Washoe County Nevada like many other communities is feeling a terrible blow to our budget. Each day some new cut is a headline. It is time for the Commission and upper management to look at every contract in a new light. Is this absolutely the best use of county funds ? Since Oreo writes about animals, dogs in particular, that will be the focus here.We are having serious doubts about the relationship between the Nevada Humane Society and it's goals, and Washoe County Regional Animal Services and their duties. There is a difference between a goal ( a wish of sorts ) and a publicly mandated duty. The Nevada Humane Society agreed to be an open admission shelter, it agreed to wildlife rehabiltation, it actually agreed to quite a few things, that is the problem. Once these duties were contracted to NHS, the funding to do them was no longer factored into our county budget, and County is prohibited, by law, from meeting these obligations. I have read the agreements several times and many of the numbers and matrix formulations don't lend themselves to a blog.
Open admission to every resident of Washoe County, that was the promise, it has not been the reality. Washoe County Regional Animal Services has taken animals turned away from NHS on several occasions. That's not an opinion folks, it is in the stats. NHS may try to present the argument that those are out of county animals, not at all.... those animals land on the County dime. We, the citizens, are paying for the NHS wish list. I am sure there are some out of area dogs that end up at WCRAS. And, it is the humane thing to take them in (an unwanted animal is an at risk animal) ; it is also the legal and moral responsiblity to take that course.
The liabilty to the County; if WCRAS turned away an animal and, said animal was dumped or attacked any living creature, or carried a disease, is tremendous. This has been brought to the attention of Commission and staff in chambers, it is not a secret problem.
NHS does not give any appearance of wanting to be an open admission shelter; they run at maximum capacity; which forces an already stressed owner to be turned away. Please see the Surrender Counseling link on this blog. ( Indianpolis Star ) The Humane Society " help desk" functions as a deterent to using that facility as it was designed. It doesn't help the client, it allows the NHS to deny service. Please read the intent of the desk. When a person has lost their home, or had serious changes to their ability to keep that animal; when that happens and they are told to " check back in a week" . What the hell do you think happens to that animal ?
That facility was projected out for 30 years, NHS has filled it up in one.
Our County Animal services contract is with an Open Admission Shelter .. NHS gives no indication they want the contract badly enough to meet the requirements. The Nevada Humane Society has no Animal Cruelty Investigator , no Wildlife Rehab Staff, what they provide is an adoption center, and a limited admission one at that. This partnership should serve as a warning to other areas looking at partnering. Once they get the money, all bets are off.
Does Oreo sound ticked, she really is.....
Pictured, the lovely stray that moved in with friends of ours several years ago...Lucky girl !
28 comments:
That is a load of manure. I have read the Indianapolis link and they don't want any part of it back there. The news at the dog park is that the woman heading the Humane Society won't even talk to the people at the county side. She doesn't want any rules or regulations on how many animals she can stuff in the place. It is not professional at all. The woman I spoke with was a rescue and she thought it was great that the humane society was telling the county where to get off. She was explaining all the perks of fostering, no vet bills, part of a great community of dog lovers,tax breaks. Very disturbed woman. She had 5 dogs, none of which she picked up after, or even seemed to notice as they ran around ganging up on other dogs. One of them she only had for 2 days and it was running no tags. My labs are pretty mellow, but they just hung by me and did't attract attention. This person claimed to be " tight" with Denise & Bonnie whoever they are. It was more than I wanted to know. The Humane Society isn't speaking to the pound, doesn't that sound pretty retarded? It's back to Idlewild for me, tommorrow I talk to the ranger.
Hey, how are those chocolate labs? I haven't been to the park much at all with the smoke. I think we generally do dog play in the Truckee anyway. The Newfies love the water and I am not fond of some of the types that have been coming to Rancho.
I saw in the paper when AC got it's new barn that NHS had to build the dog park on the site like it had promised, or it had to return the land to the City of Reno. That was confusing as I didn't know NHS owned any real property. It would be great and then all the rescues could hang out there till the dogs got socialized. Glad to know you are still taking the dogs parking as Oreo calls it.
I think I know who Sheldon met, she gossips. All of us have been told not to talk about conditons or policies because it hurts the animals, also we are fired. Most of us are full of cats already and anybody can go to pet harbor and see there are over 400 cats. Why doesn't the county or someone in charge tell them to clean up their act? I have a house ful of cats right now that I can't place because Bonney is giving them away at the shelter. She does an unfair competition after she encourages us to take them and pay their bills to help out, for what so she can give them away? Sheldon, I would believe she isn't speaking to anyone at animal control, but we all get the feeling they are the " enemy" and kill animals because they won't give us any more room. Bonney feels she could do a better job if she had the whole building and took over AC. I used to believe that, I don't anymore. All the people at the pound side have treated me well, it is clean and they cry after putting a cat down just like we do. So why are Bonney and Denise keeping a stink going all the time. It is hard for us volunteers on both sides.
