Request 006 — 1/6/2026

Hey! Did you guys know I have a dog?

Happy Tuesday, welcome to foiaday!

Yesterday, I published the very first weekly update of foiaday, which has a summary of some of the requests I’ve filed so far, plus another request (college police budgets!) to boot. You can read that here!

The long and the short: I haven’t gotten any records back yet, though I’ve had some correspondence about some requests that we’ll get to in a little bit.

So far, though, I’ve made 20 individual FOIA requests for five distinct themes/types of requests across the five days. Today, I only made one more. (Only.)

If there's a coworker or friend you think would benefit from this newsletter, feel free to forward it to them! If they subscribe, they'll also get a link to a template for the tracker I like to use to keep tabs on requests I've filed.

Off to a strong start! Let’s ease up a bit. I promise this is relevant, but: have I told you guys that I have a dog?

Meet Louie.

I first met Louie last January, after seeing pictures of him posted online by Sun-Times innovation editor Ellery Jones, who fostered him. After a ridiculous amount of deliberation and multiple pro-con lists and a little bit of crying and a lot of babyproofing my apartment, I trucked over to PAWS Chicago in the snow to go visit this dog.

I told everyone I was just going over to visit. That I probably wouldn’t come home with a dog. (My mom said she knew that I was leaving with a dog and she had zero doubts.)

Anyway. I adopted Louie after a weeklong medical observation period (he ate a coaster, don’t ask him about it, he’s sensitive) and he moved in and now we’re roommates. If we’ve been on a call together, you’ve probably heard him chiming into conversations in the background.

Wait, this is a newsletter about FOIA. Why am I talking about my dog? 

Before his stop at PAWS, Louie was originally surrendered to Chicago Animal Care and Control, which is Chicago’s pound. PAWS, a nonprofit shelter, scooped him up shortly thereafter, but before then, he was at CACC, something I learned when they included a single page document in his folder of medical records. His name was Coffee, and he had a unique ID and a few other inputted fields of info about him.

I remember thinking when I got the sheet that I wanted to FOIA to see if there was anything else about him, including a better quality photo of him when he did his intake. But I never did it, and got caught up in the whirlwind of accidentally adopting a puppy when I thought I was adopting a two-and-almost-a-half-year-old dog (which is a story for another time).

CACC has been in the headlines because of issues with shelter overcrowding and a rise in owner surrenders, both following COVID as well as the current economic sort-of-recession we’ve been in.

Being a city agency, CACC is subject to FOIA, and based on the fields on my dog’s intake form, there’s definitely a database to be requested. So I have two goals for today’s request: one, get everything I can about my dog, because I’m nosy and I want it; two, maybe take a peek at all of the dog names of all of the dogs at CACC, because… it’s fun?

So. Let’s request some for some fields in that database, and then for the specific record on my dog and his situation. Here’s what I sent over to CACC:

Copies of the following documents:

- A list or spreadsheet of all dogs housed at CACC between 1/1/2025 and present (1/6/2026 or whenever this request is processed). Please include fields like the dog’s name, the date of intake, the breed of dog, and other information made available here https://24petconnect.com/chgoall. Please provide the records in a machine-readable format, like a .csv or .xlsx file, if possible.

- The records retention schedule for CACC. A records retention schedule contains names and descriptions of the types of documents housed by the agency, along with the amount of time that the records are kept. It's typically sent to the Illinois State Archives. Please include this as a .pdf format if possible.

- All records, including photographs, intake documents, medical records, behavioral records, and transfer records, for Coffee, A284444, a male chocolate lab DOB 12/8/2023. Coffee was surrendered at CACC on 11/8/2024 and transferred to PAWS Chicago LPAC. I’ve attached a copy of his kennel card to this email. Please provide records in a digitized format, like a .pdf, if possible; photos can be in .jpg/.png or other format.

We’ll see what I get back. Hopefully Lou is still in their system (he was in their care in November 2024, so he should be!) and I can get some stuff back! Like some photos of littler Louie!

Let’s talk about the requests that are in so far! I’m not going to list all of them out in a table today (if you want to view that, you can see it here in yesterday’s issue), but I’ll give some updates:

Request 001 — NASA and ISS records

No new news. They acknowledged the request the day after and let me know that it would be a while, which is very fair. They’re NASA!

Request 002 — IL Secretary of State rejected plates

No new news. They technically have until Friday to send an acknowledgement of the request. 🤞

Request 003 — CPD, ISP, CCSO AI chatbot usage

I got some responses today, but mostly administrative replies. CPD extended and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged. Both made me GovQA portal accounts. (🥲) No response from ISP yet.

If you have any ideas for requests, feedback, or thoughts about foiaday, we now have a form! Feel free to pop by in order to share inspiration to help get me through this year’s worth of requests. Thanks to folks who have already sent in some ideas!

Otherwise, if you have any questions, comments, love letters or conspiracy theories, feel free to drop me a line by replying to this email. 

Happy filing!

Cam