Remember when Kern Co pound director Jen Woodard noted in a report that one of the problems in the community is ignorance of “basic pet responsibility” which she attributed to the notion that “much of the community is uninterested in hearing this message”? Now hear this: Last week at the Kern Co pound, one dog killed another when they were left together unattended in a cage. Pairing animals is apparently a common practice at Kern Co:
Woodard says with up to 100 animals coming in each day to the shelter, separate kennels for all is impossible. But, officers evaluate every dog individually before it’s paired with others of comparable size. In this case, Woodard says neither dog had acted aggressively before.
Here is my concern: With up to 100 animals coming in daily, are officers being given sufficient time to evaluate dogs and are the dogs being given sufficient time to settle in at the pound before being evaluated? Of equal importance, are the officers trained as behaviorists? Or are the people doing the evaluating just winging it in between killing puppies with adopters waiting and hiding from the media?
I am all for pairing up pets to save lives if necessary but as with all things, there are ways to do it responsibly and ways that are going to result in dogs being mauled to death in the night. If Kern Co is pairing up animals responsibly to save lives, it’s not evident to me in this article. Especially when I read this bit near the end:
Woodard says since no one was there to witness what happened, they’ve scheduled a necropsy on the dog that died.
Way to dodge. The dog that died reportedly had bloody neck wounds consistent with a dog mauling. But yeah, maybe he had high cholesterol or aliens experimented on him or something. Doing the necropsy might have some value, except they already killed the other dog in the cage. Apparently Kern Co doesn’t require witnesses for that.
(Thanks Clarice for the link.)