Dog #256667 was impounded by Memphis Animal Services after the owner surrendered him in the field on July 15, 2013. His one and only medical note is dated the following day, July 16, and indicates the dog was quiet and didn’t feel much like eating, which is understandable for any pet taken to a killing facility.
MAS housed the dog in the stray area so he was off limits to the public. No one walked him. No one even knew he was there except MAS employees. There are no notes indicating MAS reached out to fosters or rescues or issued any pleas to the public for this dog.
The next day, July 17, MAS killed him, noting that no one had requested a hold be placed on the dog that no one knew was there.
That’s one more dog who’ll never feel the sun on his face, never hear how special he is, never get to be the light of someone’s life. Because MAS.
How many more, Memphis?
Bastards
Sent from my iPhone
my thoughts exactly…we just lost our dogface who was almost 17 we sleep at night knowing we did well by our trusted friend I can’t imagine being that cold to another living being…shameful
I’m so sorry for your loss. It is awful to lose our dear friends.
Literally makes me ill.
It’s business as usual in Memphis. The life of a companion animal is meaning less in Memphis and this will continue until people learn that companion animals are actually living, breathing beings and not just “thing”. I don’t think anybody at the Memphis City Government or MAS actually gives a shit about the animals in their “care”.
another innocent animal betrayed by the incompetent, sadistic, and uncaring staff at MAS.
They’re doing the best they can, right? The best they can to slaughter pets, that is.
I love the “no holds requested” thing that they put on nearly every animal. It’s as if they’ve been marketing this animal far and wide, doing their very best to get it out alive, but because no one was willing to take the dog, they were “forced” to kill him. Does it make Tunstall feel better to write that in? A little self-deception to soothe a guilty conscience?
Probably not. It’s probably just what she’s been trained to write. And she writes it often enough of animals that were never visible to rescue OR the public that I’m sure it comes as easily as killing. Which obviously comes easy to all at Memphis.
Again, they THINK it’s their job to kill pets. No one has stepped up to lead that place out of the darkness, so it just keeps sucking animals and people down to the depths. And make no mistake, people working at MAS – you’re being destroyed bit by bit every single day you accept killing as “just part of the job”.
Rogers is perfectly content with killing nearly three out of four animals that walk in as long as he doesn’t have to dirty his own hands to do it. Dunlap is perfectly content with shoddy/missing PetHarbor recordkeeping and the complete lack of marketing. If he calls a rescue group now and then, he feels like he’s a great guy. Otherwise, he just lets FoMAS do the heavy lifting and deal with the heartbreak of trying to work within a system designed to slaughter pets.
FoMAS…oh, FoMAS. What can I say about you? What do you call someone who started out with good intentions, but then allows the system to victimize them to the point they become enablers? What do you say about a group who is content to be lead by the chief enabler/apologist of them all? You could have helped turn the tide long ago, FoMAS, but you didn’t because Chancellor likes things just the way they are. She’s got her little power base and woe betide anyone who tries to stand up to MAS’s status quo.
Meanwhile, whole rooms of cages stand empty and animals are killed daily for “space”.
Why, MAS? You could be so much better than this. Even now, you can fix it. Even now, you can choose the true meaning of “shelter” and embrace lifesaving approaches that have worked for so many others.
With every pet you hold down with your own two hands and kill, think to yourself, “What if I had worked to save this animal instead of killing him? What if I worked to change things today?”
How many more, MAS?
Tennessee law states that a stray dog must be held at least 72 hours or 5 days. The difference between the two is at the discretion of the individual county. So looks like MAS broke the law too.
The dog was not a stray, it was a owner surrender. There is no legal holding time for owner surrenders.
It would be nice if the problem “just” would be MAS but it isn’t. The apathy towards companion animals can be found everywhere in Memphis, from the top to the bottom. This includes the Mayor of Memphis as well as the kennel worker at MAS.
People have tried before to put a “hold” on certain dogs and were told that this is not common practice at MAS and the policy would not allow it.
Now they use it as excuse to kill a animal. I would describe MAS as a bunch of hypocrites who will use every excuse they can find to kill healthy, adoptable animals.
There is no excuse for what MAS is doing but there also is no excuse for all the enablers in Memphis who are sitting quietly on the side lines and watch the terror happen.
Reblogged this on Sherlockian's Blog and commented:
One more casualty of our regressive animal shelter system.
These bastards need to be dealt with! This can’t be allowed to continue! We need to organize and deal with this!
How many empty cages did MAS have the day they killed him? They are never full, yet a reason noted for killing him was that “space needed for incoming animals.” When are the people of Memphis going to riot and get things changed at this hell hole?
Rest in peace, poor dog with no name.
How about the next No Kill Conference be held in Memphis with a march on MAS….
The Courts are not sympathetic to animals, legislators aren’t either..maybe an organized march would help.
This is just so damned heartbreaking. People have tried to step up, tried petitions, and various other things, and it just doesn’t work on those bastards. I absolutely cannot understand the mindset that allows one to think that killing the animals is a solution.
I’ve done some work with a place who has similar local attitudes, but three volunteers are caring for a couple hundred animals and getting them out to rescues that will take them on a regular basis, and as far as I know, they haven’t had to euthanize for space in years, only for actual valid medical reasons. That is the kind of place I want every place to be like.
Maybe what we need is a full out pr campaign in the city. Billboards and kill stats, is there a local radio/television personality who is an animal lover? Could they be coaxed into making it a point on their shows to tell people what is being done at Mas? Any local celebs who might speak out? Posters in local stores with post like this on them? I”m just throwing out any thoughts I have, I don’t know the area but some way to make the ugly facts impossible to ignore or downplay might help. Local musicians who love animals who might donate a song or two? The usual voting and hoping isn’t helping, it takes a lot of people being totally fed up to catch the pols attention, or wads of cash. Animal people as a rule don’t have wads of cash but we have plenty of energy and we can think outside the box, or cage as it were.
Should be a law against this happening at animal shelters everywhere!!! Every animal deserves every possible chance, at finding a loving, caring forever home! This sickens me! Who are they, to lessen the value of an animals life, by not posting it on their site, or promoting it, so they can be adopted?? These types of shelters should, by all accounts, be shut down, permanently!!
There are ALWAYS empty cages at MAS. The puppy room is always half-full at most (10 of the 19 kennels full is the most I have seen occupied in 3 months). There is a wall of 9 small kennels that I have seen dogs in MAYBE 3 times… and usually only 2-3 dogs in those small kennels. Along with a few empties in each row of full sized kennels. The excuse of euthanizing for space is a pathetic, cowardly cop-out.
Only 2 possible explanations – they either like to kill or they’ve been directed to kill. Either way, the animals at MAS lose!
There is no excuse for having open cages and killing the numbers they kill on a regular basis.
MAS is never going to give animal proper treatment until the corrupt politicians in the city are ousted. I have written the governor on this several times, only to be told it is a local problem. Its a vicious circle.