I spent the morning with my direct report and animal care mentor as she cleared her desk, ending over a quarter century of service to the animals & citizens of our community. I have volunteered forever it seems, and with all the agencies touched over the years, this past 3 have been the most difficult.Katie Stevens was a doll, and all the others at NHS and SPCA have been great to serve with, but Cindy under fire was determined to uphold the standards of care we entrusted her with. The runs are clean, the staff to dog ratio maintains a level of care that all of us should want, if ever Rover skips the fence. She made sure that decent food was provided, understanding the behavioral issues that come with poor diet. Refusing under pressure from NHS to overcrowd the animals in her trust. Every animal that came through her door had the same chance to be chosen for transfer. They were kept clean and the kennel staff and ACO's from the field shared the goal of having a quality of life. Nobody hates Euthanasia more than those who must perform it.
I come at the dog from the emotional / trainer side. I understand kennel care, but have never seen anyone display the understanding of running a shelter to the level that Sabatoni delivered.
She also let me know in no uncertain terms that the letter from the "ACO" posted on this blog , though funny wasn't representative of most hard working officers. She loved her troops and they will miss her. her loss to this county will be felt over time as conditions deteriorate on Longley, and and the failure to support this agency will be far reaching.....I hope the WCC will not cave to the demands of the NO KILL fringe, and add even more burden to the animals who are losing homes.
There used to be Humane Officers at the Nevada Humane Society, and they were eliminated, so AC ended up with more work there. Next the" good folks" over there began foisting the killing off on the County to keep the numbers up.... One can only wonder, should NHS snag the contract......who would do the dirty work? or would dangerous or sick animals be returned to the community. Bet they are, says Oreo......
With the loss of Sabatoni and Arobio, who will speak with sanity for the animals, and who in the county will listen ?
Pictured is Cindy on the final day finishing a project for fosters.....
22 comments:
I am supposing that NHS is after that whole building. On several of my trips to Reno I have gone to that shelter; I was always impressed with the cleanliness and health on the AC side. Is Oreo going to monitor conditions and does she feel they will commandeer kennels for adoptions ? This is distressing news and I hope people are gathered to go before the council.
The bastards, they did it didn't they? Forced her out, the constant pushing whining and going to St. John. What a real prize he is for the county, I hope he is gone soon for all the damage he has done to the county with his change order policy and general arrogance. I understand he has political ambitions; that will be about like turning the devil loose with a credit card. Is Ely still there ? Please unite and get this mess out of our shelter and even though it is to late to keep a good manager it is not to late to get rid of a bad one. I think I am going to be sick.
I had never met Cindy, but the AC was always in excellent condition when we went out to visit the animals. The people at the front desk were courteous and helpful when we came out looking for our second dog.
Looking at old schools comment, I am guessing she got tired of trying to work with the idiots down the hall. Hard to say. we went out last week and there were two people walking dogs, the grassy area near the front of the NHS side was covered in fecal matter and as we walked down to AC there were volunteers allowing the dogs to defecate in the parking lot at the AC end. They didn't use a bag. The dogs were tricked out in clown collars, one was a sammy, the other a yellow mix. We watched as they walked up to another parking lot and back, coming back and returning to NHS by going through the AC door. That door is clearly marked "do not bring dogs through this door." Any type of direction is over the heads of these people. The entire walk was 10 minutes start to finish. I guess the other 23 hours and 50 minutes are spent in the kennel. I know I saw that somewhere on this blog, but it didn't register until I saw it the other day. They were so happy that they had given the dogs a walk. I don't think the kennel time ever occurs to them. I bet morale is down. Who is the new person. Not the bald guy who hangs out with the NHS staff I hope. Wait til volunteer gets home she will have a cow. she had met Cindy when she was at SPCA and really thought she was a great person.
What a thing to walk in from work and be hit with. Riley and Lucy2 are pi--ed. One thing I saw that Shel didn't mention which annoyed us both was the NHS volunteers in the green tee shirts, some about 7 or 8 hanging out on the NHS side. The kids were just tapping on the glass of the cats housing waking them up. We didn't see if they went back to harass the dogs or not, but they should not be allowed in the AC side to run the risk of reaching into the kennel of a impound animal. I see that many of their " volunteers" are small children. The are NHS volunteers not AC and they don't belong on the other side. No training or common sense. I could never work with such morons. Apparently neighter could Cindy. I wonder how the ACO's cope ?
