Tails of woe

Animal shelters in the Bosque-Erath-Hamilton tri-county area struggle to define the line between necessary, unnecessary euthanasia.

This 4-year-old female Persian, above left, was waiting to be adopted at the Erath County Humane Society, a kill shelter that says it has no choice but to euthanize unwanted animals. Gabe, a 3-year-old black Labrador Retriever-mix, stands a better chance of being adopted from the Bosque Animal Rescue Kennels, a no-kill shelter. Photos by Samantha Lee

By D'Leesa Keys
Texan News Service

Gabe, a 3-year-old black Labrador Retriever-mix, walks up to the gate of his pen in Bosque County, sniffing the air and looking at strangers with curious bronze eyes. Some 50 miles away in Erath County, an unnamed, 4-year-old, female Persian curls up in the floor of a similar pen, taking equal measure of a visitor. The de-clawed feline was found wandering the road with no collar. Both animals, according to their keepers, have several things in common: they are strays, they are healthy and they would make excellent pets. Their fates, however, couldn’t be farther apart. Gabe will most likely be adopted. The Persian, and others like her, will most likely be killed. The life-or-death difference is nothing more than a matter of geography.

Gabe is living at a no-kill animal shelter, one of a few in North Texas, while the cat, like most stray animals, wound up in a shelter where operators say they have no choice but to euthanize unwanted animals.

Precise counts on the number of animals impounded and killed each year are hard to come by. According to the National Humane Society, the United States has 3,000 to 5,000 animal shelters. Of that number, according to The Animal Liberation Front Web site, fewer than 250 facilities are listed as no-kill shelters. And, of the eight to 12 million animals that end up in shelters across the United States every year, five to nine million of them are euthanized, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) Web site.

Animals who find themselves in a kill shelter face death by gas or injection, typically within five days, said Erath County Humane Society director Judith Hallmark. But life in a no-kill shelter can sometimes become a life sentence. Some animals wait years before being adopted --others never are. One of the four shelters in the Bosque-Hamilton-Erath tri-county area, Bosque Animal Rescue Kennels, (or BARK, as it is known,) in Clifton, has found a way to become a successful no-kill shelter. In contrast the Erath County Humane Society in Stephenville and the Dublin pound say they have no choice but to kill the animal no one seems to want. Huts for Mutts in Hamilton operates between the extremes, euthanizing animals that are too dangerous to adopt out but keeping others as long as it takes to find a good home.

The Erath County Humane Society uses an injection called Fatal Plus that contains pentobarbital sodium, propylene glycol, ethyl alcohol and benzyl alcohol, a combination designed to stop the animal’s heart, according to Hallmark.

“We try to give all the animals that come through here a chance,” Hallmark said, “but when you get 10 to 40 animals turned in a day and with only volunteer help, it’s hard to find space for all of them and keep our doors open.”

The Erath County Human Society was started 25 years ago by a group of women who had a concern for animals and started a non-profit pen for them, according to Hallmark. Today, the humane society receives a total of $17,000 a year from Erath County and $18,000 a year from the city of Stephenville; the rest of the money comes from donations, which totaled $31,000 last year. The humane society has also partnered with Stephenville Animal Control and the Stephenville Sheriff’s Department to help bring in lost or stray animals that can be put up for adoption. In almost 90 percent of the cases, however, death is the only way out.

“Last year we had 2,883 animals come to our shelter. Of those, only 290 were adopted,” Hallmark said.

“Many times, people will dump animals over our fence just to get rid of them, or they’ll bring us sick animals or animals that are too dangerous to adopt out,” she explained. “Unfortunately, we can’t just turn them away because they have nowhere else to go, so many times we have to put the sick ones down, clean out the kennels with bleach, and start over again. Plus, people will just drop off their dog because it killed their cat or growled at their kids. If the dog is that dangerous, why would we let someone else adopt it?”

When people adopt a dog at the Erath County Humane Society, they pay a $40 fee and receive a $30 coupon to use at the veterinary clinic of their choice to get the animal spayed or neutered. If a kitten is adopted, people pay $30 and receive a $20 spay-neuter coupon. They are also required to sign a contract pledging to get their pet fixed, but according to Hallmark, “people break it all the time.”

If having to put down animals wasn’t hard enough, Hallmark said that the humane society gets a “bad rep” for what it does. It’s so bad that even Hallmark’s granddaughter is made fun of by her classmates about how “her grandmother kills animals.”

The most rewarding thing about working for the humane society is getting a dog or cat back with its original owner, according to Hallmark.

“There was one time when a lady from Alaska was driving through town and she saw a Yorkie running down the street,” Hallmark said. “She could’ve taken it back with her, but she came by and brought it to us, we contacted the owner and they came by later to pick it up.”

Hallmark said she has never seen a no-kill shelter work before.

“No one wants to kill animals--I certainly don’t want to. But we’re the only humane society in the tri-county area, and without us, Stephenville would be overrun with animals,” Hallmark said. “Sometimes I think that no-kill shelters are cruel because some of those animals spend their whole lives caged up and no one ever adopts them.”

