On Saturday, July 25, 2009, I arrived at Claudia’s house at about 9:30. She told me, “My Dad is going to adopt #60, (photo above) and I’m going to adopt #90!” I said, “What? Are you kidding? Your Dad’s going to adopt #60?” And she replied, “Yes, he said we just can’t leave him there, and I kind of bonded with #90. He and I established a bond yesterday. I can't leave him there.” I was like, “Okay, whatever.”
Claudia and I arrived at the shelter at 10:00 a.m. There was already a line of cars at the gate, waiting to be let into the parking lot. Brenda came out and opened the gate and we proceeded to the parking lot. It was very busy and crowded as we entered the lobby, so Claudia and I walked straight through and went back to Buddy’s kennel.
We got to Buddy’s outside kennel to once again find it empty. We went back to the door leading to the inside kennels, but it was again locked. I told Claudia I’d go to the front desk and get someone to unlock it for us.
I went to the front desk and asked for an escort to kennel #88. I asked why he was locked in the inside kennel and the clerk at the front counter (a young Hispanic girl) responded, “Because he’s not very nice and we don’t want the public putting their hands in his cage.” This is when I responded, “We’ve been feeding him every day, sticking our fingers in his cage.” This clerk then responded that she would get the vet tech to escort us, and I told her, “Brenda’s right there” as I saw that she was nearby in the room that holds the cats. The clerk walked towards the back, and at one point, I saw Brenda also walk through the door leading to the back. After several minutes, the clerk came back and said, “I’m so sorry for the wait. Lieutenant MaGee is going to come up and escort you back.”
Lieutenant N. MaGee came out and asked who was here to see #88. I walked up and told her I was. Lieutenant MaGee introduced herself and said it was nice to meet me, and I responded in kind. She then escorted us to Buddy’s kennel.
Claudia and I arrived at the shelter at 10:00 a.m. There was already a line of cars at the gate, waiting to be let into the parking lot. Brenda came out and opened the gate and we proceeded to the parking lot. It was very busy and crowded as we entered the lobby, so Claudia and I walked straight through and went back to Buddy’s kennel.
We got to Buddy’s outside kennel to once again find it empty. We went back to the door leading to the inside kennels, but it was again locked. I told Claudia I’d go to the front desk and get someone to unlock it for us.
I went to the front desk and asked for an escort to kennel #88. I asked why he was locked in the inside kennel and the clerk at the front counter (a young Hispanic girl) responded, “Because he’s not very nice and we don’t want the public putting their hands in his cage.” This is when I responded, “We’ve been feeding him every day, sticking our fingers in his cage.” This clerk then responded that she would get the vet tech to escort us, and I told her, “Brenda’s right there” as I saw that she was nearby in the room that holds the cats. The clerk walked towards the back, and at one point, I saw Brenda also walk through the door leading to the back. After several minutes, the clerk came back and said, “I’m so sorry for the wait. Lieutenant MaGee is going to come up and escort you back.”
Lieutenant N. MaGee came out and asked who was here to see #88. I walked up and told her I was. Lieutenant MaGee introduced herself and said it was nice to meet me, and I responded in kind. She then escorted us to Buddy’s kennel.
Lieutenant MaGee unlocked the door into the inside kennels and we found Buddy inside kennel #88. However, we immediately noticed that he appeared deeply depressed again, as his whole demeanor was different than the night before. He was lying against the bars but facing away from us and didn’t immediately turn towards us when we walked up. We leaned down and squatted in front of his cage and talked to him. Claudia said to me, “Look, he’s regressed.” I agreed with her and said he must be depressed being locked inside. We also noticed that his mouth was bleeding again, and we wondered what had happened to him the night before as his mouth was almost healed when we had seen him the previous evening. Now, it was once again swollen and bleeding.
