Article published November 12, 2009
Woman fears dog adoption is afterthought
Fremont resident says warden ignored her attempts at rescue
Anne Warner says Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon brushed her off when she inquired about adopting a dog. Skeldon
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THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH
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By JC REINDL
BLADE STAFF WRITER
FREMONT - Anne Warner's week was ruined the moment she opened the Sunday newspaper.
There in The Blade, in a breed-by-breed chart of every dog euthanized this year by the Lucas County dog warden, were numbers for collies and border collies: 10 and seven dogs, respectively, euthanized in 2009.
As an ardent lover of all dogs and particularly collies, Mrs. Warner said she asked the warden's office just last year to phone her when a collie arrived at the pound so she could adopt it.
Not once did she get a call. While Mrs. Warner acknowledged that some of those 17 euthanized collies may have been old or gravely ill, she doubts that all 17 were unadoptable - especially for someone such as herself who doesn't need perfection to care for an animal.
For Mrs. Warner, this recent experience and another involving a call to the warden underscore her worries that adoption is an afterthought for Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon as he continues to euthanize the majority of the dogs that come through his pound.
"How he could take those sweet and kind dogs and put them to sleep - it just makes me sick to my stomach," she said of the dead collies. "Those dogs didn't have to die. I could have gone up and rescued them. Even [rescuing] one would have been one less dog for him to kill."
Mr. Skeldon has in recent months faced increased scrutiny from animal welfare groups and some elected officials for his euthanasia and adoption rates, although Lucas County commissioners voted 2-1 this week against a motion to dismiss him, with his first cousin, Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak, siding with Commissioner Pete Gerken to keep the dog warden on the job.
The pound euthanized 2,483 dogs last year, either 77 percent or 66 percent of all dogs that entered the pound last year, depending on the counting procedure for those animals reclaimed by owners. The adoption rate was 13 percent, significantly lower than surrounding counties.
Mr. Skeldon did not return repeated messages yesterday for comment. In an interview last week, the warden said that "the decision here is to adopt out every possible dog that we can."
A county dog warden advisory committee is scheduled today to discuss the warden's policies and practices.
"Tom Skeldon sees himself as a law enforcement official and that's it," said Jean Keating, co-founder of the Ohio Coalition of Dog Advocates.
That narrow mission would not be such a problem, Ms. Keating said, if not for his policies against sharing impounded dogs with all-breed rescue groups aside from the Toledo Area Humane Society.
A retired sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Warner has five dogs and six cats at her 24-acre homestead in Sandusky County's Ballville Township, just outside of Fremont. Many of her dogs are rescues that she adopted from various shelters in Ohio, including Lucas County's.
The most recent addition to the family is Millie, who's part Australian cattle dog and part cocker spaniel. Mrs. Warner said she adopted Millie from the Lucas County pound last November after seeing her photo in The Blade alongside a story about the warden's office.
Millie was awfully thin at the time but generally healthy, and once home she got along well with Mrs. Warner's other animals.
"It feels like Millie's been with us for years," said Mrs. Warner, who has two adult children who live on their own. "The [pound] handler said she'd been there for quite some time … if she hadn't been adopted, she'd be dead and in a landfill some place."
Mrs. Warner said she called Mr. Skeldon's office again this week to inquire about two cute dogs she saw in photos accompanying the Sunday Blade story that featured the breed-by-breed kill chart.
As Mrs. Warner recently had a veterinarian put down a 14-year-old dog because of medical ailments including tumors, severe weakness, incontinence, and partial blindness and deafness, she had room at home for one more.
Mrs. Warner said the woman who answered the phone at the pound Monday eventually transferred her to Mr. Skeldon.
After she explained to him how she might like to adopt the two dogs in the newspaper photos - one dog for herself and one for her daughter - Mr. Skeldon said, "Ma'am we don't get The Blade and I don't read The Blade," she recalled.
The warden also told her that he couldn't talk any longer because he was on a long-distance call, Mrs. Warner said.
When she next tried to quickly describe the dogs to him, Mr. Skeldon replied "Look, Hon," and said he didn't know what dogs she was talking about but would take down her number and have someone call her back.
She's still waiting for a call.
"You'd think if someone calls about two dogs, they'd want to help," Mrs. Warner said. "You really have to persevere to adopt one of their dogs."
Contact JC Reindl at:
jreindl@theblade.com
or 419-724-6065.
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