Matthew Pepper is the director of Memphis Animal Services where 77% of the pets they take in are killed. I’m hoping he will answer some questions. If you have a question for Mr. Pepper, please feel welcome to leave it in the comments. As always, keep your comments succinct and respectful. I’m going to e-mail him a request for answers.
1. Why are you allowing healthy/treatable pets to be killed when you have so many empty cages at the shelter? (For example, the lobby cages and isolation cages are currently empty.)
2. Why are you allowing so many healthy/treatable pets to be killed without ever offering them for adoption, foster or rescue?
3. How can you blame the public failing to vaccinate their pets as the cause for the recent distemper outbreak at the shelter when MAS does not vaccinate upon intake across the board or utilize standard disease prevention cleaning practices?
4. Why is your shelter not utilizing the Chameleon software (or a website such as Petfinder) to share photos and info about every pet in the shelter online? How can the public be expected to adopt, foster, rescue, sponsor or redeem pets which no one outside the shelter knows are there? There are vast nationwide networks of compassionate people willing to help shelter pets in need – but they have to know the pets are in need in order to help.