Protective Custody Dogs
Dogs are kept in Protective Custody at the shelter if their owner has been in an accident or is sick and no one else can care for them. Other PC dogs have bitten people or attacked other dogs or cats and have been designated as vicious/dangerous dogs by the cities or the County. They are held at the shelter until the initial hearing and the appeals process is complete. This can take months.
The shelter is a dangerous place for PC dogs. Several have been killed by other dogs due to mishandling by shelter staff. The most recent of these incidents was the killing of Kitty, a 13 yr old dog sick with cancer. The dogs in the Pillsbury quarantine building were allowed to mix because the inside doors were left open after cleaning, and the other dogs attacked and killed her. In addition to other PC dogs being killed, several have been stolen from the shelter. One was stolen as recently as April 2016.
The County does not have adequate facilities to handle dogs in protective custody at the Santa Barbara Shelter. The HSUS guidelines specify that dogs held in substandard kennels should get at least two 20 minute exercise periods a day. At the SB shelter, even dogs that are easy to handle rarely get more than one yard session a day. The situation is worse for dogs that the County staffers don't want to handle. Sometimes they don't get out of their kennels for months, and if they are kept in the Pillsbury building the large dogs barely have room to turn around. The 3 PC American Bulldogs were held in this condition from November 2015 to March 2016 until they were euthanized.
Even dogs that can be handled by staff are sometimes not allowed to be exercised. Butters was held for 2.5 months without exercise except for a few days (see the full story about Butters). The County gave conflicting information about the reasons for this.
It is clear that the County needs to build new facilities so that the PC dogs can be treated humanely, or contract out this function to another facility.
Dexter, Floyd, and Jake. Three dogs put at risk by County decisions.