Grand Coulee City Council wants to shut down our rescue/foster house

3-days after I moved into Grand Coulee I had a long conservation with the Grand Coulee Chief of Police about the dog rescue I had been doing for many years and I wanted to continue my work for this community and the dogs in this area. The Chief; Chief Hunt at the time,  was finally happy to hear that he was going to have someone to work with and that would be a great asset for both the animals and the community. The Chief was amazed that I do this all on my own with no funds coming in from a non-profit organization or anywhere else to help with vet bills, food, beds, toys and medications, etc. During the conservation with the Chief, I explained to him that during my travels while I was in the Navy I became very close with rescues, fosters and shelters from all over the world and that I have a very good working relationship with these people. The Chief and I had understanding at the end of the conservation that was in constrains of the current law and I would continue to do foster care for dogs in Grand Coulee with the support of my contacts. With all this said, it was very obvious that I needed help with this and my sister-in-law would be a fabulous asset.  She wanted to help with dog foster and I needed to find a new home because to the stray/feral problem in the Grand Coulee area and city limits. In the next several months (about 8 months later), we finally found a place that we afford to purchase and we contacted the current Chief of Police and showed him the home that she would be moving into. He said that he would grant her the same understanding that I had. In November of that year she moved in and received her first rescue here in Grand Coulee. He was a younger dog, he had been severely beaten and needed one-on-one attention to trusting humans again. Over that next couple of years my sister-in-law and I begin to work with the community, Grand Coulee Veterinary Clinic, fire crews and the police to help rescue over 460 animals from this area, and the other surrounding towns around Grand Coulee. This total doesn’t just include dogs, which I would like to say that I am a dog person, but this would include cats as well. I usually don’t work with cats very often, but we were contacted and asked if we would be able to help get a handle of 3 areas (Coulee Medical Center – CMC neighbor, where the Senior Center is located and Riverview area in Coulee Dam/Elmer City) where the city had an overabundance of feral cats, and that is another story I will have to explain to you later on.

Since I received my first rescue here in Grand Coulee, my sister-in-law and I have been working the animal control here in Grand Coulee. There has been on several occasions I come home from working and there will be a dog in my fenced in yard with no note or nothing. Do you think that I am going to just let it loose to fend for itself, no I call the vet the next morning to see when I can get them into to see if they have a chip and where they came from, if no chip there is a process that we follow for each of the dogs we foster. That is incoming sheet listing all of the information regarding the dog, a complete vet check, start calling to see if our contacts are looking for this kind of dog to adopt out. Sometimes the dog and we get lucky; it will only take  (2) weeks to find a furever home for a dog then sometimes it can take several months for a dog to find their furever home. It depends on the dog, the age, the home, the foster and our waiting list. One thing that I like to mention while we are finding a furever home is that we don’t do first day adoptions, we check at least 3 references, and NO animal cat or dog gets adopted out unless they have been spayed or neutered. If there is no time to get them into the vet to get the surgery completed or the animal is still too young, the adoptive parents have to submit a paid certificate of spayed/neutered to us and believe me we do check up to make sure that it had been done (by calling the vet on the date of surgery for verification and doing a surprise home visit to check the animal), which this doesn’t happen very often because we have been able to have the animals spayed/neutered completed prior to adoption taking place.

Exclusive: Punish thugs that cut dog’s ears off and posed for photos!

We have been doing foster care for over 8+ years in Grand Coulee, and now all of a sudden the City Council has taken it upon themselves to finally get involved and their idea is to just shut it down with no plans or ideas on a replacement. During the last City Council meeting we asked if we could please schedule a time where we could all sit together and work something out so foster animals can continue to be helped and we can support the community. There are still some unanswered questions that have not been answered such as:

• When, why and how did the City Council finally want to get involved, and at what cost to our animals, pet owners and the community.

• Have asked City Council if we could work together, note what happened at the last meeting when they said we can work together and then we show up at the next meeting with the information asked for and the City Council just wanted us to go away no questions asked.    If this is how they call “working together”, "The Good Old Bully System".  Is this how they improve and advance OUR community?

• Every year is it the responsibility of a pet owner to license their pets. If I might ask, where is that money going because it doesn't help clean up the street of strays, feral animals or even a local shelter.

• Our foster care is SELF-FUNDED, which means all bills are paid by my sister-in-law and myself. There are NO costs to the City of Grand Coulee and our community. Yet the city is trying to tell us how we should spend our own hard earned money and want to shut down a service we have been offering for several years now, “FREE OF CHARGE”.

