Sometimes you have to cry a little if you are going to truly help the animals. It is SO much easier to not look, not read, not listen when someone tells you about something horrible. You feel that you are powerless, so it is easier to not know.
I hope you will read to the end of this post. It won’t be easy. But, it is important.
Some people who I now count as friends volunteered recently to do some cleaning at Indianapolis Animal Care and Control. I wanted to join them, but they were volunteering on a day that is difficult for me to take off work. Now, after talking with them, I wonder if I would have even made it through 10 minutes of work without fleeing in tears.
How they managed to go back for a second day is beyond me, but I am glad there are people out there who are able to step up to the plate and help animals even when their very souls cry out at the hurt they witness.
This is the story of a puppy and kitten. Everyone loves baby animals right? There is just something about their helplessness that calls to us to assist them if we can. Or at least that’s the way it should be.
This puppy and kitten don’t have names, at least not names I know. Perhaps they were born with good intentions on someone’s part. Perhaps the people who took them to the IACC thought they were doing the best they could. The people who dropped off the puppy may have even imagined it going to a happy home after being given kind and compassionate treatment. The person who dropped off the kitten probably hoped it would be given a quick and humane death. None of these things happened.
Instead the kitten languished for two days with fractured hind legs. One of the volunteers is a veterinary technician and she examined the kitten and said it had at least one and possibly more fractures in its rear legs. The rear end of the kitten was covered with diarrhea, urine and an infestation of maggots. The volunteers were able to tell how long the kitten had been there by the intake card. Now, I know this is hard, but think about this. For two days either no one noticed this kitten or no one cared enough to do the right thing by it. I don’t care which it was as either is totally unacceptable. The kitten was in pain, it was covered in maggots. It sat in a room with other cats for two days. Where is the “Care” in the name Indianapolis Animal Care and Control?
The puppy, ah, that puppy. I don’t know what it looked like. But, I can picture a puppy in my mind, can’t you? Scared, wondering where its mother went and why it is in a strange place. Imagine the puppy finding a person to call its own and living a happy life as I think whatever higher being you believe in intended. Instead, read the truth. The puppy cried for 20 minutes while the volunteers were cleaning the cat area. Finally, one of the volunteers couldn’t stand it and she went to investigate as obviously the cries were of an animal in distress. She found the puppy in the euthanasia room. It sat with two dead puppies and cried and cried. This was not the happy ending, there was no child or adult coming to give it a loving home.
The puppy had supposedly been given an injection for euthanasia, which obviously worked on the other pups it was with. But, for some reason this little guy didn’t die. Whoever administered the drug did something wrong or else there was something going on in this little guy’s body that meant the drug didn’t quite work right. For at least 20 minutes no one cared, no one came, no one did anything to help.
I questioned why the puppy was being euthanized to begin with. After all, it seems everyone wants a puppy, that’s the reason you are given at shelters for why all the older animals are put down. “Everyone wants puppies,” they say. So, here was a puppy. Was it sick? Was it injured? I’m not sure anyone will ever no now, although supposedly both of these cases are being investigated.
IACC statistics for June
I hope you are still reading. There are some numbers you need to know.
According to the website Indy No Kill Initiative: “Out of the 1,799 animals that came into IACC in June, 1,098 were killed. Numerically speaking, that's 61 percent of the animals, or almost 2 out of every 3 animals. That means that on average, 36.6 animals were killed every one of the 30 days in June.”
The IACC does provide great statistics. Here is what it says for June just in terms of dogs and cats (the 1,799 number also includes other animals as well).
855 dogs and 873 cats were at IACC during June.
