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Sampson County will dismantle the gas chamber it uses to euthanize dogs, thanks to a $7,000 grant from the Humane Society of the United States.

The North Carolina county– one of about 20 in the state still gassing dogs — says it has accepted the grant and will use it to destroy its gas chamber.

The Sampson Independent reports that the grant was one of three the county accepted that were aimed at reducing the number of animals put to death.

In addition to the HSUS grant, the county board of commissioners approved accepting two others from the Petfinder Foundation, including a $6,300 award to fund a kennel cough vaccine program and a $3,000 grant to fund a feline vaccination program.

Kimberley Alboum, HSUS director for North Carolina, said the grant requires the county to phase out its use of the gas chamber in six months. Any money left over, she said, can be used  by the Sampson County Animal Shelter for repairs and upgrades.

County manager Ed Causey that the use of gas chambers is declining across the state, and said switching to lethal injections isn’t likely to cost the shelter any more.

“The state has done a lot of encouraging to get shelters to transition on their own without a mandate. I think one of the reasons (the state inspector) has been so cooperative with us is she’s seen that effort on our part to get out of (operating the chamber). We felt this was something that would put us in a more favorable light with the state and all the people who are interested in the humane treatment of the animals.”

Both Vance and Person counties also recently halted use of gas chambers at their shelters.

A fact of life — or should we say death? — in this country is that whether or not you, as a human, get executed for a crime can depend largely on where your trial is held.

The same is kind of true of impounded dogs — one big difference being they get no trial, there’s usually no crime involved, and, having been surrendered or abandoned, they’re more often victims than criminals.

With dogs, most executions are not a matter of justice, but population control; and the likelihood of that fate varies not just from state to state, but from county to county. By and large, a dog’s chance of getting out of a county-run shelter alive depends primarily on what county they happen to be held in.

Just how much of a toss of the dice it can be was shown in a story Sunday by the Columbus Dispatch. It analyzed data from 85 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and found that, in 2011, they had kill rates varying from 1 percent to 81 percent.

Dogs who enter the shelter in Lawrence County, in southeastern Ohio, have less than a two in ten chance of getting out alive. Meanwhile, in Carroll County, in northeastern Ohio, only 1 percent of dogs were destroyed, the lowest rate in the state.

The story included a county-by-county interactive map, showing kill and adoption rates.

It’s some exceptional reporting — the kind newspapers should be doing more of — and it clearly shows that, even when they’re right next door, some places value dogs’ lives more than others, and work harder to place and save them.

Statewide, more than 100,000 dogs are impounded annually in Ohio’s county-run animal shelters, and roughly 30 percent, or 30,000, were euthanized in 2011. (Nationally, it’s estimated that 3 to 4 million dogs are euthanized a year.)

“It looks bad. That’s awful,” Lawrence County Dog Warden Bill Click said of the data showing his shelter had the highest kill rate in the state. He added that the county is working to improve those numbers. Lawrence County, like many others, often euthanizes dogs when the shelter gets too crowded.

The best dog wardens, the story points out, are more than wardens. (Is it time to change that outdated term?) They publicize their county shelters, welcome volunteers and visitors, post photos and profiles of their adoptable online and work with rescue groups.

But while some fight daily to keep euthanasia rates low, it seems a lower priority in many counties: 13 have kill rates higher than 50 percent.

Some dog wardens question whether it’s fair to compare the rates of urban and rural dog shelters, saying urban areas generally take in more aggressive animals that have been trained to guard property or fight other dogs, as well as more dogs that  have been injured by cars.

But even among urban areas, some county shelters do a far better job than others.

Of Ohio’s urban areas, Hamilton County had the lowest kill rate, at 30 percent. The county contracts with the Cincinnati SPCA, which has worked to reduce adoption prices, extend foster care and bring animals with heartworm and other medical problems back to health, rather than putting them down.

Pit bulls have been most often destined for euthanasia — at least until Ohio dropped its ban and put a new law in place in May of this year that no longer automatically brands them vicious.

