Catoosa County temporarily parts ways with Catoosa Citizens for Animal Care

CATOOSA COUNTY, Georgia- The Catoosa County Animal Shelter has temporarily severed ties with a local animal rescue group after some tense conversations last week.

Catoosa County Manager Jim Walker says he sat down with Catoosa Citizens for Animal Care after sending them a letter with some changes that needed to be made to make their relationship with the county better.

Walker says, “A couple of them continued to be combative and disrespectful to me and I had never met them before and says that he “provided them with a list of rules that say hey if you are going to continue to work with our shelter and with our employees … you need to do these things. They said that they didn’t want to do them and so, as a result, I sent them a letter that basically said until you can treat our people with respect and abide by the rules and the mission of our department, that we are going to suspect working with you.”

Walker is adamant that it’s not the entire organization that has been a problem for the county.

“It’s really unfortunate because there are some long-term responsible people with this organization in the letter that they spelled out to them. They’ve just been hijacked by a handful of people. They’ve just got to clean up their organization,” says Walker.

Walker says they’ve violated rules such as taking pictures of dogs that aren’t up for adoption because the animals still have a home, but are tied up in legal proceedings. He says he just wants them to work with the county in peace.

“The bottom line for us is you have to respect our organization and the work that we do and you have to respect the people that work there,” Walker says.