Welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host, Dr. G, and our music is produced and written by Mike Sullivan. Today we have a special guest. We have Ashley Bishop from the podcast Animal Control Report. Welcome, Ashley. Thank you so much for having me. So I'm really excited about having you and, this is part one of a two-part episode. Part two is gonna be your co-host, Dan Edinger. How about you tell us about yourself, kind of the path that brought you to where you're at.

Sure. Um, it started way, way back when, um, I started with our local Humane Society at the age of 13 volunteering, and I did everything from kennel tech to adoptions. You name it, I did it. And at the age of 18, um, we had just gotten humane officers through our Humane Society at that time. They got to go out on a call and it was, it was a mess. It was. 80 dogs on 80 acres of land. They were trying to catch 'em. The dogs were basically feral. The owner was living out of her car. The weeds, I kid you not two feet above our heads. It was a complete jungle out there. Um, so after we worked a full shift at the Humane Society, we all went out and we all had to try to round up as many of the dogs as we could. And that was just kinda. That was the point where I was like, Nope, I want to go from just doing law enforcement, which was an interest of mine to, I wanna go into being a humane officer. Um, however, Watching the way that they had to operate, um, get a veterinarian out on scene and then they had to have the Sheriff's Department out with them cuz they weren't deputized, they weren't working with the sheriff's department, they were just with our local Humane Society. Um, I decided I wanted to go a different route and I eventually went and got my vet tech degree. So I'm a certified veterinary technician as well. And then, I actually, I graduated with my vet tech degree in January. Applied for the brand new humane officer position, um, that they had really pushed forward because of a really nasty case they had in my area. And by July I was the hu brand new first and only humane officer in my area. And I've been doing it for 10 years now.

Awesome. And where is it that you are based out of?

I'm in central Wisconsin. I cover four different jurisdictions. Um, I'm primarily in one city, and then they kind of contract me out for the other three. Okay.

So being a technician has to be super useful, right? Oh, because you're gonna be able to understand stuff. How has being a technician helped you in, in help with some of the cases that you have worked with?

Um, it has made being able to observe things a whole lot easier. Um, One story I love to tell is I had a dog that was kicked down a flight of stairs and he was limping, he was whining, he was, um, and this was several days after the incident. Um, he was still exhibiting the symptoms and I charged the person criminally weeks go by and we had. Pretrial hearing, and I got called up to give my testimony and I tell 'em what I had to say and get cross-examined by the defense and they said, well, what gives you the authority to say that the animal was in pain? And I looked at her and I said, well, I am a certified veterinary technic. She looked at the judge and goes, no further questions. And that was it, like, absolutely no clue. Um, and it actually recently helped me too with a case where I had, uh, three dogs that were involved with a domestic situation as well. And um, they had some pretty extensive injuries, but because. Part of it too, because I couldn't have decent photographs. It's really hard to photograph the sclera of a dog's eye when they're moving right and by yourself. Um, so I didn't have good evidence of that, but because I have my, my background, the judge was willing to accept that its testimony and not need the photographs.

Excellent. Yeah, cuz I think that's something that like veterinarians and technicians forget about the, the importance of having both photographs and a good written medical log. Right? Like, yeah. Not everything. One of the things that I have found the. The hardest to photograph is like problems inside of the ear will be examining a dog with, like I do. I've worked hoarding cases in large scale volume cases, so dogs will have really horrible ear problems and you try to take pictures and you spend 15, 20 pictures and you get nothing. Sure. So the importance of having that written information about how bad things look like.

And smell. So how ha

Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. Like things that you cannot capture in a picture. Right. If you wanted to. So what kinda, what kinda cases do you see in your area most frequently?

Um, I mean, we've had everything from a hoarding case of 54 cats in a single wide mobile home. That one surprisingly enough. You know, I normally get told by child productive services. Oh no. You know, they're, they're 13, 14. They know they can help around the house. They can clean. They're not gonna eat cat poop. We don't need to remove 'em. You know, things like that. I had c p s remove a 15 year old that day. Wow. I, I asked the lady, I'm like, Well, I said, how many litter boxes do you have? Oh, I have one and I clean it every day. I said, no, ma'am, you have two. You have your litter box and your house.

Right? Your house

is a litter box. Oh, it was, it was bad. It was so bad. Um, but yeah, 54 cats in a single wide mobile home. Um, like I said, I've got some of the animal abuse. I believe I have some cock fighting and dog fighting, but nothing I've been able to put my finger on yet. Um, I have my suspicions, I have my certain people I'm watching, but nothing I can do anything with yet. Um, your general. Stray animals. Um, we do pick up stray cats and dogs for one of my jurisdictions, three of my jurisdictions. We don't do stray cats anymore. It's a fight.

