Cincinnati Animal CARE Colerain Campus - Hamilton County Animal Shelter — Local services in Cincinnati

Edited as a response since I cannot respond directly to responses

"It looks like your initial call came in to county dispatch around 630pm on 8/17. That evening we had 2 officers working and busy handling calls all over the county. Dog bites, emergencies (dogs hit by car and in need of medical attention), situations involving cruelty, and dangerous situations are the priorities, followed by confined stray dogs. We regret not being able to get out to you that evening but by the time we were able to get to your call, it was very late (we don't make a habit of picking up stray dogs in the middle of the night) so our officers arrived at 10:08am the next morning. "

A few notes on this laundry list of excuses:

My very first stray was an injured dog. I called around 6pm and I WAS TOLD by YOUR DISPATCH that someone was on the way. At 10pm when I was off shift for the night I called and was told by YOUR DISPATCH that all the wardens were off duty for the night. So that, coupled with your own words of "it was very late (we don't make a habit of picking up stray dogs in the middle of the night" then why do you mention 24/7 warden support on your website all loud and proud? Don 't display a service you don't actually provide.

Use your resources wisely and get your house in order dispatch-wise. On top of being told people were on the way the first time, who never came, as I mentioned above - this most recent issue I was told someone would call me. That never happened either. THEN when I did see your Wardens they told me I should never have been told that someone was coming or someone would call. CLEARLY you are not on the same page. I'm not sure if it is a lack of training or a lack of SOP, but FIX IT. Furthermore, I explained that I WORKED at the location I found the dog, so why were your wardens there the next day at 10am when I wasn't even there? I left my phone number. A 30 second call could have prevented them wasting their time as stretched thin as the already are.

"Unfortunately, we are disappointed with the interactions our team had with you and your use of name-calling in the review above."

"Belligerent and offensive behavior is unacceptable and makes the job of our team much more difficult."

Oh boy. Let's talk about disappointed. After MULTIPLE broken promises and failures by your agency. it was one of YOUR staff members who was belligerent with ME. Your shelter is open at 1pm DAILY (garbage hours by the way) and I had to be at work at 2pm. I had already had custody of this dog for 20 hours. I even took it home overnight. I called ahead and told the person on the phone hardly any time to drop the dog off and I was assured it would be an expedient process. So I get there and I am already rattled and stressed and as I approach the desk I make a comment about wishing the phone person had told me to leave the dog in the car upon arrival, and then YOUR employee comes barreling out of the side office and asks "Can I help you?" in a snotty tone. I told her that I needed to hurry and drop off a dog because I couldn't be late to work and this woman looks at me and in an even snottier voice says "You can sign in and wait like everyone else." If I approached someone like that at my work I'd be fired. She could have simply said "I'm sorry that isn't how that works, we have a sign in process." Then I would have explained CALMLY that I had spoken to someone on the phone and explained that situation (which again was not passed on - wow) but it was YOUR employee's INITIAL BELIGERENCE that set me off, and I was STILL upset when I called back on my way to work AND when I left the review because I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with this dog for EIGHT HOURS AT MY PLACE OF WORK. I already had done 90% of your all's job, what more do you want? The audacity say I make YOUR jobs more difficult! Every time I deal with you all it is difficult. You can save your "disappointment" for your garbage employee, your agency's lack of SOP/training, and severe lack of...