• In the past we started to get a few volunteers to help out, but for a fear of reprisal, something happening to them and/or their animals if they decided to go against the “City Council” it was better for them to not bring any attention to themselves so the two (2) families of volunteers decided to step down.

• Note what the City Council currently has is “law” and now they want my sister-in-law and myself to write the ordnance for free.  The concern for this is we do our research, then spend a lot of time and effort preparing this ordnance just to have them knock it down because they were not part of the plan. THE CITY HAS NO PLAN OR REPLACEMENT FOR US EXCEPT EXTERMINATION OF ANIMALS, and that should fix the problem. Who is going to do that?

• We work tirelessly to rescue animals from suffering on the streets or in our high kill shelters.  We provide life-saving medical care and give them a safe loving foster home to heal and learn to trust again until we can find them a forever home.

• So now that we have mention several problems that lay ahead of “Fostering of Animals” this is what we would like to have in an ordinance is the following:  (and is included in what we will be presenting)

THE CITY OF GRAND COULEE

• When an animal is handed over to the foster home, it is the responsibility to have the foster licensed with the city of Grand Coulee, within 1 week of arrival.

• All animals personal and fosters will be licensed with the City of Grand Coulee.

• If the City Council finds it in everyone’s best interest maybe a reasonable annual fee to hold an “Animal Foster License” (Special use/condition permit) in our home could be do-able. The amount would have to be negotiated between the City Council of Grand Coulee and the two (2) current foster homes.

• If the City Council of Grand Coulee finds it in everyone’s best interest, a home visit before can be done before an Animal Foster License is issued to the home.

• All costs of the foster animal will be paid for by the volunteer foster home.

• If the City Council of Grand Coulee finds it in everyone’s best interest, a home visit can be scheduled at any time. The volunteer should be notified in writing 14 days prior to the home visit.

• The two (2) foster homes currently would like to be grandfather in so that they can continue to foster as they have been doing for at least 7+ years, and within the city limits. If there are any other volunteers that would like to foster animals, they will have to live outside of the city limits.

• The two (2) current foster homes would like to continue with the amount of animals they have by reducing the numbers of animals only by adoption. Once those animals have been adopted those animals should not be replaced until the numbers in the home will total 6 animals. This number will include the volunteer’s personal animals and the foster animals for the total of (6).

THE ANIMAL

1. When an animal is handed over to the volunteer as a foster, it is the responsibility of the volunteer to make sure they have done everything in their power to find the animals owners (i.e.-check for tags on animal, check to see if the animal has a chip). This will be done before the animal is put up for adoption.

2. All foster animals should be current on vet care such as shots, dental and anything else that is needed for the animal for the whole stay as a foster and also to be adopted.  This includes a City license. 

3. There should be plenty of food, water, blankets, beds and room for each of the animals living under the volunteer’s home.

    

THE HOME/YARD(S)

1. Hang “No Trespassing” and “Beware of Dog” on the property of the home.

2. Each volunteer’s home should be well maintain inside and out.

3. The volunteer’s yard should be fully fenced in so that the animals will have no way of getting out and roaming the neighborhood.

I realize that some of these things stated above shouldn't be brought up in polite society, but I think with animals we need to bring up the "untouchable questions" first. Communication delivery is everything especially in a small town.  And that is why we are asking, NO BEGGING for the help of all citizens in the Grand Coulee Area. 

And yes I said area and surrounding area!!!!  If they stop us here it is NOT JUST THE TOWN OF GRAND COULEE BUT THE SURROUNDING AREAS; we have rescued up to and including Nespelem and over to Moses Lake.   We have taken these animals to the vet and then on to forever homes, and most of the time out of the area so they won’t have to be taken care of again.  So now what is going to happen and WHO, I ask is going to do it?  What are the people of these communities going to do if they need to re-home a pet?  What are they going to do if you need help with an animal?  What is the community or the City Council going to do if you are being overrun by feral cats?  Let the City come in?  The most of what they have ever done is poison them and that poisons EVERY OTHER ANIMAL in the neighborhood and leaves a vacuum for more cats to come in.  There is a way to do this without the inhumanity and destruction of animals and the people of these communities, and that is even if they do something

If the City Council and/or Planning/Zoning Commissioning Committee will negotiate in good faith my sister-in-law and I will be there at the next meeting Wednesday, August 9, 2017 at 5:30 pm located at the Grand Coulee City Hall Building.  PLEASE come down and show your support to help us negotiate a plan for the Grand Coulee Area, the pet owners, people, citizens and animals of Grand Coulee.  All we are asking is for a reasonable outcome, some give and take and a SPECIAL CONDITION/USE PREMIT.