On Monday the Blytheville Code Enforcement and Animal Control committee met without the attendance of Chairman John Mayberry or Assistant Chief of Police Ricky Jefferson. While the meeting was planned to be rescheduled, several concerned citizens wished to bring concerns to the committee, so committee members Matt Perrin and John Musgraves held the meeting to hear from them.
Susie Langston from the Blytheville Humane Society began, “We’ve got kind of an issue because Michelle has adopted a dog out and she told the lady to go to the City Clerk’s office and pay $69, which the lady did…they told her to go to the Humane Society and fill out a form for the spay and neuter. That is not what the Humane Society agreed to do for the city. We were going to handle all the paperwork and the money and do the spay and neutering and rabies shots for the city, but we were going to do it.”
According to Langston, the woman came to the Humane Society after she paid the city. Langston said that the money for the spay/neuter service is supposed to go to the Humane Society and the HS will handle paperwork on who adopts the animals and check in with those who adopt animals like they do with their own adoptions. Musgraves stated that he will have Jefferson contact the HS to get everything clarified.
“We’ve already gotten pretty clarified, but (the Animal Control officer) with this instance didn’t do it correctly (and the woman) has paid $69 to the city of Blytheville and we can’t do the spay and neuter and the vaccinations until we get our money,” Langston said.
Langston also asked how often the animal control officers were spending time at the shelter cleaning the kennels and feeding the animals. She stated that she had heard that the truck is sitting at dispatch all the time.
Shannon Holtsclaw, the woman who adopted the dog from the Blytheville Animal Control, spoke to the council about her experience inside the shelter.
“When I went to pick up the Cane Corso that I went to get they had had him for a while. He weighed about 65 pounds and he is supposed to weigh between 93 to 120 pounds so that tells you how underweight he was. She gave him a little bowl of food, they are supposed to be fed at least three times a day. Two cups is usually what you feed them. I’ve had them before that is how I know all this. In the two weeks that I’ve had him he has probably gained 30 pounds…He is not the only one that is starving. When I walked through there to get to where he was, all those dogs look skinny. You can see their bones and it is disgusting,” Holtsclaw said.
She added one’s eyes begin to burn from simply walking into the shelter due to the smell and presence of urine and feces in the shelter. She said that if she was in charge of the shelter she would have fired those who currently work there.
Holtsclaw said that the dog was so weak she was afraid he would die in the first few days after she adopted him.
“Y’all know this has been an ongoing issue; it has not changed. Something has got to be done,” Langston said.
Those present in the committee stated that they intended to speak to Jefferson the following day about the issues at the shelter. Musgraves said that he would be in contact with Holtsclaw to get her money back, so that she could pay the Humane Society for the neutering and shots for the dog.