Every afternoon, on my way home from work, I pass someone selling puppies on 2978 just north of Woodlands Parkway. Usually it’s a litter of dachshunds, shih tzus, or yorkies. This week it’s a large litter of yellow lab puppies. Doesn’t matter what the weather is. Hot, cold, rain, sun…those puppies sit in a playpen beside the road, waiting for some uninformed soul to hand over several hundred dollars apiece for them.

Another rescuer says that a group of puppy sellers has made camp in a parking lot at the intersection of highway 59 and 1314.

And now we hear that a known puppy miller from Brazoria County is advertising that he will have thirteen different breeds of puppies for sale at a local KOA campground in Montgomery THIS SATURDAY, February 11. (http://koa.com/campgrounds/lake-conroe/photos/) It is, in fact, being referred to as a “truckload sale.”

Did I mention that this is just not acceptable?

In case the term “puppy mill” is unfamiliar to you, a puppy mill is a place that breeds their dogs over and over in unsanitary conditions. Their sole purpose is to produce as many puppies as possible, and to sell them as fast as possible. The dogs are unhealthy, often unsocialized, poorly tended, often malnourished, and prone to disease. Inbreeding is common, and with it the genetic problems that result from a small gene pool. The unsold puppies are either thrown back into the breeding pool, regardless of health, genetics, and disposition. The older breeding dogs keep having puppies until they are simply used up. Then they are often dumped at shelters or abandoned on the side of the road somewhere.

Puppy millers, as far as I’m concerned, are evil.

So what brings this influx of evil puppy sellers to Montgomery County? I’m pretty sure this is a trickle-down from Harris County’s expulsion of roadside puppy vendors. Harris County kicked them out, so they simply moved out a layer to the counties around Houston.

I wish we could do likewise, but under current state law, the population of Montgomery County isn’t large enough to be allowed to make that decision. Only those counties with a population in excess of 1.3 million can ban roadside puppy sales. Only four counties meet that criterion: Harris, Tarrant, Bexar, and Dallas. The rest of us are stuck with them.

And that brings me back to our local puppy seller problem. If the law won’t help us remove them, we have to resort to more mundane measures. Like education, public protests, demonstrations, and media pressure. Most people don’t know all the risks and problems of buying a roadside puppy, which makes education a key factor. Property owners can often be convinced to prohibit puppy sales on their property, especially if the possibility of negative media attention is hovering just offstage. Organized groups of protesters carrying anti-puppy mill signs can run the sellers out of town, at least for the day. And if we peacefully disrupt them often enough, they will eventually find someplace else.

When they do, we stage another round of protests.

Now, about this puppy seller who is apparently going to come to the KOA campground: I would suggest that my readers contact the campground and POLITELY ask the management to prohibit this puppy miller from using their facility. If enough of us draw attention to the problem, it’s quite likely that the property management will decide that allowing the puppy sales is simply too much trouble and potential negative publicity.

If that doesn’t work, get your posterboards ready. If we don’t stand up for the dogs, who will?

(And by the way, if you need a Ban Roadside Puppy Sales shirt, check the store link at the top of the page. I sell them at a discount.)

Why?

One of two reasons. One, even though it’s cruel treatment, the law doesn’t recognize it as such. Two, the owner voluntarily surrenders the animal to animal control or a comparable agency.

Fancy is a prime example of the first situation. When she was found, she had been shot in the face and left for dead. We’ll never know how she survived the bullet that went through her face, shattered a growth plate, and left an open hole through her palate.

What we do know is that by the time she was captured and able to be treated, she had been living with that hole in her face for at least a month. Seems like open and shut animal cruelty, doesn’t it? And if we knew who had done it, we could prosecute them for shooting her.

Guess again. As I understand it, under Texas law, if the shooter actually owned her, then killing her with a bullet would have been perfectly legal. IF prosecution had been possible, it would have been for not finishing the job. And to be perfectly honest, I doubt that most district attorneys would even be willing to prosecute, due to the difficulty of proving that the intent was to cause suffering.

