P.O. Box 80663
Lincoln, NE 68501
402 - 476 - 4414
info@animalrescuesoc.org
City Pounds or "Humane" Societies
Misunderstanding about most "humane societies" seems to be widespread. Animal Rescue Society would like to shed light on much of this misunderstanding. In our haste to rid ourselves of our "problems," we often take an animal to our local humane society, telling ourselves that all we want is for our animal to find a good home and the humane society will make sure that happens.
From a logistical standpoint, all one has to do is to do is the numbers to realize that isn't going to happen. Numbers from our local humane societies are available. All we have to do is ask! We have to ask ourselves if our animal companions are at least worth enough to us to inquire before turning them over to one of these places.
Here in Lincoln, Nebraska, our Capital Humane Society leaves a lot to be desired. Poor record keeping, resulting in untold animals being mistakenly euthanized, has plagued this house of horrors for decades. Personnel act more interested in chatting among
Humane societies have various ways of disposing of animals. Following are some of the ways what are known as superfluous animals are killed:
Bringing the Public up to speed on a serious issue
Lethal Injection
A solution of pentobarbital is injected into the vein of a leg. It is very quick acting and within seconds the animal is usually dead.
Unfortunately, much of the advertising associated with humane societies is such that it conjures up thoughts of many darling animals going to wonderful homes which are already lined up and waiting for that special companion. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Typically, when dropping off an animal you are told by the person at the desk that they will hold the animal for an arbitrary number of days or hours and then it is "out of your hands." They will make the decision as to what will be done with the animal. What do they mean by that?
themselves than promptly waiting on citizens lined up at the front desk anxiously waiting to see if their pets have ended up on "death row." If you must visit the Pound always make sure you have several hours to wait around. Between "forgetting that you are there" and cajoling with their friends, it often takes an immense amount of time to even get to the back room to look for your pet. The callous, uncaring, holier-than-though attitudes of the employees and volunteers alike are enough to make one vow never to have to pass through those doors again. One can't help but notice an ongoing suspicious absence of the Director but one usually doesn't have to go far to find him at the nearest health club or bike trail. If he put the same amount of time into creative ways to keep animals off death row, we suspect the number of euthanasia's would decrease dramatically.
Sadly, our "Humane Society" is not alone when it comes to suffering from a bad case of self-rightousness. According to Nathan Winigrad, former Director of Operations of the San Francisco SPCA, many other "Humane Societies" suffer from this common disorder. In his recent expose titled "Hoarders of NYC," which was recently featured on ABC news, he describes many of the same problems we see at our Capital Humane Society- a culture of cruelty and indifference. They fire volunteers who would do anything to help animals at no cost to taxpayers. They make it increasingly difficult to volunteer, turning away animal lovers through bureaucratic roadblocks. They’ve made it harder for rescue groups to find out which animals are going to be killed. They have even punished rescue groups for promoting animals who face being killed, upset by the “inconvenience” of having to field telephone calls from potential adopters. Over the past three decades we have experienced this attitude first hand and receive numerous calls from the public, frustrated and exasperated at the way they are treated by the employees when all they want to do is get their pet back home. If they are lucky enough to reunite with their beloved animal, they must then pay an inflated "fee" to get them out. Many people cannot afford these exorbitant fees but the CHS remains inflexible, instead euthanizing the animal rather than set up an arrangement of sorts for the owner to get their pet back.
Case in point: ARS was called out to trap a Mother cat and kittens living under the porch of a house that was soon to be razed. The kittens were caught but before we were able to get the trap back Animal Control had set a trap and caught the mother cat. ARS notified the Animal Control that we had the kittens and would like to reunite them with the mother cat so they could continue to be nursed and cared for due to their very young age. We were told we must contact the CHS since they were taken there and were now their property. We promptly called CHS and was told by the Director, Bob Downey, that he was unable to release the cat to us since it was brought in by Animal Control and was considered "their property." We then called Animal Control once again and were told they could not release the mother cat to us as it was now under Bob Downey's jurisdiction. Another call to CHS rendered the same answer as the first time and another call to Animal Control's Jim Weverka rendered an answer the same as the first.
Desperate by this time and realizing we were being played by two major players, we decided to send someone down to the CHS to adopt the mother cat. The CHS absolutely refused to adopt it out (no explanation). These events took place over a two-to-three week period. In the meantime two of the kittens became ill and died which more than likely would have been prevented had the mother cat been able to nurse and care for them. We continued to call daily and plead to both men to release the mother cat to us but were continually answered with a smart aleck response. At that point we came to the hard realization that these two were actually getting a rise out of what they were doing. Finally, early one Monday morning we called the CHS again to plead once more for the mother cat's release and Bob Downey very proudly announced that "she was euthanized this morning."
If at any point you, the reader, think this may have been an isolated situation, think again. We have continually experienced this type of treatment from the CHS over a period of many, many years.
After receiving an avalanche of calls from the public from citizens who claimed that the CHS had euthanized their pet "mistakenly," and after experiencing the same type of thing several times ourselves, we decided there must be something wrong with their record keeping. In an interview with the Journal Star we outlined many of these problems the public was having with the CHS, hoping they would take a good hard look at what they were doing and make some positive improvements. Instead, the following week ARS was lambasted by an ediorial written by a CHS board of director member, Patricia McWilliams, stating that our allegations were absolutely false and should be given no credibility whatsoever. Rather than investigating problems within the CHS, they chose the low road, attempting to discredit our Organization.
Shortly thereafter we asked for the CHS to do a public audit. They agreed but nothing was ever forthcoming.
(What exactly happens to Fluffy or Fido when I drop them off?")
But the question remains.....".Who gives us the right?" Maybe it is time we begin to follow our moral law.
