# AC- How do they rate in your area?



## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

On another thread, ALEX is lost/FOUND Mtaussie tried to have her local AC help and they wouldn't take or return calls. I e-mailed a local AC in Allegan County, MI to see if they could possibly put more info on their petfinder animals. This is the reply I got:
_Hi, my name is xxxx, I used to be a volunteer at the shelter and do the petfinder photos and descriptions along with the email. A few other volunteers helped with this as well. Because we, like most people, work during the regular 8-11 AM office hours at the shelter, would go in afterhours and on the weekends to do petfinder and meet people to adopt out animals becase they worked during the day as well and could not make it to the shelter during normal business hours. This however changed about 3 or so months ago when the animal control officers took our key away with no reason. 
Since then, a different couple of "volunteers" have supposedly gotten involved and are updating the petfinder, however it appears that it hasnt been happening. Since the email still comes to this email, I still check it and respond to the best of my abilities. We never wanted to be kicked out of helping the shelter and feel for the animals in there, but there is nothing we can do at this point. Especially our lead volunteer who has been helping the shelter for over 5 years. We also would contact rescues and help pull animals out of there. The shelter generally does not charge rescues for taking in an animal and no they no longer sell to research thanks to our (ex) lead volunteer who fought against it years ago and succeeded in._

*I then replied with the offer to help in any way, even though I don't live in that county and this is the reply:*
_ What I have been telling everybody that has written me regarding the petfinder not being updated or done with no descriptions is tell them exactly why it's that way, like I did you, and then if they are looking for other ways to help then to write the local papers and help make the public aware that they are more or less pushing away help. There is alot more to the story too, but I have just told you the main part. On top of it, there is no reason for them to have against us being in the shelter afterhours anymore than they allow the jail crew to come in and do the cleaning because all 3 of us (ex) volunteers are employees of the county, so there is not like any type of liablility why they should no longer allow us in afterhours.
Anyways, everytime somebody asks how they can help, it just gets me going because I am so glad there are others out there wanting to help, but I just dont know how to anymore either. Allegan is such a small shelter anyways and alot of people dont even know it exists so without us helping it's that many animals losing their lives for no reason. There's even been countless amounts of times that we have told the officers not to put a dog down because we will be in over the weekend to get it out and well, when we get there, it's too late. That's the hardest because they really just dont care. 
Thanks again so much for your caring and concern._

It is so sad that the AC won't accept help from rescues or volunteers and continue to put animals down. Who gives them the authority to be so powerful? 
So in these small town shelters, does anyone have advice on how to help these animals if the AC won't let anyone in to help??? I am not a vocal activist, but I guess my mamma bear mentality might have to come out of hibernation.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=12497820
This petfinder dog is the reason I e-mailed in the first place, a very sad pic and no other info. So you have to call to get any information, and of course they don't answer, you have to leave a mssg...There are three other shepherds in their shelter.


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## AbbyK9 (Oct 11, 2005)

I wish I had any advice for you.

I sometimes get the idea that people work for animal control because they hate animals, not love them. It's sad this place will not accept volunteers to come in and help to put these animals on Petfinder.

Animal control in my county works together with the county Humane Society. The Humane Society volunteers come in and work with the dogs at the shelter - walking, socializing, some training, evaluating - and they are very active with temperament testing and getting dogs to rescues. We have a good relationship with them with Shepherd Rescue and they will have volunteers meeting us after hours to pull or evaluate a dog, no issues.

Now the head of animal control in our county is a real a$$. He has actually told people that it's his purpose to take as many people to court as he can, even if they have done nothing wrong as pet owners.


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## SunCzarina (Nov 24, 2000)

I live in a city of 75K, 2 full time ACOs. They love volunteers, so do the surrounding cities. Warwick animal shelter, where Morgan came from, is run by one ACO and all people who are members of volunteer services for animals.

It is very sad when it doesn't go this way.


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## Mandalay (Apr 21, 2008)

Our AC here is not the greatest either.

Last winter we had a stray cat (that was obviously a pet or was a pet at one time) that would come by to eat and hang out. Since we have two cats, I could not bring him in without knowing if he had been vaccinated and what not, and we were not in the market for another cat in any case.

Well, one day it just got too cold...I think the windchill was -25, and I decided to take him into AC. They would not take him unless I "surrendered" him. I told them he was not my cat. They did not care. So I asked what had to be done if I "surrendered" the stray cat and I was told I would not be allowed to adopt an animal any longer from AC in my county and I had to pay a $25 fee. I offered to pay the fee, but I did not want to be kept from adopting a pet in the future since I was not actually surrendering my own cat. They could not get it through their head that this was a stray that would be easily adoptable. When I asked what they suggested I do, they told me to take him back and let him go if I did not want to take him in and would not sign the surrender papers.

It was better to let the poor cat starve and freeze to death.


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## Chicagocanine (Aug 7, 2008)

Ours is so-so. The biggest problems is the location. They are way on the south side and I think a lot of people don't bother to go there looking to adopt or even for a lost pet because it's really far from everything. They also have a really depressing atmosphere, the building is very ugly and utilitarian inside and out.
We also have a large humane society downtown, Anti-Cruelty. They are involved with a lot of the animal services as well even though they're not the city-run AC. They also get a lot more donations and things than Animal Control does... However recently they changed things in a way that makes it bad for strays IMO... They decided that any strays they get in their shelter will be sent to Animal Control, they will only keep owner give-ups. It is kinda sneaky because this likely means their euthanasia rate will go down so they will look better...while all the stray animals languish way down south in Animal Control.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

Our local SPCA just had their shelter almost cleared out due to a very successful adoption event. (77 dogs FRI/SAT) I put bugs in as many ears as I could to check out the Allegan shelter, and see if they could pull all the dogs from there. I hope it helps.


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