest
The legislative committee of Willard, Ohio, consisting
of councillors Bob Owens and Larry Jacobs, on July
3 introduced a policy allowing residents to borrow traps from
the police and dispose of stray cats at their own expense.
Objected councillor Tod Shininger, “If Joe Citizen doesn’t
have the will or the heart to destroy a cat, he’s going to move
it from one side of the city to the other, or take it out in the
country and dump it.” He noted that few residents would pay
a veterinarian to humanely euthanize a stray cat, and that
accidental killing of pet cats could touch off “a neighborhood
fight like you won’t believe.” Added mayor Stan Ware,
“We better get a cat warden.”
Second-year police officer Jeffrey “Mike” Crall,
of Beloit, Wisconsin––back on the job a month after being
stabbed while breaking up a bar fight––on June 26 performed
a daring rescue of a 14-year-old German shepherd/collie mix
caught in Rock River floodwaters. Crall “is our kind of guy,”
says Humane Society of Rock County executive director
Chris Konetski. The dehydrated, emaciated dog was reunited
with his owner, who recognized him on TV.

Stacie Doraty, 24, hired by Medina County,
Ohio, just one month before as a part-time assistant animal
warden, was mauled June 6 when she tried to leash a stray
German shepherd cross. “It doesn’t change the way I feel
about my job,” she said. “I like working with animals.”

The wild west

Bob Barker’s DJ&T Founda
t i o n “is particularly interested in helping
maintain low-cost or free neutering clinics
in low-income areas,” writes publicist
Henri Bollinger. Inquire c/o 9201
Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Beverly Hills,
CA 90210.
Lisa Markula, president of the
Tucson group Voices for Animals, has
collected 2,000 signatures on a petition
demanding prosecution of the fire department
personnel in Willcox, Arizona, who,
handling animal control as a sideline, for
seven years shot stray dogs in a pit and
recently left one dog to bake to death in an
unchecked cage trap. Willcox city manager
Larry Rains and the Willcox police
have refused to file a case. After the abuses
hit the media in June, Rains turned the
shelter management over to C o c h i s e
Animal Rescue Endeavor p r e s i d e n t
DeAnna Cheser and Willcox Humane
S o c i e t y president Mary Womak, and
pledged to form a separate animal control
unit with a an independent budget of
$15,000-$20,000, under a part-time director
to be hired by September.
Colorado state veterinarian
Keith Roehr on July 12 asked 4th Judicial
District Judge Thomas Kane for an order
enabling the Colorado Department of
A g r i c u l t u r e to permanently close the
Colorado Animal Refuge, now keeping
an estimated 180 to 200 dogs on 44 acres
near Ellicott, in El Paso County. A ruling
was due on July 26. Founder Mary Port,
71, relocated the refuge from an 80-acre
site near Simla, in Elbert County, after a
nine-month zoning battle with county officials
that began when firefighters discovered
gruesome overcrowding while combatting
an April 1995 arson that killed
about 50 dogs, cats, and monkeys.
Davis County, Utah, on June
11 legalized possession of ferrets, who
remain illegal only in California, Hawaii,
and isolated other jurisdictions.
Marin County Humane Society
(Calif.) executive director Diane Allevato
is retiring the job title “operations director”
in honor of Pat Miller, who recently left
after 20 years to spend more time with her
husband Paul, director of shelter services
for the SPCA of Monterey County. Pat
Miller will continue to edit the animal control
officers’ publication CHAIN Letter.
The Humane Society of Santa
Clara County in May became only the
second animal shelter in the U.S. chosen to
provide hearing dogs to Canine
Companions for Independence, of Santa
Rosa, California. Founded in 1975, CCI
trains dogs to help the disabled. The San
Francisco SPCA also has a hearing dog
program, but based in-house.
The board of supervisors in
Santa Clara County, California, on
June 25 adopted an ordinance requiring
people who live in rural and unincorporated
areas to license any cat they feed for
more than five days, or risk a fine of $500.
The ordinance is a stiffer version of one
adopted last year by San Jose, the biggest
city in the county; the San Jose ordinance
applies only if a person “houses” a cat for
more than five days. The ordinance was
opposed by former San Jose police chief
Joseph McNamara; Karen Johnson o f
the National Pet Alliance, whose landmark
studies of the Santa Clara Valley cat
population found that 60% are homeless in
the rural and unincorporated areas; and
Carol Hyde of the Palo Alto Humane
S o c i e t y. “By confronting your citizens
with licenses and permits to feed strays,
said Hyde, “you are placing an onerous
burden on people who are actually doing
the most to keep cats off the street.” Wrote
Melody Petersen of the San Jose Mercury
News, “The ordinance may fall hardest on
the ranchers, farmers, and other rural residents
in the South County district, where
stray cats take up homes in barns and frequently
get handouts.”
The Los Angeles SPCA is having
a cash flow crunch, says LA/SPCA
president Madeline Bernstein, due to
conflict with the Golden Eagle Insurance
Company over $50,000 in damages to the
LA/SPCA South Bay Shelter in Hawthorne,
resulting from an incomplete roofing
job. The shelter has operated from a
trailer since December 1995. “The roofers
admitted fault and handed the matter to the
insurance company, which has been unresponsive,”
said Bernstein. “We are forced
into litigation, but have no money to either
litigate or fix the problem.”
Dena Mangiamele, sole veterinarian
at the Los Angeles Department of
Animal Regulation since a 16% budget
cut in 1995 brought a 19% reduction in
staff, almost got some help on June 8,
when LA/DAR hired Grover Ford,
DVM––but Ford quit the next day to take a
job elsewhere. The LA/DAR handles
74,000 animals per year. “Ford’s departure
is the latest in a string of embarrassing
episodes,” wrote Hugo Martin of the Los
Angeles Times. At the July 15 meeting of
the LA/DAR commissioners, Martin said,
“an angry dispute broke out between commissioners
Gini Barrett and Russ Cook
over the goals of the department. Barrett
cursed and threw an empty water bottle at
Cook, only to miss and hit commission
president Steve Afriat.”

