Category: Animal Control Operations

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Unfunded Mandates

One of the things that irritates me the most in our profession is states issuing unfunded mandates.  Animal control services are funded at a local level, they receive no funding from their state.  But that doesn’t stop the states from telling us how animal control should operate.

California, of course, is one of the first to butt its nose into our business.  The mandates issued by California made it impossible for humane societies to continue their contracts with government to provide housing. As with everything that California does, it created a crisis for the housing of animals.  It took years to eventually throw out the mandate, but a lot of damage was done in the meantime.

Delaware created a mandate that animal shelters could not euthanize animals unless the shelter was beyond capacity.  They gave no thought to an animal control officer bringing in strays, but finding all of the kennels full.  They’d have to sit around waiting for someone to euthanize an animal so that they could find cage space for the new arrival.  I think you can see the stupidity of this mandate.

I climbed back on this bandwagon when I discovered that Utah was in the process of putting controls on animal shelters when dispositioning their animals.  If a rescue showed interest in an animal, the shelter was forced to hold the animal.  Anyone with any brains can see the problem with this.

If states are going to create financial hardships on animal shelters, they should give the shelters funding for the costs associated with their mandates.  Of course, they never do.  And they are unable to think through the problems that they cause.  States should just stay out of business that are provided at the county or city level.  They know nothing of our business and should not cower to the animal rights groups that have their ear.

 

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Microchips

I recently got a news feed claiming that one of the largest microchip registries, Save This Life, went out of business, taking their registry with them.  Frankly, I’ve never heard of Save This Life, but it makes the point that without a registry, a microchip is useless.  But a registry is only one problem with microchips; there are many, many others.

I’ve always preached that a microchip should never be the primary identification for an animal.  Here is why:

  1. Many microchip vendors leave it up to the pet owner to complete the registration process. Pet owners are the weakest link in pet ownership.  When the owner fails to register their pet’s microchip, animal shelters depend on the vendor to give insight as to who purchased the microchip.  Many veterinarians will sell microchips, but refuse to maintain records as to who they sold it to.  Veterinarians fail to recognize that their client is the weakest link; they, in turn, are the second weakest link.
  2. Microchips operate on various technologies. As such, for years, it was nearly impossible to find microchip scanners that could read all of the microchips on the market.  One manufacturer encrypted their chips so that scanners from other manufacturers could not read them.  Even after the initial fallout and universal scanners became available, the scanners could not read all of the microchip frequencies at the same time.  Each scan had to be performed slowly, so as to give the scanner time to scan through all of the various frequencies.  It became quite easy to miss a microchip because a shelter worker scanned too quickly.
  3. Microchips are implanted in the shoulder area of an animal. Those scanning would know where to scan for the chip, but microchips have a bad habit of migrating.  I once found a microchip in the front paw of a Great Dane.  That microchip had migrated nearly 3 feet.  Due to this migration and the complications with scanners, many shelters created protocols to scan an animal at least three times during its stay at the shelter.  It would be scanned at intake, during its medical checkup, and then just prior to disposition.  This was as foolproof as we could make it.  And yet, it is far from perfect.  The problem with microchips is that you never know that you have missed them.

Given that pet owners are the weakest link in pet ownership.  Many communities changed from using tags for licensing and converted over to microchips.  I’ve always believed that was a very bad idea.  Having only a microchip as identification is very close to having no identification on the pet.  But most shelters will tell you that most pets come into the shelter with no identification at all.  So, a microchip, although a poor identification, is better than none at all.  Animal Shelters would do well to record microchips in their own shelter database system.

In Jacksonville, Florida, I witnessed an incident in which one of our City Council members had microchipped her pet and came to believe that having a microchip took away any worry of her pet running loose.  She had this notion that if her pet got loose, it would magically reappear in her yard.  There was no need to look for her pet herself.  Not everyone is this stupid, but you would be surprised at how many are.

The best identification is an ID tag.  For this identification to work, the tag must be legible and on the pet.  It should contain the owner’s name, address, and phone number.  It is important that the phone number contains the area code (I’ll explain later).

The second-best identification is the pet’s license tag.  As with the ID tag, it is only good if it is on the pet.  The license also evidences that the pet is vaccinated for rabies.  The people who issue these tags should also put their area code on them.  I once had a dog come in with a license tag from Jefferson County.  The tag failed to provide the area code or the state in which the license was issued.  I discovered that there were over a dozen Jefferson Counties in the United States.  I searched State by State, looking for the dog’s owners.  In addition to the missing information, the tag had also expired.  I discovered that many communities only keep the records for the current licensing period.  After hours of searching, the tag proved to be worthless.  I never found the owner.