106 dogs were adopted; 113 were returned to owner and 123 were transferred to other animal shelters or rescues. That’s 342 dogs of the 855 which had a happy ending. You don’t have to be a math whiz to see that’s less than half. So, what happened to the 513 other dogs? 1 just died. I have no idea what that line item means. 1 dog died at the vet. 4 died enroute, 15 died in the kennel, 5 are on the line item that says disposal. Six of the dogs were considered feral and were killed. Here is something to keep in your mind: 162 is the number of dogs that were killed and considered healthy at the time they were killed. Another 23 were killed and considered manageable, which means if they had been someone’s pet, the pet owner probably would have gotten routine medical treatment for the animal and saved its life. Another 183 were killed and labeled as “rehabilitable.” Only 110 of the dogs killed were labeled as untreatable or unable to be rehabilitated. So, 342 dogs found a way out, 110 were killed because they were either too ill or had too severe of behavioral issues and about 25 died in other ways. That’s a total of 378, which means 477 dogs were killed in June just because. There are lots of becauses, but they are really just excuses to make us all feel better about that horrific number.
In the cats we had 1 that died enroute and six that died in the kennels; 3 escaped! Two were killed because they were feral; 135 were killed because they were considered unhealthy or unable to be rehabilitated. Only 1 was killed because it was healthy. But, a whopping 458 were killed that were listed as rehabilitable. On a happy note: 42 cats were adopted in June; 23 were returned to their owners and 194 were transferred to other kennels or rescues. So that makes 259 cats that lived out of the 873 brought in.
If I was an animal in Indianapolis I sure wouldn’t like my chances at IACC.
So, please, don’t turn away, don’t hide your head, don’t stop listening. These numbers can be turned around. I’ve met some of the people who work at IACC and at least three of them are wonderful people. There are caring, compassionate members of the IACC advisory board. Public Safety Director Scott Newman, whose office oversees IACC says he cares and wants to do something to turn this around.
But, we can’t ignore the anonymous puppy and kitten. I hope they did not die in vain and that you will remember their story. Tell it to others. Encourage them to attend the IACC meetings and to volunteer at IACC. Help put the Care back into Indianapolis Animal Care and Control.
And, if you really want to help visit the website of the Indy No Kill Initiative and take time to read what it says. I think it will make sense and hopefully someday the puppies and kittens who come to IACC will find their forever homes, just as it should be.
9 comments:
While these are appalling stories, I'm glad they are being told. We need to be out of excuses for killing animals in our community.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"
I don't even know what to say. I've typed several things, but I just can't find the words. I hope Scott Newman makes some changes down there. He sounds like he's open-minded and wants to fix things. I hope he makes the changes and stops the killing.
I also have to wonder why they have a union for the cage cleaners. Vet's offices don't have unionized kennel attendants. IACC is open to help animals. How does a unionized kennel staff help animals? I'm sure I'll get blasted for this, but I just don't get it. It seems it would be much easier to hire individuals and not deal with grievances and all the stuff that comes with the union. If they didn't have the union, they could hire cleaning people who didn't have to euthanize the animals. They'd have an easier time finding people to work there if they did that. If there's a good reason for the union, please educate me. I just don't see it.
I am so disugusted and angry and sad and confused. Stuff like this happens every day and I am sick of it. My friends and I do what we can, but we need to do more. Also, like Stacy said, I really don't understand the unionized kennel staff.
I'm sure I'm going to honk someone off by asking this, but if a volunteer heard an animal crying in pain for many minutes (15 or 20 minutes by the volunteer's account), why didn't this volunteer try to get a staff member to help? Wasn't this one of the days when Director Talley was in constant contact with the staff and volunteers, when Owens said that he and his staff were most accommodating? I'm certainly not saying that this incident didn't happen, or couldn't have been handled differently, but I don't think it was ever explained why the volunteer(s) didn't try to find a kennel attendant, Kirsten, Adam, Talley, or someone from the ACC staff.
ACC is far from perfect, that's for sure, and many changes need to be made. But remember that "sex sells magazines," and sensational stories get your attention. You all heard one side of this story; I'm sure there is at least one more.
Susan, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a puppy screams for 20 minutes during "euthanasia" and there is no volunteer (only staff) to hear it, does that mean it doesn't suffer? So I suppose blaming the volunteers and not the staff that was euthanazing would stop the puppy's pain?
