Watchdog Exposes Shelter Abusive Staff Behavior

Conduct towards the public: Abusive staff behavior

To Michael Oswald

     Kim Peoples

CC: The Multnomah County Commission

        Portland City Council

Last week I referred a Good Samaritan to your agency for help after she had along with another person found a stray sweet natured pit bull with an injured paw. She was following up on his welfare.  The parties who found them were concerned about him. 

What she encountered was not uncommon: a lecture involving a series of pointless barriers, aggressive rudeness and false accusations, behaviors that as a public service government agency you must address. The hostile treatment of the public by your agency is commonplace. 

 I will address the points raised in this experience one at a time. For comparison attached is your “Ethical Guidelines” for public service, honored so often in the breech. This is the text and experience of the Good Samaritan’s conversation after calling the front desk during public hours:

·         “The first two extensions are [were] useless.  Person is on vacation or has work schedule of Wednesday - Sunday. Extension 25225 picked up.  First person handed me over to someone at the front desk. She claimed I should not be on the telephone extension I used and wanted to know who gave me the number.  She was very confrontational with me, wanting to know if I were representing myself as MCAS when I attempt to reunite dogs with their people. She claimed these were "inside" numbers and wanted to know who provided to me -- was it an employee of MCAS.”  

These are indeed public numbers (Listen to the voice mail messages). They are not “insider” numbers. You are not a private club. And furthermore what sort of public employee ever chastises a Good Samaritan for his/her concern and caring involvement about the dog they found by twisting that concern into an authoritarian affront to their exclusive employee role?     

·         “Did not want to give me ANY information about the Animal ID.  She claimed that not all the dogs are pictured on the video.  She said this is a COURTESY to the dog owners.”

How is the Good Samaritan to follow up on the lost dog especially when ironically you misguidedly permit only finders to adopt a dog that MCAS has judged “unadoptable”? No one else is allowed, a bizarre policy that must be about embarrassment and image not animal welfare (lest the finder become upset if MCAS decides to kill the dog he/she found as “unadoptable”).  And no, by videotaping dogs for facility of identification you are not performing a COURTESY. It is your job to help reunite dogs and owners.   

·         “Moreover, I could also not see the dog if I were to visit the shelter.” Previous directors permitted this out of common sense and compassion. Not uncommonly this practice led to adoptions. It is a rigid jack booted rule that has no point and no public safety benefit. 

·         “She also let me know on more than one occasion that I was not being respectful. When I asked her in what way was I not being respectful, she told me that my tone was disrespectful.” When staff creates conflicts and is disrespectful just blame the public. 
Rationalize your own misconduct; don’t solve problems. The pubic is never right.

·         “When I let her know that the Good Samaritan told me that the dog was very sweet and tolerant, good with the other house dogs, the shelter worker told me that the dog might behave DIFFERENTLY at the shelter.” Hence the reason for the Good Samaritans to be concerned for the dog’s welfare.  Often what MCAS is measuring in its abbreviated “temperament testing” is stress not temperament then using the  stressed result to justify killing a dog whose behavior is in fact well within normal limits outside the agency’s walls.

·         “She said the shelter has a 92+% save rate.  When I asked about pit bulls, she said most of the dogs are pit bulls.  And that the save rate applies to them as well.  She wanted to know if I had ever visited the shelter.  I told her yes.  And when she wanted to know why I didn't understand the majority of dogs were pit bulls, I let her know that I could only see a portion of the dogs. 

 In my rescue experience, I explained -- I was able to view ALL the dogs impounded.  Even the ones in Medical Isolation.” Just not at MCAS.  The implication is that the Good Samaritan shouldn’t be concerned about this dog’s welfare: Go away. It is demonstrably false that MCAS has a 92% save rate and certainly not with pit bulls. Ask and I’ll show you. That fact was demonstrated by outside experts reviewing MCAS records. 

·         “The only way I could get the Animal ID is through a Public Records Request.  The numbers that are available to this dog are the "Complaint" number that the Good Samaritan was given and the reporting number on the internet.” Jails, where security risks are real, publicly post much more information they have about prisoners at their facility.  This is a pound for stray animals accused of no crime. Why deliberately make it difficult for a party concerned about an animal? What is the benefit? What is the risk? 

·         “In the end, when she was finished with me she ended the conversation and hung up on me. Nothing about this is transparent.  I don't know how a person whose dog went missing could find this dog.  The dog has no ID and the dog is not pictured on the internet.  When she asked me how I knew the dog was not on the internet, I told her I was looking at the video…”

Is this what you call extraordinary public service?

 The public funds this agency. You work for them, not the other way around. Reports of confrontational behavior are so frequent that they reflect an institutionalized culture of arrogance and indifference. MCAS loyalty is to staff only, not the public. 

The “correction” at MCAS is always to blame the public for the agency’s own misconduct, a variant of “Look what you made me do.” It is this institutionalized attitude, encouraged by management, that costs animals’ their lives and the public’s support. Now correct it.

Gail O’Connell-Babcock

Telephone: 503.625.4563

NOTE:  Watchdog has been legally battling MCAS for more than a decade, hoping for disclosure, honesty and at least a pretense about concern for animals, rather than expedient slaughter.   Portland County Commissioners have yet to discipline, investigate or sanction the enormously high kill rate in Portland.  Instead pretty pictures are painted about how Portlanders love their animals, and they DO, the problem is the shelters don't