Shelter euthanizes 1000 animals.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/16/she....ap/index.html

This is heartbreaking.

Having been through a bad summer where we lost quite a few kittens from the feline panleukopenia, I understand how hard it is to keep this disease down.. but this is horrible.

My God. What a tragedy on so many levels.

So many levels. I, as a shelter worker, cannot imagine the horror of having to euth so many animals but at the same time how could they let that happen??

There are things in this life that are worse than death and it sounds like for many of the animals that is what they experienced.

What a tragedy. What a shame and loss of life...

I want to vomit.

extremely sad. i found it sickening as well. the ignorance and negligence, unecessary suffering and death of innocent creatures. so sad and wrong.

This is horrible. This is the very reason that many people won't surrender animals to a shelter, and so animals continue to suffer. I have absolutely NO confidence in our local animal shelter because of the manner in which they have handled some high profile cases. I would euthanize any cat I owned before I surrendered it to them, simple because I feel it would absolutely be in the animals best interests. And that's sad.

we were talking about this at work today. I sympathize with the person/persons who had to put them all down.

Really though I hope an investigation is being done. I personally don't know how a situation got this bad.

From what we can tell this is the problem with this shelter that is an open door, which I can only assume due to public pressure went to low-kill. You can't do both. This is the outcome of it.
However I don't know how anyone misses signs of Parvo.(warning graphic details)
A dog blowing blood out of it's butt is pretty hard to miss. Don't you think?

I really hope they do an extensive investigation on the matter.

Originally Posted by Breal76

we were talking about this at work today. I sympathize with the person/persons who had to put them all down.

Really though I hope an investigation is being done. I personally don't know how a situation got this bad.

From what we can tell this is the problem with this shelter that is an open door, which I can only assume due to public pressure went to low-kill. You can't do both. This is the outcome of it.
However I don't know how anyone misses signs of Parvo.(warning graphic details)
A dog blowing blood out of it's butt is pretty hard to miss. Don't you think?

I really hope they do an extensive investigation on the matter.

Click to expand...

I could not agree more. I hope that some good will come of this so that both shelters AND (mostly) the public understand that going "low-kill" does not simply mean stop euthanizing for time and space. It is a multi-faceted thing that must be undertaken slowly and step by step. If you skip steps then problems like this happen and it is bad for all involved.

I saw that today on MSNBC also. I think that was just horrible.

The only thing I could think of it that the shelter didn't have enough money to get all the animals the proper treatment. Maybe I don't know shelters very well, but either it was poor management or lack of money that caused this.

Poor little animals. I can't fathom having to put down that many.

Originally Posted by Breal76

we were talking about this at work today. I sympathize with the person/persons who had to put them all down.

Really though I hope an investigation is being done. I personally don't know how a situation got this bad.

From what we can tell this is the problem with this shelter that is an open door, which I can only assume due to public pressure went to low-kill. You can't do both. This is the outcome of it.
However I don't know how anyone misses signs of Parvo.(warning graphic details)
A dog blowing blood out of it's butt is pretty hard to miss. Don't you think?

I really hope they do an extensive investigation on the matter.

Click to expand...

Oh no kidding! And the SMELL!! Once you smell Parvo you never forget that smell. That place must have smelled godawful! I can't imagine having to euthanize THAT many animals. I am planning on getting my euthanisia license soon, well before I graduate in October, but man, I couldn't imagine having to euthanize that many at once!

It is awful though, a parvo/distemper/panleuk outbreak in a shelter is the absolute worst thing! In most cases euthanisia is probably best. I still don't think there was any reason for it to get that out of hand. But once the disease is in the air, shelters are usually too contained and not ventilate well enough and the disease just lingers. Unless you have completely seperate buildings, every animal is going to end up getting sick.

That is so sad.

My heart goes out to the well-meaning but misguided folks who were just trying to give those poor animals that extra chance at finding a home. And how sad that with all those many, many houses being built in the Vegas area, there was simply not enough room in people's hearts and homes for those ill-fated pets.
It is like what happens to some "cat collectors" - they take on too much because the majority of other "animal lovers" take on far too little
Godspeed over RB, future kitties who will be given only 72 hours to find a new home, as per Humane Society recommendations

What a sickening horror!!!!!!

I must confess I don't understand what the Animal Foundation chairwoman was saying about using the wrong immumization. Huh?

Originally Posted by Fats McGee

My God. What a tragedy on so many levels.

So many levels. I, as a shelter worker, cannot imagine the horror of having to euth so many animals but at the same time how could they let that happen??

There are things in this life that are worse than death and it sounds like for many of the animals that is what they experienced.

What a tragedy. What a shame and loss of life...

I want to vomit.

Click to expand...

I agree!! Very well said.

So by the above posts I assume that you are all for the HSUS recommendation of euthanaizing an unwanted animal 72 hours after surrendering it to a shelter????? All for the sake of disease control???

So by the above posts I assume that you are all for the HSUS recommendation of euthanaizing an unwanted animal 72 hours after surrendering it to a shelter?????

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I don't think anyone said that.

Anyway they don't euthanize every animal after 72 hours. They euthanize any unadoptable pet after that time. While there is some room for interpretation on that. That is the same standard we work by.

We thought that the shelter was doing this too, until my animal behaviorlist researched it further.