We asked Lieutenant MaGee if someone could have been “aggravating” the dog after hours and poking something at him to cause him to bite it and open the injury on his jaw. Since the dog had been deemed “aggressive and vicious”, we were wondering if whoever was feeding him (nobody was bothering to give him fresh water as his water was dirty with sediment at the bottom of the pan) was poking something at him to keep him away from them while they entered his kennel, or something to that affect. Lieutenant MaGee right away responded with, “Ain’t nobody messing with that dog. He’s probably chewing on his water bowl at night or something. Some dogs do that. They chew on their bowls or the bars……..stuff like that.”
At this time, I stood up and noticed that hanging at my eye level was a laminated memo on the outside of Buddy’s kennel. It was a memo from Greg Beck instructing his staff that “This dog is to remain in the inside kennel during the hours the shelter is open for the public." The memo also stated that "All staff should take precaution when feeding or caring for this animal as he is determined to be “vicious and aggressive”. The memo further stated, "The slider door can be raised after hours so that the dog can have access to the outside kennel. These orders are to remain in effect as long as the dog is housed at this shelter.” The memo was dated June 24, 2009. I read the memo and squatted back down by Claudia and told her, “Looks like retaliation tactics to me. They can’t do anything to us, so they retaliate against the dog. No wonder he’s regressing.” She wholeheartedly agreed.
Note: We had been able to visit Buddy every day, twice a day on weekends, for the past seven days without having an escort. We checked in at the front desk, told them “We’re here to see #88” and we were waived through to go on back to his kennel. Buddy had also been able to enter both his inside and outside kennels since he arrived at the shelter on Thursday, July 16. It wasn’t until Friday, July 24th, when we were finally given the decision that we could adopt the dog, that different rules were put in place, and we were no longer allowed to see him without an escort and he was locked in his inside kennel, with no access to his outside kennel during public hours. Kind of late to lock a dog away from public access when he’s had free reign up until this point!
While Lieutenant MaGee stood near us, we fed Buddy some hotdogs and chicken. He ate a little of both and then laid his head in the corner of the kennel, as he had done previously when he was depressed. We petted him as best we could and talked to him for a short time.
While there, we started talking to Lieutenant MaGee, who had taken a great deal of interest in the Bull Mastiff that was in the kennel opposite Buddy. At one point, she said, “I like big dogs. I got over “cute” a long time ago and it no longer affects me. I can’t have this dog, but I’m going to have my girlfriend adopt him so I can go see him.”
We talked with Lieutenant MaGee for quite some time, and Claudia asked her several questions. She explained that she had worked at the shelter for over fifteen years and had worked her way up to Supervisor.
After saying goodbye to Buddy, we walked to kennel #60 to see the black pit bull housed there. As we got to his kennel, we noticed he was lying in his inside kennel. We coaxed him to the outside kennel, and the dog walked gingerly towards us. It was clearly obvious that he was in extreme pain as he was having difficulty walking. I said to Claudia, “Look at his feet” as his front left foot was obviously swollen and had clear yellowish liquid weeping from open wounds on it. Lieutenant MaGee was still with us, and she started explaining to us that “Pitbulls have skin conditions that make them lick their feet a lot. That’s probably what he’s been doing.” I looked at #60’s left rear foot and it was also swollen and inflamed with open wounds on it.
I proceed to feed #60 some Pedigree dog food that we had brought with us, and he ate it like he hadn’t eaten in quite some time. He also devoured two hotdogs. I made the comment that #60 acted like he hasn’t eaten in some time, and Lieutenant MaGee explained that a lot of dogs eat like this because they don’t know when their next meal will be.
At this time, Claudia asked Lieutenant MaGee several questions. She inquired about the vet care that the animals get, how long they can stay at the kennel before they are put down, etc. Lieutenant MaGee explained that when all the dogs come into the shelter, they are given a shot, and in a short amount of time, if they have some kind of infection in their system, the shot will make the infection come out and the dog will start showing symptoms of illness. Claudia asked, “How do the officers know the dogs are sick?” Lieutenant MaGee responded that, “Oh, they look for signs such as redness in their stools, stuff like that.” I immediately asked if the vet had seen this dog, and Lieutenant MaGee said the vet sees all the dogs and examines them. I asked if Buddy had gotten the same shot that #60 had received, and she explained that “all the dogs get that shot, mean or not.” She said “they just poke him in the butt, but they all got the shot.”
