Article published November 22, 2009
Lucas County Dog warden leaves legacy of passion, polarization
Scion of prominent local family held fast to enforcement ethic
Tom Skeldon, who plans to leave office at the end of the year, won praise in the 1980s for tackling the problem of roaming packs of dogs.
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THE BLADE/LISA DUTTON
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By JC REINDL
BLADE STAFF WRITER
He is the son and grandson of men legendary for their care of animals at the Toledo Zoo. Ultimately, he was forced to resign his own job amid cries that he killed too many animals.
There was a harsh irony at the surface of Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon's resignation announcement last week after more than 22 years in office.
Yet a broader look at Mr. Skeldon's journey from helping his father at the zoo to becoming northwest Ohio's most outspoken dog warden shows how his vigorous law enforcement often put him at odds with evolving notions of animal compassion.
All the while, he was carrying the legacy of the Skeldon family name.
“I know he cares about animals,” said Karen Pilche, a second cousin of the warden. But, as she wrote in a letter calling for his resignation, Mr. Skeldon presided over “a horrendous disregard for life at the Lucas County Dog Warden's facility.”
In November, 2008, Tom Skeldon, Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop, center, and Toledo Area
Humane Society Director John Dinon held a news conference on the issue of animal welfare.
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“He can say, ‘I'm doing what the law says,' which is what he's doing,” she said in an interview, “but it may not be the moral thing.”
Mr. Skeldon, 61, announced his early retirement effective Jan. 31 in a letter to county commissioners Thursday, citing how “recent unjustified attacks” were tough on his family and that his leadership was becoming “an increasing distraction to this community.”
His resignation met with celebration among local animal rescue groups, which long have criticized the dog pound for high euthanasia and low adoption rates as well as for the warden's policy not to adopt out to “all-breed” groups aside from the Toledo Area Humane Society.
But many of his supporters felt a sense of injustice with how the warden was ostensibly chased out of office.
Protecting people
David Blyth, Jr., a former county deputy warden, said the warden was merely doing the job outlined for him in state and local law and carrying out his office's mission: protecting people.
Tom Skeldon was appointed dog warden in 1987 and gained a reputation as an expert in matters related to vicious dogs.
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“He took his job seriously and he was doing everything in his capacity to keep the community safe from vicious dogs,” Mr. Blyth said. “The problem is there are far too many dogs who enter the pound than there are people to adopt them.”
Mr. Skeldon would not grant an interview for this story.
One thing both sides agree on is that Mr. Skeldon was passionate in carrying out what he believed were his job's responsibilities.
Sandy Isenberg, a former county commissioner who voted in 1987 to appoint Mr. Skeldon warden, said he did a good job in the late 1980s of addressing the serious problem of roaming packs of dogs. For that accomplishment, he earned a great deal of popularity among bite-weary gas and electric meter readers as well as among worried parents.
“As a person, Tom is very intense, very sincere. He felt very strong and I'm sure still does about wild dogs running in the street and biting kids,” she said.
Phil Skeldon, Tom Skeldon’s father, led the Toledo
Zoo from 1953 to 1980. He’s shown here in 1979 with his pet orangutan ‘Ping Pong.’
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A stubborn side
Ms. Isenberg is an aunt of current county Commissioner Ben Konop, one of Mr. Skeldon's most vociferous critics. She said she never had big problems with the warden, but said that he was known for being stubborn if it involved changing the way he ran his department.
For example, Ms. Isenberg said Mr. Skeldon was very resistant in the 1990s to suggestions that he begin checking dogs for implanted microchip identification. Not until 2007 did the warden relent, after much insistence from Mr. Konop that microchipping was a service the community demanded and needed.
Growing up
The eldest of 11 children, Tom Skeldon grew up with big footsteps to follow. His father, Phil Skeldon, was director of the Toledo Zoo from 1953 to 1980, following a path blazed by his own father, Frank Skeldon, who headed the zoo from 1922 to his death in 1948 and was a business editor of The Blade.
Young Tom started accompanying his father to the zoo at age 8. He worked there every summer through his high school years, helping out with concessions and later caring for a baby elephant.
Ms. Pilche also worked summers at the zoo and recalled how Tom and his baby elephant were inseparable. “He just adored that elephant,” she said. “That elephant was like attached to him.”
Frank Skeldon, Tom Skeldon’s grandfather,
headed the zoo from 1922 until his death in 1948
and was a business editor of The Blade.
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Tom Skeldon was a nephew of Ned Skeldon, the long-serving county commissioner and Democratic Party stalwart.
In his resignation letter last week, Mr. Skeldon said he was tendering his resignation “with a great deal of pride in the Skeldon family and the role we have played in Lucas County and the city of Toledo.”
Heading overseas
A couple years after graduating in 1966 from Central Catholic High School, Mr. Skeldon was drafted and joined the Air Force. He was placed in a new dog handler course in which he learned to train German shepherds for patrol in southeast Asia.