And that’s just wrong.

Bailey and Otis are my representatives of the second group. Both of these dogs were turned in to animal control.

Bailey was surrendered by her owners. Per her paperwork and the shelter worker who did her intake paperwork, they claimed to have taken her to dozens of veterinarians in the attempt to treat her condition. When I pulled Bailey out of the shelter, she had almost no hair and reeked of skin yeast. She itched uncontrollably. It was patently obvious that she had not been treated, as these were far from her only problems.

Bailey was so underweight that her skin hung in scaly pink folds – readily visible because she was so bald. She literally had loose skin on her feet and ankles. Her toenails had gone uncut for so long that they had grown in complete circles and were cutting into the pads of her feet. Her damaged skin showed no signs of washing or antifungal ointments. If she had been under treatment, these secondary signs of neglect would not have been in evidence.

Given Bailey’s condition, had she been seized rather than surrendered, the owners could have been charged with cruelty and neglect. Because they voluntarily signed her over, with accompanying (if less than credible) claims of having sought treatment, they were safe from prosecution.

Otis was a slightly different story. He too was turned into Animal Control in a state of hairless, yeasty itchiness. However, he had clearly been eating well. And the people that turned him in claimed to have “found” him in that condition. Obviously, if they merely found him and delivered him to Animal Control, then they didn’t commit a crime.

Right?

Not so fast. They called back the next day, having re-thought their decision. They wanted Otis back. And when they learned that Otis had been sent to rescue on medical release, they were not happy. They threw a loud and verbally abusive tantrum at the unfortunate ACO who answered the phone, threatening all sorts of legal mayhem if Otis was not returned to them.

Unbelievably, it seems that they wanted to breed him. And in the course of their fit, they revealed that Otis had been in their “care” for at least six months, which means that legally, they were responsible for his pitiful state.

Interestingly, when it was explained to them that their failure to vaccinate and treat Otis for that period of time constituted actionable legal neglect, they suddenly lost interest and went away. As “Good Samaritan” finders, they were untouchable. As negligent custodians, they were prosecutable.

So why don’t we prosecute negligent owners who turn in the Baileys and Otises of the world?

Because if we were to prosecute those who voluntarily surrendered their neglected pets, many of them would resort to dumping dogs on the side of the road. Or worse, they might go the more drastic route taken by whoever shot Fancy. So in most cases, the decision is made to let them evade prosecution because it’s more important to get the animals out of the situation.

I’m not sure how to close these loopholes, but it’s one more area in which the law fails to protect the animals.

My personal opinion: anyone who can find entertainment in watching animals fight to the death has a serious void where his conscience should be. And that void is not something that can be repaired or filled.

Even more than most animal cruelty crimes, dog fighting frustrates law enforcement and animal cruelty investigators. In the State of Texas, participation in any aspect of dog fighting is illegal. A person can be convicted of a state jail felony for making the dog fight (for the purpose of making money), for running a fighting facility, or even for allowing someone to use their property to host a fight. They can be convicted of a class A misdemeanor for making a dog fight under any circumstances, or for owning or training a fighting dog, even without financial gain. They can be convicted of lesser misdemeanor counts for simply attending a fight.

With all these laws on the books, why don’t we convict more people of dog fighting?

Bluntly, unless there are actual witnesses to the fight or overt and incontrovertible evidence of fighting such as video, it is very difficult to prove under the law. Owning a dog with scars from fights is not enough proof. Sometimes dogs just fight each other. Or the owner might claim the scars were already there when he acquired the dog.

Another challenge of catching, stopping, or prosecuting dog fighters is their highly secretive and mobile lifestyle. Fights change location constantly, and entry to the fights is closely guarded. Their very mobility is a defense, not just because the location changes, but also because they cross jurisdictional lines regularly, meaning that different agencies would be responsible for different offenses. Law enforcement has historically found it difficult to infiltrate the world of the fighters because of the extreme secrecy involved, combined with the violent tendencies and other criminal enterprises of those associated with fighting. Gambling, drugs, money laundering, prostitution, and illegal weapons are all known to be closely linked to the underground dog fight world. In fact, many of the fight rings actually get busted in the course of police investigating these other crimes.

