This is in response to the person who keeps asking why volunteers are allowed to socialize and handle court-held dogs and who trains them for this work. For the exact answers to your questions from our shelter and the Animal Control departments, you will have to ask them this directly. I am not sure who is allowed to do this work and not as a volunteer and how they are trained.
That said, even shelter staffers and Animal Control staff have made mistakes with court-held animals in the past. We've had cases of the shelter erroneously putting some animals down that were evidence, and there have been cases of animals dying during their holding period for various reasons while under the AC department's care. I think the gist of this is that no matter who is caring for the animals, they need to be trained well. They need to also take extra precautions to not lose a court-held animal or put them in harm's way. Safety for these animals also comes from the areas they are held.
Furthermore, just because they are evidentiary items does not mean it is okay to lock them up in a smal cage or kennel and completely ignore their right as sentient beings. No matter what the court labels them as, they are living creatues.
If we are doing our jobs well, we will BOTH safeguard the evidence as well as provide for the animals' humane care. It is possible to do both, and we should not settle for less.
These animals, especially since they are held for so long, deserve the Five Freedoms: 1. Freedom from hunger and thirst; 2. Freedom from discomfort; 3. Freedom from pain, injury, and disease; 4. Freedom to express normal behavior; and 5. Freedom from fear and distress. Their quality of life while awaiting their eventual disposition is very important, and all animal advocates should push for their humane care when cared for by the shelter, the AC department in their holding facilities, or in temporary foster homes.
More from shelter volunteer Renee Davis
Longtime and former shelter volunteer Renee Davis worked with court-held dogs at our shelter for the past year. She recently did something very brave; she spoke up publically about the conditions for dogs living in the double-wide trailer at the shelter, where they are intensely confined. She had hoped that in her bringing the issues to light, our leaders would address these concerns. To date, that has not really happened, and it is a shame.
She shared the following story with me via e-mail to show that the issues at this trailer are multi-fold and have been going on for some time:
"I believe it was September of 2008 that a dog that was kept in the double-wide trailer got out and killed a rabbit that was also housed in the trailer. I remember the shelter's vet tech at the time was so upset about this that she quit.
This year, around May, another dog housed in the trailer, who I believe was eventually transferred to Denver, got out as he did many times and jumped through the screen window over the sink. He was running around in the trailer's enclosed yard.
He saw me walking another dog in the desert, and he jumped the fence and came running up to me. He was very friendly but was not wearing a collar. I was trying to hold him and the other dog because once out in the desert, he could have escaped and run to the highway.
I was screaming at the top of my lungs; finally, another volunteer came to help me. She went to the double-wide trailer to get the staff person who was cleaning at this time. He was suprised to see the dog out. It turns out he couldn't hear me scream because was listening to music with earphones as he worked. Many of the staff regularly do this, and I feel it is unsafe. Dogs were constantly getting out from the doublewide, and this is not a safe environment for the animals or people."
MORE of us need to speak up to the shelter's management and our local leaders about the misuse of this trailer as permanent housing. Time and again, incidents like this prove that how that trailer is being used is not only against sheltering industry standards, it is inhumane.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Former Best Friends CEO visits Las Cruces
I was very fortunate a couple of Sundays ago to spend some quality time with the former CEO of Best Friends Animal Society, Paul Berry. He passed through Las Cruces as part of his Our Humane Nation motorcycle tour. Las Cruces was lucky for this visit because our community was not in Mr. Berry's original plan. He had a last-minute cancellation in Albuquerque so stopped by here instead. He got my name and number from a fellow No Kill advocate in Austin, TX. Thanks to Ryan Clinton at FixAustin.org for the referral!
You can read Paul's blog about his Las Cruces visit on his website (http://www.ourhumanenation.com/) when he publishes it. I think he said that should be posted within a couple of weeks from now.
During his visit, we stopped by the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley (ASCMV), and then we stopped by Safe Haven Animal Sanctuary. We then had a nice vegan dinner with fellow Las Cruces animal advocate Jean Gilbert.
Paul is an electrical engineer who made a career move to animal welfare and away from corporate America some time ago. He has been an animal-cruelty investigator and also ran a mobile spay/neuter van before taking the Best Friends CEO post for the last seven years. He left Best Friends earlier this year, though his wife is still working there. He decided to take this tour to find out what is going on in the world of animal welfare across the United States.