Um, So

I do see a little bit of everything. You know, I'm up in Wisconsin, so we have extreme temperatures. When I kid you not, we had 80 degrees on Wednesday and Thursday it was 40 degrees, and Friday it was snowing. So, Geez.

I mean, that's kind of here in Ohio, it was something similar. We had two beautiful days of 80 degrees, and then yesterday it dropped down to 50, and today it was 47. And yesterday, my house, it was hailing snow. Yeah. So it was ju it's just like ridiculous. So I feel your pain. Um, and, and yeah, like just the, the people that don't realize that the temperature's gonna change from one day to another. So today you have to protect them from the cold weather, and tomorrow you have to protect them from the. Right. So how, how are the, um, the rules in Wisconsin as far as protecting animals from extreme weather? Are there like awful housing?

They're, they're awful. Um, my local ordinances, um, I have one that says, has to be 75 degrees or warmer, and they have to be in the vehicle 30 minutes or. Oh

wow. So they have to be dead pretty much before you can do something.

Be isis. If I wanna do anything with a municipal citation, now I can use my state statutes. Um, that. Say, okay, if they are imminent danger or they've got, um, they should be in ambient temperatures and things like that, I can use my state statute. So typically if I'm removing an animal, that's what I'm doing. Um, but those are even very tricky because, um, Shelter could be, oh, they have access to under the porch, you know? Um, doesn't have to be anything specific. In fact, I do, I can, I have a couple areas where livestock could be a thing I deal with. Um, I don't deal with it often, but, You know, even having just a lean to just having tree cover can be considered shelter for them. It, depending on the DA that you get.

Right? Yeah. Here. Recently it was passed the law that if you think that an animal is in danger, like you have to call the police department, you have to call for help first. But if you feel that they're in danger, you can break a window to get an animal out. So is that different than where you're at? No.

You can do that here. Um, I worry that I'd have some people, I have had people standing outside vehicles in jackets worried that it was too hot in a vehicle for a dog, um, windows down and everything. Um, yeah. I've also had people tell me that the windows were all the way up when it was cold enough, so heat was not a concern. They were concerned that the dog wasn't getting air like it was gonna run out of oxygen because the windows were all the way up. So I worry about those people breaking windows, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And, and from what I understand, the statute here is like you have to prove that you had enough of a concern. So either take a picture, take a video, something so that. I mean, I can totally see somebody just being a jerk and saying, oh, this person left their car, the dog in a car, and that's not okay. I'm just gonna break their window because I can, and I'm protected. Right? Like, you kind of have to show to show what what's going on. And they don't realize

that the Tesla has a setting that you can put the Tesla on that has it set to a specific temperature for animals. Like they have an animal setting in the Teslas.

I did not know that. Yeah, that's pretty, that was pretty good on Tesla. That's pretty advance on Tesla. Uh, yeah, because one of the concerns that we get into here is like people that will set their auto. And then I'm just going to the store for 10 minutes. Well, they stay in the store for an hour. Mm-hmm. And the auto start stopped within like 30 minutes. So we do see on occasion, like the, the overheated animal, um, But we also see plenty of overheated animals that aren't just outside, like in the yard and they just, yeah, get left outside for too long, especially older, older dogs and that kind of stuff. So how, um, you were talking about hoarding cases. How do you see mostly like overwhelmed caregiver hoarders, or do you see rescue hoarders, exploiters? A little bit of everything. What are your coolest hoarding stories?.

I don't feel like I've ever seen the exploiter ones. Um, it's usually elderly or somehow mentally challenged. Um, that in fact, going back to the 54 Cats, that was a woman who got two cats and never got 'em fixed and never did anything with them. Um, and so. You know, she just, and I, I got very frustrated on that case because I was told by the captain, um, well, it's her problem. She's gotta figure out a way to cl clean it up and, and get rid of him. And I'm like, but she obviously can't. This has been a hundred point for years. And she can't. Um, and so I had to make the connections and contact multiple jurisdictions and be like, Hey, can you take cats and stuff? Um, we recently actually going back, it was very nostalgic for me in a way. Um, our current executive director at our Humane Society, so I work for a police department. But I work very closely with our shelter and the executive director is somebody I used to work with when I worked at the shelter. We were both, you know, 16 years old starting out there, and her and I got asked to assist on another case of hoarding where, um, again, it, it was just that overwhelmed elderly gentleman who. Pretty sure I walked into the house to get a dog and he was just peeing on his floor himself. Um, geez. That's the only reason I can assume his pants were below his knees. But, um, Again, the weeds were just, you know, above my head and nothing on the property was well cared for. Um, he had said that at one point he thought he had over a hundred cats, but the dogs had eaten them all. Oh, wow. We, we only found four cats, um, and plenty of skeleton. But geez. Um, that seems to be our, our big thing over here is more the overwhelmed and just not intentional. Um, but, and it's usually pretty extreme too. Um, His, what did we take out of there? 2023 dogs, again, all running loose everywhere, not contained at all. So that was another very long day.

