In the story, which ran on Fox 17 in Nashville, Jason and Julie Corlew said they had a $600 vet bill after their Great Dane was "laying in his feces and urine for 10 days" and "ate the hair off his elbows."
As a result, the Corlew's claimed, the animal suffered urine scalds, blistered feet, a blood infection, and a 40-pound weight loss.
Jason Corlew said Wednesday he is suing the county for vet bills and costs.
Weatherford said he had nothing to hide and let the TV crew in to the facility to inspect it.
"We allowed them in and let them look at everything," Weatherford said. "They're saying the flush system doesn't work and it does - it works exactly like it was designed.
"And they were saying the floors aren't sloped, and that part is correct - when they built the building, somehow that got cut out. I didn't have anything to do with the architect or the building...but when I saw that we had a problem, I took it back in front of the county commission, I told them it was going to cost something like $45,000 to have the floors ground and sloped, and the commission didn't approve it."
Since he couldn't get the funding, Weatherford said, they've had to deal with the issue on their own.
"I have inmates over there all day long that walk through periodically and clean floors," he said.
Weatherford said this was the second stay in the pound for the Corlew's dog - both visits due to biting a child.
"This is the second time he's bit the same child...she's three-years-old," he said. "I've got a picture of it - she had to have plastic surgery. He bit her through her eyelid, all the way down her cheek, and back toward her ear. She was taken to Vanderbilt and had to have that surgery."
Weatherford said the dog did not lose all that weight because of neglect while at the shelter.
"When we took the dog, he didn't want to eat," he said. "He was grieving because he wasn't in his home and he wasn't around anybody that he knew," he said. "He was in a kennel to himself - he was in quarantine due to biting the girl, so we couldn't have any human contact with him except for the cleaning and being fed, and there are no animals anywhere around him, either.
"We called and told them we wanted the food that they had been feeding him," he added. "He did start eating some...but he didn't lose 40 pounds while he was there."
Another side to the story
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Jason Corlew responded to some of the statements made by Weatherford.
Corlew said the first bite incident occurred around 18 months ago and it was believed the little girl may have unintentionally awoken and startled the dog. That incident did not require any medical attention. Corlew said a deputy from the sheriff's office did come to his home to investigate, but released the dog into Corlew's care.
The second biting incident, which happened this past August Corlew said, involved the same child, and it was believed the dog was again asleep and the biting was unintentional. He said the incident did required medical attention with stitches and plastic surgery to the child's cheek.
Corlew, who is being represented by Hendersonville attorney Roland Mumford, is suing the county; claiming his dog was not properly cared for. Corlew claims he repeatedly phoned Sumner County Animal Control to check on the Great Dane named Chief, and each time he was able to reach someone, was told the dog was fine. He said it was when he went to pick up the dog after the mandatory 10-day waiting period that he noticed problems.
"Sgt. (Sean) Ryan told me he would go get him and he walked out with him and I saw the condition of the dog - I see sores all over the dog, dried feces, urine that had burned him and his joints were huge and swelling. His feet had so much feces caked in them, all his paws skin was burning off.
"The vet examined the dog and said it was one of the worst cases of animal neglect she had ever seen; saying that where he had (lain) there for so long, the joints had filled with fluid. He also had a blood infection and was very emaciated - they are guessing he lost 40 pounds."
He said he just wants to know why his dog was not property cared for.
"The issue we are having is that we trusted our dog, which is a member of our family, to them to give him adequate care and it wasn't done - the dog was basically starved for 10 days," Corlew said. "They could have either taken him to the vet or have us come pick him up. They never called me once and I called numerous times and was always told the dog was fine. There just needs to be a lot of changes - I don't want his to happen to anybody else's dog."
Mumford said he plans to file the suit on Thursday. Both he and Corlew said the suit would likely ask for $1,000 or less, and was for the most part, to cast a light on Sumner County Animal Control to help give a voice to other people.
"There is a lot of principal at play here," Mumford said.
(Gallatin News - Nov 11, 2015)
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