We came into the shelter a couple weekends back to look at cane corsos. We met Hamster, who was in the clinic for a kennel cough. We came back the following weekend with our kids to see how they did together. Hamster was still in the clinic but seemed fine around the kids. We decided to foster her, but were a bit nervous because of the kennel cough. We were assured that her medicine would be finished by the following Thursday and our other dog who was vaccinated, could be around her no problem. We brought Hamster home and she did so amazingly well with our other dog, the kids, no food aggression, she is absolutely wonderful. However her health started to decline. She was still coughing a lot, which we were told is normal, but her medicine did not seem to be doing its job. We contacted the text message line and waited a couple of hours before a response. We were told the medicine would take 3-5 days to kick in. She had been on the medicine for about 9 days at this point. That was concerning they were not familiar with her sickness and how long she had been on medication. We tried calling and spoke to someone at the shelter who could not connect us to the clinic and said we would have to just text the foster number. So we did that again, waited, and they told us to email the clinic but it was already after hours again. So we did that and had to wait until the following day for assistance. The clinic put her on a new medication and we went and picked it up and started it that evening. Hamster continued to go downhill. She was not drinking water, every food she ate she immediately threw up and her eyes were starting to crust over. We were very concerned because there was no sense of urgency and no reliable communication from Animal Care. We called the emergency line again and we're told again to email. If you are adopting dogs out that are really sick, why would you not be more communicative when fosters reach out expressing concern? Trying to get a hold of someone at Animal Care felt almost impossible, and in the meantime we had a dog in worsening condition who couldn't keep anything down, and was becoming lethargic. We felt totally on our own. So we made the difficult decision to bring her back to the clinic so that she could get care. They immediately took her back when we went to the clinic, but to prep her for surgery, even though we told them we were returning a foster and had her meds with us. My partner had to go to 3 different entrances before we could get her where she needed to be. We ended up giving her back and that was devastating. Not only that, but while we were there, another woman who was fostering to adopt was picking up a new med for her foster who also had kennel cough, and she had been told the same thing we had. That the dogs could be together since meds were started and the resident animal is vaccinated. The staff at the clinic that day said that's absolutely not true and the dogs need to be separated. It's concerning to be getting such mixed messaging, and then to have confirmation that this is a recurring thing. To add insult to injury, the staff told my partner we should have given them 48 hours notice. You want us to wait 48 hours when our foster dog is not drinking water, not wanting to go outside to the bathroom, not eating without throwing up to bring her back in? This has left a bad taste in our mouth. We have never had this experience before and would not recommend coming to this establishment to foster a dog. If the animals are sick, why are you adopting them out and then not responding back in an appropriate amount of time to foster parents that are concerned? It feels like you're setting them up for failure. We realize that this is not an easy situation, an easy job, and resources are limited. But if you don't set your fosters up for success, people won't foster again. Hamster was an absolute joy despite being so sick. I am still baffled at the lack of communication and effort put into assisting fosters with...

Cincinnati Animal shelter people at Colerain, are liars. If the worker there does not like your age, the worker decides to tell a older visitor there are no small dogs in the whole place, to see. Viewing their site page before going to the place, showed several small dogs needing a home, and a litter of puppes to be placed someplace. Or maybe the worker there just has no appreciation of a senior Women's veteran of the USA, as my cap stated. Whatever was her reason for telling me a lie, while she would not look me in the eye, was not her place to pass her personal judment on someone walking in the door. What, was my hair a mess? Am a US citizen with a home, a yard, and no pet. I should have been shown like anyone else, their smallest dogs around to see if that size was okay. Or maybe it was the netted vented Large pet carrier I carried, for transporting a newly gotten pet from a kennel where the dog probably walked and maybe sat in dog poop. I knew from their site they had some smaller size dogs there at that time. Not all the small dogs were at foster places. I just do not think these workers have the right to pass their personal judgment on someone coming in the door of a city facility. Its not a private business place, its city property. Its a facility that my tax money helps to support. Whatever was their reasoning for sending a person away to go look elsewhere, it was not their job to be rude. No wonder the city has so many dogs at the place. The workers are acting like its their pet they are judging someone if want that person to go look at animals or not. They should show a person who comes in the door, what there is there at that time. Maybe some homeless animal's look will sway the viewer to take the dog home, even if not as cute as a puppy. Maybe its keep their jobs going by turning away incomers, and keeping up the animal population at the facility. I had thought I would look at homeless dogs before going to buy a pedigree, too bad was not given the look at what we (city) have, cause probably would have had feelings for dogs locked up there. For some time I have been viewing on home computer, photos of dogs kept at Humane Society. (site page I post below, can see photos). There were new postings and some smaller size dogs were now there. I do see on this Yelp site page, there are several remarks of how visitors have been treated. I see the dates on the negative remarks, are fairly recent. Note the nice remarks are from ten years or more ago. The city needs to resurvey the work done at this place, and place out in the front under tent tops, fenced in, some of the dogs. So that passer bys can glance and maybe see some of the animals. Also, the dogs would get some time of being outside in fresh air. All that parking lot space and possible new home people going by on the road. Kids would see interesting dogs and ask parents could they have that doggy. There would be some results of dogs getting a home. At least it would be a effort of trying to help the animal get a home, instead of just locking away the dog inside. Its like the humane society is doing job security for theirself. They are turning away possible owners for a dog to get a place, and doing nothing to place the dog outside for viewing. No wonder these dogs are living out their life there. To view dogs for adoption: ...