ohmidog!

The animal shelter in Cleveland, Tenn., is under fire after euthanizing a dog days before it was to be picked up for adoption.

Austin Rhoades met Delilah, a Lab mix, Friday at the Cleveland Animal Shelter and filled out paperwork to adopt the dog.

He paid the adoption fee and agreed to come back Monday to pick up the dog after she received the necessary vaccinations.

But by Monday morning, Delilah had been euthanized.

When he arrived at the shelter, staff brought out another dog instead, Rhoades said. “We asked them had they put our dog down and they said yes.”

Animal Control Director Gene Smith told WRCB in Chattanooga that it was ”an honest mistake.”

He said Delilah was mistaken for a similar dog, and that that disciplinary action was being taken against the kennel worker responsible.

Animal rescuer Beth Foster said it wasn’t the first time that has happened: “There have been several occasions where we have said we are coming to get that animal in the morning. We went and it was dead.” Foster is part of a group called Cleveland For A No Kill City, which organized last month and is calling for a change in the shelter’s euthanization and adoption policies.

“We need to change this culture of our local animal control to one about saving lives and facilitating adoption, instead of kill and dispose, which is where we are now,” Foster said. She and others are pushing for a policy change that would increase the three-day holding period before strays could be put down.

Smith says the shelter complies with all state guidelines, and that any change in policy would have to be approved by the police department.

In other bad news for dogs, the Cleveland City Council announced this week that a special fund that has been used to reduce the cost of adoptions has run out of money, meaning the $50 fee will probably go back to as much as $100.