Reason #1 shelters should never be exempt from any laws relating to pets

Bizarre animal cruelty by animal control director
March 20, 2:21 PM
Sharon Seltzer

This bizarre story of animal cruelty was a result of animal welfare experts that knew better, but were so arrogant; they killed one dog and endangered another.

In Clay County, FL the director of Clay County Animal Control was charged this week for a cruel experiment he conducted last September. He received five counts of violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

The experiment was prompted after a supposedly “aggressive” dog was picked up by animal control last summer and left inside the holding area of a truck for 80 minutes. That animal died and the dog’s owner complained that the death was a result of being kept in a hot truck too long. A pathology report was inconclusive, but agreed that the hot summer day and dehydration contributed to the dog’s death.

To defend the actions of the employee, Clay County Animal Control director, Connie Goon and her boss Bob Bodenweber decided to run an experiment to see if he could prove the charges by the dog’s owner were unfounded.

They waited for a day with similar weather conditions and chose a homeless dog from the county shelter that was the same weight and breed as the other canine. Then employees locked the homeless dog inside the same non-air-conditioned holding area in the truck in the middle of the day for one hour.

The temperature rose to 86 degrees during the experiment, but staff closely monitored the pup and luckily he did not suffer any ill affects. Bodenweber thought he had proved the innocence of his employee and his policies, but the test was noticed by PETA and reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The only penalty given by the USDA is an official warning to the county animal control. Bodenweber and Goon both have personally promised to never run research on animals in the care of Clay County again.


And in another senseless account of cruelty coming from Florida:Four teenage boys from Lake City, FL pulled back a small opening in a chain link fence around the local Humane Society shelter and stole five rescued dogs. The group took the pups to a bridge where they tossed one of the dogs to his death before getting caught. All of the teens are in custody and the Lake City Humane Society has recovered three of the dogs. They are still looking for the last pup.

Authorities reported that this is not the first time someone has broken-in the non-profit shelter. The group will now look at hiring security for the shelter.