He arrived in Vietnam in 1970 and served one year as military police officer using sentry dogs to guard the perimeter of an air base in Bien Hoa in southern South Vietnam. Mr. Skeldon still wears on his dog warden uniform the Purple Heart he received for wounds suffered in a night rocket attack on the base.
After his military service, he received his bachelor's degree at Ohio State University, where he majored in animal science with a minor in zoology.
Looking to follow his father with a career in zoos, he then joined the Peace Corps and was sent to the Philippines, where he met his wife, Fanny.
The couple returned to America, and Mr. Skeldon picked up a job in the late 1970s as zoo director in Wilmington, Del. Mr. Skeldon has said he figured he would proceed on to larger zoos, but he and Fanny felt the pull of the Philippines and signed up for another two-year stint in the Peace Corps.
Along with his brothers Peter and Barry, he started a company in the Philippines that provided guard dogs for a gold mine and other businesses.
Tom and Fanny Skeldon returned to Toledo in 1985, and two years later, Mr. Skeldon became dog warden. A Blade profile explained how his uncle, Ned, put in a good word for him.
A high profile
Although Mr. Skeldon was not in an elected office, his public profile exceeded those of many local politicians as he sought out media coverage of the more visual aspects of his warden job.
Over time he gained a reputation as an expert in matters related to vicious dogs and was regularly called to testify for various legislation. In 2000, he spoke at the Statehouse in favor of a bill making it illegal to own surgically silenced vicious dogs such as those popular in drug dens for use as weapons against police.
“I think that he was probably what I would term the leading proponent of that legislation,” said Lynn Olman, a former Republican state representative. “He was probably considered at the time to be one of those who had as much information about vicious dogs and about dealing with vicious dogs as anyone in the state.”
‘Pit bull' controversy
Back home, Mr. Skeldon stoked the ire of rescue groups and some dog owners as he stepped up efforts to rein in a growing “pit bull” population in Toledo but refused to adopt out even well-behaved “pit bulls” to anyone. Although Ohio law considers all “pit bulls” vicious regardless of behavior, it was the warden's own policies that restricted their adoption and led to higher “pit bull” euthanization rates.
Of the 2,483 dogs put down last year by the dog warden, slightly more than half were “pit bulls.” Altogether, the warden euthanized 77 percent of all dogs that entered the pound last year — one of the highest kill rates in Ohio.
Even some of Mr. Skeldon's own deputies were disheartened to see him kill so many healthy “pit bulls.” Mr. Blyth, who retired in August, said he disagreed with the warden's stubborn insistence to exclude all “pit bulls” from adoption, even by responsible rescue groups.
“Of course, that's easy for me to say because I'm not the one in the hot seat if a dog that was adopted ends up tearing some kid to shreds,” Mr. Blyth said. “So I kind of understand why he erred on the side of caution.”
Ledy VanKavage, an attorney with Best Friends Animal Society, a nationwide animal advocacy and shelter group, criticized as antiquated both Mr. Skeldon and Ohio's breed-specific legislation targeting “pit bulls.”
“Profiling really doesn't work, and in the case of dogs, it really is behavior that you want to target — not a look or a type of dog,” she said.
Ms. VanKavage also said Mr. Skeldon's gung-ho attitude toward animal control is counterproductive and has given him and Lucas County a bad reputation across the nation.
“Under Skeldon's regime, I think he's alienated the community and you don't want to do that. You don't want people to live in fear that animal control is somehow going to deem your mix a ‘pit bull' and take it and kill it.”
But the warden's “pit bull” policies also won him some support. Last year, DogsBite.org named Mr. Skeldon Dog Warden of the Year.
“Tom Skeldon is nationally recognized as an expert regarding the enforcement of ‘pit bull' laws as he has advised and provided testimony for jurisdictions from Colorado to Canada facing their own epidemic of ‘pit bull' attacks,” Colleen Lynn, the organization's founder and co-president, said Saturday in an e-mail.
‘His mindset'
Ms. Pilche, the warden's cousin, said that in recent years, she and Mr. Skeldon have been in deep disagreement over “pit bulls” and dog rescue groups.
She ran an animal rescue operation in California before her recent move to Glouster in southeast Ohio and tried to convince him that he could save space, money, and animals' lives at the pound if he were to allow “all-breed” groups to adopt out dogs. She also tried to convince him to adopt out healthy and friendly “pit bulls.”
But neither effort was successful. Mr. Skeldon was just too set in his ways, she said.
“I really think he has his mindset — this is the way ‘pit bulls' are and rescues are not good,” Ms. Pilche said. “It seems to me that for him, that was the way it was when he started in 1987 and that's the way it has to be today.”
She added, “But things have changed a lot.”
Contact JC Reindl at:jreindl@theblade.com or 419-724-6065.
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