Marlin city officials said a dog died at the city’s animal control shelter Tuesday as a Facebook post showing dogs appearing skinny and in poor condition drew concern from residents.
Around midday Tuesday, a Facebook post by area resident Jeffrey Rich showed several dogs at the shelter in kennels. The post, which has since been shared over 600 times and has over 300 comments, shows a dead dog in one of the crates, several dogs that appear skinny with their ribs jutting out and feces on the floor of the kennels.
Marlin Police Chief James Hommel confirmed a dog died at the shelter, but said the apparent malnourished appearance of the dogs was not due to being neglected, as many of the dogs the city picks up are already in that state.
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“We pick up dogs, they’re not in a good state anyways. Most of the dogs we pick up are abandoned dogs,” Hommel said. “With that said, we do as best we can to get the dogs taken care of.”
Hommel said of the nine dogs at the shelter, three were adopted Tuesday after the Facebook post drew attention.
He said the Falls County Sheriff’s Office and Falls County District Attorney’s Office are looking into the situation at the shelter. No one had been arrested or charged as of Tuesday, Hommel said.
The sheriff’s office and district attorney’s office could not be reached for comment late Tuesday afternoon.
Marlin City Council Member Cecil Sparks said the situation is not as bad as it looks in the post, and refuted the assertion made in the post that the conditions at the shelter are bad. He said the person who made the post “jumped to conclusions.”
Sparks said while the animal control shelter only has one employee, the city has enough food and supplies to take care of the dogs. He said he was at the shelter Monday night and Tuesday morning, and said the dog that died was alive and appeared fine.
He also said the kennels were last cleaned Monday, and the feces seen in the post had accumulated Tuesday. Sparks said the kennels were cleaned again Tuesday afternoon.
“This was blown out of proportion,” Sparks said. “Everything is fine.”
Rich, a dog breeder who lives near Marlin, said he came by the shelter to look for a lost dog when he discovered the dead dog inside. He said he has been to the Marlin animal shelter multiple times, and every time he has been there, he has seen malnourished dogs and feces in the kennels.
Rich said when he came to the shelter, none of the dogs had food or water and there was dust and dirt in some of the dogs’ water bowls, in addition to the piles of feces and dried urine in the kennels. He also said it appeared the dead dog had been dead for several days.
Rich then took pictures of the conditions of the kennels and posted them on Facebook.
“The majority of them were just skin and bones,” Rich said.
After Rich made the post, he said he contacted city officials to let them know about the conditions at the shelter. After notifying city officials, Rich said Hommel asked him to delete the Facebook post. Rich also said after notifying the sheriff’s office and the Texas Department of Public Safety, he saw shelter staff cleaning the kennels before deputies arrived.
Rich refuted city officials’ statements that the dogs were already malnourished when they came to the shelter, as he saw several stray dogs Tuesday around Marlin.
“There was not one stray dog skinnier than the dogs in the animal shelter,” Rich said.
Rich said he adopted one of the dogs from the shelter, but said he was worried some of the dogs were too malnourished and might not make it another few days.
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