The Geauga County Dog Shelter has been adjusting and modernizing in many ways, said Dog Warden Matt Granito during the Dec. 16 Geauga County Commissioners meeting, outlining his office’s progress.
The Geauga County Dog Shelter has been adjusting and modernizing in many ways, said Dog Warden Matt Granito during the Dec. 16 Geauga County Commissioners meeting, outlining his office’s progress.
Granito, who has been dog warden for 24 years, reported the shelter has adopted out 90% of its dogs since 2002, something he referred to as a “90% live release rate.”
“We’re the highest shelter, (have) the best adoption rates in that period of time, of the 23 years that we’re talking,” he said. “And we’re even higher than that. Our numbers are usually up into the 95%. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary views us as a no-kill shelter.”
That is not strictly true, he added, as the shelter does have aggressive and sick dogs who sometimes must be euthanized.
The current shelter is a pole barn built in 1980, Granito said.
“Pole barns, from my understanding, last about 40-60 years. So, we’re right into the situation of, what do we do with this thing and how do we do it?” he said.
Following a blow-up last year involving the dog warden and Geauga County Sheriff’s Office, former Commissioner Tim Lennon motioned for the board to gift the dog warden’s office $250,000.
That money is still untouched, with discussions of its use ongoing, but a new building will eventually be needed, Granito said.
About $70,000 could be used to fix the kennels and the interior of the shelter to extend its lifespan, he said.
Regarding upgrades, officers now have body armor and radios, Granito said, as well as cameras at the shelter.
“We now have outside monitor cameras, so we can have license plate identification because we get dog dump-offs all the time,” he said. “And that has helped immensely to be able to find out who dumped it and why they wanted to dump it. We also have security in our building.”
The office handles a lot of cash because in past years, people would pay to retrieve their dogs with bad checks, Granito said, adding the in-office cameras help prevent theft.
The shelter should be getting credit card payment machines this year, he later said.
Volunteer and staff manuals are also in development, and policies and procedures are being written, Granito said.
“We’ve had stuff written up, we just never got it to the board. So, we’ve been at yard nine, you know, we’re getting to the goal line, we’re almost there,” he said. “I had something I was going to have you approve today, but Ohio law has changed immensely, so it’s going to be a thing we gotta wait until March to get that approval.”
In the past, the biggest issue for the office had been assistance for medical emergencies, accidents and fires, Granito said.
There is also the question of what to do with an animal if the owner becomes sick, injured or deceased, he said.
“We are giving owners five days to come claim (the animal) or their people,” Granito said. “Fourteen if they have a license. Unfortunately, there’s a very difficult line. We can’t keep ‘em forever and we can’t not help the public.”
The public needs to contact the dog warden’s office if they are injured to provide information about their situation, he said.
“Some of the programs we’re gonna work with are boarding kennels. We’ll take them to a boarding kennel for you. But you gotta pay for the boarding kennel,” he said.
The office is also working on an emergency alternate contact program, Granito added, noting Geauga County is one of only three counties doing this.
“In your dog license renewal, it will say ‘alternative contact.’ It could be an attorney, it could be a neighbor, it could be anyone they want as an emergency contact. And that is, when you do have a house fire, we can at least call someone outside of the house,” he said. “We can call that family member and say, ‘Come pick up your dog.’”
Granito also discussed Avery’s Law, or House Bill 247. The bill, named for Avery Russell, a Columbus 11-year-old who was mauled and disfigured by dogs, changes how dangerous dogs are handled.
“There was no recourse for dog wardens to take that dog,” Granito said. “We’ve gotten yelled at quite a bit. ‘Hey, my neighbor’s dog bit my son, why are you leaving it there?’ Well, we had no recourse to take the dog and quarantine it, or take the dog and put it in our kennel unless we knew that owner was not going to follow the law until it went to court.”
The bill allows dog wardens to confiscate vicious dogs in the event of an attack, he said.
Every code in Ohio Revised Code 955, governing dogs, also changes as a result, he added.
According to a November press release by the Ohio House of Representatives, the bill allows dog wardens to seize the dog immediately after an attack, changes investigation and enforcement requirements when authorities receive a possible dog law violation, provides protections for dogs acting in defense and mandates that dogs that kill or seriously injure a person be euthanized.
If a dog bites someone unprovoked, the owner could be charged with a fourth-degree misdemeanor and potentially lose the dog or face jail time, Granito said.
“We are seeing bad owners have dogs that they’re not taking care of and it happens,” he said. “So, instead of always going after the dog, we’re going to go after the owners.”
Granito said he has been invited to the bill’s signing and, with commissioners’ permission, will be in attendance.
Allison Wilson/KMG
Geauga County Dog Warden Matt Granito provides an update on the Geauga County Dog Shelter to the Geauga County Commissioners Dec. 16
Allison Wilson/KMG
A friendly dog greets Commissioners’ Clerk Christine Blair during the Geauga County Commissioners meeting Dec. 16.