At one point in my career, tattooing was a thing.  The problem with tattoos is that the ink becomes obscured, and there has never been a good system to register them.  It seems that we have come full circle since registration became the problem for microchips and government-issued tags.

So, you do everything right, and your pet is wearing a collar and tags.  But, the first person who finds your pet has bad eyesight and removes the collar to get a better look, only to have the pet escape from them while they are holding the pet’s lifeline in their hands.  This is why the microchip, all be it a poor form of pet identification, is there for us.

Dog owners would do well to ask their pet licensing provider to add their microchip information when licensing their pet.  It wouldn’t hurt to make a note to review the information once a year to make sure the information remains correct.  You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) that the major problem with microchip registrations is the failure of the pet owner (hint: the weakest link) to keep the microchip registration information current.  I used to send letters to the last address on file, looking for the pet owner.  The problem with that is that should the letter ever catch up with the owner, the pet’s stray holding time is long over.  Animal shelters have to face the problem of keeping a pet in an overcrowded shelter in hopes of its owner eventually coming forward or placing the pet into a new home.  It is common in our business that the owner will come forward months later after their pet has been adopted out.

My rule of thumb is that the law gives ownership of the pet to the animal shelter after the stray holding time.  The shelter passes the ownership of the pet to the adopter.  It isn’t the shelter’s right to try to take back the animal when its “previous owner” shows up.  I leave that decision up to the new owner.  If you agree with this philosophy, then in your next ordinances rewrite, you should make pet ownership information exempt from Freedom of Information Requests; otherwise, your adopters will be plagued with bullying from a previous owner.  It will also save you from local vendors asking for a copy of your licensing data.

A smart shelter employee will document every attempt at scanning for a microchip.  If you are unable to scan due to a broken scanner or a fractious animal, make sure you document that as well.  One day, you will have a pet owner wanting to sue you for failure to promptly return their pet to you.  Document everything that you do.

On intake, report whether the animal has a collar or lacks a collar.  Each time you scan the animal document it.  If you discover a microchip, record every attempt of attempting to reach the owner.  Document phone call attempts, document letters that you mail out, and even document if the letter is returned.  Do this because one day you might be in court describing to a judge what efforts you made to locate the owner.

I once discovered that I had five potential addresses for a suspected pet owner.  I mailed letters to each address, and if one of the addressees contacted me to say that they weren’t the owner, I documented that.  If the address is in your jurisdiction, send out an officer to leave a door hanger…. You got it, document that as well.

If you luck out and find the pet owner, give them a “drop dead date”  (a deadline) by which they must appear at your shelter.  You want them to know that you are unable to keep their animal indefinitely.  If you have contacted the owner, always keep the animal a day or two beyond the date that you gave the owner.  We live in a time in which people like to push their limits.  It is better that you report that you kept the animal past the deadline when you are called before a judge.  Also, bring a copy of the ordinance that gives you authority to dispose of stray/unwanted pets.

I have to be honest; I was never called into court over a pet ownership issue.  But, because I documented everything, I slept better at night.

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Property Rights

One of the problems that we face in our self-righteous world is making moral decisions that exceed the confines of the law.  Recently, a veterinarian was convicted of theft in Michigan for refusing to return a dog to a homeless man.  The veterinarian felt that the local animal welfare organizations would not do proper justice in investigating the welfare of the dog.  She further went on to exclaim that it was her ethical duty as a veterinarian to take the dog, and besides, the dog wasn’t licensed.  Okay, that was pretty lame.

The veterinarian’s “act of kindness” backfired when a Grand Rapids jury convicted the veterinarian of theft.  Her defense attorney spoke to the Associated Press that, “What is right and what is legal are not always the same thing.”  If she gets any jail time, she will get an opportunity to review her actions and determine if “being right” was worth it.

Animals are considered personal property.  By law, only animal control organizations have the authority to take legal possession of a person’s pet, following a practice of exercising due process.

In a perfect world, the court could order the veterinarian to return the dog.  But, it turns out for whatever reason, this “humane act” resulted in the euthanasia of the dog.  This kind of weakens the resolve that the veterinarian was actually performing an act of kindness.  We are all left wondering if the dog was better off with the involvement of the veterinarian.