Some of Paul's remarkable work at Best Friends included the rescue and rehabilitation of the Michael Vick dogs; Best Friends took on the dogs that needed the most work and rehabilitation from this group. Paul is also responsible for making the TV deal for Dogtown, one of my new favorites that shows on National Geograhic.
It was especially nice to bounce off my questions and ideas on Paul. He agreed that our community has a long way to go and a big problem in our yearly animal intakes at our one shelter. He urged us to start doing some data gathering and research to use to build up alternatives to the one municipal shelter.
I was also glad to hear that he had some insight into one of my dreams for our near future -- opening an NSNRT clinic from the Humane Alliance group (http://www.humanealliance.org/). He said that model is terrific because the clinics are able to service a wide area of a community and spay/neuter hundreds of animals each day. Wow! Isn't that something to work toward for our community? We all can agree we need that level of high-volume spay/neuter to start reducing our shelter's intake rate in a significant way.
Shelter observation
As a critic of our shelter and former volunteer, I admit that I have not been there for many months. I decided to quit my shelter volunteer work to instead work in the community to the best of my ability to help animals and people. However, I also agree that there is a place for all of us and that our shelter needs the support of volunteers in the community. I also think that the more staunch critics should not be silenced, but I myself have stepped more away from this role because I think one group of animal-welfare people needs to actively work on alternatives to our shelter. If you let yourself, you can become completely overwhelmed with the shelter's issues, and that leaves little time and effort for anything else.
So, Paul and I stopped by the shelter that Sunday at about 4:30 p.m. The shelter was going to close at 5 p.m., so there weren't too many people around. We were allowed to walk through the adoptables area when Paul explained to a shelter staffer who he was and what he was doing there. Usually, people are not allowed to walk around our shelter and just look. People are required to fill out a complete adoption application.
We walked around for a bit in the dog adoptables area, and then we moved on to visit the cats and bunny rabbits. On our way back out toward the entrance, Paul stopped to look into the dog adoptables area again. There is a door that leads to it from the hallway on the way out the shelter. He stood at that door for a while, looking through the door's window, so I went over to see what he was looking at.
We saw a kennel attendant, dressed in scrubs, standing at the entrance of one of the dog adoptable kennels. The two dogs being housed in that kennel were standing in it, and the kennel attendant was hosing down the feces/waste using a hose. Himself and the two dogs were inside the kennel at this time. I was surprised to see that he was not only doing this (which is against humane care and cleaning standards for shelters) but that he was not hiding it from anyone either. The shelter was not not closed yet, and there were still a few people from the public, including Paul and myself, walking around.
It may be my imagination, but I got the feeling and an attitude from the shelter staff from the moment we walked in that they are pretty much autonomous and can do as they please. I guess this comes from the fact that our leaders blindly and fully support the shelter's director, so there is no fear of repercussions. For more stark evidence of this, see the last blog posting on this site and the pictures at right.
It was at this time that something hit me. Maybe all us advocates have been going about this the wrong way. All this time, we have been pushing the leaders on the ASCMV oversight board to visit the shelter more often. They sometimes do this but announce their visits ahead of time. Yet, even if they didn't, would they be able to see that someone hosing down a kennel with the dogs standing in it raises a BIG red flag?
I think what we should be pushing for instead is that each person that sits on the board of directors for our shelter should have to become educated about sheltering industry standards. They should have to take numerous shelter tours in nearby areas as well as other states, including visits to shelters that have very good reputations. After all, this board will be setting policy which then feeds procedures for our shelter. Unless they know something about animal sheltering (the industry and its standards), they will never see what is wrong with the picture when they visit our facility.
It's no wonder our shelter staff, including the director, do not feel they need to be held accountable to sheltering standards. No one in power is holding them up to any.
You can read Paul's blog about his Las Cruces visit on his website (http://www.ourhumanenation.com/) when he publishes it. I think he said that should be posted within a couple of weeks from now.
During his visit, we stopped by the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley (ASCMV), and then we stopped by Safe Haven Animal Sanctuary. We then had a nice vegan dinner with fellow Las Cruces animal advocate Jean Gilbert.
