JUSTICE for Roxy - Starved & EU'd GSD

DukeJazz said:

Please post that here if you find it, I would like to "share" the petition and our disgust with them.

I did send a note today to all the powers at the shelter + the mayor, the commissioners & their public relations office stating that the GSD community was not going to just go away quietly on this & that we wanted an explaination and proof that there would be policys put in place to prevent this from occuring.

No answer so far, but my next step will be to contact the media (local & national) and any candidates running for MD office in Nov. & maybe that will get their attention.

If any of them respond to my note, I will post in this thread.

Click to expand...

DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS
John S. Hendricks
Chairman of the Board
One Discovery Place
Silver Spring MD 20910
(240)662 - 2000

Discovery Communications


Sharon O'Sullivan
Senior Vice President/Advertising Sales - Animal Planet

(212) 548-5208 New York
___________________________________________
Susan

Anja SchH3 GSD
Conor GSD
Blue BH WH T1 GSD - waiting at the Bridge

For those of you who have been following the sad story of this poor girl, I wanted to share the following note I got today from the Director of MDAS and Jack Galindo (Customer Service Supervisor).

Late last week I sent a note to just about everyone I could find listed on-line who had anything to do with AS or MD City Gvt, including the Mayors Office, the Commissioners, Public Works (houses their customer service) etc. The note stated that we the GSD Rescue community, would not rest until there was some accounting for EU'ing this girl when 3 rescues were ready to take her in and at least try to nurse her back to health. I also included a link (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/266/justice-for-roxy/) to the on-line petition demanding justice & an accounting for what happened and asked them to take a minute to read some of the comments being made by GSD lovers WW.

Attached is the official response from MDAS. Hopefully, they will be a little less quick to pull the trigger next time, but given the intake numbers on GSD's alone vs. the number of adoption & rescues, I now have a better understanding of how this probably happened.

I know I will sleep better tonight knowing that, even tho this poor girl was sent to the bridge before her time, her puppies are safe and the county does intend to pursue her former owner for cruelty !

Mike

The original PDF was too large to attach, so I copied the contents:

October 1, 2010

Thank you for your concern regarding ‘Roxy’, the German Shepherd, who was brought to Animal Services to be humanely euthanized last week. In the FY 09/10, over 35,000 animals were abandoned at the shelter. That’s an average of 100-250 pets a day. [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Almost 14,000 animals were saved, more than any other year in the history of the Department. That includes adoptions, return to owners and pets sent to one of our 62 Rescue Partners. Please recognize these efforts. Sadly, after tireless work, 20,000 were humanely euthanized. Every euthanasia represents a personal failure for me but when a pet is euthanized when there was someone willing to care for them, it’s unspeakably heartbreaking.

2,647 of those pets abandoned were German Shepherds and our Rescue Partners were able to pull 248 of them. 1,364 of the German Shepherds were euthanized because there was no home for them, the owner did not come for them and as hard as everyone is working, there was no rescue group to take them. All of our shelter pets can be viewed on Pet Harbor and twice daily our Rescue Partners receive auto-e mails with many of the shelter pets with behavior or medical issues.

When a pet is surrendered by an owner or the owner requests that their pet be euthanized, there is no specific hold period. In Roxy’s case, because of her poor condition and the fact that our Rescue Partners do not have the capacity to save all the pets left at Animal Services, she was humanely euthanized on intake.

The Animal Services Department is conducting an animal cruelty investigation and presenting the case to the Office of the State Attorney. The owner has surrendered Roxy’s puppies and they are save with one of our Rescue Partners where they will be placed in loving and permanent homes.

When a pet is abandoned at Animal Services, they are examined by a Veterinary Technician who evaluates them for health and temperament. Exceptions may be feral cats or seriously ill or injured pets. Shelter pets who appear to be in pain or in need of basic treatment, receive basic care. If a pet is suffering beyond our capabilities to keep them comfortable, they may be humanely euthanized. We also have two foster care programs. One program is for puppies under eight weeks of age and the other is Medical Foster Care for our Rescue Partners.

Please know that more animals than ever before were saved at Miami Dade Animal Services this year. We have many, many compassionate staff and volunteers who work desperately on behalf of our homeless animals. Thank you for caring as well.

