I'm an ACO for S.F. and am a little shocked by some of the postings. Although it may seem evil that Ocito was put done for attacking several people, it was Sgt. Herndon's absolute last resort.He does not take euthanizing lightly. He has rescued many animals into his own home including hard to place chickens. Regarding the snake collector, I do agree Ball Pythons are pretty harmless but the larger more dangerous ones require responsible ownership. So blame the person who is responsible for the law existing in the first place, not us who have to enforce it. Besides the majority of the snake collectors "pets" where shipped in boxes and lived there lives in sweater boxes to breed for money. My snakes live in a huge cage with free roam of the room during the day for exercise. The intelligent people out there would realize that the cameras do not capture the full story. They didnt capture an ACO being assaulted by Ocitos owner, and they didnt capture the snake collector previously getting a warning not to own illegal snakes. Animal control officers know the hard work they do, and unless someone has been in that position, I dont think others should be allowed to spread lies over this website to people who are curious about the job. To all the complainers on these postings lets compare scars. I've got a couple of dozen from trying to get animals out of bad situations and still have problems with a foot I shredded three years ago trying to get an emaciated mom dog and her pup to safety. Like I said before the job is tough mentally and physically and its sad that anyone with half a brain can spead lies to so many. To all of you that know us and support us, thank you.
I believe it would be more effective if we direct our complaints about the snake law to the San Francisco city hall and legislators. If they hear from enough people, the law may get amended or repealed (preferably the latter). My suggestion for regulating the ownership of larger and more potentially dangerous pythons (burmese, african rock, reticulated) would be to implement a permit system requiring the potential owner to first complete a knowledge test (the state of Florida has this). This way, responsible owners will be able to obtain those species without being unfairly penalized with a ban while the less than responsible would likely fail the test and be denied ownership. BTW, what became of the snakes from the show?
[This message was edited by areptileguy on 02-02-05 at 09:51 PM.]
[This message was edited by areptileguy on 02-02-05 at 09:53 PM.]
I am assuming that the ACOs are getting defensive about there lack of fan mail on this site. I don't think anyone is accusing the "Animal Cops" of anything. In most of the complaints on this forum, the supervisors,etc. are to blame. The actual low level workers at a city-run agency have little to do with the decisions being made. I still think ACC looks a little harsh-but no disrespect to the officers. The executive decisions to seem to be aimed at the cameras. For instance--do you always save parvo pits (underage) with a history of dog fighting? I doubt it.
Before this goes any further, is there any way you can verify that this is actually an Animal Control Officer (ACO) from San Francisco (SF)? Thanks...........
Dear acosf (if you are in fact an Animal Control Officer from San Fran).....since you want to defend the killing of Ocito, perhaps you can answer a few questions: 1. What efforts were made to re-train the dog? 2. Why was walking him with a muzzle not a sufficient solution (vs. death)? 3. What does his owner accosting (allegedly) an ACO have to do with whether or not the dog lives or dies?
Yes I know it is a difficult job. I have the greatest respect for the aco's that I know, and also the ones I see on the other shows. You are taking heat for this one and you need to ask yourself if there is not some merit to it.
ITS ABOUT TIME SOMEONE SAID SOMETHING WONDERFUL AS YOU JUST DID!! DITTO TO ALL OF IT!!! ONLY PEOPLE THAT HAVE NOT "BEEN THERE" ARE ALL COMPLAINING CUZ THEY DON'T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE BETTER TO DO! LIKE OUR MOMMIES SAID, IF WE DON'T HAVE SOMETHING NICE TO SAY, DON'T SAY IT AT ALL, ONLY TO A THERAPIST!!! ROCK ON S.F.A.C.O.'S !!!! AND NO, I DO NOT LIVE IN S.F. EITHER!!!