I shot straight over to Marks blog. Why are there quotation marks on the " voluntary early separation" ? and going to Winograd he talks about Brown replacing a 20 year "darling of HSUS" As far as I know the last two people who ran NHS were short timers. I checked out Honesty's blog, I do miss her, but she is off on a pitbull tangent. Thats bad, while she gets lost on that her shelter will end up no kill. I would think there will be more bragging tommorrow and it seems like Mitch is going out of his way to kiss up to NHS even more. I do know that for them to take over shelter operations it has to go before the Commission, this is sickening. I saw BB on television last week and she looked like she had been on a runner. 200 cats spayed, never about the dogs, just cats. God help us all! I understand AC is under public works and they are trying to join services with other governments. who would take this crazy scenario ?
Thank you to all the people who have sent in comments of support and outrage over what has happened here. Cindy did take a voluntary early out as Mark quoted on his blog, however if one is subjected to a hostile work envirionment day in and day out for two years, you could voluntarily walk off a cliff. The ACO's that I know are very unhappy about losing Sabatoni, I suspect that even a couple of staffers who flat did't like like her over some small event will soon be missing the smooth running ship. I had researched Mitch for an earlier piece and he came from a small area in Minnesota and they didn't shelter, all they did was pick up and deliver to another jurisdiction. It will be interesting to see what he does with a 5 million dollar budget. A dog catcher turned pro.. little boy gets his first grown up chance by stepping on the back of his benefactor. Only someone as nice as Sabatoni would have allowed him the freedom to back stab her so many times. His butt should have been gone a long time ago.
Me again...
I did reject quite a few posts if you want to rephrase them we can try again. Not actually knowing the IQ of Mitch or the person who appointed him, it would be hard to prove both are a "sub-standard representative of humanity" I agree with the " massive ego" and a couple of other things to hot to post, but it should not take them long to screw up, and I think we should just let them do that.A couple are really plants from Mark trying to stir the pot I have been told. So patience and a good sense of humor as we watch the party go down.
Colan, the issues about pit bulls are an important part of this whole No Kill thing, especially since they make up more and more of the shelter populations.
That's not a tangent at all.
Sorry if it offended anonymous, I enjoyed Honesty and I now don't understand where it's is going, that is my opinion, not up for interpretation. I hope we can get together to see the shelter doesn't lose all the benefits that have been put in place. Not just Sabatoni but all of us who have worked with animals. The first to go will be empty kennel space, whether or not there is staff to maintain a level of service that is humane to the dogs in the shelter. At least that is what has happened at other shelters where this type of thinking has exploded. Stay on target, get the attention of the Commission and keep it on the day to day shelter operations.
I live in King County so I didn't know Cindy, but I did have a lot of time to study the background on the pictures at petharbor, the conditions appeared spotless. I sometimes go to the petfinder for your area, but there is not a great deal of info and it doesn't feel current. Is NHS now off petharbor ? Are all the reported' kept by finder, slots from foreclosures ? Up here it seems the smaller pets are getting to tag along on the move and the big guys are getting dumped. Couple of nice GSD on the impound side, has Oreo met them ? Do you have a steady rescue in your neck of the woods for GSDs ?
I agree with Colan, this must never become about a breed, it has to be shelter conditions. This
" solution" will destroy the chances of any breed for a quality of life. The solution is the problem, not the breed, and I am not fond of pits and agree they take up a major portion of shelters, but if we had sensible sheltering habits that would not occur. Dogs that were not adoptable would be pulled from the population, not left to languish.
What a sad time for you guys and the sheltering community as a whole. I read on dog logic they are coming to grips with many issues of broke pet owners and how best to handle it. Anybody see the March Readers Digest on foreclosures ? The problem is nationwide, and the no kill places are suffering the most because the animals are being turned away. I saw on the paper blog Mitch is going to work on the " who takes what" issue for out of county. I hope they don't turn them away to a horrible fate. I know from reading the stats online that the county numbers went up as NHS lowered theirs. P used to warn about that from Rancho. No kill only shifts the burden. We are a limited admission, and I've never liked that, but it is a money thing and what we can afford to feed and care for properly, comes first. We don't kid ourselves that some of the pets we turn away are killed, but we can't take them all, no shelter can. Unrealistic.
Wanted to update the group, I switched Oreo to open, but Google accounts only. She gets close to 50 hits a day and many posts were really not meant for posting, but were personal comments or messages. Example : can you check on the dog in 62, he seems vicious.