Yeah, I, people always say reproduce like rabbits. People should say reproduce like cats because cats just like, it's like, I mean, just never ending. I actually, I'm working on a case. Of somebody that came to me asking for help and neutering some cats and you, you kind of get an idea when somebody has a lot of animals. You get your spidey scents up mm-hmm. And you know that something's up. And she was asking for help neutering 13 male cats. And to me that sounded awkward or odd, right? Like who needs to neuter 13 cats? So I started asking her more questions and more questions and getting her comfortable with me. And then she said, well, because we're just, if we fix the males, then we don't have to worry about them. We're producing. And I was like, well, how many females are we talking about? Yeah. So at the end of asking, she had 96. Oh, so yeah. Right. So I'm like keeping my cool and I'm just talking to her because the other thing about hoarders, anybody that has been into a hoarding house knows the smell of a hoarding hose. Mm-hmm. And that smell sticks with you for like two, three days after you're done. Yep. And people that live in a hoarding house smell like they can leave the house, but the smell comes with them. Right. She did not like, she did not smell, she did not emanate that, that stent. She looked really clean. She didn't, she was very kind, very nice. And then she's showing me pictures of these cats. And these cats look fine, right? Mm-hmm. So I tell my staff when my staff is like, we need to take the truck there, right? Because I have a spay neuter truck. So it's like, we need to just go to her house and take care of this. So we went to her house and you would not believe how clean that house was. Really small. Two bedroom home, 96 cats indoors. Wow. She had had them separate males and females separate in different rooms. Uh, she had nine litter boxes. Her, her and her family. Yeah. Oh yeah. Nine boxes. Everything gets cleaned every three hours. So I mean, this woman should run a shelter because the house with all these cats are. Kept cleaner and better than most shelters. And the main reason I'm writing a case study, I mean, first of all, it's to me amazing that somebody would have 96 cats and have a clean house, but she has a support system, right? Mm-hmm. So most hoarders don't have family that are supporting them, and she has a husband and a son that are supporting. And they're helping with the, the money and the cleaning and everything that has to do with these sounds. But the other thing is, is she, is she really able to maintain this long term or did I catch her at that point before it gets outta hand? Sure. And it becomes a smelly house. Right. So, um, Following. We, we went to her house and we sterilized everybody that was not sterilized. So we sterilized 66 cats that day. Oh. Um, yeah. Right. And, uh, so we're like, okay, no more cats, please. Like, yeah, this is, this is it. Um, so I'm going to, to continue monitoring. Just to make sure that, that she's doing okay. I mean, I don't want her to fail. I would love for her to keep a clean house forever. None of the cats are sick. By the way. None of the cats are dirty. She has long-haired cats that don't have mats. Wow. There's no poop outside. I have two cats. I can't keep my two cats from going in the bathroom outside of their box. Right. This woman has 96 cats. All of them go in their. Wow. Amazing. Right?

So, but then you, so you almost have to wonder, you know, does she have something else like some O C D that's contributing to the, her success

and, and I mean, she cleans houses for her living. Okay. So she has that in her. Sure. Kinda kinda say, you know, like that's one of the things that she does, but it's really. She got in, she got into this problem, like you mentioned. You know, you start with two cats. So she had a few cats and then all of a sudden she had 20 cats and then she had 30 cats. But they were all sterilized because she was getting them a little bit at a time. And then her husband brings home several cats from a construction site, and they were all pregnant. She got seven pregnant cats. So all of a sudden she went, and this was last year, right? So all of a sudden she goes from 35 or so cats to 90 cats. So again, are we, are we seeing somebody that can manage or are we seeing the early stages before becoming an overwhelmed? Caretaker hoarder that that is gonna have problems. And listening to her story is just kind of sad because she doesn't wanna get rid of any of the cats. So she's an overwhelmed caretaker, but she's also a rescue hoarder. Mm-hmm. Because she feels that she's the best person for it. But in her, in her lifetime, she has had so many negative experiences with people hurting animals. Mm-hmm. That she's afraid that she's going to adopt a cat. And then, you know, somebody's gonna hurt the cat or, or kill it, or even not just give it affection. Um, so, so yeah, it's a really interesting

overall story. Now imagine if, I mean, there's a veterinarian shortage and mm-hmm. Our clinics are. Backed up months. I've got a dangerous dog that isn't gonna get spayed until August. Mm-hmm. She's supposed to be spayed by the end of, or by the middle of next month. Um, so imagine if she didn't find you in your clinic. Mm-hmm.

