Rescue vs the sheriff's department (vet, wound, food, shelters)

[mishigas73]

I heard about this story on the radio earlier. In quite a few municipalities in this area, shelters have been closed, or the cities themselves have taken over what used to be the county's responsibilities in this regard. Needless to say, the lack of resources begins to show...

**Warning: photo of neglected pittie is at the top of the page**

Dog fight brewing over care of two pit bulls | Burien News

I guess the question is...what can be done with cases like this in our current environment?

[lifelongMOgal]

Well, this seems to be a unique case but one would think it would be simple enough for the Sheriff's Dept. to get a court injunction to keep the seized pets from being transferred out of the area or out of the possession of the rescue/foster until the trial is complete.

Ideally rescues/fosters and Sheriff's Depts. should be working together rather than choosing adversarial sides. The rescue/fosters should work with the county vet. so that the vet can do a proper assessment and record health info as evidence for court. It doesn't help the dogs for the Sheriff's Dept. to get into a power/political pissing contest nor does it help convict the owner of animal cruelty by the recue/foster not cooperating.

[mrs1885]

Sounds to me like the sheriff's office has no clue what a rescue is. Rescues have foster homes. Where else did they think they'd go? Not all rescues have shelters for their animals. I don't know of any in the south that do. It's much more common up north and in the north east. So any rescue down this way would put them in foster homes. Because there's no other place.

I'm not sure why they want them released back to the sheriff's office. What are they going to do with them? Their vet didn't call. Were they going to put them in the sheriff's jail or something? Releasing them to a rescue was the next logical option if there's no shelter locally.

Sounds like both sides have their panties in a knot and are in the middle of a pissing contest. I think they both need to put their pride aside and start thinking of the dogs instead of acting like a bunch of fifth graders on the playground. Absolutely ridiculous. And sadly, quite common in rescue.

Hope they can put aside their differences, sit down together and come up with a plan for the betterment of the animals. I see no problem with dogs in that condition going to a vet shelter. Dogs that emaciated can have serious medical problems, so being with a vet would be a benefit. I'm going through it with two dogs right now. Another rescue that took in a couple Danes from a neglect case are going through it as well and one of them wound up at the vet in serious condition and may not make it. Luckily they had a vet they could call in the middle of the night when there was an emergency. Then again, at the clinic shelter if there was an emergency in the middle of the night and they aren't staffed 24/7 they may not have known until it was too late.

Just sad all around that people let animals get in this condition. I've worked with the rescue that has those pitties. If that owner had called them and explained he didn't have money for food for those dogs they'd have delivered food to his door. Pretty sad that his pride has left the dogs in that condition and now he's facing charges. Wonder how his pride is feeling now?