Animal welfare advocates have also succeeded in pressuring two counties, Athens and Fairfield, to stop using the gas chamber to euthanize dogs.

They were less successful in Hocking County, where, despite demonstrations and a call to switch to lethal injection, county commissioners decided to continue using gas.

Prada, a pit bull mix who landed on death row after terrorizing an upscale Nashville neighborhood, has been spared — thanks to a Tennessee judge and a  woman who still believes both humans and dogs can be rehabilitated.

Prada was declared vicious and ordered to be euthanized after escaping from her home and attacking several dogs in January 2011.

In the latest development in the long running story, Tia Torres, director of the Villalobos Rescue Center, which recently relocated from California to New Orleans, offered to keep the dog for the rest of her life. A judge agreed with the terms.

The rescue center is featured in Animal Planet’s reality TV show “Pit Bulls and Parolees,” which puts ex-convicts and abused dogs together so both man and animal can be rehabilitated.

The compromise was a last-ditch effort to keep the four-year-old dog from being euthanized — a campaign that has led thousands to sign petitions, according to the Associated Press. It brings an end to Nicole Andree’s lengthy court battles to save her dog, who she rescued when the dog was 4-weeks-old.

It means, instead of lethal injection, Prada could now end up as a star on Animal Planet.

She was ordered put down by three different courts after attorneys for the city of Nashville said Prada posed a public safety threat and liability concerns.

In addition to launching a social media campaign to save Prada, Andree asked Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to pardon her. The governor, through a spokesman, said it was a local matter and he couldn’t pardon a dog.

Davidson County Circuit Court Judge Joe Binkley Jr. signed the order sparing Prada. City attorneys said they had no objections, provided the rescue center would take ownership of the dog and keep her for the rest of her life.

Andree, who believes her dog was discriminated against because it is part pit bull, said she didn’t mind giving her dog up if it meant Prada would be spared.

“I just wanted her to live.”

(Photo: Nicole Andree’s “Free Prada” Facebook page)

Commissioners in Athens County, Ohio, have voted to end the practice of euthanizing dogs in a gas chamber, and to switch to lethal injection.

The commissioners decided Thursday that the county dog shelter will no longer euthanize with carbon monoxide.

“We’ve been working on this since October and the fact that the commissioners have finally listened to the citizens of Athens County and that our dogs are going to be treated humanely … it’s amazing,” Sarah Robles, co-founder of Athens County Animal Advocates, told WOUB.

A resident of the county, Les Cornwell, offered to pay for the dismantling of the gas chamber.

He even agreed to rebuild it should the county — as it has done before – decides to return to using the gas chamber, the Athens News reported.

The county had attempted to switch to lethal injection earlier, but says rising costs forced it to return to gassing.

In yesterday’s clip from the award-winning documentary “100,000” we met a man named Anibal who — though virtually homeless himself — struggles to feed some of the stray dogs that populate the town of Guayama in Puerto Rico.

In today’s, we meet another man named Anibal, this one a shelter worker who sincerely believes he is doing dogs a favor, too – by killing them.

He lethally injects about 100 a day; sometimes the sick or aggressive ones, sometimes, when there are no more empty kennels,  the healthy ones. At Puerto Rico’s other shelters — and there are only a handful — the same holds true.

Across the territory, about 500 dogs are euthanized a day — 92 percent of those that enter shelter, according to the documentary.

All this week on ohmidog! we’ve been featuring the documentary, which looks at dog overpopulation in Puerto Rico and some of the people and organizations — such as Island Dog — that are working to solve the crisis.

“100,000,” directed by Juan Agustin Marquez, depicts the bleak existence stray dogs face on the beaches and streets of Puerto Rico, where they are commonly abandoned and abused and often die slow, cruel deaths.

“That’s why I prefer euthanasia before these animals end up like they really end up,” Anibal Rodriguez explains as he goes about his duties, hoisting another dog from a kennel to be injected. “If this animal hadn’t been picked up … this animal would have died in agony on the streets.”

As he sees it, he’s preventing suffering.