Paul is an electrical engineer who made a career move to animal welfare and away from corporate America some time ago. He has been an animal-cruelty investigator and also ran a mobile spay/neuter van before taking the Best Friends CEO post for the last seven years. He left Best Friends earlier this year, though his wife is still working there. He decided to take this tour to find out what is going on in the world of animal welfare across the United States.
Some of Paul's remarkable work at Best Friends included the rescue and rehabilitation of the Michael Vick dogs; Best Friends took on the dogs that needed the most work and rehabilitation from this group. Paul is also responsible for making the TV deal for Dogtown, one of my new favorites that shows on National Geograhic.
It was especially nice to bounce off my questions and ideas on Paul. He agreed that our community has a long way to go and a big problem in our yearly animal intakes at our one shelter. He urged us to start doing some data gathering and research to use to build up alternatives to the one municipal shelter.
I was also glad to hear that he had some insight into one of my dreams for our near future -- opening an NSNRT clinic from the Humane Alliance group (http://www.humanealliance.org/). He said that model is terrific because the clinics are able to service a wide area of a community and spay/neuter hundreds of animals each day. Wow! Isn't that something to work toward for our community? We all can agree we need that level of high-volume spay/neuter to start reducing our shelter's intake rate in a significant way.
Shelter observation
As a critic of our shelter and former volunteer, I admit that I have not been there for many months. I decided to quit my shelter volunteer work to instead work in the community to the best of my ability to help animals and people. However, I also agree that there is a place for all of us and that our shelter needs the support of volunteers in the community. I also think that the more staunch critics should not be silenced, but I myself have stepped more away from this role because I think one group of animal-welfare people needs to actively work on alternatives to our shelter. If you let yourself, you can become completely overwhelmed with the shelter's issues, and that leaves little time and effort for anything else.
So, Paul and I stopped by the shelter that Sunday at about 4:30 p.m. The shelter was going to close at 5 p.m., so there weren't too many people around. We were allowed to walk through the adoptables area when Paul explained to a shelter staffer who he was and what he was doing there. Usually, people are not allowed to walk around our shelter and just look. People are required to fill out a complete adoption application.
We walked around for a bit in the dog adoptables area, and then we moved on to visit the cats and bunny rabbits. On our way back out toward the entrance, Paul stopped to look into the dog adoptables area again. There is a door that leads to it from the hallway on the way out the shelter. He stood at that door for a while, looking through the door's window, so I went over to see what he was looking at.
We saw a kennel attendant, dressed in scrubs, standing at the entrance of one of the dog adoptable kennels. The two dogs being housed in that kennel were standing in it, and the kennel attendant was hosing down the feces/waste using a hose. Himself and the two dogs were inside the kennel at this time. I was surprised to see that he was not only doing this (which is against humane care and cleaning standards for shelters) but that he was not hiding it from anyone either. The shelter was not not closed yet, and there were still a few people from the public, including Paul and myself, walking around.
It may be my imagination, but I got the feeling and an attitude from the shelter staff from the moment we walked in that they are pretty much autonomous and can do as they please. I guess this comes from the fact that our leaders blindly and fully support the shelter's director, so there is no fear of repercussions. For more stark evidence of this, see the last blog posting on this site and the pictures at right.
It was at this time that something hit me. Maybe all us advocates have been going about this the wrong way. All this time, we have been pushing the leaders on the ASCMV oversight board to visit the shelter more often. They sometimes do this but announce their visits ahead of time. Yet, even if they didn't, would they be able to see that someone hosing down a kennel with the dogs standing in it raises a BIG red flag?
I think what we should be pushing for instead is that each person that sits on the board of directors for our shelter should have to become educated about sheltering industry standards. They should have to take numerous shelter tours in nearby areas as well as other states, including visits to shelters that have very good reputations. After all, this board will be setting policy which then feeds procedures for our shelter. Unless they know something about animal sheltering (the industry and its standards), they will never see what is wrong with the picture when they visit our facility.
It's no wonder our shelter staff, including the director, do not feel they need to be held accountable to sheltering standards. No one in power is holding them up to any.
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