Kat - I'm surprised at the reaction of Animal Control because they ARE the police when it comes to animals.

I'm on very friendly terms with the officers who cover my area and I know they would take seriously a complaint from a citizen who has lost a dog and has had a call and promise of return that didn't pan out. It's true that dogs are considered property and that any eventual police complaint would be handled y your local law enforcement but Animal Control officers can get invloved before that complaint is made.

The reason you would cite to get AC motivated to make a visit would be you suspect maltreatment and that the person who claims to be holding Numa made a promise of return which they renegged on. The Ad clearly stated that Numa is on meds so the woman should know that by holding her she is, in effect, mistreating the dog. Of course, you prolly don't want to take it to that extreme. Still, who would it hurt for the Animal cops to ask around her neighborhood and knock on a few doors?

When My dog Puppers came down with epilepsy, a neighor who saw us restraining him during a grand mal seizure didn't understand the situation and called Animal Control to say we were beating our dog. They wasted no time coming around my street, chatting up the neighors and asking if we were monsters who would beat our dog. The other neighors were horrified y the suggestion but told AC when we usually walked him and when he would e out in the yard. They waited until they knew my husand wouldn't be home and came over to demand access to Puppers.

Long story short, we had a wonderful visit with the animal cops who played with Puppers and gave him a good once over with his fave brush so they could look for injuries. I gave them copies of the Seizure Logs I kept to track how often and what type of seizures he had, his medical chart and his Vet's name and numer. In addition, I had to get a notarized letter from his Vet praising us as responsible owners and detailing all the treatment he'd recieved. I'm not angry about having to do that mind you, I'm just saying all they got was a vague complaint and they came down on us like a ton of bricks.

Since then, I've gotten to know them well by sending them follow-up reports on Puppers progress for the file (to avoid future misunderstandings) and to get their help with a series of viscious strays in our neighorhood. We even had a situation where one person tried to keep a dog he found "running loose" (dog escaped yard after breaking thru a window to get at a female in heat) and AC helped the original owner get the dog back.

It could be that where you are, you have insufficient staffing to go out on a call like this. Where we live, we have plenty of staffing but the officers are dispatched from a location about an hours drive away during business hours. We have to be patient when asking for assistance with vicious dogs, often cornering them ourself and barricading them in an alley until the AC arrives.

>sigh<

I'm so heartsick for you Kat. Do you think that lady was expecting to be offered a reward and when none was discussed she decided to low it off? We continue to pray and hope for Nuam's safety and her eventual safe return home to her family.

Please keep me in your thoughts too because we are going to a Rescue saturday to maybe adopt a new doggie. Here's his pic:

whatta handsome Boy!

We believe he is a Red Siberian Husky and German Shepherd mix. I wasn't sure we'd want to adopt so soon ut I saw his picture and realized that a 7 yr old might be perfect for us. He's the same age Puppers was when he died ut if all turns out well, we can enjoy his remaining years with him; the ones we didn't get with Puppers because of his epilepsy.