This is a house that we have been going to for years. We have called this particular address into animal control numerous times. There have been 8 dogs at this house of this very negligent pet owner over the last years. When I first came across this house several years ago, I had to take in and euthanize an emaciated pit bull that was in the end stages of heart worm disease. This dog had been living in a filthy pen that was pretty much boarded up-we literally had to dismantle boards and nails to get to this dog. I also had to take in a 13 yr. old Doberman that had lived her whole life in a nasty pen on this property. She lived another few weeks and then died. I also got another pit bull out of there, and it was euthanized due to health issues and aggressive behavior. When I first went to this house, there was another pit bull mix chained to a tree on a huge chain. She could barely move at all because the chain was so short. Chain of Hope got her a dog run and set it up so that she could get off of the chain. Her name was Two Toes. There was a fluffy, large Golden/Chow mix in a pen. She was in there with the Doberman, but after the Doberman was gone, she was in there alone. After going through all of these dogs, these people got a new chocolate pit bull puppy. The stuck this poor thing in a pen and never socialized it. It was scared to death. Whenever we went over there, it hid behind it’s dog house.
I can’t even tell you how terrible it was to continue to go to this house when it literally broke our hearts every time. I had called animal control many times over the years and they never took any dogs. They would write a ticket once in a while for one of them not having their rabies or something like that, but the absolute filth and neglect was never resolved.
These dogs live in squalor. When we went just a couple of weeks ago, their pens were FULL of feces, their food bowls had rain water in them and their drinking water was filthy. These dogs were walking around in a smelly, disgusting mess of feces and mud. It stunk so bad. Our hearts break for these dogs every time we go there. We literally have to give each other a little pep talk about how much these dogs need us to even get the gumption to go there. This is because it is so sad, so depressing, and it makes us incredibly angry that this is even allowed in this city. Our hands are tied and we force ourselves to go there and bring as much comfort and love to these 3 dogs as we can. Believe me, we’re the ones losing sleep at night.
A couple of weeks ago, our volunteer shoveled the feces out of the pens and we spread hay down all over just to try and provide some relief from the mud and feces. Why didn’t we call animal control when conditions were so bad? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T DO ANY GOOD. We have called on this house for years and still the dogs sit there in this filth.
This is now a new dog there. Don’t know what happened to the chocolate pit bull puppy that was so scared. The cleaner pen and hay all over are compliments of Chain of Hope, of course, but now there is a unaltered Mastiff/Pit mix there.
Poor Two Toes has lived here for 8 yrs. What a terrible life. The anger we feel is tremendous because this city allows this to happen. We continue to bring as much comfort as we can to these poor dogs. Just as it’s not easy to go there and see this suffering and neglect, it’s not easy for these dogs to sit here and try and survive in this filth, and so we go. We do what we can. There is absolutely no back up for a case like this. So incredibly sad.
This is the majority of the email that I sent to Patrick Egberuare, director of animal control, and one of his supervisors last summer regarding this house.
I am writing once again about this address. I have been turning this house in for MONTHS AND MONTHS. We went yesterday, 7-22-14, to check on the dogs and it was terrible.
The following is another house that we go to that we have called animal control on multiple times. The last time we called this in which was a couple of months ago, she got a “warning”. Yet, here these dogs sit. They live in unsanitary conditions, they are too thin, always hungry and very, very shy. How in the world are dogs allowed to live in these disgusting surroundings in this city?
I have turned this house in in the past for unaltered pit bulls. Got back “unable to make contact”. Now there’s a litter of pit bull puppies. Wonder why Kansas City Pet Project (the city shelter) is full of pit bulls? Because this issue isn’t treated seriously by animal control and very little is done.
This house is equally sad. Again, this is how these dogs live, despite several phone calls to animal control. We finally got them to impound them last winter and we were ecstatic-finally these babies were out of there. Animal control gave them back to the owner the next day, we were banned from the property by the pet owner, and those dogs are suffering to this day, I am sure. But there are no eyes on them, no one monitoring them.
And then there is Goldie, who is now Preston. As most of you know, we discovered then Goldie chained, skinny with bleeding ears last summer. We called animal control and they said, “no violations”. We called them out again a few days later and they said “unable to make contact”. After Chain of Hope publicly brought attention to this case, animal control picked him up, took him into the shelter for a couple of hrs., got him all fixed up and RETURNED him to his owner, along with food and supplies. No kidding.
Because of the public outrage, animal control responded with the fact that they were going to be checking up on Goldie. They proceeded to do so and the owner kept Goldie in the house during this check-up time. We just waited. We knew that Goldie would be back out on his chain in the far corner of the yard and so we kept monitoring and sure enough he was.
We continued to document and take pictures and finally called animal control after finding Goldie like this:
They finally impounded Goldie and Chain of Hope pulled him out of the shelter. He lost his old name, along with his old life and we call him Preston.
My question for the city is: Why did animal control bend over backwards for a negligent pet owner and more importantly, why did Goldie have to sit over there and suffer for 4 more months because of the poor decisions made by animal control once again?
We have many discussions while on outreach whether to call animal control or not on a situation. Many times in the past when the pet owner is told by animal control that Chain of Hope called them in, then the pet owner is upset with us. When animal control does nothing, but we are then banned from the property because the owners are mad, the dog is the one who loses. So you see, it has to be pretty bad for us to call animal control because the chances of them doing nothing, the owner being mad at us and banning us, and those animals sitting there with absolutely no one is very high. These days, we usually opt to fix up the animal the best we can, get it spayed or neutered, and try to monitor it. It’s not worth being cut out of that animal’s life when in the majority of cases, animal control does nothing anyway. We really are their lifeline.
What a shame that it is so hard to get help for an animal in Kansas City, Mo. We will continue to be their voice.