Every eight seconds there is a preventable death in the U.S. After being imprisoned for a while because they were wandering the streets, they're killed because there is nowhere to put them.
According to the Humane Society, 4 million animals are euthanized each year in U.S. animal shelters. It's a horrible side effect of not getting cherished family pets spayed or neutered, and it could be prevented.
We still, however, hope to see these animals treated humanely. There's a trust we give to the people that take care of unwanted cats and dogs that they care about the creatures enough to treat them with kindness.
Not so in the case of the Niagara County SPCA which was found to be treating animals inhumanely at their shelter (ironically formerly named the Rainbow Animal Shelter).
After an investigation, it was found that not only was the SPCA euthanizing healthy animals unnecessarily, they had terrible record keeping, no employee to oversee volunteers, and hadn't updated their bylaws since Top Gun was the number one movie at the box office.
What's worse, part of the 116-page report by the Erie County SPCA confirms that the Niagara shelter was using a horribly inhumane method of euthanasia called heart sticking. In the best case, the method involves sticking a needle filled with sodium pentobarbital directly through the chest of a dog or cat into the heart.
It's not uncommon, however for the procedure to go awry. If the kennel tech doesn't hit perfectly they might hit very sensitive nerves around the heart or puncture the lung of the animal, causing it to essentially drown.
With these accusations confirmed, executive director of the Niagara County SPCA John Faso was quickly removed from his position.
A problem like this isn't the responsibility of just one man, however. Faso represents only half of the failure of leadership that caused these defenseless animals to be tortured before they died.
The Niagara County Board of Directors ensured that this happens by not having a single person to check on the SPCA at all. There was literally no oversight of a shelter that was euthanizing 2500 animals in a year until it was too late for many of the creatures.
Every county, not just Niagara, should have at least a single person to check up on shelters and clinics to prevent this from happening in our backyard again.
It's understandable that the region doesn't exactly have money to be throwing around, but it wouldn't have required but one person to see the glaring problems.
In a way, however, we all have a small part of the blame. So many cats and dogs are strays in this nation because people forget or don't think they have the money to get their pets spayed or neutered.
We all, in a way, put these animals in the situation to be hurt like this.
Each of us can help, too. That beautiful purebred Pomeranian might look like those dogs you see in the AKC dog shows, but there are wonderful dogs and cats lying alone in cages right now just waiting for you to take them to a loving home.
You can do your part to bring one of those 4 million animals slated to die back from their own personal hell.
