Kill or No Kill? Exploring the practice of animal euthanasia – The Union-Recorder

Linda Patelski said its hardest with the healthy ones.

When she has to look into the eyes of a puppy or kitten and take its life only because the animal remains unclaimed, thats when the emotional toll reaches its peak, Patelski said.

We have no problem putting down aggressive dogs that will hurt somebody or hurt other animals, said Patelski, the director of Lowndes County Animal Services. Its puppies and kittens that people havent taken care of before they got here.

In 2016, close to 2,500 cats and dogs were euthanized at the Lowndes County Animal Shelter alone.

Animal control workers such as Patelski often receive tsunami levels of rage and hatred for what they do everyday in shelters across the country: euthanasia, the prescribed and systematic killing of unwanted animals.

They are called puppy killers and even angels of death.

But euthanasia is regarded by many as the necessary response to widespread problems found in local animal populations, problems created and perpetuated not by animal control workers but by irresponsible pet owners or even hoarders.

Pet owners fail to spay or neuter their animals, leading to an abundance of stray dogs and feral cats. Shelters only have so much room and animals are put down when space runs out.

Many animals fall prey to poor care and cruelty at the hands of humans, leading to aggression, sickness or injury, and euthanasia is considered by its proponents to be the only humane or safe option.

In the SunLight Project coverage area Valdosta, Thomasville, Tifton, Dalton, Moultrie and Milledgeville, Ga., along with Live Oak, Jasper and Mayo, Fla., and the surrounding counties a small army of rescue agencies and no-kill shelters work to save animals by caring for them until they find their forever home through adoption or die of natural causes.

But resources are limited, and such organizations can only rescue so many. The rest go to the shelter where, if not adopted or reclaimed, its only a matter of days or weeks before they face a lethal injection that kills them instantly and painlessly.

Still, not everyone is in favor of the common practice, and animal rights activists often push for no-kill shelters.

Euthanasia: Both Last Resort and First Action

When animal control brings in stray dogs or cats that are healthy and well-behaved, the animals are held for a few days or a few weeks depending on local regulations. During that time, owners can reclaim the pets or others can express interest in adoption.

After the holding period, the animal shelter may place the animals in an in-house adoption program or reach out to local rescue agencies to see if they can care for the animals.

Euthanasia becomes the last resort for such animals. The remains are buried in the local landfill.

In Milledgeville, animals are mostly euthanized because of lack of space, said Rebecca Lanier-Weeks, the Baldwin County Animal Shelter administrator.

The Baldwin County Animal Shelter is a small cinderblock building that has 17 dog units, three puppy units and 10 cat units. The shelter operates on a $170,000 yearly budget.

If a new animal is brought in and there is no space, any animal already in the shelter with aggression issues is selected to be euthanized.

In 2016, the shelter euthanized 98 dogs and 275 cats.

Milledgeville/Baldwin County does not have a humane society. The closest one is about 30 miles away in Greensboro near Lake Oconee.

However, Animal Rescue Foundation has acted as Milledgevilles local Humane Society for almost 35 years, taking in unwanted cats and dogs.

Like most rescue agencies, ARF does not receive any government support and operates solely on donations and small grants.

The overcrowding found in Milledgeville is a problem that plagues shelters throughout the region.

We take in 5,000 animals a year and the shelter only holds so many animals, Lowndes Countys Patelski said. If an owner does not come in to reclaim their animal and their animal stays here and youve brought 200 animals into the building, and then next month, you have to bring 200 more animals into the building, they dont all fit.

They fight, theres disease outbreaks, so we have to keep animals moving through the shelter. Unfortunately, if we dont have a rescue for them or if nobody comes in to adopt or to reclaim their animal, we have to take the recourse of euthanizing them.

Lowndes County Clerk Paige Dukes said animals at the shelter arent put down due to overcrowding now as often as they used to be and the numbers reflect that. The 2,000 animals euthanized in Lowndes County in 2016 is a sharp drop from the number of dogs and cats put to death in recent years (6,700 were put down in 2009 and 4,000 in 2012).

But overcrowding isnt the only issue that triggers euthanasia. It could be disease (such as rabies), injury or aggression (such as hurting a person).

In those cases, euthanasia is usually the first action rather than the last resort. When an animal is severely hurt, sick or dangerous, euthanasia is actually the humane choice, the Florida Animal Control Situation suggests.

And killing a single animal often means giving a multitude of others a fighting chance.

Dukes said the Lowndes County Shelter is forbidden by state law from housing sick or injured animals. The disease could spread, compromising all the animals housed in the shelters 215 kennels.

One small puppy with parvovirus, a contagious disease found in dogs, could kill the entire shelter if it were allowed to live, Dukes said.

Parvo is something that could shut this entire shelter down. If we had a parvo outbreak here, the Department of Agriculture could come in and say, Everything is euthanized, the shelter has to be totally cleaned from top to bottom professionally, and then we will do some testing and look at when you can start housing animals again, Dukes said.

In Whitfield County, the sheriffs office handles animal control in the county and the city of Dalton.Last year, the office handled 2,500 animal-control calls.

"They work pretty much non-stop, all day long picking up dogs, said Lt. Clay Pangle, who supervises the animal-control deputies.

In 2016, Whitfield County euthanized 365 cats and 332 dogs.

But in his many years working animal control, cats and dogs werent the only animals Pangle got calls about.

Fifteen or 16 years ago, I got a call about an emu out on Georgia 2 (in the northern part of Whitfield County). Recently, we've been getting a lot of wild hog calls, Pangle said.

