Displayed above: Pookie on security (1995) held for 16 months in solitary confinement and released after significant legal effort. ----- Holding animals day after day, often for years, leads to the point of severe stress deterioration. Once a month, animals on security, living in a barren separate kennel space, are examined through the kennel gate. No notes are kept beyond a monthly exam. No one pays attention. There is no recognition that they suffer and no awareness that sentient animals have needs that can’t be met with just drugs intended to cover up the effects of agency neglect. These dogs never, despite contrary agency claims to the press, get outdoors for daily exercise and TV watching do anything but exist day after day in boredom and social isolation. MCAS won’t release them even when a humane solution that also protects the public exists. They will not recognize damage to animals held in captivity and refuse all care beyond food and water. I was advised again recently there is no enrichment program or stress reduction program. Animals held in captivity at the zoo receive care to relieve the effects of captivity. Companion animals at MCAS do not. They are treated as prisoners of war, targets of vengeance whenever hearings officers’ death sentences are appealed. These are ordinary dogs. The incidents are not uncommon among the population. The hearings process exists only to rubber stamp MCAS’s death orders. Cain, Chucky and Tron are and always have been friendly to people. Chucky is dog aggressive. Blaze, only a little over a year old is also friendly except in stressful situations. There is no form of permitted relief from the shelter stress, Owners are discouraged from visiting, only allowed up to 15 minutes outside the kennel door. Cain’s owner has not seen him for close to a year. He was recently allowed 10 minutes outside the kennel grate as Cain looked wistfully, clearly recognizing his person, through the kennel gate. No physical contact was allowed. When his owner asked for more time from the animal control escort he was told “That is all you get.” Chuckie’s owner gave up visiting after a while because of the pain it caused him, and Chucky’s bewilderment that he could not leave with him. Blaze, barely a year old when he was impounded for correctable offenses, has gone from terrified to defensive. Nothing is being done to help him. His owner faithfully visited him for a while but has given up. MCAS has rejected her parents’ bid to allow him to move out of state to California with them. MCAS extremely harsh inhumane visitation rules are intended to build as many obstacles as possible to obstruct and discourage visits from family, to destroy the family’s bonds with their animals. It is psychological cruelty added to the already damaging physical and psychosocial effects incarceration and isolation. The rules teach a lesson, never cross the agency’s will. Finally, in public records, Chucky is falsely labeled a “Dangerous Dog” specifically defined in the Multnomah County code as “a dog whether or not confined [who] causes serious physical injury or death of any person; or is used as a weapon in the commission of a crime.” Chucky has not caused serious physical injury to anyone. The label is false. But despite repeated requests, MCAS refuses to correct its false description. Multnomah County Animal Services' Field Legal Hold Owner Visitation Procedure Document: https://www.scribd.com/document/366453468/Field-Legal-Hold-Owner-Visitation-Procedure-Dec-2016-2?secret_password=h56k2aTntkUcWIGXLA8p