The feelings that you have about this should feel oddly familiar; we experience this every day.  We have front row seats to some of the worst pet owners in our communities.  Yet the property status of a pet is no different than a person owning a car.  And yet, if you are doing your job right, you can prove to your community that there is a difference:  you are much less likely to go to jail for mistreating your car.  The veterinarian should have trusted her local animal welfare professionals.

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Pet Limit Laws

As with most laws, pet limit laws exist because some people lack the common sense to understand their limits. This blog is the result of a seizure of 97 dogs in our community. The notion of pet limit laws is the belief that as the number of animals that increase at a residence, the issue of animal-related complaints rise. Many communities enact pet limits in preparation for the idiots who come into their communities lacking the necessary common sense needed when people group together.

Pet limit laws can be found either in the local zoning code or in the animal control ordinance. Most limit the number of pets to less than a half dozen (over six months of age). As an incentive, many communities allow people to own more sterile pets than fertile ones. The idea is that people who spay/neuter their pets are generally more responsible than those who don’t.  Exemptions are often given to people who are fostering animals for the animal shelter.

A large number of pets at a specific residence increases noise related to pets and odor related to pet waste. Given these issues, it is understandable that people make animals one of the issues that are most reported to city/county councils. The worst part of people owning too many pets is when the government has to step in. Most public animal shelters are unprepared for a large influx of animals. So it comes down to one person’s lack of common sense creates a crisis for those who have to deal with it.

If I sound a little harsh here, it is because I have dealt with my share of pet seizures resulting from stupid people owning pets. From a professional perspective, there are a lot more stupid people in our communities than you could ever imagine; unless you are living next to one, and then you know.

It will be interesting to see how our community deals with this latest seizure. Will they address pet limits due to a single idiot, or do we need a few more incidents of our shelters being overburdened?

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DEI in Animal Shelters

Animal Shelters were practicing DEI far longer than it being accepted in business. If you look at the position statements of most national animal welfare organizations, you’ll find a statement of breeds. These statements began to materialize when communities were banning breeds that posed a risk to public safety.

We began to see statements claiming that “There are no bad dogs.” Or, “All breeds are the same.” I cannot help but feel that the people who wrote these position statements never worked in the business of animal control. Not all dogs are bad, but the ones that are can inflict varying amounts of injury. Some breeds, although aggressive by nature, can only inflict minimal injury. Some breeds have the propensity to inflict larger amounts of injury or even death. It is this last group of animals that communities wanted to ban.

Breed bans began with pitbulls because that is the breed that has always attracted the worst owners. It is tragic that you have to ban a breed based on who owns the breed but “it is what it is.” The early pitbull owners were attempting to breed their dogs for aggression and many of those deleterious genes remain in the pitbull’s gene pool.

Due to reputation, pitbulls began to accumulate in animal shelters and quickly overwhelmed the shelters. It was not uncommon to see pitbulls making up over 70% of the dogs in shelters. It became difficult to place pitbulls and shelters felt that the only way to get a pitbull adopted is to lie about the dog. It problem became so great in Virginia that laws had to be created to insure that animal shelters were not misrepresenting their dogs. No longer could an animal shelter lie about the aggressive behaviors that previous owners experienced with the dogs that they had surrendered.

The battle over adoptions and public safety became a war zone. While working in Virginia, I ended my career by deciding public safety was more important than adoption numbers. When dogs (pitbulls) became aggressive towards staff, the best (only) solution was to end the dog’s life. Keeping the public safe was more important that keeping your adoption numbers up. If you are going to lose your job, do it protecting your own species.

Before the laws were created in Virginia, a prospective dog owner would be safer getting a dog from a newspaper ad that getting the dog from an animal shelter. The ad would allow the prospective owner to have a sit down with the previous owner to get a first-hand account of the dog’s behavior.

I’d like to report that animal shelters are honest when dealing with prospective pet owners. The problem is that pitbulls still make up the greatest percentage of dogs in our shelters and philosophies have changed to eliminate euthanasia. The longer that a pet remains in an animal shelter the greater the chances that a dog will become aggressive. If euthanasia isn’t an option, then lying to prospective pet owners may be the only option that animal shelter staff have in moving the dog out of their shelter.  Keep in mind that their statistics are often more important than your safety.

