Dogs owned by people arrested or canines held as criminal evidence won’t get special treatment after Sumter County commissioners Tuesday rejected a contract for a private vendor to provide them with care.
County Administrator Bradley Arnold said those two categories of dogs are a problem since commissioners designated the county animal shelter as a no-kill open shelter in December.
He said dogs held as criminal evidence must be held until court proceedings are finished and those owned by people arrested are kept until the owners can reclaim them.
“That eats up capacity in the shelter for strays,” he said. “By using a local private vendor, the idea is that we have these animals placed at their location.”
If the owner releases ownership, then the shelter can proceed with adoption, Arnold said.
The proposed contract would use Dogs Day Out, a local private vendor, to board these categories of dogs at a cost of $15 daily or $70 weekly for dogs under 40 pounds and $17 daily or $80 weekly for those over 40 pounds.
The county would try to recoup the costs when a pet owner is released from police custody. There is no provision for recovering the cost for dogs held as evidence.
A majority of commissioners didn’t buy it and they voted to reject the contract.
Commissioner Oren Miller tried to table the contract to keep it alive, but couldn’t get a second for his motion.
Commissioner Doug Gilpin spoke against it, saying it would be unlikely that the county could recoup the boarding costs from people arrested.
“The whole idea of a criminal coming back and becoming a responsible pet owner is not realistic,” he said.
