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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2016)
FRIDAYEXTRA ! The Daily Astorian Friday, March 18, 2016 Weekend Edition Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Louie, a 5-year-old pit bull mix, was adopted from the Clatsop County Animal Control and Shelter in Warrenton. LUCKY LOUIE Dogs over capacity at Clatsop County Animal Control and Shelter By ERICK BENGEL The Daily Astorian M onth after month, Louie was the little doggy no one wanted. Brought to the Clatsop County Ani- mal Control and Shelter in Warrenton as a stray when he was a month old, the black- and-white pit bull had been twice adopted and twice returned. He lived a total of 19 months at the shel- ter, including a one-year stretch — one of the longest stays of any animal that has passed through its doors. “We all loved him. He was easy to walk and every- thing. But, you know, he was a pit bull,” Marcy Dun- ning, a shelter volunteer, said. “It was getting to be like, ‘H mmm, he’s not going to be adopted because he’s just been sitting here for so long.’” Then an Ilwaco resident, Jeff Rusiecki, suddenly had an overwhelming urge to visit the shelter after he and his wife, Judy, lost their fourth dog, a Chesapeake Bay retriever. “I actually felt guilty because I was telling my wife, ‘We’re not getting any other dogs,’” Rusiecki recalled. Then Deputy Steven Hildreth, the animal control and shelter supervisor, asked if they would be inter- ested in looking at one. “And when he brought Louie out, I knew imme- diately,” Rusiecki said. “When we had him, and saw him for the ¿ rst time, we knew that he’d found his for- ever home.” There’s no mystery to Louie’s adoption troubles: He may be one of the most well-mannered dogs Jeff has ever known, but Louie’s breed gets a bum rap. Pit bulls, popularly perceived as aggressive and dangerous, are as friendly as their owners raise them to be, said Rusiecki, Astoria’s emergency communi- cations manager . And, he added, the shelter volunteers had obvi- ously spent a lot of time training Louie, who knew how to sit, shake, roll over and lay down. See DOGS, Page 5C Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian Betty Boop, a 12-year-old beagle mix, is one of the “seniors” of the animal shelter’s dog kennel. Riley, a 5-year-old male beagle mix, gets some fresh air with Marcy Dunning, a shelter volunteer.
