RTO

RTO's (return to owner) should be a good thing. I should be pleased that an animal (usually a dog) was located in the shelter and reclaimed. Usually I am. But sometimes, I'm disturbed- something isn't quite right, or I feel like the dog would have been better off with us.

We have a spay/neuter ordinance in this county. All animals are required to be speutered unless they have applied for permission to have them intact. On first impound, we offer to waive some fees and get the animal fixed by our shelter vet at a substantial discount. Many people take us up on this offer. The deal is sweetened by the fact that on an animal's second visit, the impound fees go up, and the speuter is now required- owners have to pay for everything. I am always disappointed when people turn us down for the offer to speuter on first impound- we get many repeat offenders, often within a couple months of the first impound.

This week we got a little poodle impounded- an officer picked him up after he was seen at large for a few days, mating with other intact females. (The owners of the intact females were issued citations for not spaying their dogs.) The dog was in horrid shape- matts and mud all over is body. I am not sure if he has ever seen the inside of a house. I was instructed to tell the owners they could not reclaim the animal without a s/n ticket, or without neutering the dog with us first. I had this conversation first on the phone with the owners, and then they came in, complete with crying pre-teens. I had a hard time feeling sorry for this family- how could they miss their dog so terribly when they hadn't seen it for days, and when the only confinement they had for him was a two foot chain in the back yard? The family waffled about taking the dog with a ticket and paying for neuter, at one point telling me that he was a beautiful dog, and so he should have puppies. The only thing that convinced them to have the dog neutered was that they couldn't reclaim him till Tuesday either way, since there was no officer on hand to issue a s/n citation. He will go home on Tuesday with a grooming agreement and neutered, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing him again.