117 starving, diseased dogs found in shelter raid
Killing with Kindness
I almost never post stories here about neglect and abuse. I try to find positive stories about dogs to post. As sad as stories of abuse and neglect are, they are not new stories. If we have pets ourselves we probably all know of people in our area who don’t care for their animals the way they should for one reason or another. That’s probably been happening for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
But with the great growth in the rescue movement I am seeing something new that disturbs me. There are people, maybe with good intentions, who set themselves up as “rescues” or even as animal shelters and take in dozens of dogs without having licensing or the proper facilities or funding to operate. The result, over and over again, in news stories from around the country, are like the horrible story below.
Good intentions are not enough. The desire to rescue animals is not enough. People need a business plan if they are to have the funds to care for the animals they take in, and they need to have reliable volunteers. They also need to start small and not try to rescue more dogs than they can reasonably expect to care for. Otherwise, they are sentencing the dogs to a slow, lingering death.
Please do not think that I am in any way criticizing the dedicated, loving people who open their homes to foster and rehab dogs. I think what they do is wonderful. They give dogs a chance at a new life without cramming them in with dozens of other dogs. They give them the individual attention they desperately need.
My concerns are with the people who set up these instant rescues and shelters without doing all the pre-planning necessary to keep the dogs safe and healthy.
I’m just sick and tired of reading about these so-called “rescues” and “shelters” where they find dead dogs and emaciated dogs living in feces because some airheads thought, “Hey, let’s start a shelter!” and they started taking in dogs without putting any more thought into the plan.
If you want to be a “savior” (and some people are motivated by that idea), at least think through what you’re going to do. Otherwise you and the dogs will end up in a story like the one below. Rescue people like this give everyone involved in rescue a bad name.
From MSNBC.com
117 starving, diseased dogs found in shelter raid
Official in Kentucky: ‘I think I’m gonna have nightmares about this’
updated 10:15 p.m. ET, Wed., March. 12, 2008
SAND SPRINGS, Ky. - Police found 117 starving and diseased dogs — including about 40 that were dead or dying — during a raid at an eastern Kentucky animal shelter.
Some officers donned hazardous-material suits Tuesday before they went into the basement, which was full of filth, feces, murky liquid and more than a dozen dogs.
“There were a couple of small puppies that just fell over dead while we were standing there. I think I’m gonna have nightmares about this,” said Greg Hayes, Jackson County emergency management director.
Officials said they retrieved about 75 living dogs from the shelter and would deal with about 40 dead dogs. The living dogs were taken to a veterinary clinic in Jackson County for medical attention and temporary holding space.
Timothy Foust, 32, and Shawn Embs, 18, were each charged with 117 counts of animal cruelty. It was not clear whether the men had attorneys. The Jackson County Jail did not immediately return a message to The Associated Press.
Jackson County Sheriff Ted Fee said he plans to charge Foust’s wife, Aimee Robbins-Foust, on the same counts.
Fee said no one associated with the Animal Assist facility in Sand Springs has been able to produce a kennel license. Robbins-Foust and two other women set up the shelter in December, state records show.
“I guess they had intentions of doing something right, but in my opinion, they wound up with more than they could care for,” Fee said. “They just didn’t have the money or the space they needed. It just went bad, really bad.”