No, exactly. Because she, none of the cats that we spayed were pregnant. Right. Which I was really surprised because it was March. So it was the beginning of kitten season here. So nobody was pregnant and she had the intact females separated from the in intact males. Okay. However, she had at least one female that she had sex wrong. Oh, in the room with the boys. So that right there would've started the whole cycle again. And I mean, I was really surprised. 96 cats and she only missed sex. One adult and a couple of babies. The brand new babies like eight weeks. Okay. And she knew na, she knew names. Most of the hoarders that I, that I meet, they have no idea who's who. Um, she, she knew their ages, like all the ages that she gave us, matched like their teeth perfectly. So it was just pretty amazing. And again, I think that it's because she has a support structure as opposed to most hoarders, their family just abandons them because they can't deal with the animals, they can't deal with the smell, they can't deal with all. All the junk that they carry. Right.

So I can only imagine how much money she was spending on food and litter. Mm-hmm. And I would assume cleaning supplies. Cuz I'm sure that those males, they, I mean, they had to have been spraying. I know

she said that they were not spraying. She said that occasionally they were having some accidents because they were boys. So, I mean, I suppose spring, but yeah. Not, not really anything that was, that was significant. Huh. Um, but yeah, she, they spend more money on the cats that they spend on themselves and they find themselves sometimes having to go out and search for places for food. Sure. Like food banks and stuff, because they wanna make sure that the cats are taken care of. Sure. So, yeah, it was a, it was a really interesting story because the other, the other thing is, I don't know if you guys, it doesn't sound like you have a number of animal maximum allowed. It's, we. Do you? Okay,

it's two. What is your two cat, or I'm sorry, two dogs and, and or three cats depending on my jurisdiction. So that's my main jurisdiction, and then it varies anywhere from two animals total to, in one of my areas it's three dogs, four cats. So how

would that then work out with, like you said, the one lady that the chief is like, she has to figure it out, like isn't it then the department's job to figure it out for her?

Yeah. Well, and I, I made it my job to figure it out for her. Um, that department is particularly hands off on a lot of things. Um, but. For the most part, I will try to work with people in encouraging them to do, you know, surrenders or find other friends or family that want to take on more animals or, and animal and adopt it out themselves. Um, so I, I'm trying to think if in my 10 years, if I've ever had to. Force somebody, I can't remember a time where I've actually had to force somebody short of these extreme ones and she ended up, um, lady with my 54 cats. She was gonna try to keep two of them and I was going to make it. A stipulation that if she kept two, they were going to be the same sex and they were gonna be fixed before they were able to stay back at her house. Um, but then at the very last minute, she signed everybody over to me. Hmm. Um, I'm not lucky enough to get that to work all the time. I, there's very. Extreme differences between how I handle our animal stuff versus like how our county handles our animal stuff. Um, the county will, so I did the agency assist for those 25 dogs they sat for months. So I guess he actually could have been a rescuer cuz they were always strays that he found and, and he just couldn't give up. He wouldn't surrender 'em at all and the county would leave them sit at the shelter. And it was incredibly frustrating for the shelter cuz they can't do anything with them. Mm-hmm. They're just taking up space. Um, and it took several months to get custody of those dogs for the shelter versus. I had three dogs. I took on a search warrant and I immediately, the next week started the process of petitioning the court for custody of the dogs, giving the opportunity to the owners to surrender 'em, which they weren't going to because they were, um, breeding them, uh, doodles of any sort. It didn't matter. Yeah. Um, but so, I, I get working on it right away in a lot of it as a, it costs my jurisdiction a lot of money just to pay the shelter for having cared for them for me, but then I don't have to worry about these animals just sitting there in kennels when they could be adopted, you know, and get out in, into homes as long as they're healthy and, uh, you know, everything that way. So it's very different. And it's interesting up here cuz we don't have, and it's one thing I really wanna work on, I just, it's, it's a very time consuming and just haven't had the time with my own family and stuff to do. It is, we don't have a, like a state humane organization for humane officers. Um, and so I'm finding out. Every jurisdiction is treating their humane officers and their animal cases incredibly different. I found out the other day one of our humane officers just to the county next to me is running out of her own vehicle. She doesn't have a uniform. She had to buy her own, um, bulletproof vest and that she's working for their sheriff's department. Wow. and she's not the only one I know of in this state that is under those guidelines. And then you have me who, I've got a bulletproof vest. It's questionable, but I have one, um, you know, I have a full uniform, I have a badge, I have a baton and pepper spray, and I have direct access to our dispatch and all the other officers in my area. Um, It's very different in how things can get run up here and how bringing it back, like I will just say, Hey, work on finding a home for these extra animals. Figure out who you can't keep contact, the humane society, contact, rescues, whatever you gotta do. Versus, I know some areas would just go in and be like, Nope, you can't have 'em. I'm taking 'em.