Canada
Obliged to return a starved 11-year-old collie to her
owner, Edmonton SPCA executive director Audrey Eremenko
on July 20 called for amendments to the Canadian Animal
Protection Act, which allows owners a chance to rectify problems
before animals can be seized.
Eremenko on June 18 sparked a surge of adoptions by
calling in media to announce a two-cats-for-$134 special. Her staff
euthanized 244 animals during the third week in June, she
explained, including 108 cats and 85 kittens, while adoptions fell
to 146 dogs and 115 cats over the preceding 30 days, from 162
dogs and 161 cats placed during the same period in 1995. Local
critics said the problem all along was an adoption price scale starting
at $99 for a cat, including neutering deposit and microchipping.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers on June 25
shot 60 purported wolf hybrids belonging to Tinnie Michaels, of
Bridesvale, British Columbia, two weeks after Michaels failed to
comply with an eviction notice. They spared ten puppies and their
mothers. The action culminated a dispute with neighboring ranchers
who accused Michaels’ dogs of maiming and killing cattle.
Forced to make $12.5 million in budget cuts, the
Ottawa regional council on July 10 came under fire for axing a
$53,000 salary for a suicide prevention program coordinator, while
keeping funding of $350,000 for the Humane Society of OttawaNORTHEAST
Hunting and herding dogs are exempted from a New
Hampshire ban on carrying dogs in the backs of pickup trucks, effective
January 1, 1997, if the sides are under 46 inches high. Humans over age
13 may ride in truck beds, says State Police field commander Capt.
Richard Foote, but “You assume the kids aren’t going to jump out.”