When we deal with wild animals, we refer them to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. When it comes to equines or bovines, we will find a place to house them, people that we know or that the animal shelter recommends, until the Department of Agriculture can come get them."

Many of Whitfields animal-control calls concern aggressive dogs, but Pangle said many dogs may not be as dangerous as they appear to be.

"We get a lot of calls about aggressive dogs, and I'm sure they do look aggressive to the person that calls, but when we get there, the dog is wagging its tail and barking because it wants attention, he said. I used to work animal control myself and I've seen that.

But many dogs are just as vicious as they look, a fact that one Moultrie woman knows all too well.

A Horrific Attack

April 1, 2016, started out as had thousands of other days in Elizabeth "Beth" Ellison's 83 years. She walked outside to get her Moultrie Observer newspaper and looked over the yard of the Beaty Road residence where she has lived for more than half a century.

But within minutes nothing would ever be the same for the strong-willed woman, as a pack of dogs would nearly take her life that morning, leaving her with permanent health issues.

Police officers at the scene of the attack at about 9:30 a.m. assumed they were working a homicide case due to the severity of injuries inflicted on Ellison by the trio of pit bulldogs.

Ellison, who underwent multiple surgeries during a period of nearly two months, said her morning routine was always the same.

"I go to the paper box, get my paper and pick up in my yard. I'd seen the dogs there before. When I turned around to go inside the house, they all three attacked me from the back, she said.

According to police, the dogs basically scalped the elderly woman.

Ellison remembers being thrown to the ground face-first and using one of her hands to try to protect her head. The largest of the three dogs was on her back tearing at her head. She also suffered severe wounds to both arms and legs.

"I knew they were going to kill me," she said. "They thought I was going to die. I lost two pints of blood in my yard.

Two neighbors rushed to Ellison's defense and medical workers rushed her to Colquitt Regional Medical Center in Moultrie then to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Doctors stabilized her, and she then had a lengthy period of recuperation and surgeries before returning home.

Within hours of the attack, the Humane Society of Moultrie and Colquitt County removed the three dogs and housed them until a judge issued a ruling allowing the organization to euthanize the vicious animals.

Prior to the 2016 attack, the issue of nuisance and violently dangerous dogs is one that county officials frequently had discussed in recent years, but before the end of that month, they made sure of their legal ability to deal with violent animals.

Two years to the day of Ellison's attack, Colquitt County Commission created a board to hear appeals when owners dispute the designation of a dog as a vicious or dangerous one.

The local Humane Society makes the determination of whether a dog is vicious or dangerous, and if that decision is upheld, euthanizes the canine.

The states Georgia Responsible Dog Ownership statute combines dangerous and vicious animals in a single piece of legislation.

It defines a dangerous dog as one that causes a substantial puncture wound with its teeth, launches aggressive attacks that pose threat of serious injury to a person, or kills another pet while off the owners property.

A vicious dog is defined as one that inflicts serious injury on a person.

Dogs deemed dangerous or vicious must be registered, secured in locked confinement on the owners property and may not be taken away from the owners property unless caged or leashed and under the immediate physical control of someone capable of preventing the dog from engaging people or other animals.

They also must show the county that they have liability insurance of at least $50,000," County Attorney Lester Castellow said.

During the two years before Castellow's appointment to the board, there had been no cases where owners requested an appeals hearing, he said. The board consists of Castellow, the county's zoning and safety officer and a designee from the Colquitt County Health Department.

Dog attacks, which had been on the upswing, have not dropped in frequency, but the rate of increase seems to have slowed, said Dawn Blanton, director of the Humane Society, which contracts with the city of Moultrie and Colquitt County to pick up nuisance and dangerous animals.

"(Our) animal control officer is the one that will deem a dog vicious/dangerous according to the nature of the bite/aggression," she said. "I believe education and progressive disciplinary actions has leveled out the amount of aggressive cases, but it has not significantly decreased them.

There will always be aggressive dogs, but educating the public will reduce the amount of people bitten.

As for Ellison who returned home on her birthday, May 20, 2016, to find her children had fenced in her yard to give her peace of mind her caregivers in Tallahassee have invited her to come back May 17 and address those who helped save and put her back together again.

She still faces difficulties related to the injuries and from the loss of bone in her leg used to help repair her scalp. And for someone turning 85 in about a month, healing takes longer, but she is seeing some improvement in her arms.

Fortunately, the dogs did not bite her face during the attack, and she is trying to regain the weight she lost.

Ellison, along with her doctors, attribute her survival and resiliency to a long life of hard work.

"I was strong," she said. "I could get up and do the roof on my house. I plowed a mule; I carried two five-gallon buckets when I was 12. I was brought up the old way.

Despite the scars on her arms and legs and pain that sometimes limits her activity, she is determined to keep doing what she's always done.

"I'm the kind of person (that) if I can get around, I get around," she said. "I still pick up in my yard. I'm just able to be here and do what I do. That's what I'm thankful for."

To find out what local rescue agencies are doing to save animal lives and what community members can do to help, pick up Tuesday's edition of The Valdosta Daily Times.

The SunLight Project team of journalists who contributed to this report includes Thomas Lynn, Eve Guevara, Patti Dozier, Gil Pound and Charles Oliver, along with the writers, Alan Mauldin and team leader John Stephen.

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Kill or No Kill? Exploring the practice of animal euthanasia - The Union-Recorder