An all too common story

KCPetConnection has a story about a dog named Buddy on their website (it's the second story down on the page entitled "Tragedy in Kansas City").  For those of you not familiar with KCPetconnection, they're a good group of people that work really hard to help owners find their lost dogs and help lost dogs find their owners.

Buddy was a 13 year old Cocker Spaniel that escaped his 87 year old owner.  Buddy ended up in the Kansas City, MO animal shelter.  In spite of efforts by KCPetConnect to reach animal control, and even talking to Animal Control, Buddy was put down before they were able to pick him up for the owner.  Go read the story -- it's worth the read....in spite of the tragic ending.

This story is far too common in KC.  Dog gets lost.  Owner looks for dog.  Dog is dead before owner finds dog.

This is the same Kansas City, MO that had its head of animal control (Ms Forsberg's predecessor) encouraged a law mandating spay/neuter of pit bulls in order to cut down the number of dogs killed in their shelter.  Like that was the problem.

KCMO could do a lot of things better to help prevent this from happening on a regular basis.  Many of their kill problems revolve around not following a succesful animal control models set forth by other cities.  Since I'm a big fan of the Calgary model, I'll mention a couple of areas where they could make some changes in order to prevent this from happening again.

#1) Increase animal licensing.  This would allow them to better be able to find the owners of dogs if they had a good licensing rate. Their current licensing rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10%.  That's horrible.  Creating an animal control department based on trust would be a first start. Trust is not gained by  creating laws  such as overly restrictive pet limits, mandatory spay/neuter laws, or discussing bans on certain breeds of dogs. 

#2) As soon as an animal enters the shelter in Calgary, within the first 15 minutes, the dog has digital pictures taken that are instantly uploaded onto their website so owners can quickly check to see if their dog is at the shelter.

#3) Actually have a direct phone line to a shelter director who manages the dogs.  There should be one, or two people, who are responsible, diligent people who care about animals that would field inquiries and make every effort to connect dogs to owners. This should not have to be, and most likely SHOULDN"T be, the head of animal control.

#4) The shelter needs to be open to the public during hours when people can actually get to the shelter.  The shelter is currently open 5 days a week from 12 noon to 4 pm, and one day (Thursday) from 12 noon until 8 pm).  That leaves the typical 9-5 worker (that's most of us), exactly two small windows when they can come by the shelter -- 5-8 on Thursday, and noon -4 on Saturday.  To top this off, the shelter location is in one of the most inconvenient locations to get to in the city.

#5) Make some attempt, any attempt, to adopt dogs out.  I'm having a hard time believing they couldn't find a home for an older, house trained, Cocker Spaniel.  The dog lived at the shelter for less than 9 days. That's not nearly enough time for animals to be in a shelter.

This isn't rocket science. Mostly, it's common sense.  They're in the animal control business -- part of which is to reconnect dogs with owners and providing "shelter" for lost dogs. Right now, it seems as if no attempt is made to do either of these two things.  The problems are pretty easily solved...and would not cost tons of money (in fact, money would be saved by finding homes for dogs faster and not paying money for euthanasia).  This is a COMMUNITY SERVICE (or at least it says so at the top of the web page).

While some will point out that the dog owner is partially to blame because the dog must not have been licensed, or had its tags, or micro-chipped, and got away. All of those things may be true. However, I'm not certain that it would make a ton of difference as I've heard of several similar stories where dogs were microchipped, and the chip was not read and the owner contacted.

It's all very extremely frustrating...and our tax dollars at work for our city.

UPDATE:  April, the original author of the story about Buddy emailed me to remind me that Buddy had actually been hit by a car.  During the 9 days that Buddy was in the shelter, he was never treated for his injuries -- in spite of KCMO having a Vet that they tap into.  I'll note here too, that as a public service, the Calgary animal control group will treat all animals that come into the shelter - and when they have to, assume the cost of those Vet treatments...but because of their high licensing rates, they are completely self funded and can afford these treatments.  This is the difference betwen a city (Calgary) that sees animal control as a SERVICE vs a being dog catchers.

Comments

[Becky]

You commented, ' While some will point out that the dog owner is partially to blame because the dog must not have been licensed, or had its tags, or micro-chipped, and got away. All of those things may be true. However, I'm not certain that it would make a ton of difference as I've heard of several similar stories where dogs were microchipped, and the chip was not read and the owner contacted.'

Thanks for this important post, Brent. I read about this story last week and it made me sick.

OK, so this owner was not the most responsible in forseeing whatever dangers might present themselves, however, this owner is not responsible for the death of this dog, because the city killed him/her. This city is responsible for the crime it has committed, for all the reasons you have listed in your post.

Thank you for properly documenting this story.