KILL 22,000 ANIMALS IN ONE YEAR
Continued
7929 North Michigan Road
Indianapolis, IN 46268
Phone: 317-872-5650
Administration Fax: 317-876-2428
Second Fax: 317-876-2417
Website: http://www.indyhumane.com
Executive Director
[email protected]
Carla Cox
Community Relations, Marketing
[email protected]
317.876.2422
Mike Goss
Shelter Manager
[email protected]
Mike Weaver
Assistant Executive Director
[email protected]
317.872.5650 ext. 115
2600 South Harding Street
Indianapolis, IN 46221
Phone: 317-327-4622
Fax: 317-327-1390
Sorry-they would not give out email addresses.
Lisa Redd
Administrator
2501 City-County Building
200 East Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 317-327-3601
Fax: 317-327-3980
http://www.indygov.org/mayor/feedback.htm
Inadequate animal care violates Indianapolis law
Animals left in stark cages, lack exercise
By Bonnie Harris and Bill Theobald
Indianapolis Star
October 15, 2001
An ordinance passed two years ago says the city's Animal Care and Control shelter must provide veterinary care and a healthy environment for the animals.
It must separate sick and injured dogs and cats from healthy ones, aggressive animals from calmer ones, nursing moms and babies from all others.
And it must give at least some comfort by putting fresh bedding in all their cages every day.
At the city shelter, little is spent on veterinary care. Healthy animals live in cages next to sick or vicious ones. And those that appear ill or overly distressed often fall victim to the shelter's most common method of disease and behavior control -- euthanasia.
The shelter is now cleaner than it was when the law was enacted. That's to the credit of the Humane Society of Indianapolis, which contracted with the city in 2000 to run the city's Southside kennels.
Still, the Humane Society falls short in meeting a key goal in its $272,000 annual contract -- finding homes for more animals. The contract called for the society to come up with a plan to increase adoptions by 30 percent during the first year. Instead, adoptions fell 16 percent. This year, the numbers have begun to rise, but they're still falling short of contract goals.
Making the improvements to comply with the law will take more money. But the recently approved 2002 budget actually provides less for the city's unwanted animals.
Cramped quarters
The physical layout of the city Animal Care and Control Division shelter makes separating animals as the law requires next to impossible.
The city may be able to bring itself into technical compliance with the law by shifting animals among the existing kennels. Even that would require renovations at the decade-old shelter.
But the way shelter officials are using the space now leaves no area solely for sick cats. None for sick dogs. None for nursing moms and babies. None for timid or abused dogs that aren't vicious.
Records show, for example, that one scared English setter named Princess spent more than four months padlocked in a cage in the room with vicious, loud dogs. Princess was picked up because she was running loose. Someone snatched her out of the shelter, and animal control officers reclaimed her and placed her in the room with dogs whose owners are under investigation.
Only after the chairwoman of the shelter's advisory board pursued the dog's case in a public meeting was Princess put up for adoption. Her new owner said it took the dog two weeks to stop shaking.
The lack of proper separation allows illnesses to spread quickly.
Last year, about 12,000 dogs and cats -- or nearly three-fourths of those brought to the city shelter -- were killed or died in their cages.
Many animals are euthanized because they develop airborne upper respiratory infections.
Keeping animals healthy in a shelter is difficult, said Sandra Wire, a Humane Society employee who manages the city's kennels.
If the shelter had isolation rooms for sick animals some could be treated, she said.
At its own Northside shelter, the Humane Society built a special room to isolate sick animals. It has glassed-in cages and separate air-delivery and venting systems.
At the city's South Harding Street shelter, the air-handling system was upgraded this summer, at a cost of about $364,000. But that came only after a public uproar and the receipt of large private donations.
The new machinery cools the air and keeps each room's air separate. But sick and healthy animals still are housed together in the same rooms.
Some of those animals come in sick. Others get sick in the shelter. That means adoptive pet owners may take home more than a new companion.
Stacey Krom, who lives on the city's Westside, unknowingly adopted a sick chow-mix puppy from the shelter last December. The "little puff ball" that caught her eye was one of five puppies waddling in diarrhea.
She soon discovered he had canine parvovirus, a highly contagious disease spread through feces. Krom called the shelter because she was mad. Staffers suggested she return him and get another dog.
That made her even angrier.
"He's not a piece of clothing that I'm going to take back and exchange," she said.
After about $600 in vet bills and lots of care, the pup pulled through.
Minimal vet care
The law requires "licensed regular veterinary care" at the city shelter, but that is rare.
It mandates treatment of sick and injured animals and care for newborn or young animals.
This year, the city shelter budgeted $4,500 for veterinary care, but as of Oct. 8, it had spent less than half that amount.
The top executive at the city shelter, Lisa Redd, would not respond to repeated requests by The Indianapolis Star for an explanation of the meager spending.
A few hundred dollars doesn't go far when caring for 17,000 animals a year.
In 2000, an average dog owner spent $196 on veterinary expenses, according to a national survey by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. A cat owner spent $104.
