The city animal shelter in Mt. Juliet, TN falls under the police department’s management. And police chief James Hambrick recently responded to local residents’ concerns by making some changes. The good news: The shelter will now be open to the public for 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. It was previously an appointment-only facility. The bad news: Most cats in need of shelter services will be turned away (with exceptions being made for injured cats). The reasons:
Chief Hambrick told News 2, cats take twice as much work to clean up after.
Stupid slobby cats.
“We listened to citizens’ concerns and we also prioritized our resources,” Hambrick explained.
Ah, so it’s a matter of resources. Or not:
What’s more, he said that if the city gave him more money he would promptly use it to amp up his police force.
“Our men and women are being killed out here,” he told the commissioners. “We’re dealing with some serious issues out here and that’s not to minimize cats, but let’s put this in the proper perspective.”
You guys, Mt. Juliet police officers are dropping like flies out there. And the amount of time it takes to scoop litter boxes (which happens to be twice the amount of time needed to scoop dog kennels) makes them targets. That’s obvious to everyone, I hope. A choice must be made between sheltering cats and amping up the police force because those are the only two possible things and we can’t have both. This is serious and not to minimize cats but I mean, fuck cats, am I right?
Animal advocates attended the board of commissioners’ meeting this week to ask the city to overturn the police chief’s decision. I guess those people just really hate police officers.
(Thanks Clarice.)
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And that’s typically why a police department isn’t a good fit for animal sheltering!
Not to make light of a sad situation; obviously things need to change – but “scooping litter boxes – takes twice the amount of time needed to scoop dog kennels”
Dude – yur doin’ it WRONG!!
And if you’re doing THAT wrong – heaven help the animals and people in your community!!
Oh we make light of sad situations around here.
Our county animal control is run by the sheriff’s department and has a kill rate of 95% for cats. Cats are disease carrying vermin according to them. The only cats that leave alive are those deemed adoptable by people that hate cats, and then they have to be pulled by a rescue. I have always lived with both cats and dogs, and the cats are much less work than the dogs. Whenever I read about a police department or sheriff’s office taking control of an animal facility, I cringe.
The chief claims to have a PhD, yet writes it as Phd.
“Our men and women are being killed out here.” Huh. It took me about five seconds to do an internet search: Mt. Juliet, TN, has had one line of duty death, in 2003, and that was due to a “vehicle pursuit.”
Also, from the City of Mt. Juliet, TN, webpage, and I quote: “Affordable, clean, well governed, and PROSPEROUS (my caps), Mt. Juliet….Gateway to the Appalachians….All roads through Mt. Juliet.” etc, etc, etc.
‘scuse me, that was supposed to read, “all roads lead through Mt. Juliet.”
The level of malicious stupid here just burns.
I’m with Clarice here: cats are lower maintenance than dogs. Unless, mind, they’re very sick or miserable and cannot help but soil the entire kennel & themselves, which I imagine could’ve well been their fate in a facility where they’re held in such contempt, by someone so petty & lazy he would begrudge even so small a service as swapping out a shallow paper litter box once or twice a day.
It this police force can’t be arsed to clean a littler box heaven help the people who might possibly expect them to do hard things, like catch criminals.
Absolutely infuriating.
NO….you guys don’t know how legislation works. Police dept only take over animal control when they run out of funds but the director comes from an ELECTED OFFICIAL….NOT A STUPID COP…THEY ARE ORDER TAKERS FROM A BOSS THAT IS PUT INTO OFFICE BY VOTES….ALWAYS…and animal control and police dept are different dept and only merge when tax money is short so they make police do double duty of regular work and animal control esp if workers are inmates…..the Los angeles city animal control cruelty task force was a bunch of thugs that tortured, now that police do it , it is the best..and also cops helped me in katrina rescue when they lost everything themselves…they have helped more than the bad apples that hurt but even so…don’t give them credit for making choices…..they are given choices…and putting work on them is giving more work outside their duties instead of animal control but the best thing for shelter pets…rid pounds and allow charities to pick up the work of adopting out strays…saves tax money, work for the public servants and btw, as nathan winograd said yesterday….HEALTH DEPT run the pounds……that is why it is called animal care and control…controlling by death……
thanks for what you do….don’t get this…are they killing them or just turning them away?? don’t encourage pounds to impound…that is just naive.
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also….fact…money is NEVER DECIDED BY COPS…LOL……I lobby in DC animal laws and it is nuts how people don’t know how laws work…..any money is given through local, state, federal budgets….and no cop or pound worker has anything to do with money. it’s like working at the DMV or jail….they just take orders and work
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