I can't take anymore cats until I get some of these placed, I don't want to mention how many I have,I am way over, but I can't get rid of them.
I'm not sure I understand all of this because I am new and I don't live there. But it sounds like the County is getting the short end of the stick on this one. NHS is a privately owned facility, right? But can you explain this "partnership"? What is the county AC having to say about this? In my area, you have to present proof of your resident in order to relinquish a pet to the shelter. Since we have about 16 entities doing AC in the whole of the county, it makes sense to do this. When Rancho Cucamonga failed their citizens and went "no kill" they turned away animals and that is against state and county codes. But who would know other than AC, they don't keep records on turn aways. But these people would go to the other shelters and that is how we know about Rancho turning away their own citizens. And you are right, when someone goes to give up a pet and is turned away, they will find a way to "get rid of it". That usually means dumping. They only go to the shelter after calling every available rescue and being told the inn is full. And this area is having massive foreclosures so the problem is compounding everyday. Our county AC director told me they are finding abandoned horses and livestock every day from foreclosures. Realtors are finding dead pets, left in the house to starve. Folks, we are in for hard, hard times with the animals because of this lousy economy. I wish I had the answers. P.
To anon, In Sac we had several agencies, up here there is only one public place to take your pets, NHS. There is also an SPCA which is no kill and very nice, but it is very small for this region.
NHS is located within the county structure, which is the reverse of how they present themselves. The county contracted with them to take owner surrendered strays from Washoe county and the County would do enforcement and fee collection for tags. Reading what you say about your area, that is what is happening here. The no kill is overloaded with pitbulls and cats so it tells people to come back, then they go to the county side in the same building.
We made several trips looking for a puppy,because we already have a grown dog, not one puppy. They go to the rescues which charge a small fortune. We ended up driving back over the hill and getting a lab mix that does not appear to have pitbull, it does have white feet, but its hair is long. We are hoping border collie.
If that doesn't clear it up, go on the profile and email Oreo, that is how I did it, she sent me a copy of the agreement.
If you are new and out of area, don't feel bad. I moved up here from Sacramento and didn't know a nyone, and now I have met other dog people.
My God, we don't want this in King county. We do have the infighting and that is horrible. The council is split with the no kill pushing and manipulating, it's out of hand. Nobody up here knows which way the vote will land. The shelter got a few new things, but they have left it open to privatize. If they would only look at your blog and see what really happens when you invite the snake to dine with you. We're getting a lot of breeder dumps with GSD's up here, all breeds really, but I get these. I think the economy is forcing the backyard breeders out of business which is good. Just hope they stay out !
Oreo is correct. This situation has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous in 2 years thanks to Winograd and Brown.
1. NHS was supposed to continue to be an open admission shelter as it was before the consolidation. It was supposed to take Washoe County residents 30 years into the future, and approval was sold to the public and local jurisdictions under that premise. The original intent was never to be a long-term housing area for 200+ dogs and 400+ cats.
2. The building was built with a huge wildlife rehabilitation room, and NHS promised its officers would do most all of the wildlife rescues that came in to dispatch. And it would do all the rehabilitation with its own certified and licensed rehabbers. Unfortunately, the room was not built meeting all the federal requirements for wildlife rehabilitation. Brown fired the last rehabber last summer so she could justify turning the area into another cat holding area.
3. The "Help Desk" is an innovation of Winograd's. He uses this same program at other shelters to try to inhibit the public surrenders. The idea behind it to try to get people to find homes for their animals themselves or get the animal trained. I'd venture to guess it has limited value in keeping animals out of the shelter. By the time people are looking to unload an animal, they have usually already made up their minds the animal is going. It merely helps NHS to reduce the number that they are forced to take in. The animals still end up a shelter someplace. Because no-kill means holding animals for such long periods of time, it is not financially feasible for them to take in all the surrenders directly if they can avoid it. So they pass it off to animal control or rescues. Animal control ends up with the task of euthanasia while the humane organization condemns them for it and makes the public acutely aware of it.
4. The county was responsible for the building of the barn and paddocks under the agreement because NHS gave up its large animal area at its old shelter. Additionally, the old Reno Animal Control large animal pens are sitting where the dog walk is supposed to go and will be torn down.
