Dog shelter would have outside review under plan

Seven months after a distemper outbreak resulted in 99 dogs being euthanized at Franklin County’s dog shelter, county officials plan to hire the University of Wisconsin to consult on how to prevent it from happening again.

“I think it’s awesome because we needed a third party to come in and assess the situation,” said Mary O’Connor-Shaver, of Ohio Voters for Companion Animals.

She and many other animal advocates were outraged when the dogs were euthanized. They wanted to know how to make sure it didn’t happen again. Advocates began regularly attending Franklin County Commissioners meetings to have their concerns heard.

Next week, commissioners will consider a resolution that would allow the county to pay the University of Wisconsin up to $50,000 to review the shelter’s policies and investigate how distemper, an infectious respiratory virus, was allowed to spread.

“We want an independent, professional review,” deputy county administrator Kris Long said. “We want outside expertise ... and practical written recommendations for best practices.”

The University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine has a Shelter Medicine program headed by Sandra Newbury. The school tested the dogs for distemper in September at the Franklin County Dog Shelter.

Franklin County has an open shelter that accepts all dogs, and in a year can house as many as 10,000. Animal advocates criticized the shelter, saying it stayed open too long after distemper was suspected and continued to allow dogs, some possibly exposed to distemper, to be adopted. Eventually, the shelter closed for about two weeks to deal with the disease, but was criticized by animal advocates for not doing more sooner to control the outbreak.

Hiring an entity to review the dog shelter’s operations and consult going forward was one of two major steps commissioners promised to take after the distemper outbreak. The second was to create an advisory committee to make suggestions on the shelter’s operations. Members of that committee are expected to be named soon.

“I think those two things together are critical going forward,” O’Connor-Shaver said.

Franklin County is responsible for the shelter, paying it $3.4 million annual budget. The review could take up to a year.