Public records · Records still coming in

Healthy Hearts and Paws: humane agents, and an August 29 bite nobody has a record of

Three agencies. Zero records of the August 29 bite.
We asked city health, county health and Warren Police for records of an August 29, 2026 bite. All three came back with nothing on that date.

The issue

The Healthy Hearts and Paws Project (HHPP) runs a dog shelter at 909 Martin Luther King Blvd SW in Warren. In October 2025 its founder, Jason Cooke, was approved as a humane society agent. In Ohio, humane agents can arrest people for animal cruelty (R.C. 1717.06(A)). That's real police-type power, so the paperwork behind it is public record.

In late October 2026, local news reported a lawsuit against the Animal Welfare League of Trumbull County (AWL) over records about an August 29, 2026 incident involving an HHPP dog. We wanted to know which public agencies had a record of it, and who's actually approved to act as a humane agent.

What we asked for

# Agency Sent What
G1 Trumbull County Probate Court Nov 5, 2026 (court's online form) HHPP's humane-society recognition, every HHPP and AWL humane agent appointment, training proof, notices to the Sheriff/Commissioners, removals/complaints, correspondence
G4 Trumbull County Combined Health District Oct 30, 2026 (follow-up Nov 4) Any Aug 29, 2026 bite report involving an HHPP dog; quarantine/rabies records; a log of bite reports listing HHPP; referrals; complaints/inspections; correspondence
G5 Warren City Health District Oct 30, 2026 Same as G4, city side
G7 Warren Police (via Law Dept) Oct 30, 2026 Any Aug 29, 2026 bite CAD/report; any AWL referral about it; all calls for service to 909 MLK since Jan 1, 2025

What we got

G5 Warren City Health, Oct 30, 2026 (same day): "After conducting a search of our records, we found no records or documentation in reference to your request." (Brenda Sidoti, Environmental Health Clerk, email Oct 30, 2026)

G4 Trumbull County Combined Health District, Nov 5, 2026: (Johnna Ben, Administrative Coordinator, email Nov 5, 2026) - Aug 29 bite: "A search of our database, produced no record of an animal bite report for a bite on or about August 29, 2026, with an owner identified as 'The Healthy Hearts and Paws Project'." - Quarantine/rabies records for it: "None Exist." - Referrals to or from AWL, HHPP, the Dog Warden or police: "None Exist." - Complaints or inspections of the shelter: "None Exist." - Log of bite reports listing HHPP: sent. It shows two reports with HHPP as the owner, for bites on February 25, 2026 and July 19, 2026, each with a quarantine notice. - Redactions: medical info redacted, citing R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(a), R.C. 3701.17 and HIPAA. That's a proper written legal basis.

G7 Warren Police, Nov 6, 2026 (two emails): 22 call-for-service printouts for 909 MLK from 2025 to date. No Aug 29 record. The internal note forwarded with the records says: "It doesn't appear we responded to [08-29-2026] incident." (Telina Walker, Police Support Technician, emails Nov 6, 2026, quoting a Nov 2 internal note) No AWL referral was produced. No legal basis was cited for the masked info in two reports.

G1 Trumbull Probate Court, Nov 6, 2026 (two emails): five humane-agent appointment files, all for HHPP. (Records@trumbullprobate.org, Nov 6, 2026) - Jason Cooke, case 2025 PBC 0027: petition filed about Oct 14, 2025; a 34-hour Ohio Animal Welfare Federation training certificate dated Oct 8, 2025; judgment entry and oath Oct 15, 2025 before Probate Judge James A. Fredericka, appointing him "Humane Society Agent for Trumbull County"; notice to the Sheriff and Commissioners. (Cooke file, pp. 1-11) - Four more HHPP agents approved May 18, 2026 (cases 2026 PBC 0018 through 0021), each with a training certificate or training listed and an HHPP board resolution. (Pilarcik, Galios, Freeman and Hoolihan files) - Not produced: any standalone court order recognizing HHPP as a county humane society; any AWL agent files; any resignations, removals or complaints; any correspondence. The court didn't say those don't exist. It just didn't send them.

What we found

  1. Nobody we asked has an Aug 29 record. City health: no records at all. County health: no Aug 29 report with HHPP as owner. Warren Police: their own note says they didn't respond to it.
  2. Other bite reports involving HHPP do exist. County health has reports for Feb 25 and July 19, 2026 with HHPP listed as owner. Warren Police has bite-related calls at the shelter address on June 12 and July 9, 2026, and a Nov 17, 2025 call note about a bite by a shelter dog. (Warren PD WAR2618370, WAR2621871, WAR2538525) Those are different incidents from Aug 29. Different agencies, different dates.
  3. Cooke's appointment and training are on file, with the training dated a week before the approval. The court did what the statute says on paper: approval, oath, notice to the Sheriff and Commissioners.
  4. Busy address. Warren Police's 22 calls to the shelter since 2025 include dumped or loose dogs, dog-custody disputes, threats, an intruder call, and an open-house notice. (Warren PD production) Lots of calls doesn't mean wrongdoing. It's a shelter.
  5. Cooke as the one reporting. In two 2025 incident reports Cooke is listed as the victim or caller. In one (REN 25-21397, September 9, 2025), officers responding to threats made to Cooke also checked on an abandoned dog, found "a malnourished dog in the backyard," and Cooke "was advised to come retrieve the dog." (Warren PD REN 25-19728 and REN 25-21397) We've redacted the names and addresses of the other people in that report to protect a minor.

What's next

  • If an HHPP dog bit someone on Aug 29, who got the report? Ohio's rule (Ohio Adm. Code 3701-3-28) says bite reports go to the health district where the bite happened, within 24 hours, from the health care provider, a vet who knows about it, or the person bitten. Neither health district we asked has one listing HHPP.
  • Did the county search only for HHPP as "owner"? We asked about dogs HHPP owned, sheltered or fostered. Their answer says "owner." A fostered dog might be listed under someone else.
  • The Feb 25 quarantine notice has handwritten end dates (Feb 7 and Feb 17) that come before the bite. Probably a writing mistake. We'd like the county to clarify.
  • Where are AWL's humane agent files? We asked the Probate Court. We got only HHPP's.
  • What's the AWL holding? AWL forwarded our request to its lawyer on Oct 30. Our follow-up bounced because the lawyer's email address we were given was misspelled. We're resending.

Our opinion: We're not saying a bite didn't happen, and we're not saying anybody hid anything. We're saying three public agencies that would normally hear about a dog bite in Warren have nothing on Aug 29. Somebody has the paper. We'd like to know who.

Follow-ups

  • Still waiting on: the Trumbull County Sheriff (training records), the Trumbull Commissioners/Dog Warden (acknowledged Nov 2), Warren's Law Department (animal control contract, acknowledged Nov 2) and the Animal Welfare League.
  • Questions we may send: whether County Health's search covered fostered or sheltered dogs, the correct February dates, and whether Warren PD's search covered bites away from the shelter involving HHPP dogs.

Documents

These are the records as the agencies released them. We blacked out only information that could identify a minor, our own personal contact details, and adult Social Security numbers. Any other black boxes were put there by the agency.

Everything on this page comes from public records we requested under Ohio's Public Records Act (R.C. 149.43), unless we say otherwise. Anything labeled "Our opinion" or "We think" is our opinion. Questions are questions, not accusations. People charged with crimes are presumed innocent. See something wrong? Tell us: TheMLOBROS@gmail.com · (330) 542-5449.
The MLO Bros