5. NHS is required to raze the old Reno Animal Control building and build a dog walk area. This walk was supposed to feature native plants in a xeroscape-type planting plan. It was NEVER intended to be a large fenced area where dogs could play off leash. There was also talk of a building that would either hold the collection of memoribilia of Link Piazzo or feature educational information about the native plants and animals. The area was to be used primarily as an extension of fundraising and hosting. The property was on a 99 year lease but will revert to the City of Reno if not used for its intended purpose within 5 years of the consolidation. It was not being designed for the animals in the shelter but rather more for educational purposes and would be open to the public on a very limited basis (at least that was my understanding) in order to preserve the plantings.
6. Winograd suggested that NHS fire all their humane officers, except one whom they thought would be the easiest to sway to the no-kill philosphy. That officer quit about a year later leaving the shelter with no humane officers and no way to create any others. The humane officers were actually peace officers who could enforce NRS unlike the current animal control officers who are not peace officers and cannot enforce felony statutues. There was another staff member who was still a humane officer that apparently they didn't know about, and they fired that person as well in their sweep to rid the shelter of the "old ways of thinking." Winograd and Brown, due to their lack of knowledge about the workings and personnel at the shelter, stupidly shot themselves in the foot. What would one expect from a lawyer and retail manager. What these two don't know could fill volumes.
I'm sure that Bonney Brown would just love to get the rest of the shelter under her authority and am sure that she is working on doing that behind the scenes with various county commissioners, etc. If that came to fruition, it would the Las Vegas Animal Foundation all over again. I think NHS is only one small step from that sad situation right now.
It is my humble opinion that the consolidation with NHS was a colossal mistake on the behalf of the City of Reno Animal Services, the City of Sparks Animal Services, and Washoe County Animal Control.
That was to be a walking area similar to Oxbox, except Oxbow doesn't allow dogs because they know people won't honor that. The story mentioning the " dog park" was in rgj, so maybe it was a figment of someones imagination. I didn't know about the razing the building clause and that certainly wasn't mentioned in the paper. I think they had hoped to open that up for storing live animals, once the Gabbs dogs set the precedent.
We feel bad for the rescues from the standpoint that we are reaching the community saturation point, and some of them are going to have these animals for a long time.
The disease outbreak is almost inevitable as the shelter population increases, especially the cats, good grief; 400 cats in one building, and they can talk about a puppy mill ? This so discouraging, actually despicable is the word I was searching for.
From the sidelines it looks bad. The home team is not going to score big unless they bring out their heavy hitters. Being on the outside looking in, time for a change in strategy. That translates into quit giving the visiting team the advantage.
They are renters, they lease space in a government building. Has anybody told them that ? Why don't we get the janitors opinion, he probably spends more time with the animals than NHS management does. Everybody over here read Indbay.org ? Time to wake up and get your shelter back.
They are not speaking ? Where is the commission on this ? We do have laws, and there are rules and limits to how we can treat our animals. I have not gone out to see the conditions, I do cruise petharbor for Mastiffs. Everybody who has seen ours, wants one now. It has been several months since we dealt with them, and I would never go back, but I would not keep any critter from being adopted. We bought from a breeder, NHS was so disorganized it was a waste of our time.
Does Oreo have a copy of the agreement under which the funding was granted ? We wonder how the people of King County would settle vehicles and DOA situations. What about animal cruelty, who does that ? I saw what pet cop said about the manipulations of the Commission, up here we have two council memebers who are so out of touch with reality and they are talking the most to the least experienced people.
The reason that the previous executive director (before Brown and Williams) wanted the old Reno Animal Control shelter torn down was two fold. 1) It is a junky, funky building that is falling apart and 2) she wanted to prevent any possibility of animals ever being housed in it again. It was my understand that either some Reno city council members or animal control staff considered leasing the building to the Reno SPCA. How monumentally stupid is that? You build a brand new shelter to better house the animals in your care then want to rent out the old building to house animals from another organization? The director wanted to make sure that animals were never housed in that building again.
The dog walk area was sold to the city council and citizenry as a "dog park." But, as stated before that term did not fully express what the actual plan was. I don't know whether it was intentionally nefarious. I also cannot gurantee that it was a stipulation of the contract, just merely what was going to happen. A previous fundraiser and the beforementioned executive director had already lined up in kind landscape material promises.
