Category: Animal Shelter Operations

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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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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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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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The First Climate Protester

When I was very young, maybe around 4 or 5 years old, I would get angry with my mother and go out and sit in the street in front of our home.  I might have been the first climate protester.  My mother would come outside to pull me out of the street.  I was too young to understand that sitting in the street was a stupid thing to do.  Well, actually, maybe I did.  I never once considered turning around and going back out into the street after my mother intervened.  I had gotten her attention and I was good to go.

The problem with modern-day climate protesters is that no one cares enough about them that anyone, except angry drivers, would pull them out of the street.  Once they have been pulled off the street, they get up and resume their spot in the roadway.  I find myself asking, “Where are their mothers?”  Would someone please love them enough to stop them from doing stupid things?

Sure, I want to breathe fresh air, but not from beneath the undercarriage of a passing motor vehicle.

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Controlled Substance War Story

That last blog reminded me of an incident involving controlled substances security.  Sorry! A couple of employees came to me to advise me that our veterinarian had left our controlled substances unsecured.  The veterinarian was on vacation and was the only person with the keys to the drug box.

While in the military, I spent a lot of my time studying.  I usually studied criminal investigation techniques, but I would often break from that training to pick up other useful knowledge.   As such, I learned locksmithing; to be more exact, I studied lock picking.

I simply picked the drug box lock and resecured the drugs.  When the veterinarian returned from vacation; I explained to the veterinarian what I had done.  It seems that the veterinarian only heard “lock pick” and “drug box.”

A few days later, I was visited by a trio of criminal investigators who were investigating me for breaking into the veterinarian’s drug box.  Fortunately, they got a good laugh out of it.  They went on to report my veterinarian to the State Pharmacy Board.  I don’t know what the best lesson to learn here was: to pay more attention to locking your drugs, paying more attention when your Executive Director is talking to you,  or just not being stupid (trying to get your boss fired without thinking it through).

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Hiring a veterinarian

Hiring a veterinarian can be the most challenging task that you might ever encounter. Your veterinarian will likely be your most expensive employee and the veterinarian position will be the hardest position that you will ever have to fill. During your interview with potential hires, you will keep asking yourself if there is any hope that you will get your money’s worth from that individual. Here is what you will encounter:

You need someone who can organize their time and be able to perform high-volume surgeries. But here is the kicker: they can’t be too fast or too slow. A veterinarian that needs two or three hours to complete a spay/neuter will be too ineffective on your staff; but, a veterinarian who completes surgeries within minutes will be taking shortcuts. I have witnessed veterinarians taking shortcuts in closing and substituting glue for sutures. I’ve seen organizations dealing with the bad press from people taking their pets home, only to complain about open wounds. And then the shelter has to pay for that person to take their pet to the emergency clinic to close the wound again. You can’t afford to be paying for many of those incidents. It is much cheaper to do the surgeries right, even if it takes a few minutes more.

Hiring a veterinarian is all about balance. That balance is very hard to find. As such, you need to think about “plan B.” If your local humane society operates a high-volume clinic, you might consider contracting with them for your surgeries. Some will even provide pickup and delivery services. “Plan C” is contracting with a local veterinarian who is willing to reduce their rates for a constant income source. Surgeries make up a small portion of a veterinarian’s business and you might find one who wants your business just to stay proficient.

A word of caution. Avoid “luxury veterinarians”; who might have worked at a luxury, government, or university clinic where that had unlimited resources.  There are hidden costs associated with “luxury veterinarians,” because they are used to providing deluxe services.  I discovered just how many dogs you can find with lime disease if you test for it. You are going to run up your veterinary costs if you treat every dog that comes into your shelter with lime disease. If you have the time and the money, go for it. If you are working with the same budget that I’ve had throughout my career, you have to stop short of providing luxury services.

Another word of caution is the handling of controlled substances. Although the shelter purchases the drugs, your veterinarian is the only one allowed to handle them. If you decide to fire your veterinarian, have another veterinarian in the wings to accept responsibility for the drugs. Come to think about it, you might want to schedule route drug tests for your veterinarian. I never did that and thinking back, I wish that I had.

I am going to get slightly off-topic. When I worked in Utah, employees who were in accidents when driving a government vehicle were immediately sent in for a drug test. At first thought, you’ll think that is a stupid idea, until you start to realize that the accident could have been caused by someone on drugs. Does meth make you drive a little more aggressive? I think that it might. Of course, back in those days, Utah had the third-highest meth use in the Country.

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Surveys

Just like tipping, survey requests have gotten out of hand.  I am constantly being asked via email for my opinion.  I’d like to think that someone wants to know what I think on a particular matter.  But, before I get a big head, I realize that they really are not interested in my thoughts, but my money.

At the end of the survey is a request for money.  In most cases, you can’t even submit your survey until after you’ve donated.  I’ve given up on taking surveys.  I am not interested enough in my opinion to pay for it.

