Today I received message on the voice mail from a woman complaining about her neighbors dog being outside in the backyard without any shelter and outside all the time. She would not leave her phone number for fear that something bad would happen to her if the neighbors found out. Ill use that call as a means to educate everyone about calling in on complaints to us. First of all we NEVER repeat where a complaint came from EVER. Even if someone tells us its okay to do so. It would not make any sense for us to tell the suspect because then no one would report a complaint and we would be putting people in danger. Secondly, if we cant speak to the person reporting the complaint we are not able to properly assess the situation and see if an investigation is warranted. If someone doesnt leave their number and make themselves accessible to interviewing it is quite possible we will not investigate. We simply do not have time to investigate each and every complaint unless we deem them a possible concern. Speaking to the complainant is very important. In interviewing them we learn a lot about the situation by asking questions...and we ask a lot of questions. The questions lead to more insight on the situation. Sometimes disgruntled neighbors complain about their neighbor more so because they dont like their neighbor than their neighbor is doing something wrong. Often that comes out in the interview. Other times we get calls from well-meaning people who make sweeping statements like the dog is outside all the time when they really arent monitoring the dog 24/7 to know for sure that the dog IS outside all the time. Or the dog doesnt have shelter yet they cannot visually see the whole yard. They could say, the dog looks very skinny when they can only see the dog from 25 feet away and the dog has a thick coat of fur. So, please, if you are going to call in a complain leave your name and number. We will NOT share your information with the suspect or anyone else but we do need to talk to you.
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 21:26:02 +0000
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