Owasso animal rescue groups concerned over city's intake policy

Owasso animal rescue groups are concerned about the city animal shelter's intake policies and spoke at Tuesday's city council meeting. They're worried that the city is not doing enough to ensure that strays have the opportunity to be adopted before being euthanized. 

Several speakers addressed the Owasso City Council meeting, including Kim Durrough. She's worked with animal rescues for years and worries that animals are being euthanized before rescues have a chance to find a home.

"Owasso is a kill shelter. It's the city's policies. It's written into the code. We can work around that. You can have that on your books and still work better release rates and all that, but you have to have a relationship that involves transparency and cooperation with the rescues," she said.

The official policy of the Owasso Animal Shelter is that stray animals are held for three business days, then available for disposition, which means adoption, rescue, or euthanasia.

The City of Tulsa's animal shelter also holds strays for three business days, and that shelter says they make every attempt to contact the owner of those animals using any available licenses or identification. 

Mindy Tiner is with the Oklahoma Alliance for Animals, and she also spoke during the meeting. She agrees that Owasso's policy does not allow enough time for rescues to find their owners or a new home. 

"There's all kinds of scenarios, and so three days is just, it's a really short turnaround," she said.

She says she's hopeful the city will take steps to work more closely with rescues in the future.

"We want them to have a list of rescues, and they say, 'Hey, we've got this great dog. Are you guys interested?' Or at least a way, you know, 'Hey, after three days, this is where they will be posted,'" she said. 

News On 6 spoke to Owasso City Manager Chris Garrett after Tuesday's meeting. He says the city is willing to listen.

"The big piece here is that we heard a lot of information tonight. Everyone heard a lot of information tonight. So we're going to go back and ready figure out, see if we can get to the root of all those pieces and figure a path moving forward," he said.