“When I first started working, it was hard. As a human being, one has feelings. I have seen so many abuses cases that I prefer that it’s done through small lethal injection rather than a dog getting brutally killed by a person…

“It’s a job that has to be done.”

(Tomorrow: Director Juan Agustin Marquez accepts an Emmy award, and asks Puerto Ricans to take a pledge)

Daniel, the miracle beagle, has a new home.

The dog who survived an Alabama gas chamber has been adopted by Joe Dwyer, a 50-year-old motivational speaker and dog trainer, his wife, Geralynn, and their daughter, Jenna.

While the family intends to continue the dual missions Daniel has already become part of — encouraging adoptions and ending the use of gas chambers to euthanize dogs — they promised that “his life as part of this family is paramount.”

“We can’t deny he has a purpose,” Dwyer of Nutley, N.J., told the Newark Star-Ledger. But, he added, “he won’t be exploited.”

The Dwyer family has four other dogs, including another famous one –  Shelby, an abused pit bull Dwyer adopted and trained as a therapy dog. Dwyer wrote a book about the dog and uses her in presentations at schools about bullying.

Dwyer said Daniel may become a therapy dog some day, but for now the family will allow him to continue to be used, as he has been since his rescue, as the poster child for the campaign to end gas chambers, which are still legal in 31 states.

Estimates are Daniel is around five, but the Star-Ledger reports he was behaving like a puppy as he dashed around the yard with the family’s other dogs.

Daniel was one of a group of dogs being euthanized in the gas chamber at the local pound in Florence, Ala. When the process was completed, though, Daniel walked out of the chamber.

Word of his survival spread across the country, prompting the Rockaway, N.J.- based rescue group Eleventh Hour Rescue to take him in. He was flown to New Jersey by Pilots N Paws.

On Saturday, Daniel made his first official appearance — in Pennsylvania at a rally for a bill to ban gas chambers. That bill is named after Daniel.

(Photo of Daniel and Shelby by Jennifer Brown / Newark Star-Ledger)

A state senator, 200 citizens and lots of dogs came together in Malvern on Sunday for a rally to bring an end to the use of gas chambers to euthanize animals in Pennsylvania.

Senator Andy Dinniman hosted the rally at Thorncroft Equestrian Center in support Daniel’s Law, a bill he sponsored.

“The dogs know gassing is wrong, and they’re barking it out! Now it’s time for us to give words to those barks,” Dinniman said.

Senate Bill 1329, would outlaw carbon monoxide gassing of animals in Pennsylvania and require licensing for “euthanasia technicians,” according to Patch.com. Dinniman’s bill would mandate the use of an injection of sodium pentobarbital or a derivative.

The bill is named after a five-year-old beagle who survived gassing at an Alabama animal shelter on Oct. 3.

Daniel has gone on to become the unofficial mascot for the movement across the nation aimed at ending the use of gas chambers.

Daniel was present at the rally on Sunday, along with Linda Schiller, one of Daniel’s rescuers and the president of Eleventh Hour Rescue, the New Jersey-based organization that’s now caring for him.

Dinniman encouraged community members to write, email and call their representatives to support the bill.

(Photo by Amanda Mahnke / Patch.com)

Davidson County, North Carolina, already a terrible place to die if you’re a dog — at least one that ends up in the county shelter — this week became a not-so-great place to live as a dog, either.

In the Davidson County town of Lexington, it’s now against the law to bring your dog to a city-sponsored function, even on a leash, or to keep your dog in your front yard, even if it’s fenced.

The Lexington City Council unanimously approved stricter controls on dogs at its Monday night meeting, all of which are effective immediately.

The measures include giving the police department the power to determine what dogs are dangerous and seize them; prohibiting dogs from attending city-sponsored public events; and requiring areas where dogs are fenced be only in backyards, 50 feet from neighboring structures and 20 feet from sidewalks.

The stricter measures stemmed from complaints from residents and an incident last year, in which an unleashed dog described as a pit bull killed a resident’s Yorkshire terrier, according to The Dispatch in Davidson County.

The new ordinance does not prohibit tethering — as long as it is in the back yard, is done without a heavy chain, and does not prevent an animal from reaching food, water or shelter.

