Resident Van Kitchens said on June 16 that the animal control policy in Bourbon needs to be changed after Bourbon police euthanized his dog on June 9.

“My basement also flooded. That had led to kind of a series of events that made me realize we’ve got a pretty serious issue here in town with animal control,” Kitchens said. “Tuesday, we put the dogs in the backyard. They’ve been in there for three years. They’ve never escaped. Once or twice, they’ve run out through a door.”

When they discovered the dogs had gone missing, they quickly went searching for them, but his daughter got a call that the Bourbon police euthanized one of the dogs.

When Kitchens went to identify if it was their dog, he was told that it was lying on the railroad tracks with blood all over its hind legs.

“When we recovered him from the woods that they rolled him into after they shot him in the head twice, there was only blood from the bullet wounds,” Kitchen said. “That was a family member of my household. He was heat-exhausted. I later had his body checked; no broken bones. Do we have zero policy in this town for animals at all? Is it to shoot and throw it in the woods?” Kitchens asked.

He requested that the city start a policy moving forward, so this doesn’t happen to other Bourbon residents.

Kitchens said that state and county officers were also on the scene, but it was a Bourbon officer who made the judgment call to pull the trigger.

 Alderman Ward 1 Margie Brine said that the city has ordinances related to dogs, but none that she is aware of for this specific situation.

“We’re actually trying to control them being loose because we’ve had several bites,” Brine said.

Kitchens said that he understands that there is an ongoing issue of dog bite incidents, but his dog was non-aggressive and out for only about three hours.

“This happened about 500-600 yards away from my door,” Kitchens said. “There are plenty of people in this town that know what my dogs look like that are constantly on social media. A quick picture posted to the Bourbon Facebook page…”

He asked how many people missed that there was a boil order because they don’t have Facebook or the school district didn’t email them.

“There are zero communication systems within this town,” Kitchens said.

Mayor Sky Huddleston said that the boil water order exposed a massive gap in the city’s communication procedures and protocols.

No action was taken.

In other business, North Crawford County Ambulance District Board of Directors Vice President and representative for Bourbon Mike Delashmit announced that they should be able to move into their new building by November and that the old building is up for sale.