You're probably right, I am quite certain that they have formulated a good excuse why a puppy undergoing euthanasia, presumably under the supervision of a staff member would have to suffer intolerably for 20 minutes. Maybe the puppy was lying, and wasn't really suffering, and was just being overly dramatic? If only puppies could lie to save themselves.
At the end of that day, that puppy was dead, and died an unnecessarily slow, painful death. Excuse or explain it however you want, but it should never happen.
As long as IACC continues to kill animals to solve problems, things like this will continue to happen. Until we stop making and accepting excuses for the killing of healthy cats & dogs, it will not stop.
Well, Susan, you need to spend a day in receiving. In the that room there was a puppy crying, wanting out of it's cage and we were told not to take the puppy out by staff members. They said we couldn't because he was a parvo suspect?? The puppy did not have parvo but they do not allow puppies out of their cages to defectate or go outside at all. So this crying puppy we heard from the room next door was just another of the heart-wrenching noises we heard that day. Cats were crying continously while we were there until we cleaned and fed them all..only then did the crying cease. The puppy though was still crying because it had been caged and not allowed to have exercise. When one of us did finally take the puppy outside, we were reprimanded for doing so!!!
So this crying puppy we heard next door was just another of the noises we had to listen to and do nothing about. The dog being drug down the hallway was also upset but we were also reprimanded for inquiring about that dog.
Yes, Mr.Talley was accomadating to us that day but no one was accomadating to the animals. It took asking 4 staff members before anyone did anything about the kitten with maggots!!
Mr.Talley did respond to our pleas to find an area for the puppies to be exercised and bought a puppy play pen last week but it is yet to be used by staff according to the volunteers.
These incidents are not trivial and they are not sensationalized. I was there and it was by far the worst animal neglect/abuse treatment of animals I have ever had to be involved in and it left me emotionally scarred and determined to make it change. When I first walked into that room to clean, I had to walk out, unable to compose myself and not wanting to go back and face it but I did.
I saw a crying woman come and visit her 17 impounded cats. Whatever circumstances those cats were taken out of had to be much better than the tiny cages with stagnant water, moldy food and filthy litter they were living in at animal contol. Those cats weren't neglected, sick kitties but very healthy, well-socialized cats. Instead of this woman being subjected to care/treatment fines, the city should have been cited for subjecting those cats to far worse conditions.
So, as you can see, no one would care about another crying puppy...just another day at animal control.
Actually, Susan, there were staff present when the puppy was dying in agony. Just because the staff have become numb to the suffering, I'm sure you would agree that doesn't make it right. I was surprised you compared 'sex selling magazines', or any kind of sensationalism, to the plight of cats and dogs who are inhumanely and unnecessarily killed. There is no such thing as sensationalism when it comes to facts and numbers as presented by IACC themselves (or as witnessed by volunteers). Why would anyone make it out to be worse than it is? Just look at all the perfectly healthy cats and dogs that end up there, only to be neglected and killed. How anybody can try to make excuses for that is incomprehensible.
I still can't figure out why some people are so resistant to helping animals, and saving their lives. Why anyone would support the current operating model of killing at IACC is beyond me. Perhaps because it takes a bigger person to rise above what's comfortable and familiar to them, and strive for what's better and what's right for another living being.
And remember, Susan, this isn't about the staff at IACC. It's about fighting for the humane rights of cats and dogs who can't speak or stand up for themselves. I truly believe we should do whatever it takes to help those smaller than us, and defenseless.
Your suggestion there is 'another side to the story' makes me ask you what the heck could it be? And also suggests that you have a very displaced loyalty to the staff there for some reason. That displaced loyalty should not in any way take priority over doing what is right for a helpless puppy, under no circumstances. I certainly hope you agree with that if nothing else.
Like I said, I figured my questions would honk someone off. 'Won't be posting here again. :) Sorry. Just trying to see more than one side of a situation.
The volunteer asked what the other side of the story is and no one answers it. That's the same answer I get from other so-called animal 'welfare advocates' that aren't on the same page as NoKill. They have no response....they just stick their head in the sand and ignore the killings and say it just has to be done.
There is no other side that's defensible, obviously.
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