Justice For 18 year old Dog: Shot by city official

People should sign this petition because a city employee shot our almost 18 year old dog because she wasnt tagged. Tom Cole claims she was hungry and injured but she was just old. The mayor is sticking up for him by using the word "justified". He was right in doing this because she was not tagged. But on the City of Pineville website it says dogs will be kept for 7 days, not dogs will be kept for 7 days only if they are tagged and if not tagged they will be shot. He had her for less than two hours and never even contacted a veterinarian. We want justice to be served for our lost family member.

 Here is the whole story:On the 30th of May my mom let our almost 18 year old dog out in our fenced in backyard. Around 2:50/3:00 o’clock we noticed she had not came back yet. Well we are used to her doing that, she would sometimes get out of the yard and get right back in and come to the sliding glass door. Oh and I forgot to mention she uses three legs because of the arthritis in her back right leg was bad and she just held it up all the time. Well my husband, our girls, and I decided to stay at my grandparents house because of the weather supposed to be getting bad. I talked to my mom around 10:00 pm on the 30th and they had still not found her. Her fiancée Barry Nelson and herself walked around town calling her name trying to find her. At around 8 pm or 9 pm Barry called the non-emergency police number to see if anyone had found our dog. They said they had not but they would get dispatch to send out a call for the police to be watching out for her. At 8 am on the 31st I called the non-emergency number which happened to be city hall and I spoke to Melissa Zeimamin she said that again no one has said that they found her but she will get a hold of the boys to see if they found anything the night before. I had my mom come out to get the girls and I so we could help her look. after she picked us up we were on our way back into town and my mom gets a message from Barry that said you know she is okay don’t you? my mom replied with I want to believe she is ok. My mom called him and he tells her that a neighbor called the store and said that another neighbor had seen the dog and called Animal Control. So he tells us to go down to city hall and find out where they took her. We pulled into city hall around 8:50 and I walk in to find out where they took our dog. I walked in and go straight in to Melissa’s office I immediately said hey I am here to find out where the dog is and she said you’re not going to want to know that answer, I said why she said Tom had that dog put down, I said what why, and she said he was hurt, I said no she wasn’t she was old she hasn’t been able to use that back leg in a long time, and she said Tom called Noel and they wouldn’t take her so he had it put down I said oh my gosh and started bawling my eyes out. I then walked into the city hall bathroom and just cried because not only did I just lose a dog that was not just a dog but a family member but I knew at that point I was going to have to go outside and tell my mom what happened. I walked outside crying and get in the car and my mom goes what’s wrong why are you crying I say he put her down Tom Cole had her put down and she says oh my gosh why and I told her what Melissa told us. At this point we think that he tried to take her to a pound and they wouldn’t keep her because of her leg and so he just had them put down, which is hard enough to believe in the first place considering it was not his decision to make. My mom then calls Melissa back and tells her that we want her body because we want to be able to bury her. When we got to her house I tried to call the Law office of Evenson, Carlin, and Cooper to speak to my grandpa by marriage Bob Evenson, he wasn’t in to I said I would just call him later. When I got off the phone I thought about it for a minute and wondered if Tom actually brought our dog into the Noel animal place and if he did if they still had our dogs body. I could not find the number in the phone book so I called city hall again and spoke to Amanda that works down there and she gave me the number that they use to get ahold of them. When I called the number I spoke to a lady and asked if she had put down an old black Chihuahua that used only three legs she said three leg black Chihuahua no one has put a dog like that down here. I said today or yesterday no one has brought in a three leg black Chihuahua and she said no I said again Tom Cole has not brought a dog in and she said who I said Tom Cole and she said Pineville? I said yes and she said no he hasn’t and I would be the one he would talk to I said okay thank you and got off the phone. I told my mom what I found out and she starts to get upset again and called Barry, she told him I know what he did he probably just took her somewhere and shot her so he said that he would go down to city hall and talk to him. I told my mom I wanted to go down there also so I drove down there to meet him. When we walk in Barry asked Amanda who was the animal control guy and she said Tom Cole and then Melissa came out of her office and Barry asked her to get Tom down here so she called him