I don't mean to sound callous; however, I do not feel sorry for the over-burdened rescue groups. They should know their financial and space limitations. I warned about over-staturation under the no-kill design. It happens every place no-kill takes root. Once saturation hits critical mass, no-kill fails. I feel that foster parents are duped into thinking that there are enough adopters for all those animals they are holding. It simply is not true. Fostering can be helpful to a shelter since it frees up space but really it is nothing more than "unofficial" adoption. The shelter hopes that foster parents will bond with the animals in their charge. Fostering can be a great way for some to get a pet free of charge, including medical care and daily food. Why adopt when you can foster indefinitely?
So this would have been during Susan Asher's time. The prelim agreement was passed by the Sparks City council, June 10, 2002.
Oreo wants to wrap her paws around that document to see if there is a provision to prevent the takeover from an outside entity, thus proctecting the citizens of this community from the whims of the Commission. In this economy they could be looking to dump any burden, but into who's hands ? Thanks pet protector !
I think I understand somewhat. You do have government run enforcement but house with a private agency. This does happen a lot but that private agency should not be able to turn away any pet presented. Here if a private agency is under contract to house for the county or city, they fall under the same rules as if they were run by the county or city. The rule is they can't turn away pets. Do you have open public meetings where citizens are allowed public forum? You can beat them down by bringing up these things every time they meet. Usually when problems are discussed at public forum, the powers that be will dictate that the entity in the complaint respond at the next meeting to these complaints. This is how it works here. And this way you can get info to use against NHS because since they are a private non profit they are not subject to public record requests. And just for your info, Whine-ograd's last stand, Charlottesville, VA, has failed to meet his "standards" on no kill this past year and they are claming up about it. So now he has another failure notch on his gun. How many failures does it take to convince people that his program does not work. Maybe in a perfect world, it does but not in this one and not in my lifetime. P.
To anon, we do have a set up like you described, but the no kill , which is killing by the way,does not speak to the county side. I pull from both sides, but have been unable to take any recently because I am over the limit now.I go to NHS and pet the cats and help where I can, but then I get behind at home. I lost my belief in no kill about 6 months ago, we are a mess, overcroweded, not able to keep up with the socializing and grooming.
to expetcop, I think some rescues did buy into the dream and thought we could be part of something great. Don't judge us for trying. Right now, it clearly is not working. The more we take the more they push. We are full, saturation is very close, and some fosters are already overloaded. If any of you are reading this, stop and think before you take anymore animals than you can take care of for a very long time.
I don't want to discourage anyone from adopting from any shelter. we had a bad experience, yours may be fine. The animals are innocent and deserve a chance for a good home. I wish the public could adopting directly from the pound. The red tape would be less and the animals would get out quicker and not sit there waiting to see if NHS would take them. A co-worker saw a puppy on the web, and she put her name on it so she should have been the first in line. She waited to see if an owner would claim it. Her calls to NHS went unreturned and she was told the puppy had been adopted when she went out there to see what was going on. She never got one call to come get the puppy. She paid $300 to a rescue for a puppy. That does make a pet store look good. Being able to adopt from both sides would make things run moe smoothly.
Speaking of saturation for the foster homes, Rancho is showing only three animals in foster care although they have (I looked yesterday) 117 dogs (only 50 kennels in including quarantine) and over 300 cats/kittens (only about the same # of cages for cats as kennels for dogs). And there are really no rescues located in Rancho per se. Rancho has a population of about 160,000 and only handles about 5000 animals a year. So since their fall to Whine-ograd this is the results. They claim to have 400 volunteers but these volunteers all have to have a parent with them when they are at the shelter, does that tell you something? So it appears that you guys are following the same path as Rancho has. We didn't expect Rancho to fall as quickly as it did, because they were in deep within 3 months of adopting Whine-ograd's program. I'm sure there is interesing info to be gotten thru public record, like how many complaints, how many lawsuits filed against the shelter, etc. I hope this example can be of help. It can certainly back up your arguments on this subject. P.
I don't want to sound like I am on the other blog by complaining all the time. I am put off my the sheer numbers of large groups of dogs I am seeing. Could this be the saturation that is being talked about by anon and expetcop ? I don't want to get in the brouha, but it seems a lot of people are over dogged. All of the information being provided about the original ideas behind the consolidation is very interesting. I did some online checking, I do remember voting on it, I thought it would save more animals in a better envirionment. Both shelters were old, and undersized. I live in Reno my taxes built the thing and I don't remember a no kill concept. That is because it wasn't part of the deal. I think this was Pete's baby and he is off the commission now and his daughter is the driving force. The NHS was a viable part of this community for many years, it is not the same, not at all and the turn is for the wors. Expetcop said it, we made a awful mistake.
Did anybody besides me see Oreo's comment about the Jerry Sprenger blog ? Good job Oreo ! It s the last line of the rainy walk story.