I have preached over and over about integrity, but lying about a dog’s previous behavior is where animal shelters first begin to strip away their integrity. Once the first layer of integrity is removed, the remaining ones are easier to strip away. As such, if someone is thinking of adopting an animal from an animal shelter, it might be a good idea to take along an animal control officer before committing to a particular animal.  If one isn’t available, ask to see the intake paperwork (anything that might have been offered by the previous owner).

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Rabies

When I was working in Florida, we were battling the problem of feral cats. At that time, we were using the age-old solution of trapping and killing the cats. With such a large number of cats being trapped, we found a large number of raccoons finding their way into our traps. I came up with the idea of testing the raccoons for rabies so as to determine whether if we had a problem.

Our Health Department wasn’t eager to open that bag of worms. They were worried that I would show the presence of rabies was more prevalent than they wanted. They were worried that I would unleash a crisis that they were not prepared to deal with. And for them, it was a nasty task of cutting out the brains of these animals. We eventually agreed to just deliver the head of the raccoons, so that they wouldn’t have to worry about disposing of the bodies.

I took on the task of mapping the locations where the animals that tested positive were trapped. We discovered that the presence of rabies was much higher than we expected in our raccoon population. Something that our Health Department didn’t want to be known. After all, how do you deal with rabies in a wildlife population?

Just because you find a raccoon that tests positive for rabies, you don’t necessarily have the risk that that animal is shedding the virus. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use the presence of rabies as a PR stunt to encourage people to vaccinate their pets.

For the most part, the rabies vaccination can be purchased to provide protection for 1 year or 3 years. Many veterinarians will administer the 1 year vaccination to force their clients to come in annually for their pet’s health examination. It’s good for the veterinarian’s pocketbook, and it is a thing that responsible pet owners do.

I’ve always believed that the solution of dealing with raccoon and feral cat populations would be in the form of seeding an area with pellets that contain rabies vaccine and a sterilant I just can’t figure out how you package the pellets so that small children don’t eat them; but, no matter how gross the things that children pick up and eat, they seem to survive.

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Dog Bites on Postal Carriers

A couple of months ago, I received a postcard from the Post Office reminding residents of the need to secure their pets; dog bites rise in the summer months. Today, our local media reports that there has been a spike in the number of postal carriers being bitten by dogs. Two factors are present when dog bites occur: hot weather that makes dogs short-tempered, and irresponsible dog owners who let their dogs run loose. There isn’t much of a cure for either of these two factors…. Or is there?

I have always believed that the Postal Service holds the greatest cure to end the stupidity factor. They only need to stop mail service to the neighborhood with loose aggressive dogs, and the dog owners’ neighbors will begin the education process. In most cases, the dog owner sees his (or her) error and will comply with the neighborhood norms. If that doesn’t work, then the dog becomes a victim of the neighborhood by either someone holding the dog for Animal Control to pick up or by “accidentally” digesting food that disagrees with the dog.  Having the option of having animal control in the community is a good step in reducing incidents of extreme justice.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of pet owners who cannot overcome their stupidity and thus secures the careers of many animal control personnel. I used to meet up with postal carriers to check in with them about potential problems on their routes. No one knows the problem of loose dogs better than postal carriers: work with them to keep the mail flowing.

In communities where animal control is underfunded, I have heard about neighborhoods in which people carry weapons when going out for a neighborly walk.  Usually, the problem has to persist when neighbors resort to such activities; and yet,  the owner acts shocked when one of their dogs is the recipient of a neighbor’s bullet.   Clueless is right up there with stupidity for such people.

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Using GPS

Throughout my career, I have used GPS in several organizations that I have overseen.  Here are a few war stories:

In Portland, we received a call that one of our vehicles had kicked up a rock and cracked the caller’s windshield.  We checked the location of the incident against the GPS of the vehicle that the guy reported.   We found that the vehicle was on the other side of the County when the incident occurred.  We discovered that people get their windshield cracked and begin looking for a government vehicle on the road to blame the incident on and get a free windshield replacement.

In Jacksonville, we received a call about one of our drivers driving recklessly.  We pulled up the GPS data and found that our driver was driving 50 miles per hour in a 35-mile zone.  The caller was right.

Also, in Jacksonville, we deal with a lot of impatient callers who are calling in to see where the truck dispatched to their address is.  We can look at the mapping software and advise them.  It was not uncommon that we’d see the vehicle pulling up in front of their house and advise them to look outside the window.

GPS finds the best use for new drivers who are unfamiliar with your city.  It helps them get around.