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Like the Erath County Humane Society, the Dublin City Pound is a kill shelter out of necessity, said Dublin City Manager David Carrothers.

“It’s rather unreasonable to have a no kill shelter in a small, rural community. The resources just aren’t there,” Carrothers said. “If people were more responsible with their animals, we wouldn’t have to pick them up.”

According to Carrothers, the pound’s main priority is to protect the public health from diseases such as rabies, but unlike the Erath County Humane Society, which uses a lethal injection form of euthanasia, the pound gasses their animals with carbon monoxide, said Public Works Director Corey James.

“We’ll hold a stray for about three days, but if an animal looks like it’s someone’s pet, we’ll hold it for five days,” Carrothers said. “We work with the community to adopt the animals out, but again, if more people were responsible and used tags to identify their animals, we wouldn’t have to gas so many of them.”

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BARK opened its doors as the only no-kill shelter in Bosque County in October 2002. The no-kill shelter was the idea of former Clifton Mayor W. Leon Smith, who was concerned with the way stray dogs and cats were handled in the city, said Melanie Harvey, who handles adoption coordination, rescues and marketing for BARK.

“It wasn’t a huge problem, but people hated to take them to shelters where they would just be killed later,” Harvey said. “The people here just had a concern for the animals.”

According to Harvey, BARK not only takes in stray animals, but it also treats sick and injured animals, makes sure they get their shots and heartworm treatment before they are adopted, educates people on spaying or neutering their animals and sponsors dog walks and parades for publicity.

BARK encourages its volunteers to take home sick and injured animals so they can be nursed back to health. The animals that are healthy enough to stay at the actual shelter are kept in pens measuring four feet by eight feet and are let out twice a day to run around in two fenced-off areas measuring three tenths of an acre. The entire area is hidden behind a line of trees so the animals aren’t disturbed by traffic on Highway 6.

However, everything isn’t steak bones and squeaky toys for BARK. The shelter has no paid employees and depends on volunteer help, which according to Harvey, makes it hard to keep people involved. Some of the dogs at the shelter have been there for years. Harvey herself owns five dogs that were never adopted from BARK. BARK is a non-profit organization, and the only grant it has received is from Petsmart to help with spaying and neutering.

Even with limited resources and a volunteer staff, though, Harvey said 80 of the 100 animals BARK rescued last year were adopted.

“People love animals, and I believe that as we move to spaying and neutering more animals, more no-kill shelters will become possible,” Harvey said. “Spaying and neutering is the answer rather than euthanizing.”

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Huts for Mutts, is a dogs-only shelter in Hamilton.

It was started in September 2003 by two Hamilton High School girls, Jamie Jones and Julie Oglesby, who were both appalled at the 99 percent kill rate of the Hamilton pound, said Marion Stanford, director and property owner of Huts for Mutts.

“They started out with just one dog at a time in their backyards,” she said. “I was a flight attendant with American Eagle Airlines at the time and I saw one of their ads. I felt like they needed more space, so I offered them a few acres.”

Today, Huts for Mutts houses 30 to 40 dogs at a time on 30 acres of Stanford’s land, and last year, they adopted out 85 dogs. The non-profit shelter also spays and neuters all the dogs before they are adopted out, and has received grants from PETCO and Wal-Mart.

“Huts for Mutts is more of a sanctuary than anything else. It’s grassy and shady and there are swimming pools for the dogs in the summer--they aren’t stuck in a cage,” Stanford said. “We’ll keep all our dogs as long as they’re good dogs.”

As accepting as Huts for Mutts is, there are situations in which some dogs end up being euthanized.

“There was one time when we got five pit bull puppies turned in. We kept them in individual pens and in running pens where they could play but in the end we had to take two of them to the pound to be euthanized,” Stanford said. “As a policy we do not take or adopt out pit bulls or any other dangerous dog.”

During the three and a half years since Huts for Mutts opened, the euthanasia rate in Hamilton County went down from 320 animals to just 35 last year, according to Stanford.

“For every dog that comes to our shelter instead of the pound, it saves the city $125 to spend on roads and parks instead of paying animal control,” Stanford said. “It’s amazing that we’ve made such a difference in such a short amount of time.”

Huts for Mutts has no set hours of operation, but, according to Stanford, “if a car is in the driveway, we’re probably open.”

The Texan News Service is a project of Tarleton State University’s journalism program. Contact us at texannews@tarleton.edu.

Contact Information fort Tri-County Animal Shelters:

Bosque Animal Rescue Kennels (BARK): Off U.S. Hwy 6, one mile outside Clifton. Open daily 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. and by appointment. (254) 675-0089

Dublin City Pound: 502 N. Norton St., Dublin. Open Mon. - Fri., 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Erath County Humane Society: 891 East Rd., Stephenville. Open Mon – Fri, 9 a.m.- 3 p.m., (254) 965-3247

Huts for Mutts: 5420 S. Hwy 281, Hamilton. (254) 386-5272