At this point in the conversation, Claudia asked how long the dogs were held at the shelter. Lieutenant MaGee then explained that the dogs were in a kennel for three days in order to give the owner a chance to claim them, and then on the fourth day, if no one was interested in adopting them, they were put down. She explained that if the shelter wasn’t full, then some dogs were given more time. She then went on to explain that if no one was interested in adopting #60, then he would receive no medical care as they weren’t going to “waste money on a dog that nobody wanted to adopt”. She saw the appalled looks on mine and Claudia’s faces and then said, “Hey, it’s better than it used to be. Things have changed a lot. Back in 1999, we used to put down 50 dogs a day. I used to walk in in the morning and say, “Come on. Let’s hurry up and get this over with.” She indicated that things weren’t perfect but things had changed. After we both picked our jaws up off the ground, we thanked Lieutenant MaGee for her time and proceeded to the front counter area.
Claudia and I stopped at the front counter and asked when #60 was available for adoption. The young Hispanic clerk told us he would be available for adoption tomorrow, Sunday, July 26th. I advised the clerk that he had injuries to his feet and could hardly walk. She then looked up the vet’s notes in the computer and told us, “The vet has examined the dog and determined that he had probably been thrown from a moving vehicle as his paws and pads were abraded and some of his nails on his feet had been broken off. The vet has indicated the dog would heal on his own and needs no medical attention.” I looked at Claudia and I was appalled and almost sick to my stomach. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. A dog is thrown from a moving vehicle but needs no medical attention—in whose world? What kind of vet makes such a determination? The same one who leaves a dog in his kennel with an obvious open wound to his jaw and says that he doesn’t need medical attention either.
We returned to the Shelter at approximately 5:15. We waited for an escort and an officer (female, blonde, tall, heavy-set) escorted us to Buddy’s kennel. Upon immediately arriving at Buddy’s kennel, I noted that he had defecated quite heavily in his kennel and the odor was horrendous. I asked the officer if she could put Buddy in the outside kennel while we sprayed the inside of the kennel so we could remove the feces. The officer explained that she does not normally work at this particular shelter and has to abide by the rule that the dog was to stay in the inside kennel. We told her we understood, though we felt bad because the dog was lying in his own urine and if he moved two inches further, he’d be lying in his own feces. I told Claudia, “Yeah, they want him to be a total mess when we do get him out of here. Stinky, dirty….yep, they’re making sure of it. They’re not going to make anything easy about this.”
While the officer sat down at the end of row of kennels, Claudia and I fed Buddy and he did appear in better spirits at this time. He ate some chicken, hotdogs, and dog food, and then promptly displayed signs of being tired. We scratched his head and ears as best we could, and after a short time, we said goodbye to him.
The officer came back to Buddy’s kennel, and Claudia asked if they could be sure to move Buddy to the outside kennel to clean his inside kennel so the water spray wouldn’t scare him. The officer said she would ask and indicated it probably would not be a problem to move him to the outside kennel while his inside kennel was cleaned.
We walked out with the officer and told her we’d like to visit the dog in kennel #60 as we were interested in adopting him. We arrived at kennel #60, only to find the dog lying in the inside kennel again. Claudia and I tried to coax him into the outside kennel by offering him a hotdog, but try as he might, the dog was clearly unable to stand. We both noted that #60’s paw pads on his front left foot were red, bleeding, and clearly infected. We directed the officer's attention to his paws and advised her that the dog could no longer stand. She said she would go inside and tell the front desk the dog needed medical attention.
