ELYRIA — Lorain County’s dog kennel needs a checklist to assess the health of dogs to help ward off parvo and other diseases, according to a group called United for Animal Justice.

Nearly 20 members of the group turned up at Thursday’s meeting of the Lorain County Commissioners to complain about lax safety and sanitary measures, sick dogs and euthanized dogs that could have been saved.

Rescue groups increasingly do not want to purchase dogs here because “they’ve been burned too many times” with dogs that come down with parvo, a highly contagious viral disease, according to Rick LaLonde, the group’s leader.

Even when treated for the disease, half the dogs die, he said, adding that there have been three confirmed cases of parvo from kennel dogs in recent weeks.

Another member of the group, Carol Brailer, said she found a paralyzed collie in a cage that was unable to lift its head to eat or drink but was hungry and thirsty when Brailer offered it food and water.

LaLonde said he has worked with the county in the past to establish a checklist to determine if sick or suffering animals are brought to the pound. To ward off parvo, he suggested that county employees or people doing community service work change their clothing when they come in contact with feces or other things that could spread the disease.

Lorain County Administrator James Cordes said he cannot force people doing community service work to change their clothing, but he agreed that the county could do more to assess the condition of sick animals.

He said he had no problem with requiring a brief health assessment on every new dog and said the county had “failed at some point to do that with a certain amount of continuation.” LaLonde also complained of lack of proper documentation for about 20 dogs a month, and Cordes said he had instructed the county’s budget director, Lisa Hobart, to look into the matter. Hobart told commissioners the pound should probably have “better records of dogs in and dogs out,” but she found records for all of the dogs she checked.

Cordes said no money appears to be missing, and LaLonde agreed that did not appear to be a problem.

In an adoption-related complaint, LaLonde said that a representative of a Michigan-based rescue group drove all the way her, only to be told the dog had already been put to sleep. Cordes told the group he was upset with the report and had assigned an investigator to determined what happened.

County Commissioner Lori Kokoski said running a kennel is not rocket science and that he killing of the dog reserved by the rescue group from Michigan could have been avoided by a simple sticky note on the cage.

The “auctions” where people must compete against others to purchasing a kennel dog also are a potential problem, according to Cordes, who said county officials don’t want “people beating each other in the lobby” fighting over dogs.

While the county is going through a budget crisis, county officials said the kennel is adequately funded. However, they said it is short-staffed at present because Dog Warden Jack Slempa is on medical leave and one of two positions of kennel assistant is unfunded.

Michelle Reichlin, founder of Fido’s Companion Rescue Inc., said she thinks there should be consequences when people make mistakes. Reichlin, granddaughter of former county Commissioner Leonard Reichlin, said she had never been disappointed when she asked kennel staff to rise to the occasion.

“Have they made mistakes? I make mistakes, too,” Reichlin said. “What I’m suggesting is you did not hold them accountable.”

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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