LEE COUNTY, Fla. — Lee County animal advocates want answers to some troubling questions they say they have about the local shelter, so they turned to FOX 4's Community Correspondent Ella Rhoades and the Lee County Sheriff's Office.
Several former shelter volunteers brought their concerns to LCSO's Animal Cruelty Task Force. That included several time logs of when dogs went outside of their kennel which Fox 4 reported on two weeks ago. Find that story here.
The logs shows dogs had been kept in their kennels for up to 25 hours without being allowed to go outside.
Based on what investigators saw, the Sheriff's Office said the Animal Cruelty Task Force has started 'a fact finding inquiry' into the shelter.
Click to see what Lee County Community Correspondent Ella Rhoades found out:
Florida State Statute 828.13 says anyone who confines an animal without sufficient food, water or exercise or "Keeps any animals in any enclosure without wholesome exercise and change of air," can be charged with a first degree misdemeanor.
Lee County Community Correspondent Ella Rhoades asked attorney and FGCU Professor Pamella Seay what the statute means for the county shelter.
"They are also subject to the same law that a pet owner is subject to, so if they are not caring for the animals appropriately, meaning they're not giving them proper exercise, they're not giving the good food, they're they're not taking care of them, then, they too are subject to discipline under statutes," Pamella Seay said.
In a video taken at the shelter time stamped September 17 around 1:30 in the afternoon, it shows dogs in the shelter with feces and urine on the floor of their kennels.
If you stop the video, you can see, the log says this dog had not been taken outside since just after noon on the day before that's 25 hours.
Seay said, "Taxpayers are are entrusting them to do their jobs properly. Failure to do their job means that they are not performing to the standards that we have set for them, and they should not continue in those positions."
In September, Rhoades interviewed Assistant Lee County Manager Marc Mora. She asked him for county policy on getting dogs out of the kennels.
"You're gonna find that not everything that they do, there is a written policy. It's just basic common sense," Marc Mora said.
She followed up and asked about the time logs.
"Does it sound very fair to only go out once in 23 hours? Would you want that for your dog?," Rhoades asked.
Mora replied, "Well, of course not. I mean, nobody wants that."
The county said it has made improvements to the shelter which can be found in previous reporting here.
At their meeting Tuesday, county commissioners said the animals are treated well at the shelter.
Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass said, "We've all done walk throughs of that place at different times. You see what's going on there, and it's not like they said it is."
Fox 4 reached out to Lee County about the Sheriff's Office opening a 'fact-finding inquiry' into the shelter and the state statute, but the county did not respond.
