{"id":53858,"date":"2014-07-23T15:35:53","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T20:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=53858"},"modified":"2014-07-25T07:48:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T12:48:50","slug":"sheriff-investigating-problems-at-local-humane-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2014\/07\/23\/sheriff-investigating-problems-at-local-humane-shelter\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff probes humane shelter complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/b>independent editor<\/i><\/p>\n

Van Wert County Dog Warden Rich Strunkenberg has been placed on paid administrative leave pending completion of an investigation into complaints about conditions at the county animal shelter.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Van Wert County Humane Shelter (above) is under investigation for unsafe conditions, while Dog Warden Rich Strunkenberg is currently on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sheriff Thomas M. Riggenbach stated Wednesday afternoon that his office received a complaint on Sunday from a local resident concerning conditions at the shelter. The sheriff sent deputies to the shelter at that time to assess possible problems at the shelter, and they apparently had some concerns about conditions at the shelter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a unit go out there and see what we had,\u201d Sheriff Riggenbach said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to go into the specifics of what we found, but it was not what was acceptable to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A local veterinarian was also called in to assess the health of several of the animals at the shelter, the sheriff said, and some animals were removed to the vet\u2019s office for treatment and further observation. Only one of those animals is still at the veterinarian\u2019s office, at this point, Sheriff Riggenbach said.<\/p>\n

Although the Van Wert County Board of Commissioners hires the county dog warden, the sheriff has been Strunkenberg\u2019s direct supervisor since August 2013.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Riggenbach said he has had almost daily contact with Strunkenberg since August 2013 and was working with the dog warden on how he handled calls and provided services — an area that had engendered a considerable number of complaints prior to Strunkenberg being placed under the sheriff\u2019s supervision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is one of the reasons there was a lot of direct supervision on those type of services,\u201d the sheriff said.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Riggenbach did note, though, that he had seen some big improvements in how Strunkenberg handled service calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt he had been doing pretty well, with what I was seeing, responding to calls, handling calls for service,\u201d the sheriff said. \u201cI felt he had been doing well in that regard.<\/p>\n

But Sheriff Riggenbach also took his share of the blame for conditions at the humane shelter that are currently under investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was close supervision on a lot of things, as far as his position goes,\u201d the sheriff said, \u201cbut not as close as needed to be with the shelter area, so that\u2019s something on me for not making sure we did a better job on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheriff Riggenbach said that, pending completion of the investigation, a deputy has been pulled off road duty to handle the dog warden\u2019s duties.<\/p>\n

The sheriff would not say when he felt the investigation would be completed, noting only that a thorough investigation would be conducted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Van Wert County Dog Warden Rich Strunkenberg has been placed on paid administrative leave pending completion of an investigation into complaints about conditions at the county animal shelter. Sheriff Thomas M. Riggenbach stated Wednesday afternoon that his office received a complaint on Sunday from a local resident concerning conditions at the shelter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 03:38:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}