I wouldn't panic ACOSF, I think the majority of decent folks out there know that you do a heck of a great job, to a very professional standard with limited resources that a city run organization has at its disposal. I can guess that you guys really do care about the animals you have to deal with otherwise why would you do the job day in day out? Those that complain should point their frustration and anger at those that are responsibile for creating the laws in the first place, not those that have to police them. The animal laws are different in every state and if people are angry that a dangerous biting dog has to be euthanized they should be asking "what has the owner done to ensure that the dog doesn't do it over and over again?" It's the owner that needs training, not the dog! I think you'll find that in this case the owner was incapable of owning two dogs and there's the problem with all of the welfare issues with animals, some owners just shouldn't own pets if they can't cope with them. How do you think you would feel if you were faced with a dog that was contiually biting people - would you be happy to put it back on the streets so that more innocent people would be injured? It might need re-training but who is going to pay for all that work? The shelter? The owner? Neither of which has the resources to do so. So, would you want to adopt such an animal???
Keep up the good work all of you that work at the SFACC!
[QUOTE]Originally posted by goodsteward: 1. What efforts were made to re-train the dog? 2. Why was walking him with a muzzle not a sufficient solution (vs. death)?[/QUOTE]
All shelters work under significant resource constraints of time, people, money, and space. Given the resource limitations, shelters staff have to make difficult decisions every day about how to best allocate those resources.
One of things to keep in mind is the sheer scale of what a large shelter faces. In 2003, the Houston SPCA received approximately 48,000 animals. Unless a shelter severely limits the animals it accepts, the shelter can't save all of the animals.
While I do not know any of the details of this particular case, I would guess that a dificult decision was made that the resources required to re-train this one dog would be better put to use helping more animals than this one dog. Also, the danger of the legal liability of adopting out a dog that is *known* to bite was probably also significant factor.
I totally agree with you, vutpakdi about the allocation of resources.
I volunteer at my local spca and see the daily struggle the staff has. For every one dog we get adopted, there are two more to take its place. The supply of needy dogs never gets less.
Tough decisions have to be made about some animals, simply because there isn't the money for providing expensive medical treatment or retraining. There is a hiring freeze at the shelter because of money or lack of it.
There is just enough staff to clean the kennels and feed the dogs. If it weren't for the volunteers, the dogs would never get out of the kennels for playtime or socialization. The volunteers play a huge role in helping the dogs.
I feel that it is hard for the crew of the Animal Cops productions to show everything that happens during a segment. There is probably a lot of things that don't make it to the final version.
One of the things that all of us could do to help, is to volunteer at their local shelter. It is really easy to sit at the computer and question decisions that are made by others. Remember that saying "walk a mile in their shoes."
When I first started volunteering I would get upset at things that happened. I shed many a tear over the passing of some of my four-legged friends. Over time, I came to see the struggle that these decisions put on the decision-makers. I also became more knowledgable about the workings of the shelter. I am not so quick to jump to judgement now. I just have become more active in helping the dogs. Every dog adopted is a small victory in the battle of educating the general public.
First pythons are NOT dangerous, I have 6 pythons and they are not evil at all. second,they are NOT vemonous, third sf should be more worried about vemonous snakes. I also have 2 timber shepherds and they are nicest and kindst dogs , they love to play with my friends kids and if is kids wander off they bring them back unharmed. San Fran I think it is time to change the []animal laws you have.
[This message was edited by mod_kelly on 03-11-05 at 09:22 AM.]
I feel that many of the people who post angry, hateful posts about animal control have had their OWN issues with their local animal control departments and neighbors.
There are some people, unfortunatly, who believe that they have the right to let their dogs roam, bite others, hurt other animals, destroy property.
If more people spayed and neutered their pets, and didn't give them up so easily, then the shelters and pounds would not be so overwhelmed with a HUGE number of animals all the time.
If there were fewer animals coming in to the shelters, the shelters could spend more time and on retraining and health issues.
But because SO MANY people are irresponsible and are dumping MILLIONS of animals a year, shelters can't even place all the healthy, perfectly behaved ones!!
It's not the fault of shelters or animal control. Blame the pet owners!!
'What does his owner accosting (allegedly) an ACO have to do with whether or not the dog lives or dies?'
Someone who is out of control and violent himself, and cannot handle his own aggression, certainly cannot handle an aggressive dog with a history of attacks.
who do you think you are judging people you dont know b/c they are concerned about SF animal control polocies. As far as my aspca it's great and there aren't power hungry, greedy, animal law enforcement officers. THEY WORK FOR THE ANIMALS!!!