I mean, I guess we're a little bit lucky in Ohio that most places tend to seem to have some support. But I know that more, a lot of places, especially rural areas, do not have a lot of support. Now, one thing that Ohio has is the ability to assign an animal, uh, special animal prosecutor to cases. Is that something. Uh, doesn't exist where you're at. I take it specifically

my county. No. For a while there I did, but we're seeing a lot of turnaround in our, um, DA's office. I don't know if it's that they're coming in to start their career and then they, you know, go off and do something else. Um, I have not had an animal prosecutor specifically for years, so I have to, essentially, I have to retrain everybody for a new case. And I say that I train 'em because nine times outta 10, they haven't ever opened up our animal laws. Yeah,

I had, I mean, I. One case of bestiality that I was telling the people that I was working with that that was illegal and they were like, oh no, it's not illegal. Because sadly enough, it was legal up to just a few years ago in Ohio. Yeah. So, uh, it became illegal and apparently the memo didn't go out to everybody. Right. So, so, yeah. So it's so important to have somebody that, that deals with animals. We we're really lucky that there is. Uh, law office here in Ohio that deals with animal cases and the law allows them to go outside of their county, right? So they can go in any county and replace the local prosecutor for animal related cases. So it's super helpful because they are so good, so smart, so knowledgeable. You don't have. Explain to them what the law is. They actually explained to me what the law is. Right. Nice. And it's really, it's really nice and easy to work with. I, I worked with a starvation case where the prosecutor didn't really care about prosecuting the starvation case because he already had some other charges against the people. So they were like, well, we already have enough charges. We don't care about this dog charge. Yep. But that dog charge would've potentially been a felony. And these are people with children. So, I mean, there are so many ramifications of going after these people who are, they literally starve the dog to death in the basement on purpose. Yep. And there's, there's proof, like, are, are you

sure you're not, are you sure you're not in Wisconsin? Because I have it like exact same case.

Yeah. Well, and you know, I have learned over time. What I have to improve in my reports and my evaluations to help the prosecutors wanna have a conviction. So in that case, I had the University of Florida do entomology report on the bugs that were recovered from the body. I had Michigan State University do a bone, uh, bone marrow. Fat analysis to determine that the dog was starved. I did a CT scan, X-rays I examined did a full ne on the dog. I mean, that case was like almost like human forensics examined. Mm-hmm. And we had everything. And the prosecutor didn't not believe that there was abuse. They just literally, they don't want, they didn't care to pursue it just because they didn't. So that was really, really upsetting. Whereas having an animal prosecutor, it has been a game changer, uh, for me. You know, as long as I write a, a good report and I have something productive to, to show, then they're very willing to, to move forward with it

solely. Out of curiosity, what was, do you remember what the, uh, bone marrow fat was in that dog?

The one was 14 I believe. Which was like ridiculously low. I did two. Two starvation. Yeah. Yes. Jesus. And they didn't wanna prosecute. Geez. See, and I had, I had two that I submitted. That one was about 14. The other one was 30 something, 36 I believe. And the difference was the one with 36 also had no access to water. Mm-hmm. So I think that dog clearly died of dehydration. Sure. Before it died of starvation. But the other dog had access to water. I think that dog literally lived, its 30 days of No. Until it just literally starved to death. And it's, I think that, you know, prosecutors that are not interested in animal welfare don't understand the ramifications of it because they don't understand that these people didn't care about that life in their basement to the point of letting it start to death. They don't care about anybody else. They don't care about the kids, they don't care about anything. And there was domestic violence in that household. So, I

mean, and that's all the link, right? Exactly, and I'm, I'm a huge proponent for the link and, um, because I've had that case, um, again, I also had kids in the house. They showed me the food that was inside the house, even though the dog was, you know, in a common area in a hallway. Um, she also had parvo and main. Um, which correct me if I'm wrong, it's normal body or normal fat content should be 80% in bone marrow.

