COEUR d'ALENE - A handful of volunteers have resigned from the Kootenai Humane Society over what they say is a new policy designed to silence them.

The policy, called the "volunteer acknowledgment of the no-kill policy," has been in the KHS volunteer manual for years, said KHS Executive Director Debbie Jeffrey, adding the policy was updated and put on a clipboard in the volunteer trailer several weeks ago.

Mary K. Lynam, one of the volunteers who refused to sign the acknowledgment, said she has never seen the policy in the eight years she has been volunteering at the shelter.

"In my opinion, this policy was written in response to a letter to the editor," Lynam said. "They have never made us sign it before."

The letter Lynam refers to was written by former shelter volunteer Paula Dahlen, who criticized the Humane Society for scheduling a dog to be euthanized after it bit a shelter visitor.

That letter was published in The Press on March 12 of this year. Shortly after its publication, Lynam said, the volunteer coordinator started requiring volunteers to sign the new policy.

Lynam and four others, who call themselves the "weatherproof volunteers," said the policy went too far by restricting what they are allowed to talk about in public.

The acknowledgment policy has one line on it that reads: "I understand that I can be terminated as a volunteer at KHS if I perform any of the acts in the Zero Tolerance policy including public rumor mongering and untruths in regards to the care of the animals at KHS."

Former volunteer Sue Wombolt said she didn't feel right about signing the document because of that sentence.

"I took it to my son, who is an attorney, and he said they can't make you sign that," she said. "He told me not to sign it."

Cecilia Nolthenius, another former volunteer, said the sentence was designed to keep the volunteers quiet about the inner workings of the shelter.

"We see things they don't want other people to see," she said, adding their group proposed an alternative policy that eliminated that language. "But they haven't responded to that."

Two other former volunteers signed the alternative policy for the same reasons, including Sheri Page and Shinko Whitehorn.

Jeffrey said the alternative was provided to her just before she left for vacation, and she has not had time to respond to it because she just returned from vacation this week.

"It is on my list of things to do," she said. "But you know how it is when you get back from a vacation. I have a lot of things to catch up on."

Jeffrey said she is open to sitting down with the volunteers to discuss their issues, but she added that the shelter has to have rules, and spreading untruths or rumors about any organization would be a terminal offense.

"Nobody is telling them they can't speak or contact the board if they see something wrong," Jeffrey said. "They are making a lot of assumptions that are not true."

Jeffrey said much of this confusion got started with Dahlen's letter to the editor, which she says was completely false.

"Lotto (the dog's name) was never on the euthanasia list," she said. "Lotto wasn't even brought up in the euthanasia committee."

Lotto did bite a visitor to the shelter when the woman stuck her finger in his cage. Jeffrey said after investigating what might have caused that behavior, staff discovered that a volunteer was bringing peanut butter into the shelter and feeding it to Lotto.

"He was putting it on his finger and letting Lotto lick it off," she said. "So what do you think a dog is going to do when someone sticks a finger in his cage?"

After discovering this information, Jeffrey said the dog received aggressive behavior training and is now doing fine.

"I reached out personally to Paula (Dahlen) before the letter was written, but she never got back to me," she said. Dahlen couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.

Jeffrey said she has 75 volunteers at the shelter and all but five have agreed to sign the acknowledgment. However, she said she is open to reviewing their alternative and further discussion of the issue.

"I will get back with Ceci (Nolthenius) as soon as I can" she said.