Jasmin, ID# 292723

The February 2023 investigative report by OPB April Ehrlich, addressing MCAS’ failures could be published today. A year and a half later there has been no substantive change.

“In a 2018 report, auditors noted that multiple staff were concerned the shelter had adopted out unsafe dogs.”

MCAS does not adopt out “unsafe dogs.”They adopt dogs out unsafely because of bad policies that disregard animal welfare, including low standards and $25 adoptions, when ‘cheap’ is an invitation to impulse buys. Markdowns are intended as incentives. When ‘discount specials’ never end, save changing their name, that speaks to the agency’s failure and the corruption of its values.

Adoptions: How adoptions go wrong.

Over the protests of staff and volunteers, Jasmin, a wonderful dog whose history included a severe attack by another dog, was to have an adoption restriction requiring that she be the only dog in the prospective family. Instead, management overrode that restriction and adopted Jasmin to a family with another resident dog. Days later she was returned by the family after a dog attack. MCAS managers killed her for their careless indifference. The practice of facilitating poor adoptions and killing dogs who have been sent to unsafe homes and returned happens all of the time.

Playgroups: What was intended to relieve the stress of constant confinement after working with Dogs Playing for Life, has been repurposed into an evaluation about adoptability based upon ‘observed’ social skills in the play group, filtering out dogs that, in their assessment, can’t be adopted and so should be euthanized.

This test is deeply flawed because of the debilitatingly stressful environment fostered by this shelter’s management policies. Dogs known to be reactive to other dogs are included in playgroup tests, often muzzled, increasing their anxiety and fear. Playgroups include dogs in heat, injured dogs, dogs suffering kennel cough, disabled, blind, and deaf dogs, diagnostic categories whose illness or vulnerabilities place them at risk.

Intake: Dogs are rushed through intake regardless of their levels of distress, a process forced by the management’s edict for speed efficiency. If distressed, they are attached by leash to an i-hook, escalating fear and anxiety by trapping them, and then the intrusive exams proceed. They are then labeled with ‘handling sensitivity’ and/or ‘fear’ or ‘jumpy/mouthy’ waivers for defensive reactions brought about by insensitive handling. For example, if they “head whip” when intrusive exams are conducted. When staff behaves insensitively, on the orders of management, the dogs are blamed for their reactions. Everything becomes the dog’s fault.

Data Collection: “Data collections” are visits to kenneled dogs, usually but not always up to 3, to evaluate how many personal space intrusions, including checking teeth, ears, and physically checking spay/neuter status, a dog will tolerate from a complete stranger in a shelter environment. Staff are not trained about animal behavior, how to recognize stress and how to gain safe compliance for physical exams. The emphasis is always on speed. Pushing dogs down or pursuing them to leash is unsafe conduct. The only tools management provides are negative: The word “No”; Pet Corrector, spray bottles and shake cans all of which can backfire by escalating stress.

Fosters: Are not screened, except to make sure their companion animals are licensed, and chosen randomly. They receive no training and are not provided behavior training resources. The absence of professional guidance creates safety risks. If an incident occurs it is again the dog’s fault according to managers, not their own poor policies.

Adoption Returns: Adoption Returns are commonplace because of poor and indifferent adoption standards. Only the dog pays the price.

“Multnomah County shelter has a policy to offer emergency boarding services for up to a month.”

Director Erin Grahek and Operations Manager Marian Cannell ended emergency board and respite fosters a while ago without announcement, excusing this with the statement that they have insufficient space. ‘Space’ is a matter of creativity. Respite fostering and emergency board have been replaced by the ‘ 6 day hold mandatory’ for owned animals, after which MCAS assumes ownership.

Redemption and retention are their funded missions. When one lacks the skills to honor it, one does not just get rid of the mission. MCAS accommodated for respite and emergency board in the past despite an equal or greater intake, smaller budget and fewer managers. What did previous directors do differently when space was available? The funding is there. The imagination, will, initiative, and values are not.

Attached is a proposed respite foster program County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson placed on a short list over a year ago. Why hasn’t it been funded? Other space limitations are the result of multiple adoption returns, as many as 6 times in one case.

Owner surrenders outside the scope of those that the county is mandated to take are often about owners’ deficits and mismanagement. Issues that could be managed by providing counseling before accepting a surrender, as former Multnomah County Animal Control Director Hank Miggins once required.

There is no veterinary social work position to proactively help people keep their animals when a crisis occurs. Frequent adoption returns and high intake from owner surrenders are challenges that should be met with policy change, but the management instead chooses to prioritize speedy intake with speedy adoption to create space.

“‘I will bring on strong professionals who have the animal welfare background that I don’t, and marry that with my experience as a manager and a leader in Multnomah County,’ Erin Grahek said.”

That program has failed completely. First, a leader must know the difference between competent effective sheltering and poor sheltering. A distinction that is not learned from following the managers’ lead. It has to come from a director’s lived professional experience or they will not be able to lead, and instead be relegated to a director in title only. Operations manager, Marian Cannell hired in November 2022, and the supervisory managers demonstrably lack the skills and background necessary to run a humane progressive animal shelter that meets this community’s needs. Management positions have been filled based not upon skills proficiency and a broad-based search, but upon personal loyalty to existing management.

The community and homeless animals bear the costs of government failure. The February 2023 report from OPB April Erhlich could just as well be today’s report.

Service to managers is more important than serving the community, what is really needed to return service to the community is a system of accountability.

Gail O’Connell-Babcock

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Jason Renaud’s Respite Program proposal from September 2022

Cornell University: Shelter’s Move Towards Alternatives, Dogwatch Newsletter, Vol 4, No.20, April 2016

Jasmin’s [292723] records, redacted