After a short time, she came back out and said, “The vet will be out to see him tomorrow.” I looked at Claudia, and she looked at me, and we both said, “Yeah, right. Vets probably don't come out on Sunday.” Claudia and I visited #60 for a little while longer, but he could not come out of his cage. We both watched as he “belly-crawled” over to his water bowl to get some water. At no time did he ever come out of his inside kennel to get the hotdogs we had placed in his outside kennel. We hoped that someone would pick them up and give them to him later, versus washing them down the drain.
Since it was now closing time, Claudia and I both walked back to the front desk. I wanted to clarify that the vet would be out the next day, so I asked the same clerk I had talked with earlier if the vet would be out tomorrow. She gave me a strange look, as if to say, “The vet never comes here on Sunday, silly!” She then shook her head and said, “No, I don’t think the vet will be in tomorrow.” I explained to her that the officer who had escorted us just told us a vet would be out tomorrow to see #60. I explained to the clerk that the dog in kennel #60 could not even stand and had deteriorated since we had seen him earlier. She then said, “Well the vet saw the dog on Thursday.” At this time, I told her, “The dog can’t even walk! We just watched him have to belly crawl to get to his water.” She replied, “Well, I don’t think the vet comes in on Sunday.” I told her, “This dog can’t wait until Monday to be seen. He can’t even walk and his paws are red and bleeding.” She then replied, “Well, the vet will be in to look at him tomorrow or Monday, but probably Monday.”
At this time, we left frustrated, disappointed, and very much worried about #60. Not only were his paws now bleeding and he couldn’t stand, but the dog was severely emaciated, as if he had not eaten in quite some time. He was obviously sick with parasites.
We both left, sick to our stomachs and feeling quite helpless about the situation. There had to be something we could do for this poor dog. First, the battle to save Buddy. Now, another battle to save this dog. We just hoped we’d be able to adopt him before he got any worse. He was available the next day, but he’d also have to be neutered before the Shelter would release him. That couldn’t be done until Monday, at the earliest. We hoped he’d be able to hang on that long.
We asked Lieutenant MaGee if someone could have been “aggravating” the dog after hours and poking something at him to cause him to bite it and open the injury on his jaw. Since the dog had been deemed “aggressive and vicious”, we were wondering if whoever was feeding him (nobody was bothering to give him fresh water as his water was dirty with sediment at the bottom of the pan) was poking something at him to keep him away from them while they entered his kennel, or something to that affect. Lieutenant MaGee right away responded with, “Ain’t nobody messing with that dog. He’s probably chewing on his water bowl at night or something. Some dogs do that. They chew on their bowls or the bars……..stuff like that.”
At this time, I stood up and noticed that hanging at my eye level was a laminated memo on the outside of Buddy’s kennel. It was a memo from Greg Beck instructing his staff that “This dog is to remain in the inside kennel during the hours the shelter is open for the public." The memo also stated that "All staff should take precaution when feeding or caring for this animal as he is determined to be “vicious and aggressive”. The memo further stated, "The slider door can be raised after hours so that the dog can have access to the outside kennel. These orders are to remain in effect as long as the dog is housed at this shelter.” The memo was dated June 24, 2009. I read the memo and squatted back down by Claudia and told her, “Looks like retaliation tactics to me. They can’t do anything to us, so they retaliate against the dog. No wonder he’s regressing.” She wholeheartedly agreed.
Note: We had been able to visit Buddy every day, twice a day on weekends, for the past seven days without having an escort. We checked in at the front desk, told them “We’re here to see #88” and we were waived through to go on back to his kennel. Buddy had also been able to enter both his inside and outside kennels since he arrived at the shelter on Thursday, July 16. It wasn’t until Friday, July 24th, when we were finally given the decision that we could adopt the dog, that different rules were put in place, and we were no longer allowed to see him without an escort and he was locked in his inside kennel, with no access to his outside kennel during public hours. Kind of late to lock a dog away from public access when he’s had free reign up until this point!
While Lieutenant MaGee stood near us, we fed Buddy some hotdogs and chicken. He ate a little of both and then laid his head in the corner of the kennel, as he had done previously when he was depressed. We petted him as best we could and talked to him for a short time.
