Why We Won't Adopt Animals To Multnomah County (Portland Or area)

To: Michael Oswald

To: John Rowton

To: Kim Peoples

 

What interventions do you plan to put in place so this tragic but not uncommon event does not occur again ( and I use the term tragic  its full sense:  meaning caring so little for a dog with wholly correctable problems that on surrender without informing or telling the owner, you obviously planned all along to kill him in three days)

 

MCAS knows well that Thunder ridge rescue and a few others take and "rehabilitate" MCAS dogs labeled" unadoptable" often accomplishing that goal within 24 hours because the dogs were only reacting to a stressful agency environment.. Ample documentation  is available that MCAS dogs deemed "unadoptable";  are often wholly and inaccurately mis classified.

 

There was no compelling reason to kill Teddy. Teddy had no bite history, a history of reactivity on leash, good with family, wary of strangers, terrified at MCAS ( a quite common experience for most dogs). When MCAS  took him into the agency his family was told be might be euthanized as all dogs might .

 

Three days and no effort to calm or seek options reveals the agency's real intention. Whi is going to know?  Ms. Collingsworth had him killed in 3 days with no effort to find resources at all. Ms. Collingsworth knows of options. But misdeeds are rationalized away at MCAS not corrected so they happen again and again. 

 

Above are the options for leash reactive dogs; not an uncommon problem, and a caution about over classification baaed upon minimal data  from a legitimate credentialed behavior specialist lableing, making, Teddy treatable but dead anyway.

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The community and  frightened homeless pay a heavy price; the animals,pay with their lives, for government absent standards and cursory indifference.

 

Teddy had nothing compelling in his  history that required death as an only option. He never even had training. False and/or incorrect diagnostic and prognostic assignations are an alarming problem at MCAS (and I will be bringing them up with Maddie's Fund and other groups that rely on the Asilomar Accords):

 

MCAS has:

 

• A mission that claims to protect pets but policies contrary to that mission: MCAS  is run  more like an animal processing plant. The statement made to me by a senior staff person that the goal of temperament testing was "To decide which ones to kill" confirms the view that MCAS abuses the purpose of temperament testing.
• No checks and balances: Usually just one  kennel care technician/ staff person does a 15 minute non-standardized "test" on an often distressed or injured or ill dog ( all confounding stressors that preclude temperament testing), then decides if an animal lives or dies.
•  
•  Any collaboration " is  cursory or collegial, a form of predetermined agreement (Did you see that? Oh I did too!. It is not independent) No baseline systematic behavior data collection records are kept any more. MCAS ended all transparency when it removed all the standard data collection behavior forms,making them optional, up to staff. Records that elsewhere are retained as part of accountability are eliminated or destroyed at MCAS. Final cursory impressions are recorded and sometimes not. 
•  
• Sometimes the entry is just BA completed or private code" Multiple Tier 2 behaviors: ER)MCAS is a public agency not a private club. Ms. Collingsworth is not the only person that has dispensed with behavior assessment forms altogether, just the most frequently inclined, an unusual privilege extended to employees at a publicly funded agency. Now one just records one's beliefs in one's head. 
•  
• Clearly that makes review impossible and reduces diagnoses and prognoses to magical thinking . It has also led to what one might anticipate and expect: deterioration in assessment quality that again effectively costs animals their lives. Here is the record for part of an "assessment" of a dog that was bleeding from an abscess,( the dog was "tested" before going for medical care when pain is a recognized  stressor that confounds temperament evaluation; medical care should precede temperament testing but att MCAS the order is almost always reversed):" Nice girl! Stinks like a dog who spends a lot of time outside!!" 
•  
•  I use that to note over generalization from limited data ( overgeneralization from limited data is common) and it also has no place in a temperament testing evaluation. It is just personal/prejudicial about the owner. Perhaps the odor came from the abscess not owner life style. 
• No oversight, no review, and rationalizations of poor decisions that cost animal their lives instead of corrective actions that change the future.