The curse with giving to “good causes” is that they spring forth with more “good causes.”  The next thing, you start thinking about changing your email address.  Surveys are the same way.  One survey breeds another.

The trick is to create an email address just for this purpose; then you can focus your spam emails into one location and leave your other email addresses for more important purposes.  I’ve thought about creating an email that is SPAM@davidflagler.com, but that might be too obvious.

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Analytics

Every once in a while, a blogger finds their way to this site. I don’t know how they find me, but they do, wanting to author an article for you. I’ve agreed a couple of times, only to regret it. I’ve decided that if someone is going to write something stupid on my website, it was going to be me, which I do quite frequently.

I infrequently ponder who might be my readers and in what numbers they visit me. The site analytics tell me that this site is visited, on average, fifty times a day. The next question is why?

I would like to think that I can impart some wisdom to keep animal welfare workers out of trouble, or people are visiting to see my paintings in the gallery. To see if I have gotten any better. The problem is that you have to look at a lot of bad paintings to find the one or two that I could be really proud of. Some might disagree and claim that their 12-year-old can do better. That is hurtful thinking, but probably true.

Maybe it is an ex-employee looking me up to see if I have died yet. Maybe it is one of those humane societies that I worked with to see if I have written anything bad about them. It could be an ex-wife who is checking to see if I am still saying stupid things; which I am.

I am hoping that someone new to animal welfare accidentally finds this site and can learn from my experiences. Our field is a challenging one and the challenges have even gotten harder. COVID drove people to adopt pets when they were working from home, and then gave them up when it was time to go back in to work. Inflation grew so much that people could not afford to feed themselves and chose to give up their pets. Cities and counties had to adjust budgets to deal with the invasion of illegal immigrants coming into our Country. In many ways, times have gotten harder for animal shelters who are forced to do more with less funding. That is why I speak out against organizations who are trying to bully animal shelters to adopt out more animals when the adoption market is dry.

I’ve always encouraged being good stewards and showing integrity. Keep up the good fight and do what you can to give homeless animals a new future. Feel free to check in every once in a while to enjoy a friendly chat from time to time; although it is one-sided. Don’t forget to bring your coffee.

Don’t get angry with me when I change topics away from animal welfare issues. As I have gotten older, I have been nurturing my soul. I found Christ a long time ago while serving in Thailand. I have made the mistake of not mentioning Him before. I will not make that mistake any longer. He is my life and He directs my way. Throughout my entire career, I always knew that God had my back.

I never turned on the comment feature on the website because the world is full of mean people and I pay enough money for the site that I don’t want to listen to them. I figured that if you really needed to find me, it doesn’t take much work to drop me an email. If you are experiencing difficult times, my email address is in the menu. If I can’t offer solid advice, I can always pray for you.

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Doctrine

Doctrine is those things that you hold firmly.  It is the thing that you build your principles upon.  Sadly, it is also the thing that divides us.  False doctrine is something that erodes us.  It goes beyond faith, it becomes who we are.

Every animal shelter would have a principle for how we treat the animals in our care.  That doctrine should insure that each animal is receiving adequate care.  That principle should also extend to how we treat the animal when an animal is suffering and we are unable to provide it with the care that it needs.

Animal shelters need to document these principles so that everyone in the organization will understand our doctrines.  Many times, our doctrines are what paves our path to humane treatment of the animals in our care.  It is upon these doctrines that we submit our annual budget request.

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Being on the Right Side of Animal Rights

As much as I lambast animal rights organizations for bullying animal shelters for not adopting aggressive dogs so as to meet a 90% statistical number; I find myself on the same side wth them when it comes to wild animals.  I think all roadside zoos should be shut down.

Although my college background is in wildlife resources, I am against State laws that require that trappers only have to check their traplines once every three days.  I can’t imagine an animal being stuck in a leg hold trap for three days.  I can’t imagine an animal having to be in a leg hold trap for even three hours.  Whenever I am given the opportunity to update a city or county animal ordinance, I always work in a prohibition on leg hold traps. There is no use for them in populated or unpopulated areas.  They are a danger to domestic pets and they are intended to harm another living thing.

While I am bandstanding, wild species should never be a backyard pet.  For a while idiots were allowed to purchase ligers, half lion and half tiger.  There are probably still people keeping these animals in their backyards.  The real dumb ones probably have them running around in their houses.  The problem with natural selection is that instead of wiping out the person with deleterious genes (for stupidity) is when a child becomes injured due to someone else’s gene pool.

I worked with someone conducting college research on taking coyote puppies and attempting to domesticate them.  They hand-raised them from birth; only to find that the animals were coded from birth to be wild.  The human species is not smart enough to figure out that wild animals are coded with DNA to be wild.  It is inhumane to make them any different than what they are coded for.