Or even if you don’t but what I’m about to show you is something you find apalling, please feel free to join in the letter writing campaign mentioned.
There’s this blog I’ve been reading off and on for a while, to the point where I should be adding it to my blogroll (something I’ll be doing as soon as I’m done this post). I can’t read it too often, cause it tugs the heartstrings, but I make myself go read as often as I can.
Over at YesBiscuit Shirley spends alot of her time documenting shelter dogs and cats in need of help. She would prefer to show you pictures of the happy healthy dogs awaiting adoption at various places, but has often found herself documenting their abuses instead. Lately its been one of those times.
Two years ago the Memphis Animal Shelter was raided by the county sheriff for animal abuse. Animals were being starved and otherwise mistreated. A new director was then appointed, and webcams placed at strategic places around the building so the public could see how much better things were.
Unfortunetly things aren’t much better. As far as the webcam watchers can tell the animals aren’t being starved, or beaten any more, at least where a camera can catch them, but they are being miss-handled, badly, and the webcams are proving just how many dogs and cats are NOT shown to the public before they’re killed. Over 70% of the animals that cross the threshold of MAS are killed. Many of them dragged to the kill room on their stomachs by a choke pole because they’re to terrified to walk. There was a case, not long ago, where a person surrendered a momma dog and her puppies. Barely 3 days after surrender the pups were placed into a trash can and wheeled to the kill room. When Shirley asked for information on WHY, when puppies are generally the most adoptable dog ever, she was informed that SOME of the puppies had a respitory infection. SOME, and no obvious attempts to see if they could be gotten better. Just kill’em.
Animals brought in by Animal Control Officers as strays are held in an area not open to the public. These animals are held for 3 days as strays, and then, unless they’re lucky enough to be choosen to be made availible for adoption, they are killed. Webcam watchers have seen dogs brought in by ACOs wearing collars, and then 3 days later, those same dogs, wearing those same collars, are brought back to the kill room. So essentially, if your dog escapes in the Memphis area, and is caught by an ACO, if a shelter employee is unable to ID your dog from your description or photo, you are unable to check the stray area yourself to see if your dog is there. And so after 3 days your dog is killed. Gotta wonder how many people in the Memphis area are missing their pets because MAS was “unable” to ID the animal and killed it.
Shirley started a Chip-In, to raise funds for rescuers who wanted to rescue some of the animals they were seeing on the webcams. This week she finally got a response to all her letters to the new director of MAS. The Memphis City Attorney sent her a letter threatening her with legal action, with a law in her home state of SC that states its illeagel to raise funds FOR a charity or business without their permission. Seeing as how she was raising funds for the removal of animals FROM MAS this law doesn’t apply.
Feel free join in the letter campaign to let them know what the rest of the country thinks of them, but keep it polite, polite goes alot farther than ranting.
H/T to Raised by Wolves, she says it much better than I do, so go read.