County Animal Control Changes Policies for Volunteers, Animal Viewing

Signs on door Wednesday evening announced that the facility no longer accepts court-ordered community service workers.

Also, effective Monday the facility had limited animal viewing hours.

The facility also will no longer accept volunteers younger than 18, said Kendall County Board member Anne Vickery, who chairs the board’s Animal Control Committee.

The changes came within days of Shannen Flores of Oswego, talking at a county meeting about her 6-year-old son being bitten in the face.

The boy was petting Moose, a 6-year-old bull mastiff, on July 3, while his father, David Lee of Plano, was feeding the dog as part of court-ordered community service work.

Vickery said she planned to meet individually with Animal Control workers throughout this week. An Animal Control committee meeting also has been scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday in the facilities management board room at 804 W. John St., Ste. B, Yorkville.

“We do so much good up there. We take care of so many animals,” Vickery said. “… No matter how much good you do, one thing like this just takes the wind out of it.”

Moose was euthanized after that bite, warden Christine Johnson said. He was at Animal Control after charging after a mailman into the next yard and biting him in the right arm on May 31, police reports indicate.  The 47-year-old mailman received about 15 stitches.

In the July 3 incident, the boy suffered two puncture wounds about a half-inch across, according to the Kendall County Sheriff’s police report. Paramedics told police it appeared the dog’s tooth had entered the boy’s cheek about an inch below his eye and exited below that, according to the report.

Lee – who is divorced from the child’s mother – told The Beacon-News that he was “more upset with myself than anyone else that I let my son get that close to the dog,” although his son is doing much better. Lee also told The Beacon-News he had taken his three oldest children with him to work at the shelter occasionally throughout the past year.

Johnson was not at the Animal Control facility on July 3, but employee Joshua Knudson e-mailed the county administrator two days later to inform him of the incident, according to an e-mail Patch received through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Knudson relayed that he had faxed Moose’s current rabies vaccination record to the hospital and left a copy of the incident report in the Lee’s truck.

“David Lee is the only one who witnessed the actual bite and said it was very fast and the dog immediately let go,” Knudson wrote. “So I believe it was either because of the food in the cage or a ‘fear’ bite.”

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the mailman received about 50 stitches. Patch regrets the error.