Charlotte resident Demetred Norman reportedly became financially overwhelmed in trying to provide proper care for his 13 Pitbulls. A neighbor put in a call to Charlotte-Mecklenburg AC & C and ACOs showed up at the home on Monday. Mr. Norman surrendered the dogs to AC & C which has a policy prohibiting the adoption of Pitbulls to the public. Char-Meck AC & C spokesman Melissa Knicely gave an interview to a local news station:
Some of the dogs, she said, were underweight but not starving. Many were suffering from intestinal worms, and most, if not all, had severe heartworms.
Char-Meck killed all 13 of the dogs. But if we are to believe the above quote, they killed them only after performing a number of blood and fecal tests which resulted in determining treatable conditions. It seems an odd use of resources for dogs they apparently had no plans to treat. And another thing:
All of the dogs were euthanized. If that may seem like a quick decision, officers say there is literally no place to put pit bulls in this county.
The majority of dogs found at the stray shelters are pit bulls. They can’t be put up for adoption, leaving rescue groups as the only option.
“The bottom line is that those rescue groups are taxed with pit bulls too because it’s such a popular breed,” Knicely says.
How many rescue groups were contacted before the decision was made to kill all the dogs? Because it sure seems that the killings happened very soon after the dogs arrived. Coordinating rescue and transport for 13 Pitbulls would take time I would think.
Since only some of the dogs were underweight, couldn’t they have tried a slightly less radical approach than killing all 13 immediately? I’m thinking something along the lines of the Give Them Something to Eat While We Network with Area Rescues approach. In addition, maybe the owner could have kept one or two or some number that he could afford to properly care for. Or perhaps donated food could have been brought to the home and the dogs “sheltered in place” while rescue was arranged. Why the rush to take all the dogs away to the kill room? Where is the CARE in the Animal Care & Control?
“Every time I walked back there, their tails were wagging, they were happy,” Norman says.
[…]
Norman didn’t know his dogs had been put down until NewsChannel 36 told him.
Stay classy, Char-Meck.