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Published Friday, August 13, 2010 in Local

Humane group upset about treatment of dog at shelter

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Coweta County has a number of animal rescue and humane organizations that seek to remove animals from Coweta County Animal Control and get them adopted into loving homes. The organizations also often help sick animals recover.

But sometimes, an animal is in such bad shape the only humane thing to do is end its suffering by having it euthanized.

That's what should have happened to a yellow lab mix that was taken to the shelter on Aug. 5, said Michelle Humphries of the Coweta-based Georgia Humane Society.

Instead, animal control employees were holding the dog for seven days, as is typical procedure for stray animals. All strays must be held for at least seven days in order to give the owner a chance to claim them.

"What they did was so wrong," Humphries said. "The dog should have been euthanized immediately when it was brought into the shelter."

When the vet who works with animal control saw JoJo on Monday, she recommended humane euthanasia because the dog was in such bad condition. However, JoJo was not put down at that time because Humphries had indicated she wanted to pick him up.

Humphries said she first learned about the dog on Sunday through an item posted on Facebook.

She said she called the shelter Monday morning to find out about the dog and was originally told he had died over the weekend.

The dog in the photo was obviously in bad shape but Humphries thought, at first, "he's just old."

"I just didn't want him to die in the shelter like that," she said. She'd planned to take the dog to one of her volunteers who fosters pets so the dog could live out whatever time he had left in a loving home, not in the shelter.

As is turned out, JoJo wasn't dead.

"Other people started calling the shelter wanting to know about this dog. Somebody must have gone back there and looked and he was still breathing," Humphries said.

That was around noon or 12:30, she said. So she called back and found out the dog wasn't dead. "I said, 'I do not want that dog to die in the shelter like that. I want to come get him,'" Humphries said.

She said she was originally told she could not take him out of the shelter because the dog was still on the seven-day "stray hold."

She talked to a shelter employee, who then asked Coweta Prison Warden Bill McKenzie -- who oversees the operations of the shelter -- if Humphries could come get the dog. Humphries said she was told she could come get him, but if the owner came to claim him, she would have to take JoJo back to the shelter.

When animal control workers took the dog out to her car, "I couldn't tell how badly he was injured, but I could clearly see how bad a shape he was in," she said.

JoJo had to be carried because he couldn't walk. Humphries said his front legs couldn't even bend. The dog had "lockjaw" and couldn't open his mouth, Humphries said. He was extremely thin, with muscle loss and pressure sores, according to the reports from both the vet working with animal control and Humphries' vet. It was originally thought the dog was elderly, but Humphries' vet determined the dog was approximately 7 years old.

When Humphries' vet examined JoJo, she said there was "nothing we can do for this dog" and then asked, "Why did they let him lay there like that?" according to Humphries.

"She said, 'This dog should've been euthanized the day it arrived at the shelter,'" Humphries said.

According to Humphries, her vet euthanized JoJo shortly after Monday afternoon's examination.

The dog was not in as serious a condition when it arrived at the shelter on Aug. 5, said Patricia Palmer, Coweta's public affairs director.

He was clearly not well but was able to stand, she said. "They took his photo to put it on the Web site" so that the dog's owner might recognize it, Palmer said.

Animal Control had received a call on Aug. 5 from a woman in the Senoia area who said that a dog (JoJo) that did not belong to her was under her house. The woman asked animal control to "please come and get it," Palmer said.

Animal control workers have the option of immediately euthanizing an animal, if it is clearly injured, Palmer said.

The dog had been someone's pet at one time, said Coweta County Administrator Theron Gay.

"At some point, somebody cared enough about this dog to have him neutered," said Humphries.

Whether or not to euthanize a dog immediately or hold it so that its owner can find it is a judgment call, said Palmer. "It is not an easy judgment call that they have to make," she said.

"I don't think we had any indication, on Friday or Saturday, that he needed medical care," she said.

Humphries said it is against Georgia law to not give medical care to an animal that is suffering.

"This is a clear case of animal cruelty. They watched this dog lay in the shelter for four days. He had lockjaw. He couldn't open his mouth to eat or drink. He could not stand up," Humphries said. "When you see an animal that is in that condition, you seek medical care."

Humphries said her organization is also trying to find JoJo's owner, or whoever abused him.

"We have a fund set up for a reward to find the owner of the dog. We're trying to hire a private investigator to find the owner," she said.

Palmer said that various county and animal control officials, as well as representatives from humane societies, will be meeting today to "see if there is anything that should be addressed or not be addressed, and I think that is up for discussion," she said. "Certainly they followed the policies and ordinances the commission has passed" in this particular instance, she said.

One issue that has been really important is "giving people an opportunity to claim" their animals that are picked up by animal control, Palmer said.