Coweta County Kicks JoJo Advocates

None of us Funny Farmers want to stand alone to introduce today's sad post.  So we stand united.

On Wednesday, August 11, we posted a story about JoJo, originally called "Old Yeller by the Coweta County Animal Control in Georgia, USA. The story is a sad one and it makes us angry to be reminded of it. But as this is a distressing update to that story, we need to suggest that if you missed it or have forgotten the details, you take a moment to read the original post so you can understand what is happening in Coweta County in retaliation for the publicity and responses generated by articles such as the one we linked to, which you can read here.

This is just the first paragraph of today's article -

"Last night, the Coweta County Commission approved amendments to their animal control ordinances, including one which requires rescue groups to obtain business licenses, and to submit to inspections from Coweta County Animal Control. This new rule comes just over a week after the uproar over the way Coweta County Animal Control treated a dog known first as Old Yeller, then renamed JoJo by his rescuers, the Georgia Humane Society. Many find the timing of this new rule highly suspect and openly wonder what business they think they have inspecting groups who save animals from the shelter when they can't maintain acceptable standards of care in the shelter itself. Rescues are already licensed and inspected by the state, but Coweta County Animal Control wants a piece of the regulatory action too and the Coweta County Commission gave it to them. Will they use it in a retaliatory fashion against rescuers who speak out about the killing and inhumane conditions at CCAC? We're going to find out."

You can read the rest of the story by clicking on this title of the article - Coweta County Commission adds insult to injury as animal advocates seek "Justice for Old Yeller by Valerie Hayes.

The really insane part of all this is that humans who are supposedly incapable of taking care of their own shelter animals have now been given the legal right to oversee (we figure that means harass) rescue shelters already licensed and periodically inspected by the Georgia Dept of Agriculture. This can potentiallycause any number of problems for the rescue shelters.  But in the end it will be the animals that really suffer because of what appears to be retaliation for publicity over a poor no-longer-suffering dog named JoJo.

RIP, JoJo. You deserved much better than what you received.

UPDATE: If interested you can check out Georgia Humane Society info on JoJo and cbsAtlanta.com.