While there, we started talking to Lieutenant MaGee, who had taken a great deal of interest in the Bull Mastiff that was in the kennel opposite Buddy. At one point, she said, “I like big dogs. I got over “cute” a long time ago and it no longer affects me. I can’t have this dog, but I’m going to have my girlfriend adopt him so I can go see him.”
We talked with Lieutenant MaGee for quite some time, and Claudia asked her several questions. She explained that she had worked at the shelter for over fifteen years and had worked her way up to Supervisor.
After saying goodbye to Buddy, we walked to kennel #60 to see the black pit bull housed there. As we got to his kennel, we noticed he was lying in his inside kennel. We coaxed him to the outside kennel, and the dog walked gingerly towards us. It was clearly obvious that he was in extreme pain as he was having difficulty walking. I said to Claudia, “Look at his feet” as his front left foot was obviously swollen and had clear yellowish liquid weeping from open wounds on it. Lieutenant MaGee was still with us, and she started explaining to us that “Pitbulls have skin conditions that make them lick their feet a lot. That’s probably what he’s been doing.” I looked at #60’s left rear foot and it was also swollen and inflamed with open wounds on it.
I proceed to feed #60 some Pedigree dog food that we had brought with us, and he ate it like he hadn’t eaten in quite some time. He also devoured two hotdogs. I made the comment that #60 acted like he hasn’t eaten in some time, and Lieutenant MaGee explained that a lot of dogs eat like this because they don’t know when their next meal will be.
At this time, Claudia asked Lieutenant MaGee several questions. She inquired about the vet care that the animals get, how long they can stay at the kennel before they are put down, etc. Lieutenant MaGee explained that when all the dogs come into the shelter, they are given a shot, and in a short amount of time, if they have some kind of infection in their system, the shot will make the infection come out and the dog will start showing symptoms of illness. Claudia asked, “How do the officers know the dogs are sick?” Lieutenant MaGee responded that, “Oh, they look for signs such as redness in their stools, stuff like that.” I immediately asked if the vet had seen this dog, and Lieutenant MaGee said the vet sees all the dogs and examines them. I asked if Buddy had gotten the same shot that #60 had received, and she explained that “all the dogs get that shot, mean or not.” She said “they just poke him in the butt, but they all got the shot.”
At this point in the conversation, Claudia asked how long the dogs were held at the shelter. Lieutenant MaGee then explained that the dogs were in a kennel for three days in order to give the owner a chance to claim them, and then on the fourth day, if no one was interested in adopting them, they were put down. She explained that if the shelter wasn’t full, then some dogs were given more time. She then went on to explain that if no one was interested in adopting #60, then he would receive no medical care as they weren’t going to “waste money on a dog that nobody wanted to adopt”. She saw the appalled looks on mine and Claudia’s faces and then said, “Hey, it’s better than it used to be. Things have changed a lot. Back in 1999, we used to put down 50 dogs a day. I used to walk in in the morning and say, “Come on. Let’s hurry up and get this over with.” She indicated that things weren’t perfect but things had changed. After we both picked our jaws up off the ground, we thanked Lieutenant MaGee for her time and proceeded to the front counter area.
Claudia and I stopped at the front counter and asked when #60 was available for adoption. The young Hispanic clerk told us he would be available for adoption tomorrow, Sunday, July 26th. I advised the clerk that he had injuries to his feet and could hardly walk. She then looked up the vet’s notes in the computer and told us, “The vet has examined the dog and determined that he had probably been thrown from a moving vehicle as his paws and pads were abraded and some of his nails on his feet had been broken off. The vet has indicated the dog would heal on his own and needs no medical attention.” I looked at Claudia and I was appalled and almost sick to my stomach. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. A dog is thrown from a moving vehicle but needs no medical attention—in whose world? What kind of vet makes such a determination? The same one who leaves a dog in his kennel with an obvious open wound to his jaw and says that he doesn’t need medical attention either.