For example, in 2006, home invaders shot a man here in Texas and let him bleed to death in front of his family. In the course of the murder investigation, it was discovered that the deceased owned a dog fighting operation with over 300 fight dogs in two states. Investigators believe he was killed as a result of his dog fighting ties.

A secondary but equally difficult issue is the housing of confiscated fight dogs. I have been told by several cruelty investigators that fighters often try to bribe or threaten employees into releasing confiscated dogs. Others send their girlfriends or relatives in to claim the dog, under the guise of being its legitimate owner who plans to rush the injured animal to the vet. The agency housing such dogs requires heightened security for the protection of the animals and employees against fighters who may try to retrieve their dogs. Those dogs can be worth thousands of dollars apiece, so the risk is worth the reward to their unscrupulous handlers. Again, some agencies simply want no part of such investigations because they have neither the space not the budget to handle them.

Texas has enacted laws prohibiting ownership of dog fighting paraphernalia or equipment. Those laws were designed to give law enforcement better ways to prove intent to fight and thus more power to prosecute fighters.

Per Texas Code of Criminal Procedure – Article 18.18, prohibited items include:

               “(A)  equipment used for training or handling a fighting dog, including a harness, treadmill, cage, decoy, pen, house for keeping a fighting dog, feeding apparatus, or training pen;

               “(B)  equipment used for transporting a fighting dog, including any automobile, or other vehicle, and its appurtenances which are intended to be used as a vehicle for transporting a fighting dog;

               “(C)  equipment used to promote or advertise an exhibition of dog fighting, including a printing press or similar equipment, paper, ink, or photography equipment;  or

               “(D)  a dog trained, being trained, or intended to be used to fight with another dog;”

Obviously ownership of a dog harness or a printer is not proof of dogfighting. But when taken in conjunction with a combination of other items from this list, it can be one more nail in the legal coffin of a fighter on trial. Judges and juries have accepted sworn testimony of cruelty investigators and other law enforcement agents that certain pieces of equipement have no use other than the training of fight dogs. Blood-stained fight rings, crates, and other paraphernalia can be considered corroborating evidence, as can the collection of vitamins, steroids, and antibiotics fighters normally feed the dogs.

And yet this underground bloodsport continues to flourish.

What should you do if you suspect there is a dog fighting operation in your neighborhood?

• Stay away from them. Far away. The humans are more dangerous than the dogs.
• Call the cops. Report times and dates of activity you observe.
• Call Animal Control or the local investigative agency. Again, report times, dates, and activities. Are the dogs wearing heavy chains? Battle scarred, especially on their front ends? Have you heard the sounds of fighting or seen crowds gathering? Have you seen any other suspicious activity?

Do not try to rescue the dogs yourself. Do not try to go see the fight. Do not take pictures if anyone can see you.

Remember that dog fighting attracts all kinds of criminals – and anyone who can do that to a dog might well be ready to do the same to you.

Nope. It’s not like that.

Here’s the reality. Most animal control agencies and other types of shelters do NOT get involved in animal cruelty investigations. They can’t afford to. The agencies would have to either add an employee or provide specialized training to an existing employee. They would have to purchase a specially outfitted investigative vehicle. Most agencies don’t have the budget for all the training, equipment, extra office space, and extra insurance. Most animal control agencies and shelters can barely pay the staff they have and keep the animals housed and fed.

That’s not all. Local law enforcement agencies and court systems would have to be willing to work on animal cruelty investigations. In some areas, I’m sorry to say that local judges are not animal friendly. I personally know of cops, prosecutors, and animal control officers who have been told by judges not to waste the court’s time with animal cases.

So let’s say an agency can afford to hire or train an investigator, purchase the equipment, pay the extra operating costs, develop a working relationship with local law enforcement, and have the good fortune to get animal friendly judges and prosecutors. There is still one more major problem.

