A ruff experience

Sam is a handsome lad caught in a love triangle between a local politician and the woman with whom he has resided for five years.

His two love interests say he has captured their hearts and they don’t want the other to have him.

Sam, aka Buddy, is a dog.

Edinah Lincoln, a retired Springfield rehabilitation therapist, and Pam Deppe, a Republican on the Sangamon County Board, each say they are the rightful owner to the Havanese pooch.

Lincoln, who is 78 and lives alone, said her social life revolved around the animal. She said she would walk him three to five miles every day and talk with neighbors and other dog walkers along her route in Washington Park.

Now that Sam doesn’t live with her, she says she no longer has a reason to leave the house.

But Deppe said the dog, which she has renamed Buddy, was legally adopted from the pound. She added she loves him and has no intention of giving him back to his former owner.

Soon the legal fur may be flying. And caught in the crossfire is Sangamon County Animal Control.

On May 20, Lincoln experienced a health emergency; medical personnel carried her unconscious from her home and she was taken to a St. Louis hospital for immediate aortic surgery.

Later that day, a Springfield police lieutenant and a locksmith were dispatched to the house to help an animal control officer take the pooch to the pound.

Kala Wells, a neighbor, said the day the ambulance left Lincoln’s house she was contacted by someone from Animal Control who told her that Lincoln wasn’t expected to live and asked if she would like to have the dog.

“I already had two puppies and they said she wasn’t going to live, so I told them to just find a good home for him,” she said. But she later added if she had known that her neighbor would return home, she would have been happy to foster him.

Animal Control Director Jeanne Keenan said she tried to call Lincoln while she was in the hospital but was told by a nurse that she was not coherent.

“She said that the patient was very disoriented. I did not feel comfortable starting a conversation about an owned animal with a person that was disoriented. So, I did not do that. The nurse told us about a brother who lived in Utah and gave us his phone number. We reached out to the brother,” said Keenan.

The brother, John Lincoln, said he spoke on the telephone with someone from Animal Control named Sheila on May 23 and told her he couldn’t afford to have the canine flown to Utah, where he lives. But he said he did tell her he would be willing to pay as much as $50 a day to have the dog boarded locally until his sister was released from the hospital.

“Basically, the woman told me they couldn’t do this and that this is an owner-relinquished animal that has to be given up after seven days,” he said.

Animal Control director Keenan said if there had been an offer to pay to board the dog, they certainly would have considered it.

“We could maybe have set up something to have the animal taken care of outside of the facility so that they could keep the dog until she got better,” she said.

But Keenan added she doesn’t believe such an offer to pay for boarding was ever made. She added it is her understanding that John Lincoln gave permission for the animal to be relinquished.

Michelle Bretscher, practice manager for Coble Animal Hospital, said the amount John Lincoln contends he offered to pay would easily have covered the cost of private boarding in the community. She said basic boarding at her facility is $20 a day.

A Jacksonville nurse who was caring for Lincoln in the St. Louis hospital also called Animal Control that week and offered to foster the dog. But according to notes obtained by Illinois Times under the Freedom of Information Act, Animal Control officials told her she needed to coordinate such a fostering with John Lincoln – not Animal Control.

“At that point, we didn’t own the dog and couldn’t make arrangements for it,” Keenan said.  

What is not in dispute is that during a second phone call on June 1, John Lincoln said he did not want the dog given away.  The pound still had physical possession of the canine when he called, but the May 30 deadline for the family to reclaim it had passed. And by then, an arrangement had been made for Pam Deppe to adopt the dog.

Although Deppe is a member of the Sangamon County Board and Animal Control is one of the agencies it oversees, both Keenan and her boss, Public Health Director Gail O’Neill, say she was not given any preferential treatment.

Both Lincoln and her neighbor, Kala Wells, expressed skepticism at this claim.

Lincoln said she purchased the purebred dog from an Ohio breeder for $800 five years ago and paid another $200 to have it transported to Springfield.

When Deppe adopted the dog, she paid a $50 adoption fee. But she said that doesn’t tell the whole story of how much she has spent on him. She said since the adoption she paid to have a Chatham veterinarian treat him for an ear infection and for a groomer to have some matted fur removed. She added when she and her husband went on vacation, she paid for her brother to fly to Springfield from Arizona to dog sit both of her pets.

She added she prepares custom meals for her dogs each day, has given the dog a new name that he answers to and that he now insists on sleeping every night next to her husband.

Deppe said she intends to keep the animal because she believes hers is the best home for him.

Lincoln is consulting with a lawyer to try to regain her pooch. The civil division of the Sangamon County State’s Attorney’s office also has been contacted by Animal Control officials about the matter.

Lincoln said she wonders why Deppe doesn’t just make a gesture of kindness and return the dog.

She added, “She doesn’t have empathy, so that defines a sociopath.”

This article appears in Housing first.