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.
Leave a comment
The Dave Congalton Show 
None of this makes any sense. Most people want to adopt young dogs, not dogs that are 7-8 years old unless they are doing rescue work, and if they are doing rescue work they would surely return a dog to the rightful owner. I pray that i am wrong but it would not surprise me if animal services has not been caught in a major lie. How much time passes before the animals at the shelter are euthanized ? I certainly hope that Annie was not put to sleep by mistake and then when and if Texas called and told Chuck that she was ready for pick up …..well instead of confessing a blunder, they said so sorry, she has been adopted and the new owners dont want to give her back, so go away and leave us alone. (Never thinking so much publicity would be made of this) I hope i am wrong but I got to say that the people who have annie either need to give her back or need to be exposed to the dog loving community for public shunning….Karen V HELP
I don’t agree that the answer is “public shunning” or any other form of aggressive, antagonistic and offensive actions against the new “owners” of Chuck’s dog.
Nevertheless, this situation is a travesty. Someone needs to look into whether or not it is a matter of public record as to who adopted Chuck’s dog. It has been implied that information about the new “owners” of the dog is confidential, but I’m not sure if that is true. What are the facts about this? I would be very surprised if adoption records are confidential. If they are confidential, I would like to read the law that states this, please.
At this point it is very difficult for the public to know if the Animal Shelter folks are telling us the truth about any of this. There definitely needs to be more transparency. And the new “owners” of Chuck’s dog need to be made aware of the situation and given every opportunity to do the right thing and return the dog to Chuck.
I am surprised at the callusness of the new “owners”. This is a dog not a child. So replacing the dog with a new one and making this situation right by everyone seems to be the only humane thing to do. For these new owners to refuse seems incredibly cold hearted and selfish. The outsourcing of the animal service to Texas is also a head scratcher. Isn’t there a minimum wage, high school kid type person out there that would be willing to do the work? Just like “buy American”, why doesn’t the county have a “buy SLO” mentality? Makes me wonder where else our county goes for things? Do they buy cop cars local or do they go down to LA to get them? How far does it go and how much money are they really saving? All in all this is a very unusual situation brought about because of Annie getting lost. I hope that someone can step in and mediate this thing and make it right.
So, Mr. “Sloconservative” is in favor of the big government getting involved and deciding whether a man gets his dog taken away.
Is slaughtering cows for meat “properly” caring for an animal?
Dogs are animals and occasionally don’t live by man’s rules.
And what nerve some “conservative” has in attacking a man and hoping for his dog to be taken away.
Some people are such control freaks and are ready at the drop of a hat to attack people, take their property and break hearts simply because a dog got away from a loving owner.
Typical. Sloconservative doesn’t have all the facts, but rushes to judgment, criticizing and condemning others, based primarily on his own anger, frustration and fantasy world, imagining he is oh so much wiser than everyone else. But he is just angry because of his own failings, but cannot accept that, and thus lashes out at others in order to get a sense of control on his own world that he is so out of tune with. Its a Gestapo type mentality. Very typical among the self-styled radical extremist “conservatives”.
Get a layer and sue, easy.
Whoops! Lawyer……..
There appears to have been a lot of pressure placed on the family that legally adopted the dog. I feel bad for them. I have no doubt that they received phone call and emails that were not nice. I sometimes think it is better for individuals to work out these problems, and keep the media pressures out of it. The original owner got his dog back, but at what cost Dave???
What “cost” are you talking about, Cruncher? What are you talking about?
Personally, I’m glad that our society, for the most part, does not condone a “finders keepers” attitude when it comes to accidental loss of personal property.
It’s ironic to see all the extremist “conservatives” supporting the notion that the government —in this case through Animal Services—has the right to confiscate people’s personal pets and sell them to others and not even give the original owner any compensation.