Sincerely,
Sara Pizano, DVM
Director
Miami-Dade Animal Services
[/FONT][/FONT]

Thanks Mike so much for sharing this, and for your hard work in contacting the appropriate people..... I wish it made me feel better - but in truth it doesn't. If Roxy had been too weak to stand, if she had been unresponsive in any way I would have understood the need to "humanely euthanize her on intake." But the fact is she WAS able to stand on her own, her ears were up and she looked alert. All I can hope is that this shelter is on notice now that people -many people -are watching. This isn't the first time I have heard negative things about Miami-Dade..........as I said in an earlier post, the sheer numbers are not their fault - but their policies are, and not to give a creditable out of state rescue a chance to rehabilitate the Roxy's of the world means that it can be an automatic death sentence for that dog.
Roxy, we will never forget you....... :angel: you will live on in your puppies...
__________________________________
Susan

Anja SchH3 GSD
Conor GSD
Blue BH WH T1 GSD - waiting at the Bridge

Anja1Blue said:

Thanks Mike so much for sharing this, and for your hard work in contacting the appropriate people..... I wish it made me feel better - but in truth it doesn't. If Roxy had been too weak to stand, if she had been unresponsive in any way I would have understood the need to "humanely euthanize her on intake." But the fact is she WAS able to stand on her own, her ears were up and she looked alert. All I can hope is that this shelter is on notice now that people -many people -are watching. This isn't the first time I have heard negative things about Miami-Dade..........as I said in an earlier post, the sheer numbers are not their fault - but their policies are, and not to give a creditable out of state rescue a chance to rehabilitate the Roxy's of the world means that it can be an automatic death sentence for that dog.
Roxy, we will never forget you....... :angel: you will live on in your puppies...

Click to expand...

DharmasMom said:

Thanks for posting this but there are a few things I don't understand.

If she was euthanized upon arrival, how did her profile end up on the internet??

Why was she put to sleep after 3 rescues had already made a spot available for her and were willing to treat her??

I really appreciate the effort you went to but I think that answer is BS.

Click to expand...

I agree that some of their answer doesn't seem to track & there is certainly an attempt to "spin" in sharing the dismal statistics.

Roxie was healthy enough to deliver the litter of pups, then stand for her picture looking alert. I volunteer at a local shelter & I can attest we see far worse come thru our doors and unless they are bleeding out, are vicious or in severe pain - we keep them at least 24 - 48 hours for eval.

From what I have been able to piece togeather (and doing a bit of "educated guessing" to fill in the blanks), she was EU'd shortly after arrival and before any of us was even aware of her being there. Not sure why they posted her on-line, but I'll bet that was not suppose to happen. We will never know the timeline for sure unless we can manage to get her file from MDAS (doubt they will be willing to produce that). That would have the time she arrived, the time of the picture & posting + the times for when the EU decision was made and carried out. To obtain that level of info, we would need someone local to go down & fill out a Freedom of Information form at the county clerk's office.

I'm not sure why they put up so much of a wall to outside rescues. I'm sure they have limited personel and want to be sure the dogs are not going somewhere where they will end up as "junkyard guard dogs" or used for fighting. It is difficult to vet a place you cannot actually inspect in person & we have struggled with this issue on occasion when far away rescues wanted to pull from our shelter.

I assume they have decided to work with some number of local rescues that they feel is a managable number and expect them to get the word (and the dogs) out to sister orgs, pull the dogs and assist with transport (at least the 1st leg). This is how my team works with the local shelter. We can pull under our name & transfer to any rescue we choose - even if they are not "resistered" with the shelter.

In any case, as you said, hopefully they are now aware that there are many of us watching !!

My gut feeling is that someone at M-D may have "leaked" the info - and that's how it ended up on the Internet. Even in the worst shelters there is usually one person who is more compassionate than the rest, and who doesn't agree with the way things are being handled. The above response is not good enough - we aren't interested in reading a bunch of statistics, we are only interested in finding out what and why happened to this particular dog. Their reluctance to work with out of state rescues doesn't hold up - others do it and successfully - rescues here in Colorado, for example, accept GSD's (and others) from out of state all the time. Organizations can easily be vetted, and word travels very fast nowadays if a group is one to be avoided. I would bet money that with the number of animals passing through their doors, more end up back in bad situations than ever would being sent to a reputable out of state rescue - if they check every person and home they adopt out to thoroughly, I for one would be very surprised.
____________________________________________
Susan

Anja SchH3 GSD
Conor GSD
Blue BH WH T1 GSD - waiting at the Bridge