It's actually, I believe 54 is the minimum. Okay. I, I don't know. That's what the Michigan State ranges.

Okay. I was told that now. I mean, my case is, this case is, uh, 5, 6, 7 years old. Um, but I'm pretty sure I was originally. Like the ideal would be 80%. Um, but what I've actually started doing, because I don't get the prosecutions and I don't get 'em taken in and charges dealt out the way that I want them to, is when I have these little bit bigger cases. And again, my department is finicky on how much and where they're willing to spend their money. I have been working a lot with the A S P C A and their forensic team. Nice. Because my thought is, is if I can work with an national organization and I can get a national organization backing me on enough of these cases, maybe my DA's office will finally look at it and go, oh. This big name is willing like to take this case. Maybe I should too. Plus the A S P C A has a legal team that they are willing to have contact the prosecuting attorneys and work with them on their laws and how to prosecute it and things like that. So I whew. Um, in the last. Two years or so. I think I've had five or six cases. I'm like on a first name basis with their forensic bet.

That's a good friend to have.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, because yeah, it's been. The one case I just texted her, I'm like, all right, is this one even worth the one? That wasn't even my case cuz we had puppies in garbage bags that were sitting out in the sun. So of course they were all bloated and it was bad. And she's like, wow, that one's gonna be really hard to determine a lot of information from. So it was nice to be able to just quick text her and have her tell me that. But, I'm hoping that working with a national organization will bring some awareness to the severity of it. I, every new officer, they usually get a couple hours with me for training purposes. I emphasize the link and the fact. 70% of domestic violence has an animal component to it. If there's an animal in the home, um, and vice versa. So, I've been trying to get our new officers to understand that as well because there's been a lot of times where we actually got to tack on extra charges. Guys stabbed his boyfriend in the chest. He was high on meth, and when our, um, domestic violence team went in a couple days later to do an interview. She looked at the dog and the dog was limping. And she goes, Hey, do you know what's up with the dog? And he is like, oh yeah, that night, you know, my boyfriend kicked the dog. Well, she added on a charge for that. Yeah. It wasn't anything severe. And you know, the dog was just sore. But that's an extra charge.

Yeah. Is there, Ohio recently passed when the last couple of years passed the mandatory reporting law. Is there something like that in w. Yes,

I am not. I'm not a hundred percent sure if it pertains to our veterinarians. Um, And honestly, if it does, I know I'm gonna have to probably educate them because many times I call and say, Hey, I need medical records for this animal, or I need rabies information. And they're like, um, I don't know if I can give you the, no, you can give me that.

Right. Yeah. There's no HIPAA offer

animals. And I've had them say that. I'm like, guys, really?

There's, yeah. That's not a thing. Yeah, there's no HIPAA law. There's confidentiality of information for the clients, like personal information for the clients. Right. But there's no HIPAA law for the animals. Yes.

Yeah. So, um, but I actually recently, a couple of different times that's been brought up and I, I don't know if Wisconsin pertains to veterinarians. I know our vets in the area do contact me if they've got concerns so, I think some of 'em just don't care. Yeah,

right. No, yeah. That's really good. Because one of the, one of the issues, and I would, I went in to testify as a proponent of the law passing because I have seen veterinarians that have witnessed incidents where it was definitely animal abuse or the animal was injured, and then the person. Mentioned that they were being abused and the veterinarian didn't wanna get involved. Mm-hmm. And they didn't wanna get involved because they didn't wanna be wrong, they didn't wanna get somebody in trouble. They were afraid of what was gonna happen to them and all of these things. And in, and in my mind, it's like, okay, well if you're not saying something and you're just sending this person back to an abuser, Whatever happens to them yet, you're not the person hurting them, but you didn't do anything to stop it, right? Yeah. So to me, that mandatory law was really important because it eliminates the, I don't wanna get involved. Now you have to get involved because if you don't get involved, then there's gonna be a fine, there's gonna be a penalty, there's gonna be something. And then it also gives you protections for if you're wrong, but you did it in good faith because, yep. I mean, we have seen cases that we think, oh, this. Not taking care of their animal. And then the animal control officer goes to the house and do a well check and everything's fine or there's something, you know, some reason to explain it. So they cannot come after me and say, oh, well you call the animal control officer on us. It's slander or whatever. No, it was in good faith. Right. Right. And it is, it is so important. One of the, one of the biggest concerns that I have heard from animal control officers that I've been dealing with lately is that they can't get their veterinarians to get involved in cases. Write, write letters, write reports, or they will write a report, but it's kind of flimsy, right? So it's very, it's very like, well, we couldn't really tell this or that or the other. And it's just, They, they don't wanna say anything that's gonna make 'em have to go testify in court. Right. So, um, but that is just so important to be able to, to take care of it. Um, so being, being a technician, clearly that helps you with being able to identify things. Do, do you have veterinarians, you said that you had that the veterinarians will call and make reports. Do you have some go-to veterinarians that are useful and. Help with writing reports or consultations or even going to court or do you meet a lot of resistance?