“We require chains and tethering devices to be of a reasonable weight and length for the size of the animal to treat those animals humanely,” Lexington Police Department Capt. Mark Sink said.

Beyond that, and the fact that the city council didn’t ban any specific breeds, it’s hard to find much humanity in the new regulations.

But then again, Lexington is in Davidson County, whose commissioners last month — despite hundreds of residents showing up to encourage a much needed change — voted to continue it’s preferred method of euthanizing dogs: A gas chamber.

Read more »

The animal shelter run by the town of Houston, Alaska, says its eight residents — four dogs and four cats — were just too difficult to adopt out.

So, according to police Sgt. Charlie Seidl, under orders, he shot them all.

Seidl said some of the animals had been at the city’s “Animal Protection and Safety Shelter” since November — unclaimed and unadopted.

“We stretched out as long as we could,” Seidl said. “At one point in time, we were completely full. So we were able to adopt out the animals that we could adopt out, but with these ones that were left we weren’t able to do that. And like I said, we can’t hang on to them indefinitely.”

Even in Alaska — a state with, to put it nicely, different sensibilities — the event sparked outrage.

“This is barbaric,” said shelter volunteer Evelyn Rohr. “I think there are better ways to handle it.” Rohr told the Anchorage Daily News she managed to get six or seven cats out before the culling and planned to deliver them to rescue facilities in Anchorage, about 30 miles south.

The Alaska Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (now there’s a tough job) said it would have tried to help find homes for the animals, but Houston animal control hadn’t contacted the agency.

“There are more humane ways of killing animals than taking them out and shooting them,” said Cindy Liggett, who operates Kitty and K-9 Connection animal rescue in Anchorage “We are not a poor society. We are not a backwoods community. There is a vet clinic there.”

Rohr said Mayor Roger Purcell ordered police to kill the animals after an officer at the shelter refused to do it, and police Sgt. Seidl said he carried out the shootings under the mayor’s orders.

Purcell denied issuing any such order. “Animal control keeps them for three to five days and then they’re disposed of in a legal way. But I don’t get told when they dispose of dogs,” he said. “I know our officers try really hard to find homes and we keep dogs longer than any other.”

Purcell said the city was working to have its animal control officer licensed by the state to euthanize animals by lethal injection rather than having a veterinarian do it at greater cost. He said euthanizing by gun is common in rural areas around the state.

Sally Clampitt, executive director of the Alaska SPCA, said lethal injections are for more humane than is terminating a dog’s life by gunshot. “I think that’s really horrible, frankly,” she said. “Our position is that euthanasia done by a licensed veterinarian is the preferred and most humane way.”

Michigan’s animal shelters euthanized 118,365 dogs last year — some of them in outdated gas chambers which take as long as five minutes to accomplish the ugly job. 

“In a gas chamber, the larger dogs survive for four to five minutes — terrified and choking,” said Joe Sowerby, one of many animal advocates upset by revisions to a bill that would have prohibited the gassing of dogs.

A bill to require euthanasia be administered through more humane lethal injection was proposed in the Michigan legislature, but now it appears it will be watered down, allowing the process to continue in some counties, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Dogs injected with sodium pentobarbital lose consciousness in seconds and die within minutes. The method has also been shown to be less costly.

Despite that, Assistant State Veterinarian Dr. Nancy Frank said she wouldn’t favor limiting shelters’ options because not all facilities have the training for injections.

State legislators, including two from metro Detroit, say they plan to revise — and essentially weaken — bills that, in their original versions, would have outlawed the use of gas chambers in animal shelters.

“We’ll say whenever possible you should do injections because that’s the most humane,” state Rep. Fred Miller said last week. “But if you have the training and you’ve invested in the equipment to use gas properly, that’s allowed.”

Poison gas is no longer used at animal shelters in most of Michigan, including metro Detroit. But at least 10 counties in north and west Michigan still use it, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

State officials said Michigan shelters euthanized 53% of the animals brought in last year, but figures aren’t available on how many were gassed.