When an animal control agency partners with law enforcement to prosecute animal cruelty, they usually begin by issuing warnings and citations, with explanations of why the animals’ current condition is unacceptable and of what the owner must do in order to keep their animals. If the owner does not comply within the allotted time, or if the conditions are such that the agency can get a warrant immediately, then the agency will seize the animals and remove them.

Here’s the problem. What does the agency do with them now? The agency is required to house them for the duration of any legal processes, until such time as a judge awards custody of the animals to the agency that seized them. And then the other side could appeal, which means keeping the animals even longer.

If they seized maybe a dozen malnourished dogs and cats, it might not be that big a deal. But what if they seize several hundred animals from a hoarder? I have been present for such a seizure. The sheer manpower it took to handle the animals was overwhelming. And then the animals had to be vetted, housed, and fed for the duration of the legal processes.

Most agencies cannot afford the overtime, don’t have housing space, can’t afford to feed and vet all the extra animals, especially if the trial and appeals process goes on for very long. Imagine your local shelter, already near capacity, suddenly being hit with three or four hundred extra animals to feed and house, all of whom are in bad shape and in need of specialized care. Imagine those shelter employees being told that these extra animals, no matter how sick, feral, aggressive, must be housed for an extended period of time, during which their euthanasia rates will skyrocket as they have to put down animals they might have been able to save because all their resources are being consumed by this group of seized animals.

So most agencies simply do not get into the animal cruelty business.

Now that you know all the reasons an agency might choose not to hire a cruelty investigator, let me tell you why Montgomery County, Texas, needs one.

There is a lot of animal cruelty occurring in this county. Some of it is the result of ignorance, some of it is the result of mental illness, and some of it is the result of outright evil. And right now, it is very, very difficult to prosecute any of it. The county shelter – the logical agency to handle cruelty investigations – does not have a cruelty investigator. No money, no space.

As Montgomery County grows, we have more people, which means more animals, which means more people choosing to neglect or abuse their animals. There are known hoarders holding large numbers of animals in unhealthy conditions. We have dogfighters. We have bad breeders holding animals in cruel conditions (just check out all the creepy puppy sellers lining our roads). And we have the random jerks who mistreat their animals just because they can.

A few sample cases: Molly Reed (the pseudo-rescuer turned hoarder and serial euthanizer). The elderly hoarder in east county who had over 100 dogs held in filthy makeshift cages around her trailer home. The jerk who left his dog chained to a fence until it starved to death. I could go on, but you get the idea. The need is there.

We need someone to deal with those cases that are beyond the scope of our current level of enforcement. We need judges and prosecutors and cops to get on board and help that someone to enforce the laws that protect our animals. We need a trained investigator who knows the laws, who understands forensic and investigative procedure, and who knows how to work with law enforcement and the court system to do what’s right for the animals who can’t protect themselves.

It won’t be quick, cheap, or easy, but it can be done.

The simplest answer is that laws to protect animals do not take into account the depths of human cruelty, nor do they completely take into account the change in human attitudes toward animals over the last century. Many laws still treat all animals as property, no different than a car or a piece of furniture, and even those laws that do try to protect animals are often poorly written and/or fail to distinguish between companion animals and livestock.

That said, every year we keep trying to improve the laws that govern the care of our pets. One example would be the law that allows Harris County to prohibit roadside sales of animals. I’m thrilled that Harris County has been able to make this important step forward. I just would like to see Montgomery County (and every other county) do likewise. As it stands, when Harris County ran the roadside puppy sellers out of town, they all came up the road to Montgomery County. And here, it’s unfortunately legal, because our population is less than the number specified in Texas law to enable us to ban them.

We came close last year to updating that law, but Governor Perry vetoed it because it was poorly written and would have been easily interpreted to include ANY roadside vendors, not just puppy selling scum. We’ll try again. And we’ll keep trying till we get there. I would also like to see improvements to the laws that specify minimum standards of care for pets.

