A man and his dog

We had a pretty tough, pretty emotional, segment tonight with Chuck Hogue. Originally scheduled for one hour, we ended up going for two due to all the phone calls.

To recap: Chuck’s beloved dog of seven years, Annie, ran away from the family property last June after hearing a gun shot. The dog was spooked. Chuck, a recent widower, spent three weeks trying to find his dog. He works full time. He doesn’t own a computer. But he dutifully checked the Animal Services lost and found line daily.

Three weeks later, he gets a call. Your dog is at Animal Services. Come get her. he rushes out there the next morning — only to find out the dog was adopted out to another family days prior. What????????? No one can figure that out.

Even worse, the second family refuses to give up Annie and Animal Services won’t step in. Chuck keeps trying to contact Dr. Eric Anderson, but Anderson isn’t responding.

At the same time, several callers shared stories of having to deal with dog licensing issues at Animal Services by talking to people in . . . .Texas. So Animal Services is farming out, outsourcing county work to Texas???? Doesn’t that strike you as bizarre.

Not suirprisingly, the vast majority of callers believe Chuck should get Annie back, though our options seem limited.

Katcho is Chucks’s supervisor, so we’re asking folks to drop Katcho a friendly email at kachadjian@co.slo.ca.us and see if he can’t knock some sense into Animal Services.

Chuck was crying at the end of the show. He deserves to have Annie back.

Jeff Hamm, director of the county health agency, doesn’t seem to understand why Annie and Chuck should be reunited. His phone number is 788-2855.

Program Notes:

I will be away friday, Monday, and Tuesday. Suzan Vaughn, Jeff Eckles, Mardi Hall, Steve Weiss, Jack Hardy, and Dr. Scott Robertson run the show in my absence.