Dear Editor:
Laying the blame for the dog's death on his owner is abhorrent, and typical of the shelter's reasoning when incidents like this occur all too often, while what should be at issue and what has been pushed under the rug is that City Ordinance, Section 5-21, requires the shelter director to make diligent inquiry into the owner of an impounded animal. The city fails miserably at upholding their duty and abiding by that ordinance by taking an opposite approach. They hide impounded animals away in an area that is not open to the public and refuse to post photos of impounded animals to their website and Facebook page as every other pound and shelter in the state with that ability does in order to assist with reuniting those animals with their families. In this dog's case, his family was scouring the Shelter's Facebook page every day watching for his photo to appear, but it never did. Several times, offers have been made for volunteers to snap photos of impounded animals and post them to the Jefferson City MO Lost & Found Paws page on Facebook, requiring no resource outlay by the City, yet even that has been opposed by the shelter director.
While I agree that some of what the shelter does is commendable, they can do much better. It truly is disturbing how some continually sugar coat the happenings there and the secretive nature of so much of what they do. If they are truly a wonderful facility, where is the transparency? An intentional lack of full transparency is not appropriate for any pound or shelter and equates to nothing more than hiding the truth.
Our city, the capital city of our state should be a shining example to all other pounds and shelters in the state but instead, they refuse to admit they ever error at anything and while other pounds and shelters are destroying their old gas chambers because gassing animals is cruel and inhumane, our Jefferson City Animal Shelter purchases a new one! Of course that information was never made public either because management knew exactly what kind of public outcry would result.
I will continue to be an outspoken advocate against some of the policies and procedures at JCAS as long as my tax dollars help pay to support it - and because the animals come first.