Right now, under Texas Health and Safety Code 42.092, nonlivestock (companion) animals must have access to “food, water, care, or shelter provided to the extent required to maintain the animal in a state of good health.” Unfortunately, I can’t find anything that specifies what these adequate provisions would consist of.

Care and shelter would seem to be the grayest areas here. My understanding is that the animal must have access to someplace that will offer protection from the weather. But is the someplace supposed to be an insulated dog house, or a cardboard box? Or a place on the sofa? (Obviously!) I have seen people claim that an abandoned car on blocks in their yard constitutes adequate shelter, and with the way the law is currently written, they may well be able to convince a judge that no law has been broken.

Care is another issue. Those of us who live and breathe animal welfare understand the importance of regular veterinary care, vaccinations, and grooming. But the law does not. Separate laws require rabies vaccinations – for the protection of humans and livestock, not for the protection of the actual dogs and cats. It is, as I understand it, illegal to allow a sick or injured animal to linger on in pain without treatment, but perfectly legal to shoot the animal to end its suffering, even if the ailment or injury could easily be treated, as long as the shooter is the animal’s legal custodian. And that’s just wrong.

We see many animals surrendered to the shelter with untreated illnesses or injuries that have gone on so long that the animal’s condition is now irreparable. If people had treated them promptly, it would have been no big deal. And yet there is rarely a legal penalty for such neglect, because the law does not spell out in detail exactly WHAT constitutes adequate care and shelter.

Another nasty loophole in the law has to do with unowned animals. Judges have on several occasions refused to prosecute cruelty to stray animals because they don’t belong to anyone, which means that no crime against someone’s property has occurred.

The bottom line is that the law does not account for an animal’s feelings or emotional well-being, or for the value that animal has as a member of the family. And we need the law to catch up with the 21^st century attitude toward animal welfare, instead of staying rooted in its 18^th century agrarian roots, in which all animals were only worth their intrinsic value for meat, milk production, or other concretely measurable markers.

In my next column, we”ll talk about why so few counties and municipalities actually have cruelty investigators. And why I would love to see Montgomery County get one!

There’s a lot of heartbreak in animal welfare. Just this week, two different friends had to euthanize foster dogs who were ill or injured beyond repair. One of these friends immediately took home a new foster – a cat this time – that no one even knew was pregnant. The cat promptly went into premature labor and delivered 5 nonviable kittens – still more heartbreak. Another friend took home a critically ill puppy, knowing that the little one would probably die, but wanting to give him a chance. I myself had a very bad day after I witnessed a cat’s dying autonomic twitches after being hit by a car.

I have more stories like these than I can count. And these are the stores that make people in the “outside world” ask me and other volunteers how we can do this. Our collective reply: How can we not?

 The beautiful thing about animal welfare is that we get to see a lot of good, too. I had two personal triumphs this week.

First, a woman who lost her home brought her crippled older dog into the shelter and asked them to help. She was in the process of obtaining new housing, but needed a safe place for her old dog in the meanwhile. The shelter put out a plea for a short term foster in which the dog could rest and recover from a knee injury.

All I did was make a phone call to my vet, who immediately offered to board the old fellow for free until his human had a safe place for him again. So Buddy is resting in luxurious safety at the vet’s office, and his person won’t have to lose her best friend along with her home. Such minimal effort for such a great result.

Second, when John and I were at the shelter on Sunday, I was on my way out the door to the exercise area with two dogs when I saw a nice family – 4 little kids and their parents – heading toward the adoption rooms. One of the dogs with me was Tootie, a sweet, quiet, well behaved girl with a big canine smile. And it just struck me that she might be the dog for them. So I stopped and introduced her to them.

They fell in love with her on the spot and went out to the dog park play area with me to get acquainted with her. They put her leash in the hands of a very small girl, and Tootie, bless her, actually slowed her pace to match the child’s. She was so calm and careful not to topple or pull on these little kids. Even their two year old took her leash and walked her, and she walked oh so slowly beside him, instinctively adjusting her stride to the little person’s wobbly steps. The match was made, and Tootie the Babysitter Dog went home with her new family. Made my week.

