Inadequate oversight and ineffective controls plague the inspection process for pet-care facilities such as breeders, shelters, groomers and trainers, according to .
The Colorado Department of Agriculture, charged with overseeing such services, failed to conduct prescribed inspections on nearly one in five licensed facilities. It also never conducted investigations within the required five-day time frame on 13 of 20 complaints from an audited sample.
The investigation also zeroed in on uneven enforcement of penalties for violations. Among 45 routine inspections in 2014 sampled by the audit, 36 were found to have at least one violation and eight had five or more — some with a direct impact on the welfare of the animals.
Yet there were no repercussions for any of the facilities. The department didn’t levy fines, impose license suspensions or revocations, or even hand down cease-and-desist orders.
The audit also found that the department lacked controls to ensure consistency among inspections and enforcement. It also found the department deficient in identifying actual and perceived conflicts of interest among inspectors — many of whom own animals or have prior connections to operators of pet-care facilities.
The audit made four key recommendations to tighten oversight and control. The Department of Agriculture agreed with all of them.
In January, Nick Fisher took over as program director, coming from outside the department after a career spent in law enforcement, animal shelters and the boarding industry on a corporate level.
The Pet Animal Care Facilities Act Program also moved to a new division within the agriculture department, and more robust staffing will help achieve the goal of inspecting the more than 1,800 licensed facilities at least once each year, he said.
New operations and training manuals have addressed the lack of policies for inspections and enforcement.
“We’re pretty well underway in fixing it,” Fisher said of the problems named in the audit. “It’s been a six-month transition, and we’re in a pretty good place now. Inspectors have performance goals they have to meet on a daily basis. I think we’ve turned it around pretty quick.”