The Humane Society's contract is vague about its vet care responsibility.
That document says the Humane Society shall provide or obtain "routine, limited medical services and assessments" for the animals. That may include treatment to alleviate discomfort and injury and sterilization of adopted animals. But kennel staff, not veterinarians, usually decide which animals to treat.
Humane Society Executive Director Marsha Spring insists the group has more than met the veterinary requirements of its contract.
Last year, the Humane Society took 140 city shelter animals to its own facility for veterinary examinations. That's less than 1 percent of all the animals that passed through the shelter.
The Humane Society also has arranged for some emergency care of dogs and cats that animal control officers sweep off the streets. The service allows officers to take injured or seriously ill animals to one of 20 veterinarians.
Any treatment beyond a $35 fee, however, must be approved by shelter staff.
Last spring, the Humane Society began sending its own veterinarian to the city's shelter about once a week. That, said Spring, is not required by the contract.
Still, few animals are identified for treatment during those visits because shelter staff routinely kill sick animals.
"As soon as we see ill health in the animal, then my staff and myself are out there making sure that the animals are euthanized so that we don't spread the disease," Wire said.
In contrast, other communities provide both isolation and full-time vet care in their public shelters.
In Seattle, King County Animal Control built its own clinic and staffs it with a veterinarian. That shelter takes in about 14,000 animals a year and adopts out about 5,000, five times the number this city's shelter places.
Indianapolis' shelter needs at least a part-time veterinarian to treat sick animals, said Ed Cummins, a veterinarian and member of the city's Animal Care and Control Division advisory board. The vet would need to spend a couple of hours a day every day at the shelter, he explained.
Division Administrator Redd, who reports to the city's director of public safety, requested money in the 2002 budget to hire a part-time veterinarian. But the city controller denied that request.
Short on comfort, bedding
Routinely, the city shelter violates the law requiring that animals have clean, fresh bedding every day.
Only a handful of dogs ever have an old towel or blanket in their cages.
A sheltering guide from the American Humane Association says that bedding, treats and toys contribute to the animals' well-being and, in turn, make them more appealing to people looking for new pets.
But the animals have no bedding because there's no way to keep it clean.
The shelter's washing machine has been broken for months. Instead of fixing it or asking for money to buy one, shelter administrators have been waiting for a donation.
Another national group, the Humane Society of the United States, says dogs should be exercised in runs at least twice a day or walked on a leash for 20 minutes twice a day.
However, dogs at the Indianapolis shelter are never exercised, even though there is plenty of grassy yard space outside the building.
A kennel club offered to install fencing. But months later, nothing has been done.
Shelter leaders haven't aggressively pursued the project -- they haven't even decided where to put the walking area.
As for cats, some of the nation's shelters provide towels, cardboard boxes or disposable carpet samples to give them a place to snuggle up. Cats here live in newspaper-lined cages, and many resort to sleeping in their litter boxes.
"It doesn't seem to bother them," Wire said.
Unmet adoption goals
The Humane Society cleaned up the shelter, but it has failed to meet the pet adoption goals in its contract with the city.
It was supposed to set up a program that would increase adoptions by 30 percent during the first year of the contract.
To do that, the shelter should have found homes for 1,401 animals last year.
Instead, 902 of the 16,550 dogs and cats that cycled through the shelter were adopted -- a mere 5.5 percent.
The Humane Society also agreed to use its best efforts to boost adoptions by 10 percent each year thereafter. That would mean finding homes for 1,541 dogs and cats this year.
Through August, 828 animals were adopted, including 32 that found homes at the shelter's second annual adoption fair.
Promotion needed
The shelter could more aggressively promote the adoption of its animals.
Many shelters around the country and in Indiana post pictures and information about their adoptable animals on the Internet. The Indianapolis shelter doesn't, even though a free online service is available. That Web site, Petfinder.com, would provide a free digital camera to the shelter.
Off-site showcasing of animals at a pet store has been discussed for months but still isn't happening.
The city shelter has barely been able to match the adoption efforts of one animal activist who runs the Southside Animal Shelter, a private, not-for-profit facility.
Last year, Rosie Ellis rescued and tried to find homes for more than 1,000 animals slated to be killed at the city's shelter. To get them healthy enough for adoption, Ellis racked up $36,000 in veterinary bills, seven times what the city spent that year for all of its animals.
Instead of getting accolades from the city for her work, Ellis often has to fight to get animals out of the shelter. This summer, Ellis' zeal caused her to exceed the number of animals she is allowed to have at her shelter. As a result, she failed a city inspection.
No one, however, inspects the city shelter or forces it to comply with the law.
Money matters
To meet its own mandates, the city would have to find ways to separate animals, provide more consistent veterinary care and give the animals bedding. All of that would take more tax dollars.
One of the chief architects of the city's animal ordinance, former City-County Councilwoman Marilyn Moores, said the city needs to renovate or expand the shelter.
But shelter officials and city leaders have no plans to restructure the facility.
One major project has been done this year, they point out: the new air-handling system.