I haven't actually had to have any of them go to court yet. Um, and again, that. Kind of still comes back to me reaching out to the A S P C A. I have a couple of vets that I think would, uh, be willing to go to court. Problem is, is the majority of the time, they're not the ones that are available at the time, I would need them to observe. So they'd be going based off of somebody else's report. Um, And even with the A S P C A, if I can't get the animal down to specifically their forensic offices in Florida, if I can't get the animal there cuz it's still alive or something, they'll walk the vets here through what needs to be done. Um, and they'll contact them directly. And then A S P C A writes the. The medical report. So if anybody has to testify, they would do it. And that's just the last couple of years how I've been doing it. Um, I've had a couple of instances where we had one, uh, drug deal gone bad that a dog got shot in, um, and. We have an emergency clinic up here, and actually my, the officers, they're like, Nope, your, your vehicle, you're not in your vehicle coming here yet. We're on our way. And they just ran the dog to the emergency clinic and I met them there. And of course the clinic was incredibly busy that day. So, um, while we were waiting for. Owner to figure out what she wanted to do with the dog. He, I mean, he was decompensating pretty quickly, but, um, I stood by and, you know, I was taking his vitals, freeing up. That's actually another thing where it's been nice to have my C V T because the rest of the vet staff was able to do what they need to do for regular clinic time, and I could monitor, I'm sticking with the evidence and. Actually doing the tprs and everything that needed to be done until they figured out what we were gonna do with the dog. Um, so that has been beneficial, but I've also recently been met with some resistance. I had a cat that we really weren't sure if she had been intentionally. Harmed or maybe hit by a car. It was a very weird situation where, you know, I picked her up. She had very neurologic signs. She was doing that, that meow, you know, the meow? Mm-hmm. Um, so I have her in a towel. I put her in a carrier. I get out to the clinic and I get the carrier, and now she's sitting upright and I'm. I don't, I don't understand cuz I expected you to be dead by now. You know? Um, and that one, the clinic would not let me in back it. They take all the animals in back and I was like, but guys, this, number one, this cat may be considered evidence of a crime. Number two, you know, I am A C V T and number three I'm law enforcement, you know? Right. Um, But they absolutely would not allow me back with the cat. Huh. So I find that it definitely depends on the clinic. It depends on who's working at the time.

Yeah. That's what I mean. I, I guess from, from my standpoint, I've always been very animal welfare oriented. So kind of let's get everybody together to mm-hmm. Get things figured. But again, I've worked with veterinarians that don't wanna deal with it. Like you mentioned, that they don't wanna release information mm-hmm. Because of whatever confidentiality may be. And it becomes a problem now on the, on the other side of it. So we've been talking about kind of like the, the people that are harming. A lot of people think that animal control officers, all they do is bang on doors and take animals away and pick up dogs in the street. But my relationship with ACOs have been also on the side of well checks. Mm-hmm. So do you do a lot of well checks and can you tell me a case, a well check that has been, I don't know, significant or that stands out for you?

I do plenty of well checks, um, and. I encourage education before removing an animal. Um, I, I get that a lot. I'll even have people who, um, have a stray dog and I bring this stray dog back home to them and they're like, oh, you're not gonna take my dog away next if he gets out again, are you? And I'm like, no. That is like, it's, it's actually one of my pet peeves because people. Thinking that I'm killing everything. And yeah. Am I involved with euthanizing some animals, you know, especially dangerous animals. Yes, I am. Um, but that is not my goal. That is not my plan. Um, I gotta say that a majority of. My welfare checks, I, I wanna say 75% or more of them are actually, um, people over exaggerating. Mm-hmm. Um, I have to have a lot of conversations with people of, this might not be how you or I might keep our animals, whether it be tied up outside or not getting walked every day, or, or things like that. Might not be how you or I would do it, but that doesn't mean that it's illegal and it doesn't mean that it's harmful to the animal either. And I, I would say that that's probably more of what I get. I have used welfare checks on animals though to help other areas of my department. Where we know that, you know, we've got some potential drug abusers, we've got some concerns for the kids and things like that. I sometimes have a better way of weaseling my way in on the animal side of it. And I do wear a body cam. and so I can get into those areas and not only do welfare checks on the animals, but the other people in the household. I can't think of any one in, in particular right off the top of my head, but I have done that on several occasions. Yeah. We