We returned to the Shelter at approximately 5:15. We waited for an escort and an officer (female, blonde, tall, heavy-set) escorted us to Buddy’s kennel. Upon immediately arriving at Buddy’s kennel, I noted that he had defecated quite heavily in his kennel and the odor was horrendous. I asked the officer if she could put Buddy in the outside kennel while we sprayed the inside of the kennel so we could remove the feces. The officer explained that she does not normally work at this particular shelter and has to abide by the rule that the dog was to stay in the inside kennel. We told her we understood, though we felt bad because the dog was lying in his own urine and if he moved two inches further, he’d be lying in his own feces. I told Claudia, “Yeah, they want him to be a total mess when we do get him out of here. Stinky, dirty….yep, they’re making sure of it. They’re not going to make anything easy about this.”
While the officer sat down at the end of row of kennels, Claudia and I fed Buddy and he did appear in better spirits at this time. He ate some chicken, hotdogs, and dog food, and then promptly displayed signs of being tired. We scratched his head and ears as best we could, and after a short time, we said goodbye to him.
The officer came back to Buddy’s kennel, and Claudia asked if they could be sure to move Buddy to the outside kennel to clean his inside kennel so the water spray wouldn’t scare him. The officer said she would ask and indicated it probably would not be a problem to move him to the outside kennel while his inside kennel was cleaned.
We walked out with the officer and told her we’d like to visit the dog in kennel #60 as we were interested in adopting him. We arrived at kennel #60, only to find the dog lying in the inside kennel again. Claudia and I tried to coax him into the outside kennel by offering him a hotdog, but try as he might, the dog was clearly unable to stand. We both noted that #60’s paw pads on his front left foot were red, bleeding, and clearly infected. We directed the officer's attention to his paws and advised her that the dog could no longer stand. She said she would go inside and tell the front desk the dog needed medical attention.
After a short time, she came back out and said, “The vet will be out to see him tomorrow.” I looked at Claudia, and she looked at me, and we both said, “Yeah, right. Vets probably don't come out on Sunday.” Claudia and I visited #60 for a little while longer, but he could not come out of his cage. We both watched as he “belly-crawled” over to his water bowl to get some water. At no time did he ever come out of his inside kennel to get the hotdogs we had placed in his outside kennel. We hoped that someone would pick them up and give them to him later, versus washing them down the drain.
Since it was now closing time, Claudia and I both walked back to the front desk. I wanted to clarify that the vet would be out the next day, so I asked the same clerk I had talked with earlier if the vet would be out tomorrow. She gave me a strange look, as if to say, “The vet never comes here on Sunday, silly!” She then shook her head and said, “No, I don’t think the vet will be in tomorrow.” I explained to her that the officer who had escorted us just told us a vet would be out tomorrow to see #60. I explained to the clerk that the dog in kennel #60 could not even stand and had deteriorated since we had seen him earlier. She then said, “Well the vet saw the dog on Thursday.” At this time, I told her, “The dog can’t even walk! We just watched him have to belly crawl to get to his water.” She replied, “Well, I don’t think the vet comes in on Sunday.” I told her, “This dog can’t wait until Monday to be seen. He can’t even walk and his paws are red and bleeding.” She then replied, “Well, the vet will be in to look at him tomorrow or Monday, but probably Monday.”
At this time, we left frustrated, disappointed, and very much worried about #60. Not only were his paws now bleeding and he couldn’t stand, but the dog was severely emaciated, as if he had not eaten in quite some time. He was obviously sick with parasites.
We both left, sick to our stomachs and feeling quite helpless about the situation. There had to be something we could do for this poor dog. First, the battle to save Buddy. Now, another battle to save this dog. We just hoped we’d be able to adopt him before he got any worse. He was available the next day, but he’d also have to be neutered before the Shelter would release him. That couldn’t be done until Monday, at the earliest. We hoped he’d be able to hang on that long.
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