"I try not to move too fast in terms of expenditures," said Robert Turner, the city's director of public safety, who oversees the shelter operation.
Approval of the air-handling system also used up a lot of political clout. Getting more money for the shelter now "would be like pulling more teeth from my colleagues," said City-County Councilman and veterinarian Phil Borst.
Division Administrator Redd did not try to get more money for restructuring the building.
She did ask for money for a part-time vet and a part-time dispatcher but got the money only for the dispatcher, a person who coordinates the runs for animal control officers.
Bart Brown, deputy controller, said the city rejected Redd's vet request because the shelter didn't spend all of its personnel budget in 2000. Persistent understaffing led to the leftover money. Brown said Redd could use that money to hire a part-time vet this year. Redd could do the same next year, too, Brown said, because he doesn't think the staffing situation will improve.
Overall, the Animal Care and Control budget for next year dropped by $185,000, leaving it at $2.4 million.
In the months prior to the budget's approval, members of the city's Animal Care and Control Board, which advises shelter administrators, offered to lobby the council for more money. But Redd didn't ask for help. In fact, to get basic budget information, board Chairwoman Lucy Meyer had to pry it loose with a terse memo to Redd charging that the board had been shut out of the budget process.
Money is tight citywide, said Mayor Bart Peterson. The $530 million overall 2002 budget approved last month is an increase of less than 2 percent from this year's spending plan.
Peterson said he was unaware of the shelter's failings. "We'll look into that."
City officials also will be studying whether to renew the Humane Society's two-year contract, which expires Dec. 31.
Meyer hopes the Humane Society doesn't leave.
"They walked into a hornet's nest," she said. "I think the place is a lot better for them being there."
But to take the shelter to a new level, one that meets the law, the city must act, she said.
"At this point, it really is the city council's responsibility to make the funds available."
A job where killing never ends haunts euthanasia technicians
By Bonnie Harris and Bill Theobald
Indianapolis Star
October 15, 2001
But in the Indianapolis area, the people who must clean up after the community behind closed doors are little regulated, sometimes ill-trained, often underpaid and usually stressed out.
That makes for high turnover and means some begin killing before receiving formal training.
Instead, they train one another, and that can lead to mistakes.
Eddy Fey, 20, an employee at the city's Animal Care and Control shelter, started euthanizing animals in the summer of 1999. Sometimes, he said, he would inject directly into an animal's heart. When he went to euthanasia training that fall, he learned that practice is painful, unless the animal is unconscious.
Christina Coffman, 20, who worked at the Humane Society about two years, began euthanizing animals in the summer of 2000. When she took a euthanasia workshop that fall, she discovered she and other workers were using too much of the drug that kills the animals. Experts say that doesn't hurt the animals. But injecting an animal in the wrong place does, and Coffman said sometimes she would hit an organ.
"We all were totally amateurs at this," she said.
Euthanasia technicians usually don't stay long. The work is grueling and the pay is low.
That turnover is why city shelter workers sometimes must begin killing before the formal training, said Lisa Redd, head of the Animal Care and Control Division. Redd doesn't see this as a problem because the new employees get some hands-on experience before attending training classes.
High turnover is a problem nationwide, experts say. Only about 20 states mandate that people who euthanize be formally certified before they can begin work. Indiana is not one of them.
Connie Howard, director of shelter services for the American Humane Association, said she is uncomfortable with peer-to-peer teaching "because over time, that training disintegrates."
That, Coffman said, is exactly what happened.
"We weren't told right. Pretty much we had learned from the person that was doing it before, and they had learned from the person who was doing it before."
Killing a large number of animals daily takes a toll.
"My first day, I almost quit because we had to kill dogs," said Gib Staten, director of the Morgan County Humane Society.
Months later, Staten anguishes over which dogs and cats at his small Martinsville shelter will have to die, sometimes stashing dogs in his office to avoid killing them.
His antidote after a day of killing: watching action movies. "You don't want to have to think."
Doug Fakkema, a nationally known euthanasia trainer for the American Humane Association, told a class attending a recent session at the Humane Society of Indianapolis that shelter workers often suffer "compassion fatigue."
He said euthanasia technicians develop an intense anger toward those who turn in animals -- "you're pissed off at society."
Fakkema also said the killing often makes shelters lightning rods for public anger.
In Indianapolis, shelter officials respond by keeping the killing out of the public's eye.
City officials refused to allow reporters and a photographer to enter the city's euthanasia room.
The Humane Society let reporters watch euthanasia but wouldn't allow photographs or the use of the dogs' names for fear of upsetting the owners.
Some animal activists agree, but not everyone.
A North Carolina sheriff broadcast a dog being euthanized on TV to get the public's attention.
And Staten, from Morgan County, allowed a reporter and photographer to record the euthanasia of 15 dogs one afternoon.
"I'd almost like to lay them out and take pictures so people can see what they did," he said.
It's an attitude born of frustration and anguish that never goes away, Staten said.
"Even though the day is over, you know you've got another day."
Contact Bill Theobald at 1-317-444-6602 or via e-mail at [email protected]