So if you love animals but don’t think you can “handle” working in animal welfare…yeah, you can. Some things are tough, but the rewards are infinite. You do what you can. You can foster, collect donations of food, towels, and money, bathe dogs at the shelter, walk and photograph dogs at the shelter, do laundry at the shelter (you wouldn’t believe how many loads of towels they go through!), help with adoption events, help educate the public about spaying and neutering…there are so many possibilities, so many ways to help.

Stop making excuses and start making a difference. And when you have your first animal welfare triumph – that first moment when you know you made a difference – email me, and it might even find its way into a blog column.

Looks like you’ve got yourself a dog. Now what?

Well, you have two basic choices. A, you keep him. B, you don’t.

If you’re going to keep the dog, you have a number of things to consider.

• Will he get along with your existing pets (and human family members)?
• Will your landlord allow you to have him?
• Is your home suitable for this pet?
• Can you afford to get him vaccinated, microchipped, and neutered?
• Can you afford to treat any veterinary problems?
• Does he have any serious behavioral issues?

If your situation does not allow you to keep the dog, then you have a whole different set of questions to answer.

• Can you find him a home yourself?
• Can you foster him until you do?
• If so, will your local shelter or a rescue group allow you to do a courtesy posting on Petfinder through them?
• Can you afford to get the dog fully vetted so that potential adopters know what they are getting?
• If you can’t foster the dog, can you find a rescue group that will take him? Or a foster home?
• Are you willing or able to make a donation to the rescue group? (It makes it more likely that a group can afford to take him.)

If you can foster the dog while you find him a home, your best bet is to get a courtesy listing through a local shelter or rescue. If you can go through a shelter’s foster program, you can probably take advantage of their foster veterinary services, which may get you reduced cost vaccines and spay/neuter. They can also often microchip the dog for you at reduced cost.

If you foster the dog through a shelter, then you will probably be largely responsible for vetting potential adopters yourself. You’ll be making a commitment to help find the dog a home and to keep him until you do. You may need to participate in adoption events to help make the dog visible to potential adopters.

If you foster through a rescue group, they will probably vet adopters through their application process. Depending on your arrangement with them, you may or may not have much say in who gets the dog. It is less likely that you’ll need to do adoption events, but you may be asked to do meet and greets for potential adopters. Ask up front what the rescue group’s approach to this will be.

Regardless of what path you take, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you got the animal off the streets and on the road to a loving permanent home.

First, are you sure the dog needs help? This sounds silly, but the fact is that many people are careless with their pets and let them run loose. That “lost” dog may know exactly where he is because he wanders this route regularly. Watch his body language. Does he look worried? Is he looking around to see if anyone is coming back for him? Is he running in a panic? Or is he going for a stroll on a route he knows well and handles with confidence?

Once you decide to help, you need to capture the dog without getting either you or the dog hurt in the process. Most of us crazy rescue types carry a couple of slip leashes, some old towels, and some kind of treats in our vehicles. You’ll want those towels to cover your seats, maybe to wrap up a wet dog, to clean up any visible injuries, to protect your clothing…maybe even to cover the face of a panicky dog so he won’t be able to bite.

Okay. Now you’ve got your rescued dog into your vehicle. And as you drive away, it occurs to you that you aren’t sure where to take him. (Here’s a hint. NOT TO MY HOUSE. I find plenty of dogs all by myself.)

Your first stop should be your vet’s office, to get the animal scanned for a microchip. Best case, the dog has a chip, the people get notified, and everyone’s happy. If, however, the dog has no viable identification, then you have to decide where to put him.

Your options:

The local animal shelter: If you take the dog to an animal shelter, he will be held there for at least the minimum legal time. If no one claims him, he may go up for adoption, or he may be euthanized. While he is in the shelter, he will inevitably be very stressed and exposed to a wide range of germs. The shelter is not an ideal solution.