GPS systems help advise your dispatcher as to which vehicle is the closest to the incident location.

We lost one of our employees in Fairfax County.  He had pressed the emergency button on his radio, and we were able to find the location of his vehicle via GPS.  When it started getting dark, we dispatched a helicopter and asked him to shine his flashlight straight up, and the helicopter pilot was able to direct our search to him.

GPS is a wonderful tool.  I used the it in Jacksonville to map the locations of raccoons that had tested positive for rabies.

In Salt Lake City, I used GPS to map the locations of dogs that had been declared dangerous.   I have heard of communities that have online mapping to let neighbors know where the dangerous dogs are in their neighborhood.

As an oldtimer, I use GPS when I am using the public transportation system in my city.    Google has a feature where you can share your location (not with just China (joking)).  So when I go out the door, I turn on Google Maps, and my daughter can track me when she turns on her Google Maps.  If I am headed out to a soccer game, she can see how far I am away.

You would be remiss if you didn’t take advantage of the tools that are available to you.

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Its not their fault!

I was reading comments following the recent incident of one of our police officers shooting a dog.  Many people conclude that the dog was not to blame.  On that, I agree.  Dogs become confused, especially when some stranger is yelling at them.  Time and time again we see evidence that many pet owners are not smart enough to own a dog.  Any reasonable person would realize that the best way to control your dog is with a leash.   If you can’t figure out the purpose of the leash, you should not take your dog into a crowd.

Every effort that the person attempting to control the dog made it worse.  Their excitement just further excited the dog.  During the two separate altercations that the police had with the dog, I did not hear a single person say “no” to the dog.  That is the first step in training dogs to be around people; to stop aberrant behavior.  This incident failed at all levels.

When the officer approached the dog the first time, the leash was on the dog, but no one was holding the leash.  Someone was stepping on the leash.  The officer should have seen the risk that he was entering into and demanded that someone take the leash into their hands.  It might have helped that he didn’t start with “his cop voice.”

In the second incident with the dog, the dog was off-leash.  The person near the dog could be clearly seen with the leash in her hand.  This makes no sense; the person had to be pretty stupid to take the dog off leash following the dog biting an officer just moments before.

Still using his “cop voice,” but a little more excited, the officer was yelling at the woman to hold the dog.  In addition to the woman being stupid, she was also very slow.  The dog began approaching the officer and the woman’s efforts to stop the dog only seemed to excite the dog more.

As slow as the woman was, the police officer was very quick in pumping four rounds into the dog.  Although the dog didn’t immediately die, it was in pretty bad shape.  I don’t know at what point that dog realized that he was acting badly; it is further evidence that people should be tested first before they are allowed to own a pet or have children.

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Officer Involved Shooting

Our local police responded to a parking lot full of people.  From police footage, it appears that most of the people were homeless.  One police officer approached the group and was attacked and bitten by a dog.  It appeared to me that the dog was on a leash at the time.   The officer was walking off the attack when he came back into view of the dog again, which was now off-leash.    Another officer approached the dog’s owner yelling at her to control her dog.  Her attempt was feeble, at best.  He promised her that he would shoot the dog if she didn’t gain control of it.  She didn’t and the dog attacked again and was shot four times for its efforts.

In most circumstances, I would feel sorry for the stupid dog and its owner; but, people don’t realize the impact that has on the officer.  As an animal control officer, I could have taken the dog without killing it.  That’s what we do.  But, I don’t expect a police officer to handle the situation as I would have.  Police officers are trained to think with their guns when they are in danger.  So, given the circumstances, it was a righteous shooting. Although, a Taser would have been my first choice.

Before you start thinking that I’m all full of myself, keep in mind that most animal control officers don’t carry guns.  So shooting a dog isn’t an option.  If we are experienced animal control officers, we get out of our vehicles with a ketch-pole and leash in our hands.  The prospect of getting bitten doesn’t worry us as it does police officers.  Of course, we also get more experience facing down a face full of doggie teeth.

I recall using pepper spray on a Rottweiler once.  The owners complained to the police about my use of pepper spray and when the police sergeant came out to talk to the dog’s owners, the dog attacked him.  He came just short of shooting the dog.  Once the sergeant calmed down, he told me not to worry about the complaint.  I was a little embarrassed that I stepped out of the vehicle without my ketch-pole.  After all of these years, I still feel bad about using the pepper spray.