I think the high concentration of dogs at parks is do people having dogs in places that weren't meant for dogs. You know, apartments. Going into the Marina from Prater some porches have a chain, that is usually a sign of a dog. Do we have any home checks before adoption ? You guys might be careful about your dog descriptions, if you are complaining to the park rangers. Some of these folks get bent easily, a confrontation could occur. We don't have any loonies posting here, but they could be reading. Might be good for them to see how resoponsible dog owner see the world.
Dogs is in apartments are a big problem, I don't know if NHS asks or not. The stories vary, one friend adopted and got grilled the next one they hardly asked her name. Both live in houses with acreage, One had to bring her dog in for a meet and greet, the other said "I am not bringing my dog to this place, there is to much risk" , and they said okay. I am thinking about taking the advice of Anon and going before various boards and asking if the numbers issue is resolved ( it isn't) and if the turn away problem has been stopped, it hasn't. Call your commisioners fols.
We have a cat and are getting another, it disturbs me that there are so many abandoned cats. Not everyone wants a dog, and there are over 400 cats at NHS right now. All the feral cat colonies only hide the problem. Spaying a cat and throwing it in the barn is not reducing the numbers. We have been looking for a one or two year old spayed femail. There are plenty, but they all seem to have some little problem, I think it would work out, but I don't think a cat kept in a cage for 18 months is going to become a pet. We keep looking.
Happy Camper, when you consider that it took an organized effort to put the shelter in this situation, it will take an organized effort to change it. Going before your elected officials everytime they meet is a good start. Voice your complaints, the officials have an obligation to look into it. Ask for that every time, you want an answer as to why this is happening. The no kill people are getting away with this because they are screaming the loudest. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Whine-ograd and this movement has to be stopped, it has set us back years. And now that the breeders have a hero telling the world nothing is wrong with putting more animals out there, we will see many more animals going into the shelters. We have enough openly public proof now that his program makes things worst and we should be able to send Whine-ograd back where he belongs. P.
After reading the last comment I realized that I should pass along this. There are very few truly "feral" cats out there. Can you imagine kittens being able to survive long enough to be feral? No, the cats are domestics and they have been abandoned. Don't use the word "feral" to describe these "colonies". These were pets at one time, abandoned now. People would see a difference and can accept the "feral" as an outdoor cat. But when these same people think this is a lovely pet that was cast out in the world and is frightened every moment of it's life, this will solicit sympathy instead. TNRrealitycheck.com has a great deal of credible information on the subject. I feel TNR is the ultimate cruelty and should be treated as so by the law. P.
To anon
Where does a monster like this belong ? He causes suffering everywhere he goes. I don't believe in the feral cat progarms either. I don't want a bunch of strays living next to me. That is so cruel to the cats and the people who leve next door to these morons. I have read the tnr report, Oreo posted about it before and I find it to be accurate.the community cats program here is not my favorite either. If you want a cat; get a cat. How do these hoarders bypass the pet limit with this stuff ?
I did speak with my city council person. The interest was the disadvantage to the city when we repealed our laws and gave full authority to the county. Can these people bypass the numbers allowed by the county if they are fostering and the animal changes but you still have a high number of animals on the property. I did call NHS about this but they didn't call back. I will check with Animal Control tommorow to get their take. there has to be some way to get accountability for the off site maintaining of animals looking for homes.
Sheldon, I campaign for all foster homes have to be certified. Requirements to be clean, safe, fenced, etc. And they can be subject to surprise inspections.Too many times when the animal is taken from the pot and thrown into the fire or goes from one kennel to another. Also the purpose of fostering is to change behavior to make the animal more adoptable. Does a foster have training to do this, not just provide sheltering. There are some very good foster plans out there and some very bad ones. P.
Keep us informed as to whether they get back to you. You will find probably that they just ignore this. They usually have already experience the wrath of the humane community when they approach something like this, same with cat licensing.
I don't know what you have in place as far as State laws, usually it's ordinances that are enforced by code enforcement on household limits. In CA we have a state law that requires the shelters alter and because of that law, the better shelters do require a contract from the adoption groups requiring submission of proof of altering and licensing info for their jurisdiction on the new owner. This gives those shelters some insight about the groups but they can't and don't actually do inspections. This contract, however, has a tendency to attract those better groups who do try to control the numbers and are concerned about the laws regarding them. P.
Home between trips. This is a post near to my heart. I used to board my old dog at the old NHS& they were very good, I don't think the new one even has room to board do they ? If anyone has a good boarding experience please share it with us, we need a good place soon.
Post a Comment