Messenger: Questions in case of dead dog in St. Louis County shed light on another death (2024)

It was Valentine’s Day and Judge Steven Colloton had a question about false documents.

Colloton and two other judges on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals were hearing a case by Erin Bulfin related to the death of her family’s dog. The dog, Daisy, bit Bulfin’s daughter, Skylar, on the day after Christmas in 2019. They live in Webster Groves. Skylar was 7 at the time. She needed stitches to sew up her nose. She and Daisy, a terrier mix, used to play dress-up together.

Daisy had to be quarantined for 10 days, by law, because she bit someone. So Bulfin’s husband, Edward Nea, took the dog to the St. Louis County animal shelter, at the time run by the county’s Department of Public Health. There, employees had him sign a form that included a false statement. It said the dog hadn’t bit anybody, and that the family was consenting to euthanasia.

The family didn’t want Daisy killed. They told the shelter employees that. They were expecting to leave their dog for the county-required 10-day quarantine before bringing her home.

But everybody has to sign that form, they were told, even though it contained a false statement. When they showed up to pick up Daisy, she had already been killed. The family was devastated. They filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging a “taking” of their property, a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.

Bulfin, a public school teacher, lost her lawsuit, though some of her claims were sent to state court. She lost despite testimony from a county employee that staff members were trained to have everybody who dropped off a dog for quarantine sign that section of the form.

The detail seemed to bug Colloton in the oral arguments on the appeal.

At least three times during the February hearing he asked about the document and why the county would use it.

“Is there an answer as to why the staff is trained to have people sign a false statement?” Colloton asked.

The lawyer from St. Louis County struggled to find an answer. Finally, he settled on, “The form could have been misleading in the past.”

It’s been changed, he suggested, since the nonprofit Animal Protective Association took control of the shelter in 2022.

That’s not true, says Ruby Hicks, at least as it relates to the false statement.

Hicks is not a part of Bulfin’s case. But last week she told me about her experience with the shelter, and it’s nearly identical to Bulfin’s.

In September, Hicks’ dog, Oden, bit a visitor at her home in the Lemay area of south St. Louis County. Animal Control responded and took Oden, an English Mastiff, to the shelter for a 10-day quarantine. Oden is a big dog, and he can be aggressive with strangers. Hicks signed a form with the same wording as the one Bulfin signed — the one that says her dog hadn’t bit anybody and that she was consenting to euthanasia, even though she wasn’t.

On the day to pick up Oden, one of her sons was out of town. So they called and asked if they could pick up their dog the next day. No problem, they were told.

“They said as long as we were there by 5 p.m. the next day, everything was OK,” Hicks says.

The next day, when they went to retrieve Oden, he had already been killed.

“When we walked in, the young man, said, ‘Oh yeah, I remember speaking to you yesterday,’” Hicks recalls. “When he came back, he had a strange look on his face. He said, ‘Oh my God, they euthanized him yesterday.’”

In the time between the deaths of Daisy and Oden, the county handed over operation of its shelter to the Animal Protective Association. The organization was critical of the condition of the shelter when it took over.

The association’s chief operating officer, Kim Brown, said in an emailed statement that shelter employees tried to contact Hicks three days after Oden was taken in but “didn’t get a response.”

“Oden’s bite history and aggressive behavior while in shelter made him dangerous for our staff to handle,” Brown said. “With no response from the owner, the bite quarantine period complete … on September 21, euthanasia was deemed necessary by our team.”

That was the day Hicks came to pick up her dog. The notes from Oden’s case, provided to me by Brown, say nothing about a phone call to Hicks the day before.

“Her arrival was unfortunately after Oden’s euthanasia,” Brown said. “We regret not being able to reunite Oden with her.”

Hicks complained on Facebook about what happened to Oden. Some folks couldn’t believe it; others knew of Bulfin’s story and others like it. It’s been six months since Oden died, but Hicks and her son still miss him.

“That dog was his friend,” she says of her son, who is grown but lives with her because of learning disabilities. “That dog was the love of his life. They took an innocent dog and just stole his life away from him.”

Bulfin understands that feeling. The question is whether her case, which the appeals court hasn’t ruled on yet, will send a message about being honest and respectful to animal owners.