The Kitsap Humane Society released a lengthy statement Wednesday pertaining to Bremerton resident Doug Bolds’ allegations about how his dog was handled when Bolds was arrested for DUI in June 2010.

Here’s their release:

June 15, 2011 – Silverdale, WA – In 2010, Kitsap Humane Society successfully reunited nearly 600 pets with their owners. We prefer that all companion animals remain with their original owner so long as the animal is well provided for. We make every attempt to return animals to their owners, including microchip scanning, lost and found audio report (available by calling the shelter) and lost and found online report. We also hold all stray animals for 96 hours before they are available for adoption to give owners an opportunity to locate them at the shelter and reclaim them. We follow these guidelines for a stray animal or an animal of someone who has been arrested or incarcerated.

In addition, for an incarcerated citizen, our standard operating procedure is to fax an owner release form to the correctional facility where the owner is being held. We then hold the animal for five days to give them adequate time to make arrangements to pick up their animal. We handle these types of situations on a weekly basis. Unless the owner has been arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty charges, we make every effort to reunite animals with their owners.

According to Doug Bolds’ statements to the Kitsap Sun, he claims Kitsap Humane Society adopted his dog out without giving him the opportunity to reclaim it. There is ambiguity surrounding the allegations made by Bolds as there are no microchip or license records indicating he is the original owner of the dog, despite the fact that pet licensing is required by law. Our records do indicate the dog arrived at KHS on June 3, 2010 and was adopted 14 days later. We have no records indicating that Bolds made any attempt to contact KHS, either directly or through friends or family during this time period, though the dog was in a kennel in a public area of our shelter until it was adopted.

We do, however, have a record of a subsequent contact between Bolds and one of our officers in January 2011. Bolds was a bystander in an unrelated case. In the course of the investigation, Bolds accused the officer of taking his dog in June (the officer was not involved in the original case) and adopting it to someone else the next day. Bolds told the officer that “the troopers” told him KHS had adopted the dog out the day after it was impounded. The officer told Bolds that KHS would not have done so; that the shelter holds animals for a minimum of five days before adopting them out. The officer gave Bolds Animal Welfare Director, Stacey Price’s phone number and instructed him to call her. When Bolds called Stacey, he was belligerent and verbally abusive before hanging up on her, refusing to answer any of her questions. This was the last interaction we had with Bolds.

Kitsap Humane Society has been serving the communities of Kitsap County since 1908 and is an independent nonprofit, currently providing Animal Control contract services to Kitsap County, Bremerton, Bainbridge Island, Port Orchard, Poulsbo and Naval Base Kitsap.

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This just in: The Kitsap Humane Society‘s Animal Rescue division will now dispatch on Kitsap County Central Communications (CENCOM).

That means that those monitoring our area’s police and fire radios will begin to hear animal rescue officers in the commission of their daily duties. They’ll be identified by numbers between 1900 and about 1920, according to Kitsap County Animal Rescue Chief Jake Shapley.

The cost for joining CenCom is about $50,000, but Shapley said animal rescue was paying somewhere in that neighborhood for less-than 24-7 dispatching, their own radio frequency and an answering service for after hours calls. The benefit for the non-profit is knowing that officers that go out to a call at 2 a.m. can radio if they’re in trouble.

“The immediate benefit to us is officer safety,” he said. “I know my guys are safe out there.”

For the public, the benefit is a streamlined system, with animal rescue working alongside law enforcement. Shapley cited an incident last fall when efforts to catch a dangerous dog on the loose in Bremerton couldn’t be coordinated over the radio — a rescue officer had to flag down police as they attempted to catch the dog.

“We’re not off somewhere else anymore,” Shapley said.

CenCom began dispatching to Animal Rescue at 9 a.m. this morning.

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In December, we wrote about the limits of sex offender registries. Basically, where should policy makers draw the line when deciding which offenders should be tracked years after they’ve served their prison sentences?

Currently in Washington, we have only a registry for sex and kidnapping offenders. But other states have proposed setting up registries for various crimes. That means that after they’ve done their time, certain offenders must disclose their addresses to authorities and can be monitored more closely.

Federally, there has been talk of an arson registry. In Nevada, felons are registered. In Suffolk County, N.Y, animal cruelty convicts are.

And just this month, Connecticut lawmakers started looking at a registry for gun offenders, according to the Hartford Courant.

At the crime in America symposium I attended in New York, Ohio State University Professor Douglas Berman posited that sex offenders are the “canary in the coal mine,” with regard to registering. They were the first required to do so — and it appears that they won’t be the last.

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I got an email recently from Derek Wentz, who was until a few weeks ago renting a home in the West Bremerton area. After Wentz and his family had moved in early June, his former landlord called him to say that he’d missed quite a sight in what used to be his backyard.

The Wentzes moved out June 6 from a Roosevelt Avenue place. And a 250-pound black bear decided to move in June 7. The bear, which took cover in a cedar tree, was eventually tranquilized and taken away by Kitsap County Animal Control officers.

“We have two young children who enjoyed playing at the foot of the cedar tree where the bear was discovered,” Wentz wrote me. “So we were surprised, to say the least, when our former landlord informed us this evening that a bear had been located in our former ‘backyard.'”

Photo by CBC.ca is from an incident in New Jersey.

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Two years ago, a Poulsbo woman suffered the worst pit bull dog attack in the area in recent memory. The incident even spurred some changes in the area’s laws, and the pit bull’s boxer-mix’s owner, was charged with a felony.

UPDATE: The dog was assumed at the time to be a pit bull. It was only later found to be a boxer-mix, though it was possible to have had some pit bull in its family tree.

Many dog lovers out there were quick to comment at the time with a simple catchy mantra: “Blame the deed, not the breed.” And this April, four animal welfare organizations are partnering for the “Responsi-Bull Project.”

You’ll have to drive to Tacoma, but that may be well worth it to “…Encourage responsible pit bull ownership, and ultimately lower the euthanasia rates of this breed currently facing an epidemic of homeless,” according to organizers.

It’s a three part program that includes free spaying and neutering, a free “responsibility” workshop, and free obedience classes.

Here’s more from the organization’s release.
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Andy Binion’s squirrel story is certainly the talk of our web site this morning, as the “cute yet verminous” critters (according to one source) are taking Bremerton, and the county, by storm.

After reading the story, county resident Robert Leurquin called me this morning with a question about fining folks who feed the not too fastidious creatures.

Under whose authority can Kitsap County Animal Control dole out fines for squirrel feeding offenders?

For the answer, I called upon Rance McEntyre, head of Kitsap County Animal Control (and quoted in Andy’s story). Here’s the scoop:

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