So to sort the serious comments from the people who want to use it like instant messaging we took this route. Call it censorship if you will, but we are about a solution here; and not the one being bandied about the countryside by Winograd. Also heresay is fun, but if you watch even Judge Judy, people are getting drug into court over stupid gossip stuff they can't prove. Can ya beleive it, Judge Judy.....Even though 90% of the time it's dismissed it's a waste of time and wear and tear on the body. So Google up if you want to comment, Oreo says......
With so many good folks being dumped by management, or being forced out like it sounds like in this case, I fear who will be left running the shelters. There needs to be different points of view in the industry, so we do not end up preaching to choir and missing out on opportunities that might come from other directions.
Closed minds are very dangerous, closed eyes run us into walls.
We must find a way to work together! I hate all this strife. It makes me so angry and sad that people are being shut out and only one philosophy is being spoken (or parroted as the case may be). Honesty, open books and transparency, coordinated local coalitions and the support of our communities is the only way we can save lives.
I joke sometimes about all of us throw-aways running away somewhere together and running our own shelter. Now where did I leave those millions of dollars that we need...
As always, my thanks to all of those doing the work that you do!
I support dog logic, we don't want to preach to the choir, and we do need an open mind. Having said that; we are not dealing with an open mindset. I have no interest in trying to educate the no kill groupies, just as they had no interest in negotiated terms. They have one blunt instrument they use repeatedly, it is ignorance and denial of reality. The pamplet I received for donations has the most unrealistic requests on it, things that have not been sucessful there before. Raised beds being one that comes to mind, also they indicate you can select where your donation can go. People who worked there in the past have said that is not true. I don't know, I was not privy to their ( NHS ) files. My recomendation would be a decent diet, with exercise and grooming. It also occured to me I could tell them exactly where to put my donation. The repurposing of grooming rooms for cat storage and the recent "spay 200 cats, forget the dogs" campaign is offensive to the general public. People don't want to see bad conditions in a shelter, overcrowding is a bad condition. Are they not up for some type of renewal or has the assessment been made public ? Ask about wildlife, the dying pigeons were the purview of NHS under the SOP that I read.
Trying to get my name right, I'm old school. please go to dog logic and read her links.
Old School - I understand that after dealing with the stress and strain of others not being willing/able to listen to reason a person can burn out on trying. But I haven't given up or in yet. It may be that I am just too soft-hearted, thick-skinned and hard-headed. So, I keep talking and keep trying hoping that if a few folks hear what I am saying we will all be that much farther along.
Basic standards of care must be met. I agree with you of course. There are minimum requirements for health from both a physical and a behavioral side. Open Paw is a great program that tries to address this: www.openpaw.org
Blogger must be cutting out. I have tried twice to answer dog logic and nothing gets through. It is better to be soft hearted, than soft headed and hard hearted. I think we grow the armor we need to do what must be done. I do tell people, if you havedn't lived with no kill open admission as your only intake, you're not ready for the fray. Perhaps Oreo could post the demographics for our region. I know some areas have more than one shelter, we don't. The no kill won't talk to AC and there is a total breakdown of communications. This has been a most horrible experience.
I may open a new thread to address the shelter statistics for our valley. It trully does seem other areas have a city shelter and a county shelter and a few private shelters, not the case here.... I wanted to wait and hear from ex pet cop in the good bye Cindy piece, and I think a couple of other regulars have not had time to comment, so the next day or so I will open a new one. Have a great picture of burley dog to shoff off.
Oreo, I received word of changes to your service agreement. One of the volunteers here is on speed dial with Winograd. Notify the council
Okay 3rd time I've tried to post...hopefully it works. After the 1st time I came down sick and let the week pass without trying again.
Don't remember what I had to say then, but want to wish Cindy a happy retirement.
As for the cleanliness, NHS is a filthy mess. AC is well maintained by an underling of Cindy's. NHS can hardly be called a humane society these days. What a shame.
I know someone who tried to get 2 kittens in on the 1st cat s/n week last year. Person called as soon as phones were on the 1st day and was told all appointments were already filled but she could be given an appointment at the full price.
spoke with Cindy again today, her spirits are good, you can tell she wanted to keep the ship floating abit longer......... Now the psa is taking the rescue cruelty, and wildlife off because NHS doesn't want them We must bombard the commission with letters and emails, the chopped up draft is readto go to chambersy
The above post should have read..... The changed psa draft is almost ready to go to commission chambers. My impression from a couple of persons was, the WCC was not aware of the changes being made. It is way down from their view, but now they know, so let us pray......
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