had a, you know, we had somebody kind of like how you mentioned that some people do it maliciously or not knowing or whatever. We had a lady that, that we, we were presented with a dog with a broken leg and then somebody called to say that. Owner is an elderly lady and the caretaker is abusive, and the caretaker broke the puppy's leg. So, um, thankfully it was in my county where I had a really great relationship with the aco. So I called him in and I explained to him what was going on, and I told him that the, what the lady was saying about how the. Leg was fractured, did not fit with the type of fracture, right? The story that the caretaker said actually did fit with the type of fracture. So he went over to her house and he sat down with the lady and the caretaker and the, he's a really nice sweet man. So I mean, he knocks on the door and he's like, Hey, I'm just here. Because the vet was concerned about, The puppy and wanted to make sure that you're okay, that you're gonna be able to take the puppy back after surgery. You know, like that kind of stuff. And they were so happy that he was there. Yeah, because he was, he was so nice and he was kind, and he cared about the dog and he cared about them, and he was able to go in there and evaluate this elderly lady to make sure that she was not being abused. Right. Yep. Because to me, yeah, I care about the dog, but I care about the people as well, so I wanna make sure that there's not some older lady getting beaten up by her aid. Right. And nobody knows about it. So, you know, it was, it was just a, a really good overall

experience. Yeah. I, and those are fantastic. It makes me think about the other side of that. Mm-hmm.

Right? Where, where you get the

people that are, I don't abuse my animal, and why are you here? And my neighbors need to mind their own damn business. And, and they go off and, and I tend to take a step back and I look at 'em and I said, Hey, listen, I can only do my job if things are brought to my attention now. Right. Today you. You're right. I have no concerns for your animal. I'm glad your animal's being taken care of appropriately. But this person that did call it in, called in something that they thought was wrong, right? If they stopped doing that, I'm gonna stop fighting out about ones where something is wrong, and in trying to get them to realize, like, yes, it's frustrating for you, but really these are the people I, I can't do anything if I don't know about it. Right. No,

exactly. No, exactly. I mean, I had, I, I worked at a hospital, so a lot of the calls that we were making were from animals that we were seeing at the hospital. And more than one time somebody came in and just started yelling at us saying, you called the cops on me. It's like, no, I didn't call the cops on you. Yeah. I called the animal control officer to do a well check to make sure your pet was okay. Yeah. And you're here, here you are taking care of your pet, so I guess it works. Right. But they were mad, but they were, they were coming back to. Do whatever it was that the pet needed. So, I mean, clearly. Yeah, clearly it works. The system broken as it may be

sometimes. Sometimes it works, right? Yeah, it's, I mean, I feel like people everywhere find reasons to be angry one way or another. Whether they're doing something good or doing something bad. People tend to find reasons to be angry.

Exactly. Well, this has been, this has been awesome chatting with you. So is there anything that you wanna to say as far as, you know, ACOs in general or any, any last comments? Um,

my only thing would be, you know what, we all have a hard job, um, whether it be the vets in the clinic or ACOs out on the road and. Um, everybody needs to take care of themselves. Find somebody to talk to. and I'll just put it out there. You know, Dan and I have our podcast, the Animal Control Report. And you can find us on Facebook, and if you need to talk, you wanna talk stories, whatever, reach out to Dan and I because this is a fairly lonely career. I'm the only one in my jurisdiction I've got. Sheriffs deputies who take animal control stuff, but you know, we don't, we don't connect as well. I don't have a full department. So, um, find somebody that you can connect with and if you need somebody, it's us. We're here and stick together and do what we can for those that don't have a voice.

People should definitely listen to your podcast because it's amazing. I mean, Out of all the animal podcasts that I've listened to, I've listened to way more episodes of you guys, like both of you have such a great, it's just a great combination. Thank you. So I really enjoy it and your guests are amazing, so people definitely should, should check it out. Thank you so much for, for being. And to all our listeners, thanks for listening and thanks for caring.