WOMEN QUESTION KILLING OF DOG HUMANE SOCIETY CALLS FEAR-BITER

Sherry Bohnert and her sister Pam Hartle were "outraged" upon hearing that the dog they thought the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri would place in a new home had been put to sleep 19 hours after it was delivered.

Jhan White, director of the Cape Girardeau Humane Society, said the fate of the 16-month-old dalmation was decided when the dog was placed in an environment it couldn't adapt to and demonstrated behavior unsuitable for a new owner.

"It became clear that, after it spent the night in quarantine, the dog was vicious and a fear-biter," White said. "No way was this dog adoptable."

A fear-biter bites when it becomes afraid of strangers or an environment it is not used to.

Said White: "Many options should have been tried before the dog was brought out here. Obedience school or some attempt to socialize the dog would have been a big help."

Chuck Stucker, Cape Girardeau health, nuisance and abatement officer, saw the dog on Monday when he was delivering another dog that was being impounded by the city.

"I came through the back door and didn't know the dog was there," Stucker said. "He hit the front door of his cage barking at me with the hair on his back standing up and his teeth bared. I knew I didn't want to put my hand in his cage because he would have bitten me."

Stucker said: "The dog looked like it had never been socialized and is what I would classify as a fear-biter. Any time you take a dog like this outside of its territory, it's going to be scared. It's apt to bite anybody."

Prior to being taken to the Humane Society, the dog was familiar with Bohnert, Hartle, their mother and the children she babysat. The dog was taken to the Humane Society because Bohnert and Hartle's 62-year-old mother, who became the new owner, was unable to take the dog outside on a leash without being pulled toward the ground.

"It wasn't like he was trying to hurt her or anything," Hartle said.

"To call that dog vicious is ridiculous," Bohnert said. "He played with my 4-year-old daughter and with other children under the age of 5 all the time. He was really like a baby."

The dalmation bit one of the workers at the Humane Society on Sunday. "He didn't break skin or anything, but the person he bit has a nice bruise on her forearm," White said. "That's why we had to take the dog to quarantine."

White said the dog resisted being taken to the quarantine area by the Humane Society worker. "Sherry was the only one who was able to get him back to the quarantine area," White said.

Bohnert told a worker at the Humane Society that the dog snapped at a customer in the parking lot. "Now they're making it sound like he tried to bite the person," Bohnert said. "They wouldn't have even known about that if I didn't tell them."

Bohnert said she asked the attendant at the Humane Society to call her if there was no home available for adoption.

Said Hartle: "Instead of dialing a seven-digit number, they took the easy way out by killing the dog. I want to ensure that this doesn't happen again. Animals have rights, too."

White said the Humane Society makes no agreement to notify the original owner of the dog if there is no new owner available.

"If we did that I'd have to hire a full-time staff just to make phone calls," White said. She said the Humane Society handles 4,000 dogs a year. "When someone brings a dog here and signs the papers, the dog becomes our property," White said. "We do not want to put a dog to sleep. It's a rare occasion when a dog is unable to settle down after spending the night. It became clear that this dog had behavioral problems that should have been corrected by the owner."

Bohnert said she took the 90-pound dalmation to the Humane Society around 4:30 p.m. Sunday. "I remember when I requested that we be notified if they couldn't place the dog that the girl wrote it down on a piece of paper and attached it to the paper I signed," Bohnert said. "She even admitted that she told me that when I called back on Wednesday. But when I asked to see the papers I signed, the sheet attached to it wasn't there. They're just lying to us now."

Bohnert and Hartle said they plan to picket the Humane Society this weekend. "I'm going to be there Saturday and Sunday," Hartle said. "I want people to know what they've done to my dog." Hartle said she also plans to sue the Humane Society.

Said Bohnert, "If I had known they were going to put the dog to sleep, I never would have taken him there."

Both Bohnert and Hartle said they became incensed when they realized that under the code of state regulations regarding animal care facilities, their dalmation was put to sleep before a 5-day holding period.

"It says right there that our dog should have been held for five days before anything was done unless he was brought there to be put to sleep," Hartle said, pointing to the regulations spelled out by the Department of Agriculture.

"We told them to have the new owner call us so we could give them the papers on the dog. So obviously we didn't want him put to sleep."

White said the five-day holding period only applies to stray dogs that are brought to the Humane Society. "The ones brought in by the owners are signed away to us and they become our responsibility and property," White said.

Hartle said that her family had taken three other dogs to the Humane Society and were happy with the way they were treated. "They even called us to tell us that the dogs were placed in new homes," Hartle said. "That's why I felt confident that we could take Harley Davidson there."

Said White: "This woman has no commitment to any animal if she is taking dogs to the Humane Society on that regular of a basis. There isn't anything in the world that would make me want to bring a healthy pet here."