This is a screenshot of part of what’s currently posted on Robeson County Animal Shelter’s Facebook page. I have no knowledge of who does the posting for this page or if the information is correct. If the information is wrong, I would think the shelter would want to get it corrected ASAP.
The text of the comments made by whoever posts for the shelter’s page:
The shelter is overloaded with puppies and some of them are starting to show signs of illness. They have not been euthanising because they were instructed to only euth. for space and nothing else. There are some young pups starting with vomiting and diarrhea. Please, if you are interested in these puppies, please contact the shelter today.
These babies do not need to stay there and risk infecting other animals. If they are not picked up today, they really need to be pts by tomorrow for their own sake and for others.
The county does not cover veterinary expenses. If someone wants to rescue them, a volunteer can transport them to the vet for them. I was told that another volunteer has already wormed these puppies, so a decent chance they could be dealing with a virus.
If this information is accurate, and the shelter is only killing pets “for space and nothing else”, I can not understand this. This shelter keeps its kennels half-empty so they can rotate pets during cleaning. They fought in court to keep doing this. So to say they have to kill any pets “for space” makes no sense to me.
As far as the sick puppies mentioned in the posting (note the wording – “the shelter is overloaded with puppies” – overloaded when half the facility remains empty?), it’s obvious they should receive veterinary care. If the shelter refuses to provide vet care, are they simply allowing sick pups to deteriorate, suffer and die? How does this qualify in any way as sheltering? I truly wonder what Robeson thinks euthanasia is for.
You know how I read this? The toddlers that run the Robeson shelter got pouty lipped and huffy when the court ordered them to stop killing pets who have had a rescue hold placed on them. As such, they muttered under their breath while stomping their feet, “Fine then. We won’t even euthanize suffering pets. And we won’t get them vet care either. That will teach those meddling animal activists!”
I hope I’m wrong. I hope this Facebook posting is wrong. But seeing as it’s been up for a month already, I have my doubts.
Added, 6-17-10: Unless it’s a temporary glitch, the Robeson Co Animal Shelter page on FB (linked above) appears to have been removed. I’m going to try accessing it again later just in case.
I think you are projecting a lot of your own issues here. First, rotating dogs between kennels makes it easier (ie: less man-hours required) to make sure each dog has a clean kennel each day. This is an essential sanitation strategy for under-staffed animal shelters. But it seems that your post implies that they should be occupying a higher percentage of the kennels. That’s easy for you to say now, but if the end result is unsanitary conditions for the dogs you’d be on their case in no time flat.
Second, you pick on their choice of the word “overloaded”, as if it was inconsistant with the fact that the kennels are kept half empty. Perhaps if they had said “overwhelmed” rather than “overloaded” it would of been slightly more accurate, but it comes down to the same thing. They have more puppies than they can effectively handle at this time. For you to somehow twist this into “retaliation” against “meddling animal activists” is childish.
However, Robeson Co Animal Shelter is not using its extra space for cleaning.
Someone took photos of the shelter earlier this week, and there were feces everywhere, no food or water in several cages, beds propped up against the kennels so that dogs could not lie on them, and a dead kitten still in a cage with other cats.
http://www.examiner.com/x-35713-Animal-Rights-Examiner~y2010m6d14-Robeson-County-Animal-Shelter-walk-of-shame-continues
If this message about sick puppies and a virus has been up on their site for a month then this shelter should be closed for disinfection. Anyone adopting any dog from there will be spreading disease in the community.
If these puppies are already showing signs of vomiting and diarrhea, then most likely they already have whatever disease they have (parvo or distemper) and asking people to take these puppies out of the shelter is utterly irresponsible and negligent. Do they really want to be responsible for a parvo outbreak in the community at large rather than deal with it there. These people should be charged with something with this attitude. Can you imagine if a breeder were acting in this manner. Lordy be….the world would be ending in the minds of many.