A rescue group: It is difficult to find direct placement into a rescue group, simply because the demand from shelters is so high. If you decide to go this route, please make sure that the group is reputable and can account for every animal in its custody.

Your vet’s office: If you have a good relationship with your veterinarian, he or she may be willing to help you out. I have appeared on my vet’s doorstep with stray dogs and cats more times than I care to remember. He never turns me away, BECAUSE he knows I won’t stick him with the animal forever. I’ll work to place the animal in a permanent home or rescue group. And because I’m a good client and he’s a nice guy, he usually discounts whatever services the stray animal requires.

Your house: Think before you do this. Is this animal one that it will be safe to have around your personal pets? Are you able to separate them? Do you have the experience to handle whatever kind of animal this happens to be?

Let’s say you decide to take the dog home for a few days to see if you can find his family. (Bless you.) Then what? First, put up found posters with your contact info so that anyone looking for a dog can call you. Make them describe the dog and prove that it is their dog before releasing it. Second, check the local paper, local online bulletin boards, Craig’s List, Dog Detective, and area vet offices for listings of missing dogs. You (and the dog) might get lucky.

That gets you through Foundling 101. Next time we’ll talk about what to do if you can’t find the dog’s people.

You may remember Zoe, who was a paralyzed weenie dog featured in another column several months ago. Danielle is in the same foster home, along with a third paralyzed dachshund. Their foster mom refers to them as downed weenies. I admit it – the name makes me think of erectile dysfunction commercials.

But Danielle and her foster siblings are no laughing matter. Each of them came into foster care after they arrived at the shelter already paralyzed. In Danielle’s case, she was brought to the Montgomery County Animal Shelter by her owners, who asked that the shelter euthanize her.

Why?

Well, she lived in the backyard with several large dogs, and the big dogs kept hurting her, and she couldn’t defend herself well. But this little girl is so sweet and happy that the shelter volunteers asked the family to allow them to try to help her. She’s only five years old, and even with limited mobility can have a very happy life in the right home.

The family signed her over to MCAS and walked away. All we know about her is that her condition was the result of an old injury. If her people has taken proper care of her at the time of her injury, the veterinarians say she might well have made a full recovery.

Unfortunately, they did not.

The result is that her hips and back legs do not have full range of motion. She can move her back legs, but the spinal damage has left them curled forward under her body in a sort of club footed position. Her hips are pulled down and forward as well, making it almost impossible for her back to flatten into a normal position.

Danielle’s amazing foster mom is doing physical therapy to help this little girl stretch her damaged joints and regain some flexibility and range of motion. The more flexible her body is, the easier it will be for her to use a cart and the more comfortable she will be.

I’m told that Danielle’s calm, sweet personality could easily lend itself to being a therapy dog. She is devoted to people and wants nothing more than to be close to a person who will pet her.

If you follow my blog, then you know that I have a soft spot for the special needs dogs. So many people reject them for their differences, but most special needs dogs can live great lives, if they find families who are willing to care for them properly. This particular foster mom is a special miracle for these little dogs, because in most shelters, paralyzed dogs don’t make it out alive. Danielle and her buddies are still breathing because someone was willing to step up for them.

But Danielle still needs a forever home. And her foster mom could use some help with basic supplies like food, dog diapers. Donations for her vet care and the purchase of a cart (canine wheelchair) are also needed. If you might be interested in helping Danielle and her friends, send me an email at me@shannonlhill.com for more information.

Meanwhile, let me leave you with one more request. Don’t discount the special needs dogs because they “might be more work” or “might not live as long” or out of fear that people will look at you funny in the park.  Special needs dogs offer such huge rewards to the people who see past their disabilities to who they really are.

Just ask Danielle’s foster mom.

(Zoe, Marilyn, Danielle – the Three Downed Weenies)

Here are some of the questions:

• How does privatization benefit the animals? What can the management company do that the county can’t?
• Isn’t it just re-allocating the same money to a different management group?
• Why doesn’t the shelter get more money from the county? (OR: Doesn’t the shelter already get lots of money from the county?)
• If we want to donate directly to the shelter, what is the best way to do that?
• What kind of donations are needed?
• What will cash donations be used for?

