Last year, the city of Ferris was at odds with Misty Clark, the sole Animal Control officer at the local shelter. They wanted her to spend less time finding homes for shelter pets and more time rounding up strays. Oh and she was supposed to kill any pet still at the shelter after 72 hours. Ms. Clark was opposed to the mandatory euthanasia policy and was very outspoken about it. The city fired her in September 2009.
In November 2009, the city council voted unanimously to contract with the Safe Harbor Foundation. Since then, there have been a few, uh – problems:
The smell of feces, the sight of injured animals and a no vacancies sign were just some of the sights and smells you would have experienced if you pulled up to the city of Ferris Animal Shelter Saturday, March 27.
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The city of Ferris didn’t run a personnel back ground check on the owners [of Safe Harbor] but did check to see if they had the proper non-profit certification and checked with city admin from their previous location.
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Executive Director James Vonda was present at the city council meetings promising a “safe and well run shelter for unwanted animals around the city.”
According to his MySpace page, his name is James Soaring Eagle, a master of his household and is looking for slaves/sub-missives for immediate prospecting into his extended tribal family.
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[Cody Sims, assistant manager at the shelter] said he did seek volunteer help from high school students until a parent ran a check on him and said his name came up as a sex offender.
Oh. What?
Back to the overcrowding:
There are several claims there were more than 100 or so animals in the building Saturday, March 27 with around nine dogs per a small cage.
Shawna Vonda, a co-owner and/or member of James Vonda’s tribe, claimed there were 107 dogs and 23 cats as of March 24 on her MySpace profile.
According to City Manager Eric Strong:
“They had 50 dogs and 20 puppies, but as of this morning [March 29] they are down to 35 dogs and no puppies.”
Strong hasn’t been able to meet with the owners at all yet because they moved the rest of the animals during the night to a place they own in Oklahoma.
So we’ve got 130 pets, or maybe 70, or maybe we don’t know how many at this tiny shelter living in filth and being denied veterinary care. The newspaper shows up and suddenly the animals are moved out of state under cover of night? Believe it or not, this story is actually seamier than what I’ve detailed here. Read the whole thing for yourself.