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Shelter routinely euthanizes animals before end of required 96-hour hold period
| Friday, Mar 7 2008 2:20 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Mar 7 2008 2:20 PM
Editor's note: This story was originally published March 14, 2004.
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Kern County Animal Shelter workers break the law just about every day.
The shelter is required, by state law, to hold all animals for 96 hours -- four days -- before it can adopt out or euthanize a stray dog or cat.
In the past year, however, shelter officials admit they have killed at least hundreds of animals before that hold time was up, saying they just don't have the space.
On any given day, they acknowledge, they do have empty pens. But those empty spots are reserved for "adoptable" dogs.
The shelter's practice could mean dogs and cats are euthanized before their owners get a chance to save them.
Animals taken in by the county only escape lethal injection if they are picked up by their owners or pass a "safe animal" test that clears them for adoption.
County officials don't hide the fact that they are breaking the 96-hour law. They simply don't have a choice, said top animal control officer Matt Constantine.
The inflow of strays is just too great and Constantine said he refuses to hold several dogs in a single kennel -- something he considers inhumane.
"Right now we prosecute people for doing that," said Constantine's boss, Environmental Health Services Director Steve McCalley.
Sometimes the county fudges on the 96-hour rule by only an hour or two.
At other times it's a day.
Rarely, when the flow of strays is particularly heavy, it can be two days -- leaving animals with only half the promised time to be rescued by their owners.
Still, of the 40 kennels reserved for adoptable dogs, ones that have passed the so-called safe test, between 10 and 20 stand empty on average.
"We have to weigh the benefits versus the risks of doing that," Constantine said of putting dogs in the adoptable kennels. "I want to make certain that a dog is not given to anyone else that is not the rightful owner."
So, while they wait for that owner to show, those dogs remain locked in the three county kennels in the non-public portion of the shelter.
FLOOD OF LIFE
The county shelter takes in up to 150 dogs, cats, bunnies and ducks each day. Every so often there is a cow, a horse and mule or a goat.
That flood of livestock often leaves the facility with more animals than it can handle.
And, since the city of Bakersfield moved its animal control program into the county shelter last summer, the crowding has only gotten worse.
Senate bill 1785 bumped the mandated hold period from 72 hours to 96 hours when it went into effect on July 1, 1999.
Kern County officials responded with plans to build a new kennel at the shelter to make room for the longer stays.
In the meantime the county decided to break the new law.
"The other option would be to place a large number of animals in a small area where it would be an inhumane condition," Constantine said.
McCalley said he tried that for a while -- putting up to eight animals in pens usually reserved for two or three.
"I told the staff, we've got to try -- this is the law," he said.
But he eventually decided the crowding was too chaotic and wouldn't work. He directed staff to break the 96-hour law.
Across town, the Bakersfield Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals dealt with the new law differently.
"We would put three or four dogs in a kennel," said Executive Director Kevin Lykins.
In general, he said, the SPCA didn't have the same space problems that the county did and the overcrowding only lasted one busy summer season.
The county of Madera took the same path as the SPCA -- crowding animals into pens. Their shelter is still struggling with the crowding, fights and disease prompted by the close quarters, said Madera County Animal Control Director Kirsten Gross.
She was shocked to hear Kern was breaking the 96-hour law.
"It doesn't seem like a valid option," she said. "I can't tell you how many times people don't think to come looking for their animal for the first couple (of) days."
Constantine said the county shelter has been in the same state of emergency overload since SB 1785 was passed.
The new county kennel -- which should have solved the problem -- was finished in December 2001. But budget troubles hit and the county couldn't hire staff to run the new space.
It sat vacant until July when Bakersfield's animal control partnership with the SPCA ended abruptly after contract talks failed.
The city program moved into the new kennel under a temporary contract.
Since then, the city and the county have been talking about a way to consolidate their animal control programs. The county now has the staff to handle the new kennel -- but now the space is filled with city animals.
Constantine said the county overcrowding, and the 96-hour violations, will end when the city builds its own kennel.
While Constantine waits, he will continue to break the 96-hour hold.
Supervisor Don Maben didn't know that county animal control officials were breaking the law. But he understands the situation.
"I wish there was a solution to that problem," Maben said. Ours is a "toss-away society. We get the puppy and it's cute but when it becomes an ungainly dog we decide to get rid of it."
The problem lands in government's lap and government, he said, doesn't have money to solve the problem.
"It's a Catch-22 and the animals are the ones paying the price," Maben said.
Adoption, for many animals, is the only escape.
Dogs and cats approved for adoption are held indefinitely, Constantine said.
With only one dog per pen, the county shelter has between one-quarter and one-half of its adoption pens empty at any time. The county could, if it needed to, put two animals in each adoption pen.
Not enough dogs qualify for adoption, Constantine said, and the public routinely adopts enough animals to keep kennels open.
EUTHANIZATION
Death is a fact of life at nearly all animal shelters.
At the Mount Vernon shelter, 79 percent of the animals that were brought in by officers or dropped off by the public during 2003 were put down.
That's a higher percentage than 2002, when the county euthanized 76 percent of the animals.
But it's still better than it used to be.
For most of the 1990s the county euthanized more than 90 percent of its animals.
Constantine said the county has been seeing fewer animals come through its doors. But the adoption numbers have stayed the same -- resulting in a lower euthanasia rate.
The SPCA had similar numbers.
Joann Keller, president of the SPCA board, said the nonprofit organization euthanized 76 percent of the animals it picked up in 2002 when it was still handling the city animal control program.
Lykins said the euthanization rate was 69 percent in 2000 and 71 percent in 2001.
The SPCA no longer runs the city animal control program and is no longer required to euthanize animals.
STAY OUT, STAY ALIVE
At the county shelter animals, statistically, still have only a one-in-four chance of making it out alive.
There are a few simple steps to help make sure a pet never has to face those numbers:
* License the animal.
* Make sure it has a collar and tags with the owner's name, address and phone number.
* Make sure it can't get out and run loose in the neighborhood.
* Spay and neuter your pets. It will help by reducing the number of unwanted animals born in the county.
In the end, Constantine said, the best way to make sure a family pet doesn't become a sad statistic is to make sure it never ends up in the county shelter.
There's a bit of a mantra around the county shelter. It takes the form of a request to the residents of Kern County to reduce the number of animals that cross the shelter threshold.
"Put us out of business," McCalley said.