08.16.07
AusChron On Missing Dog At WCRAS
Here’s the story, Animal Shelter Drops the Ball on Missing Dog. The family of the supposedly euthanized dog has gotten the run around and misinformation from the beginning. Now the family has hired a lawyer, Bill Aleshire, to help them get the truth. Here’s what’s happened so far.
The family’s saga began Monday, July 16, when Reba and Toby, a blue heeler mix, went missing at a Williamson Co. park. It wasn’t the first time the dogs had set out on their own, but they had always returned home in short order, the Angelles said. Two days later, the family posted a sign, and, within an hour, Cedar Park Animal Control Officer Charles Partridge notified the Angelles that the two dogs had been taken to the regional shelter. Partridge told them he would call in a “found-owner” report — standard procedure for halting euthanization — and provided them control numbers for both animals.
Since the shelter is usually closed on ThursÂdays, the family waited until Friday to call, but shelter personnel “never answered the phone,” Mitzi said. A little after noon, Gilbert and daughter Sarah, 15, arrived at the shelter to retrieve their dogs but encountered “mass chaos.”
Shelter workers initially told them they didn’t have the dogs, Gilbert said. Then they were told the dogs were there but that he’d have to pay $220 in cash to reclaim them. When Gilbert returned that afternoon with the money, shelter personnel acted as though they’d never seen him before, he said.
Then, when a shelter employee punched in Reba’s control number, the digits pulled up an aging Lab matching Watson’s subsequent description of the deceased dog, Gilbert said. Finally, at about 5:30pm, a shelter worker informed the AngelÂles that Reba had been euthanized but that they couldn’t view their dog’s body for legal reasons, Gilbert recalled. “I think they told me Reba was euthanized to get rid of me,” he said. “My daughter then fell to the floor and just cried and cried.” With only one of the Angelles’ dogs returned, the shelter also refunded the family the $110 that they would have paid for Reba’s retrieval. “But what puzzles me is that they collected it with the full intention of giving us the dog,” Gilbert said. “They had no idea [at the time] that she was dead either. They never indicated this the whole day.”
Meanwhile, Gilbert called the Williamson Co. Sheriff’s Office, hoping for assistance in retrieving Reba’s body. The three deputies who showed up seemed helpful at first, he said, but they eventually told him the shelter had followed policy and no crime had been committed. Angelle, understandably distraught, called his wife from the shelter to tell her that Reba was dead. The deputies, apparently taken aback by Gilbert’s display of emotion, gave him five minutes to leave the shelter. There are conflicting reports about whether Gilbert complied and left the premises without incident.
Nearly a month later, the Angelles remain unconvinced that Reba was euthanized. And, they say, until they see Reba’s body or incontrovertible documentation of her demise, they will continue to hope she is alive. Moreover, the family recently obtained documents that cast serious doubt on the county’s initial report of what happened, Aleshire said. “They show that the dog they killed had mange and calloused joints. That is not Reba.”
The county, as is there usual procedure, is non-responsive to it’s citizens. It seems like with most things their response is to lie and cover-up. They need to come clean and tell this family what they really did with their dog.