Study: “widespread exposure to multiple pesticides in pet dogs and cats.”
Study: “widespread exposure to multiple pesticides in pet dogs and cats.”
News and headlines for September 19 - September 23, 2022
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
The animal shelter in McDuffie County, GA, killed more than 30 dogs with rescue commitments. In addition to killing those healthy dogs, witnesses are accusing the McDuffie County animal shelter of:
Placing animals “in body bags before they even stopped breathing”;
“[C]hoking animals with leashes or kicking or stomping on them to get them under control, particularly if they struggled while being euthanized” and “slam[ming] their heads on the concrete”;
“[R]emoving collars from dogs, though those collars suggested the animals had homes” to kill them;
Killing animals before their holding period expired and then lying on the paperwork in the event people come looking for their lost pets; and,
“[I]mproper euthanasia procedures” including heart sticking (without sedation and on fully conscious animals).
This is YOUR animal shelter; the one that blames YOU for the killing.
An OpEd asks New York Governor Hochul to veto legislation that would create a new justification for killing shelter animals: “mental suffering.”
There is no definition of “mental suffering” and no standards for how shelters will apply it. Indeed, all animals can experience stress on entry to a pound. As many of these animals are used to sleeping on beds and couches in homes or even living on the street, they will find their familiar routines upended in a confined place that is loud, often dirty, unfamiliar, and disorienting. Not only is this a real and immediate threat to shy and scared animals and feral cats, but it is a first-of-its-kind, dangerous precedent to introduce in the animal control laws of our nation.
According to the OpEd,
This bill, entitled the Companion Animal Care Standards Act, is sponsored by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin… Paulin appears to be on a decade-long barbarous mission to legislate that kill pounds should be given the right to quickly destroy animals for perceived psychological pain [, even though simply getting them out of the shelter and into homes resolves many of the issues]. In 2012, according to the New York Times, she attempted to pass a “quick kill bill” which would have done so. Due to extreme public outrage the bill was thwarted.
Despite a recent scandal where the director of the Broward County, FL, shelter told police officers to allow a dog to drown to avoid taking him into the shelter, police departments in the county say the shelter continues to refuse to take in animals they have rescued. They are asking County Commissioners to veto the policy.
Broward has implemented Austin Pets Alive’s Human Animal Support Services, a dangerous and growing trend that closes the door of the animal shelter to lost and abandoned animals. Under the APA policy, “Intakes of healthy strays and owner surrenders doesn’t exist anymore,” and there is “No kennel space for rehoming, stray hold or intake.” People who find animals are told to take them into their homes until their families are located or leave them on the street. Because of HASS, animals, including motherless neonatal kittens, are being turned away across the country. Some are subsequently found dead.
Meanwhile, a recent audit of Broward County Animal Services showed that “Mismanagement of shelter operations continues...” For example, “The audit showed enrichment is not adequate for the shelter population... Lack of enrichment leads to decline and unruly behavior. These suffering pets are then not eligible for adoption and are killed.”
As previously reported, the pound in St. Louis County, MO, likewise announced it was closing its doors to lost, abandoned, and stray dogs and leaving them to whatever fate might befall them on the street. They also announced that they would be killing more dogs. Like Broward, the St. Louis County pound has a long history of mismanagement, poor care, killing, and retaliation against rescuers and volunteers. This is not surprising as abusive and poorly performing “shelters” are the ones embracing Austin Pets Alive’s disastrous HASS program.
Now comes news that the county stopped all dog adoptions, a death sentence, because of “multiple cases” of parvovirus. While a dog will occasionally break with parvovirus in a shelter, “multiple cases” are almost always the fault of shelter management and staff. Specifically, they result from improper vaccination, cleaning, disinfection, and handling protocols. In other words, dirty facilities and sloppy care. Though tragic, it is again not surprising for St. Louis County.
The shelter that serves Greenwood, MS, is protesting the city’s regulations on “pit bulls.”