NORTHEAST
Newly passed New York legislation allows people to set up
21-year trust funds in their wills to provide for their pets, and authorizes
issuance of an “animal friendly” license plate to aid the state A n i m a l
Population Control Fund, which subsidizes the neutering of animals
adopted from shelters. Sales of 14,500 special license plates have raised
$750,000 for the New Jersey Animal Population Control Program
since April 1994.
Pat Ransom, acting director of the Gloucester County
Animal Shelter, in Clayton, New Jersey, charged July 16 that the shelter
euthanasia rate is rising because 12 of the 50 dog runs are occupied by
dogs––mostly pit bulls––involved in pending Gloucester County SPCA
cruelty cases, including four of the 22 pit bull terriers confiscated in
March from pro football player Todd McNair. The other 18 are boarded
at the old Deptford Township animal shelter. Responded Gloucester
County SPCA chief investigator Aggie Abruzzo, “County taxes are paying
for it. They get a lot of donations in food. That’s what the county
shelter was built for.”
A space crisis is also underway in Camden County, New
Jersey. The County Freeholders will provide $500,000 to any shelter that
can furnish 80 dog runs and 100 cat cages, but are unwilling to build,
buy, or operate a shelter, and will not assist expansion of the largest
shelter now in the county, the Animal Orphanage of Voorhees, says
county administrator Mark Lonetto, because it is in an inappropriate
location. That leaves county animal control officers with nowhere inside
the county to take the estimated 70 animals a week they impound. The
county scrapped a $1.8 million plan to build its own shelter in 1988.
The Suffolk County SPCA on June 12 charged animal control
officers David Halliday a n d William Berezny, of Riverhead, New
York, with improperly euthanizing a boxer on March 18 by shooting him
in his cage at the privately operated Kent Animal Shelter in Calverton.
The shelter reportedly called them to take the dog for euthanasia several
days ahead of schedule because he had become dangerously aggressive,
but Riverhead Shelter Volunteer Program president Suzi Kurovics
said he was just “a very scared boxer, a very timid and scared boxer.”

Down South
Karen Kennedy, shelter manager in Lignum, Virginia,
euthanized a five-year-old dog on recipt from animal control July 3
because, not knowing the dog was under veterinary care, Kennedy
believed she was suffering from a skin disease. Owner Ronald Lee came
to the shelter seeking Rusty on July 4, flew into a rage, and was arrested
for assault and property damage after allegedly smashing furniture, kicking
a door down, throwing a photocopier out a window, unlocking all the
cages to free the dogs, and trying to take some home with him. Animal
control officer Christopher Pemberton was suspended for several days
for brandishing a gun during the rampage. Kennedy was reportedly
unhurt, but checked into a hospital that night and then quit.
Mary Mansour, executive director of the Montgomery
County Humane Society in Montgomery, Alabama, since 1989,
resigned on June 11––”squeezed out,” she said, by conflict with the
board of directors. Mansour filed 93 cruelty cases during her tenure in
Montgomery, winning 92 convictions.
The Virginia Federation of Humane Societies offers the
Virginia Comprehensive Animal Laws at $8.00/copy, including postage,
c/o Kay Gross, 1304 Dinwiddie Ave., Richmond, VA 23229.
Animal control officer Joyce Crowder of Pulaski, Virginia,
asks colleagues to be on the lookout for former Solid Rocks Kennels
operator Terry Weaver and his fiance, Annette Jenkins, who owns the
kennel property. Also pastor of the Emmanuel Independent NonDenominational
Christian Church, Weaver claimed the kennel was
exempt from zoning as a church ministry. He allegedly closed both the
church and the kennel and abandoned 31 dogs and cats at the site circa
May 21. Jenkins was last seen on June 7, when she charged Weaver with
assault-and-battery, but is believed to have left Pulaski with Weaver that
weekend. Sheriff’s deputies took the animals to the Pulaski County
Humane Society on June 11. “If you have knowledge of Weaver’s location,”
Crowder says, “please call 540-674-8359.”
Mentally handicapped volunteers from the A r k a d e l p h i a
Development Center help the Humane Society of Clark County,
Arkansas with animal care and socilization. The humane society had no
shelter until two years ago the development center offered the use of a former
double tennis court on its 45-acre campus.
The Barnes & Noble Bookstore in South Dade, Florida,
each Sunday hosts animals from A d o p t – A – P e t, a local rescue shelter.
The animals, also displayed on the WTVJ-Channel 6 weekend news, so
far have an 80% adoption rate. The South Dade Adopt-A-Pet is unrelated
to the Missouri outfit of the same name and a history of being sued for
mail fraud, about which ANIMAL PEOPLE warned readers in April.