Many homeless animals have been misdiagnosed as "unadoptable" at MCAS. The evidence is that they recover as soon as they leave. MCAS does not follow "Open Paw" shelter  missions as advertised. 

 

A few Open Paw programs are adopted but not Open Paw philosophy. The overall policy and programs at MCAS deliberately create significant stress causing healthy animals to deteriorate in kennels where they are left day after day. Mr. Oswald's excessive unnessary zealous pursuit of "public safety"concerns far beyond ehat is needed generate the hostile prison like stress environment in which homeless animals are kept. Previous directors did not have these policies and there was no increase in public danger.

 

Intake doors are closed to the public and many staff are excluded creating a locked prison; many capable staff , once allowed to socialize with animals are specifically prohibited from interacting with the animals. 

 

They should be; animals are very often not permitted "potty walks", exercise, games, play or social engagement out of misplaced "public safety concerns." Every shelter worker should know how to engage a scared or timid dog or just don't work in sheltering. Terms in records referring to a homeless animals as "inmates" or "prisoner" property confirm the prison not shelter model adopted by the county.

 

• Unhealthy/untreatable, a preferred MCAS designation used to misclassify many killed animals: It is clear from records review that this term is used when nothing about the animal suggests "unhealthy/untreatable" i.e a young cocker spaniel who did very well at the intake veterinarian; and at the agency  but Ms. Collingsworth ordered him killed because she believed his reaction to one dog  gender in one  leash encounter  made him "unhealthy/untreatable at least 50% of the time ( assuming 50% percent of the world is the other gender: an ideal projection) Personal reactivity, impatience, whim, not responsible professional engagement guides many of these decisions.

I am sorry Teddy was killed, anguished really because his life had a value and no one cared. 

 

Having found options for little cattle dogs and others like him before it is very distressing.Working dogs need training and work .He deserved a careful review, a second chance, instead he was treated like disposable refuse. He is not "unhealthy/untreatable"  an agency preferred designation for every dog that doesn't go to rescue or adoptions.  It is a neat way to dispose of animals, take no responsibility while claiming awards.

 

The entire process of assessment must be independently reviewed as well as the current frankly cruel prohibitions on activities critical to support the mental health of animals. You are creating the distress you label.

 

The solution isn't just to care enough to alert rescues that might help. It is to create a healthful emotional social environment for stray animals, not a prison, so they aren't distressed and misclassified to begin with and to reach out into the community. As an example recently one 20 pound 8 month old dog was kenneled without exercise or companionship for 75 days labeled "severely undersocialized". 

 

Deprived of appropriate engagement, kept in solitary, his stress increased, No rescue would take him. No effort was made to reduce his stress ( public safety concerns). A rescue finally took a chance on him when the rest had declined. Within 24 hours of exit, he was playing with other dogs, walking on leash, soliciting attention from people and dogs, going to dog day care where he is very popular and if anything likes to party too much ( after midnight he still solicits play, maybe making up for lost time).

 

Improper diagnosis/prognosis and MCAS exaggerated misplaced public safety policies serve  only to aggressively increase not reduce shelter stress  and cost animals deserving a second chance their lives. Rescues can do nothing to correct this. That is an agency problem; not a dog problem. And it has to change. MCAS has to become an open shelter.

 

 

Gail O'Connell-Babcock

Telephone: 503.625.4563

 

---Original Message-----
From: John ROWTON <john.m.rowton@multco.us>
To: gocbwatchdog <gocbwatchdog@aol.com>
Cc: Jill Cameron <thunderidge@gmail.com>
Sent: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 5:35 am
Subject: Re: Teddy: MCAS 553515: status and options

Hi Gail

He was euthanized November 4th.

John M. Rowton

Shelter Manager

Practice active listening..

An Open Paw Shelter

An AAHA accredited Veterinary Hospital

www.MultcoPets.org

john.m.rowton@multco.us

503 988 7387 x 25247