NEW CASTLE Animal shelter to pay fine

An audit of shelter records done by state officials should be released sometime this week.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Lawrence County Humane Society officials will pay a $200 fine and drop an appeal they filed after being found guilty of killing a stray dog within hours of receiving it, a violation of state law.
Humane society solicitor and board member Norman Levine said the decision was made after he met with state dog enforcement officials to clarify dog laws and how stray dogs should be handled.
He initially appealed District Justice Melissa Amodie's decision to fine the humane society. Levine said shelter workers did not classify the dog as a stray, but one that an owner relinquished. State dog law does not mandate the amount of time a shelter must keep a dog dropped off by an owner, but it does require shelters who receive state funding to keep stray dogs for 48 hours.
"There was some confusion on the part of our staff as to what the local dog warden had considered to be a stray or owner dog in the past. It was the feeling of the board that it was better to move forward in an enlightened position rather than to litigate the issue in which there was singular event," Levine said.
Meeting: Levine said board members met with Rick Burd, director of enforcement for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Dog Law, and Tom Wharry, Lawrence County dog warden, last month and formally dropped their appeal on Monday.
Wharry said a press release concerning that meeting should be released sometime this week.
The release will also address an investigation of humane society records done by Wharry and Burd last year after they received complaints that the shelter had killed the dog before the state-mandated 48-hour waiting period. Wharry said he could not say what that investigation revealed until the press release is issued.
Burd could not be reached for comment. He had previously said he planned to compare Wharry's records with those compiled by the humane society to determine if any other stray dogs were killed before the state-mandated 48 hours.
The humane society was found guilty in September of killing a stray beagle-mix within hours of it being dropped off at the shelter.
Ken and Debbie Milligan of Washington County testified they found the dog a few weeks earlier wandering near their home and tried to locate its owner. Debbie Milligan said they hoped to find the dog a home in Lawrence County where they came on a camping trip, but were unsuccessful.
They dropped it off at the Lawrence County Humane Society on June 15 and a few hours later received a call from someone claiming to be its owner. When Debbie Milligan called the shelter to retrieve the dog, she was told it was dead.
Workers' testimony: Humane society workers testified they classified the dog as an owner drop-off because the Milligans told them it had lived with them for three weeks. Workers said they decided to kill the dog because the shelter was full.
Levine said after the September hearing that board members decided to keep all dogs -- strays and owner drop-offs -- for 48 hours until state policy was clarified. However, it did mean that some dogs were turned away when the shelter became full, he said.
"Now that we have a better understanding of what the requirements are, we can be a bit more flexible," Levine said.