and told him to come to city hall. When Melissa was done on the phone Barry asked her what time he found the dog and she said that Andrea (not sure of the last name or who exactly she is) said that he found her a little bit before school got let out which gets let out at 3:15. Barry said well we found out that he didn’t take her to Noel and Melissa said I didn’t say he took her to Noel and I said yes you did you said he took  her to Noel and they wouldn’t take her so he had her put down and she said no I said he called Noel I said okay it was my misunderstanding. When Tom got there we asked him what happened. He said that when he got the call he drove to where she was at and when he pulled up he saw a dog that was starving, in pain, and looked like she had been hit by a car. He said that when he pulled up she was chewing on a bone, what dog that has been hit by a car chews on a bone. Barry asked him where she was found at and Tom said on 5th St, which is only one street over from the back yard, the front of the house is on 3rd street the back of the fence is on 4th St and one street over would be 5th St. At this point we didn’t really know where 5th St was, well he said that he picked up the dog and he called the vet and then he called Noel, he said Noel said that they wouldn’t cover the medical bills if she had an owner so, at this point he just kind of trailed off, meaning he had taken care of her himself. Barry said so you didn’t know the dog belonged to us and he said no I know who some dogs belonged to but I didn’t know who she belonged to, Tom is practically a neighbor to my mom and has driven by plenty of times when both dogs were outside and had even waved. Barry told him that it was a judgment call then and that he didn’t agree with the decision he had made. He then asked Tom if we could have her and he said yeah do you want her now or do you want me to bring her to the house. He had her in his truck. Barry looked at me to find out what I wanted and I couldn’t even look at Tom or answer so Barry said just bring her to the house. The man never even apologized. When we get to the house we go inside and wait for him to get there when he pulled up Barry went outside and then came back inside and said do you want her in a bag and I said not a bag a box and my mom went and found a nice big box for her and I was just shocked he didn’t have her in anything at all. Supposedly he had buried her and then dug her back up and washed her off before he gave her back to us. She had no dirt in her ears or anything, you could tell she hadn’t been buried before. I thought about it for a little while and came to the conclusion that perhaps he never even called Noel or the Anderson Vet. So I gave the Noel number a call back and when she answers I said hey I just want to find out if Tom Cole had called about a three legged black Chihuahua and she said you talked to me this morning I said I know I just didn’t know if anyone in the office had spoke to him about it and she said no this is my personal number so I would be the one  he would have talked to and I said oh okay can I get your name and she said what is going on so I told her the whole story and she gave me her name. I then called Anderson and they said that not that they knew anyone has spoken to Tom Cole but they would have there office manager call me back on Monday to let me know if she had. I just called them back today because they called my moms home number yesterday and no one was there so I spoke to Stormy at the Anderson Vet and she said no one had spoken to him. At this point Tom’s story is just falling apart. Barry went back to work and did some research and found a law that states a dog may only be humanely put down if it has been determined by a licensed veterinarian that the dog has been disabled beyond repair. So there is one law broken, and then also a firearm may only  be used on an animal if it is endangering a life, I forgot to mention our dog was a barely 5 pound Chihuahua. That is law number to broken. Also on the cities website under animal control it states that dogs will be held for seven days and after seven days if they are not claimed they will be adopted out and if they are not adopted out they will be taken to the humane society. According to when he picked her up he did not even hold her for 2 hours. Also he claims to have found her at 2 o’clock but my mom let her out around or after 2:30 so there is no way he found her at 2. That weekend we talked to the neighbor that called Country Market and let Barry know the dog was found and said that she had found out that she had been picked up because the neighbor next to her said yeah we had to call on that little black dog that always gets out. We also found out that she had been picked up on 4th St not even 30 feet from the back fence.

The city had a special meeting tonight on Thursday the 6th and we found out that the man was not even a certified animal control officer, that he was just a "dog catcher" so he wouldnt have been able to legally do anything with her regarding killing her. The city is making excuses for this man and something will be done, no matter what the city decides. If they choose nothing we will go higher than them.