Cheryl Bartlett, an area rescuer, took her kids to the Edmonson County Animal Shelter in KY last week to pick up some dogs. One of her children noticed a dead dog in an outdoor pen with other dogs. Overall conditions at the facility were so awful, she called the police.
When state troopers arrived, they found 48 dogs, 1 dead, and 20 cats, 3 dead, suffering at the pound. Many of the animals had no water. Cats were stacked in wire cages. Three “feral” cats, covered in feces and flies, were crammed into a single cage. One had visible urine burns. Dogs appeared to have been starved, had feces matted in their fur and suffered from urine scalding and open sores. Several animals were immediately killed, due to behavior or medical reasons.
State police issued a citation to, but did not arrest, Kim Carroll, the Edmonson Co shelter director, charging her with second degree animal cruelty. The next day, she sent hubby over to the place to start destroying evidence:
“He got the water hose and started frantically watering the animals … and he removed the dead dog,” Bartlett said.
It’s unclear where that dead animal was taken.
Just having a guess: probably their usual spot, wherever that is.
The Edmonson shelter held 4 county contracts. And apparently everyone knew it was a hellhole:
In 2015, a Daily News investigative team visited the shelter on multiple occasions, each time noting conditions that appeared to fall short of guidelines for shelters offered by the Association of Shelter Veterinarians. Animals were in cages that were too small, were underweight and some were without water.
[…]
At the time of the 2015 Daily News investigation, Edmonson County Judge-Executive Wil Cannon said he stood behind the operation of the shelter. Cannon, when reached Saturday on vacation, said he was not aware enough of the situation to comment.
[…]
Bartlett said she has been getting dogs from the shelter for about two years and said it’s hard to find the words to describe the conditions.
“It is reprehensible … disgusting,” she said.
Margie Patton is a board member of the Barren River Animal Welfare Association, a shelter which took many of the surviving animals from the Edmonson pound:
“It was not a good place at all, and it was kind of hurtful to see animals in that condition, just sitting there,” Patton said, describing what she witnessed when she went to the Edmonson County shelter. “I have been there several times in the past year and a half and it’s always horrendous.”
[…]
“They don’t do adoptions. They just let animals sit there and sit there,” she said, adding they either wait for help from another shelter or from a rescue group.
I hate to think of how many years animals literally wasted away in that place while the four contracting counties wrote checks, either knowing it was a shitshow or maintaining a willful ignorance of that fact, and the director’s hubby hid the bodies. The photo of this dog, who needed help but got death, is heartbreaking. Number of people arrested for any of this: zero.
(Thanks Clarice.)
I live in Bowling Green, KY and I would love the opportunity to take over the shelter. I have been advocating for animals rights for years. My husband and I moved from NH to Bowling Green KY three years ago. In NH you would not find a shelter like this because the animals are loved even in shelters. This is truly criminal and should be treated as such. No, animal deserves to be treated like this, these precious innocent animals are the victims in all of this.
We need to fix the problems that humans have created. The animals did not create this problem, humans did but the animals are the ones who pay the price.
News article on Edmonson from a year ago. http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/lawsuit-calls-shelter-practices-into-question/article_6407878c-f7bb-5809-aab2-9c1ad526ec2a.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share
Sooooooooo angry
More work of conscienceless, dangerous humans!
So true. These innocent animals deserve so much more. Animals are not a piece of property.
I can’t stand people who make money off of the suffering of these precious innocent animals.
How do people sleep at night and wake up the next morning to look at themselves in the mirror?
Reblogged this on In my own little world.
So if people with other rescues knew about this for at least the past couple of years, why did they wait so long to call the police? Yes, yes, I know, the good-ol’-boy fucktards make things very difficult and none of the scumbags will actually have to make any restitution in any way for their cruelty, but animals could have been removed before, and maybe, just maybe, those AC contracts could have been impacted sooner.
Wondering that, too. I’m sure it’s a situation where if you speak out, you’ll be banned from helping, but in this era of social media, gather video, photos, dates, times, and just put them out there anonymously.
It often seems that the only way to get some of these politicians to do ANYTHING decent is to have them bombarded with angry calls and letters and tv cameras in their faces asking why they aren’t doing anything about the problem.
It’s a damn shame it has to be like that, but that’s the way it is.
Here’s what I don’t get. How is it that a municipal shelter doesn’t allow adoptions? What is that they do?
Some Communities and certainly their animals would be better off with NO animal holding facilities – no tax dollars wasted and no animals housed in less than optimal conditions.