Reader Casey is helping with the viewing of the MAS security camera footage from February 7. She watched 12 hours worth of footage from the camera in the video below and reports that the cats in this room were never fed or watered, their cages were never cleaned and no one checked to see if they were alive from 7am to 7pm. Oh and they were kept in the dark. She edited together this clip to show a sampling of the neglect over the 12 hour period.
Who was responsible for caring for these cats on February 7? Who signed off that they had been fed, watered and cleaned? What vet signed off that these cats had been visited during routine daily rounds? Fire. Them. All.
Unacceptable. What does the board have to say about this neglect? Cue the crickets…
Oh you know the usual “we will make up a lame excuse that has nothing to do with this issue” BS. Oh but have you heard about the fancy new building? lol
OMG. Shelters treat animals this way when they intend to kill them. It’s unbelievable to me that No Kill shelters are accused of warehousing. THIS is warehousing, and it happens when animals are being teed up for killing.
My Gosh…who would think that MAS would be responsible for CARING for the animals that are unfortunate enough to be there….Until all employees, volunteers, management are changed to caring, responsible people NOTHING can CHANGE. I have several employees and over the years I have learned that you cannot fix stupid, you cannot teach compassion and you cannot instill common sense! There is no fixing an employee that does not give a damn….they have to go!!!!
This neglect (and worse) in an example of behavior acceptable in traditional facilities that kill animals “for space or population control”. It’s part of:
“A Culture of Cruelty”, http://bit.ly/gEfHpT
It shouldn’t be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I want to hear how they are going to explain this one. How long are the cats going to be hungry before they are murdered? Is there going to be another photo like the dog that was starved a while back?
The silver lining? They weren’t being dragged around by ignorant asses and a choke pole!
And I’m developing a really healthy hate for these bastards.
This video is on a Tuesday, did they feed them and clean their cages the Monday and Sunday they were closed? This would be.neglect. where are.the supervisors? Where are the 2 shelter vets? They both make over $90,000 a year!!! Feed your animals. Clean thier cages!
Can we pull all records on these cats I. This particular room for this day?
Three words: FIRE THEM ALL
Before I quit volunteering, I stayed late on several occasions to feed/water pets in certain areas of the shelter that staff “didn’t have time to get to.” One evening, it was pets in the clinic (the area shown in this footage) who had had surgery earlier in the day. Very disturbing. These pets sat in the cages post-surgery and no one even checked on them the entire day. When me and two other volunteers went to feed/water them (after a supervisor asked if we minded staying late), it was the first time anyone had checked on them all day. Emails were sent to city hall that weekend after we stayed late. This happened in late December-early January. Clearly, over one month later, no changes were made. The clinic is usually off-limits to volunteers, unless they specifically ask for volunteers’ help.
Damn.
If you ever get the chance to do this again.. I hope you have a camera with you.. or maybe we could get the video footage of that day.. dern this makes me so mad
Was the shelter even opened that day? One would think they would at least turn the light on. I would like to know!
The rooms at the new shelter have automatic lights that I never figured out how to override while volunteering there. If there’s no motion in the room, the lights go out. There were times I was sitting in a meet and greet room with a puppy just holding it and the lights would go out and I would have to stand up and move around to turn them back on.
Shelby,
This room does not have automatic lights. I watched the whole video and a cleaning crew person comes in to put a broom in the room, she turns on the lights, leaves the broom, turns off the lights. Later on, a man comes in for some tissues, but never turns on the lights to do it – he comes and goes in the dark and never so much as glances at the cats (who were excited to see *someone* in there).
So yes, these cats were left in the dark simply because no one thought to turn on a light. Or feed them. Or water them. Or clean their cages.
Thank you for detailing what you saw over the course of the 12 hours worth of footage. This is neglect. On video. It couldn’t be any clearer. And still MAS does nothing.
There is NOTHING difficult or even much time consuming feeding, watering & cleaning cages, especially at the wages these morons are paid. Stupid can’t be fixed, but just what reason could it be for the cats not to be taken care of? It only demonstrates their dislike or even hatred for these animals. THAT is the type that should NOT be working among cats & dogs.
How can you go home at night knowing you failed to feed a room full of cats locked in cages? Even if I couldn’t remember if I fed x dog/cat I would be worried all night about it. There were some nights I’ll admit I crawled into bed and all of a sudden couldn’t recal feeding/watering/caging Freddy (our ferret) for the night. I would try and reassure myself but i would drive myself nuts and in the end I always got dressed and went downstairs to double check. I can not imagine going to sleep at night knowing a room full of kitties where hungry and thirsty. This is un-acceptable. Disgusting.
Forget cleaning and feeding- how could you forget water? Plants get water. I know toddlers who’d know better than to do this.
If you really, really, really ‘didn’t have time’, if you had to take care of a couple of hundred animals by yourself with no experience, if you were sick to the point of losing coherence and lucidity, you’d still sprint around with bowls and a hose.
I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I’d wake up at 3am and drive back in.
wow this is horrible horrible neglect.I put it on Twitter to all my followers. What is up with these people?
As stated, it demonstrates their dislike/hatred for the cats because there is NO excuse.