Pop quiz: 2 pups at your shelter test positive for parvo. What do you do with the rest of your dogs?
A. Isolate them from the dogs who tested positive and test them each for parvo.
B. Have a vet examine them for possible symptoms of parvo and isolate/treat as appropriate.
C. Foster/adopt them out to rescues who are willing to take them.
D. Arbitrarily kill every dog under 1 year of age.
If you answered some combination of A, B and C, congratulations – you are a normal person. If you answered D, you must be Robeson Co Health Director Bill Smith:
Staff at the Robeson County Animal Shelter euthanized more than 50 dogs Wednesday after two puppies tested positive for parvo.
[…]
“This was our best option,” Smith said. “We haven’t killed the older dogs. They’re being quarantined while they clean and disinfect the shelter.”
See? They haven’t killed the older dogs. (I hope all the dogs remembered their birth certificates at admission.) And you thought Robeson didn’t care!
That just makes me sick.
Compassion in action. Hope he never directs any human health decisions.
Ignorant people with no common sense, no conscience, no compassion, no heart, no soul.
apparently our OSPCA came in and consulted with them… HOW is this shelter still running???
Heavy sigh. I guess what always saddens me most about reports like this is that it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. And the county taxpayers either don’t know it’s happening, don’t care that it’s happening or don’t know there’s any other way.
When did we reach the point where people who are paid to run municipal animal “shelters,” most of which are little more than disposal facilities, became accountable to no one, left to function unsupervised, unquestioned and unchecked? Smith says it is so and that makes it so?
Orwellian is the best description I can come up with. And this must be blackwhite: the ability to accept whatever “truth” the party puts out, no matter how absurd it may be. . . the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know black is white, and forget that one has ever believed the contrary.
Robeson is one awful mess! Concerned people from the general public have been exposing problems and seeking to fix Robeson for at least 10 years. I think it’s time NOW to find out what to do to fix it permanently. My suggestion is anti-cruelty laws (that would apply to shelter staff also) and a simple clearly written shelter handbook as well as all new caring staff and going No Kill. They should ask for the help of the community, obviously there are people that care.
It’s easy to say this as an outsider but if this has gone on this long, I say now is the time to take it to the people. I work in a job where I interact with city and county officials. We defend them in legal matters in another southern state. They respond to two things: 1) money and 2) reputation. They often act certain ways, claiming it’s cheaper and they can’t afford to be more humane. People need to know how their tax dollars are being spend and they need to know that operating this way is not cheaper. If the people demand change, the elected officials running the county will be forced to follow the will of the people in order to remain in office, regardless of how much they care about what’s going on. Roberson is not The King of the County. He is a paid public servant who is doing a disservice to the public. Get the word out there and get people mad enough to speak up and demand change. If you can show that using the no kill equation or some other methodology saves money in the process, all the better. Make the county leadership look stupid but do so in a very diplomatic way so the common folk will become part of the solution.