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.