[QUOTE]Originally posted by warrensto: I feel that many of the people who post angry, hateful posts about animal control have had their OWN issues with their local animal control departments and neighbors.
There are some people, unfortunatly, who believe that they have the right to let their dogs roam, bite others, hurt other animals, destroy property.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry, but if acosf wasn't an Animal control officer, they wouldn't know about those incidents.
Tapioka, it is rude of you to suggest they are getting defensive because of lack of fan mail. That is not why they do their job! I myself would get deffensive if I saw nothing but rude posts complaining about how I do my job. Keep in mind, this show is not a movie, therefore you don't see the backstory of what led up to things happening the way they did.
As I said in another post, if you don't like the show, don't watch it! There are plenty of us who do like it and will continue to watch it.
it's sad how many people are ignorant on these boards. Occito did deserve to be euthanized because he WAS A DANGEROUS DOG!! there are too many good dogs needing homes to warrant wasting taxpayers dollars on rehabilitating a bad apple.
the problem with this world is ignorance. i love animals more than people and i know that sometimes the animals must be put to sleep. the only time i do not agree with it is like here in ohio, they put all pit bulls down regardless of age even just a couple of weeks old puppies. i have had a pit bull dog and he was the sweetest dog i have ever had they should give the pups a chance. the only thing that makes me feel ok about it is that if the pups were allowed to live then they could have gotten into the hand of a dog fighter. i love these men and women who are out there protecting and saving animals without them there would really be no hope for abused animals. keep fighting the fight and maybe one day, probably not in our life time more people will learn and care more about animals and there will be police protecting them in every city of every state!!!!
it's sad how many people are ignorant on these boards. Occito did deserve to be euthanized because he WAS A DANGEROUS DOG!! there are too many good dogs needing homes to warrant wasting taxpayers dollars on rehabilitating a bad apple.
Please forgive the following sarcasm, but...
Of course, I totally agree. I mean Ocito was so dangerous and he DESERVED to die for his crimes. I mean he was totally this bad apple who was nothing but a heartless beast. All the biting incidents were totally his fault and couldn't be the fault of the owner who (surprise) didn't have her dog on a leash (at least not one she was holding onto at the time). Really, if Ocito had been leashed the incident wouldn't have been prevented because he was just this totally horrible dog who would have still gained control.
By the way, pitbull_luv, should we treat pit bulls the same way? I mean everyone knows (at least stereotypically speaking) that pit bulls are dangerous dogs, and nothing more than bad apples who deserve to die, right? I mean it couldn't have anything to do with *gasp* the people who breed/train/own them.
(end of sarcasm)
Please note that I don't really believe pit bulls are horrible, and I don't necessarily think the Ocito thing was totally his fault. Personally, I have some reservations about him being euthanized simply because he showed some chase behavior when someone was jogging past. Sure, if he had been off leash he could have bitten the jogger, but a) with a leash all of those prior biting incidents could have been prevented, as shown by the test, so theoretically he could have been placed with someone who would keep him on a leash while outside, and b) that test was done while Ocito and Spicey were together. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened with Ocito being tested seperately (maybe he was off camera, I don't know), and c) I would think that some behavior modification could have made a difference.
Of course I don't know the whole story, since all I know was what I saw on little fragments on an hour-long show, but from what I could tell it didn't seem like euthanasia was the only viable option in the case. I'm going to assume it wasn't a resource issue since the decision was the result of a vicious dog hearing, and not just the shelter deciding they couldn't afford to try to rehab this particular dog. Perhaps if the euth order hadn't been made by the hearing officer, they might have come to that conclusion based on resources anyway, I don't know. But that doesn't seem to be the reason that the decision was made.
So really I don't know enough to say whether it was right or wrong since I only saw bits and pieces, but from what I did see of it, I'm leaning towards the idea that euthanasia was jumping the gun a bit.
have any of you ever worked in a shelter?? probably not. it is not an easy decision for anyone working there to have an Animal euthenized. just because you see it safe at home on your little tv sets does not give you the right to call down animal control PROFESSIONALS on decision that have to be made. as for the pitbull comment, have you ever met one owned and loved by a responsible person?? they are not mean evil dogs. the media loves to blow things out of proportion. good news doesn't sell. remember that.