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to use my lengthy answers to those emails to form a single cohesive answer to the most common questions I’ve been getting. I don’t have the answers to every question, and in some cases, the county and Care Corporation are still working on the language of the actual final contract. But I’m happy to tell you what I know.

Thank you for asking!  Here goes…

Right now, the shelter is in a transitional phase between being a county entity and a private one. I don’t know every detail of the process, but as I understand it, at the moment, the county directly funds the shelter. They impose restrictions on the budget that designate what almost every dollar can be spent on (salaries, facilities, etc.). The shelter is left with roughly $66,000 a year in discretionary funds. They have to use that to feed and treat over 20,000 animals, as well as to pay for facilities repairs, cleaning supplies, and any incidentals or unexpected expenses. Given our tax base, we are grossly underfunded. I’m told that on the average, county shelters get about $8.50 per capita; we get about $2.77.

What will happen is this. The shelter will transition to a private management company (Care Corporation). The county is basically hiring them to run the shelter, so that instead of the county paying all expenses individually, they will pay Care Corp. an annual amount, which Care Corp. will administer. This gives the shelter much more flexibility in terms of personnel and use of the money, which we believe will benefit the animals majorly.

One area where we will get a lot of benefit is in personnel. Under county management, we can’t have part time employees. We can’t choose what insurance plans suit the shelter’s needs. We are locked into civil service, which means that is it hard to hire and hard to fire.  Under private management, we can hire part timers, we can shop the insurance, and we can more easily hold employees accountable. We can also offer performance bonuses for exceptional work, which will encourage better service to the public (more adoptions as a result) and care for the animals.

Another major area where privatization helps is in applying for grants. Right now, when we apply for a grant, we have to list our annual budget as the budget for the entirety of Montgomery County’s government, even though we can only access a tiny piece of it. By privatizing, we can list our actual budget when we apply for grants. This will make us eligible for many financial opportunities we’ve never had.

To the best of my knowledge (I am not completely familiar with the terms of the contract with the county, as it is still in its final revisions), Care Corp will get paid the same budget we had before. Only now we can allocate it to suit our needs, rather than being locked in to pre-determined stuff that may or may not be right for the shelter. It also frees us from a lot of bureaucratic red tape that was costing time, money, and lives. For example, right now, if we let someone pay for an adoption with a credit card, it goes to a holding account, then to the county, then eventually to the shelter. This drastically extends how long the shelter has to wait to get access to its own money. We can do a lot of streamlining of processes like these that will make the shelter more responsive to the needs of the community and better able to serve the needs of the animals.

DONATIONS: Your two best options for making sure the money directly benefits the shelter are these:

• Donate stuff. Food, blankets, beds, towels, etc. We always, always need those. (Please, make it decent quality food. Avoid Old Roy and other low grade brands. Shelter dogs cannot handle the added stress on their bodies of trying to digest food loaded with filler and red dye.) Cash donations, per the contract, will have to go through the nonprofit (see below).
• Donate to the Montgomery County Animal Society. We are the only nonprofit directly and officially affiliated with the privatized shelter. Our mandate is to provide life-enhancing care to the animals, which means we will pay for veterinary needs and other projects to make the animals happier, healthier, and more comfortable.

(Side note: I do not wish to diminish the work of the many good non-profit agencies that have helped the shelter over years. However, the existence of this new nonprofit, the Montgomery County Animal Society, is a contractual necessity for the privatization process, as Care Corp. needs a nonprofit arm to accept charitable donations and administer the distribution of those funds for the direct benefit of the animals in this and only this shelter.)

The Society will very shortly be establishing paypal accounts, bank accounts, etc., for the purpose of managing donated funds. If you would like to donate, please contact me at me@shannonlhill.com for details.

I hope this helps answer some of the questions…feel free to email me if you have more! I’ll answer what I can.