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Animal Disposal

One of the chief concerns in the animal welfare business is the disposal of dead animals. There is quite a business opportunity in disposing of the dead. But before I get on with this blog, let me provide a grave warning in dealing with skunks.

Animal control is often tasked with scraping up road kill and disposing of the bodies. Skunks are unique in that they can make you the most hated person in the community by bringing a dead skunk into your shelter for disposal. Always carry a shovel in your vehicle and bury the skunk on the roadside. Please don’t attempt to put the skunk in your vehicle or remove it from its current location. Let’s face it, the roadway will stink for months. Burying the animal will not distract from its current level of stink. Just bury it. You might think twice about bringing the shovel back with you. Your vehicle is your office. Do you want it to stink of skunk for three or four months? Bury it along the roadside. This might be the best advice I have ever given to anyone!

In Portland, we had a full-time officer driving around and picking up dead animals. We had a sweet deal with local veterinarians in which we would dispose of their animals. In return, the veterinarians agree to treat any animal that an animal control officer brought to them. It was a great deal because we did not have a veterinarian on staff at the shelter.

There are four methods of disposing of dead animals:

Incineration. This is a costly way to burn animals. It might be the most respectable manner to deal with disposal. Having an incinerator is problematic if your shelter is in a neighborhood. Even though the best incinerators have secondary burners to burn the smoke coming from an animal, it is a foul smell. I can recall seeing someone from the local Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sitting in front of our animal shelter in Milwaukee watching the smoke come out of our smoke stack. Incinerators can be a problem.

Landfill. It used to be pretty common to take dead animals to the local landfill; but, as time has gone by, fewer and fewer landfills will accept animals.

Rendering. Some companies pick up animals to be rendered into cosmetics. It isn’t commonly available, and it is personally frightening that I might be kissing my wife who is wearing lipstick of an animal that I once killed.

Burial. Some humane societies have cemeteries in which people can bury their pets. Given the volume of animals that animal shelters were once killing made burial cost prohibited.

 

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Drug Shortages

Today, our State announced that they may not be able to perform the killing of an inmate due to a drug shortage.  We don’t do a lot of lethal injections, so experiencing a drug shortage seems silly.  The drug, or drugs of choice are ketamine, fentanyl, and potassium chloride.  We all like our special cocktails.

I bring up this issue because animal shelters experienced a shortage of sodium pentobarbital many years ago.  The shortage lasted over six months.  I have always required that we have a six-month supply on hand at all times.  After the storage, I changed that requirement to a year’s supply.

Although animal shelters are euthanizing fewer animals now, you can imagine the problem of shelter overcrowding should you stop euthanizing altogether.  I was trained early in the Boy Scouts to be prepared.  You should take inventory of your supplies and ensure you can meet a supply shortage.  Carrying a six-month supply might seem excessive until you are hit with a supply shortage.  Be prepared.

UPDATE

It seems that the guy’s attorneys sued the State against their cocktail Du Jour claiming that it was an untested concoction.  That is the problem with fad concoctions.  I’ve seen plenty in our business for remote chemical capture.  They are asking the State to kill their client using the tried and true sodium pentobarbital that we have used in our business for years.  I suspect the one downside of sodium pentobarbital is that it might burn upon administration, but I can’t say for sure because I’ve never used it on myself.  But to be clear, I always anesthetized animals first before administering sodium pentobarbital.

Although, personally, since people are killing themselves every day with fentanyl, I think the State could find someone on the street to test drive this new cocktail.  In the animal welfare business we seem to have a thing for using Acepromazine.  With the fast reversal when using Acepromazine, I always thought that you get the same results using water in the cocktail.  And who would be stupid enough to do that? That’s a hint for the State to not consider adding Acepromazine to their new fancy kill juice.  And using Ketamine… whose idea was that?  It’s like they got this recipe from their local drug pusher.  But to be honest, I used Ketamine in my anesthesia cocktail.

7/26/24 Update:

Prison officials are reporting that the cost of obtaining sodium pentobarbital is going to cost our prison system $200k for the upcoming execution.   Having overseen animal shelter budgets for years,  someone desperately needs to audit our prison system.  It is no wonder that government has become so expensive.  A $20 bottle of sodium pentobarbital is enough to execute a dozen inmates; where is the rest of the money going?

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Corporate Greed

In our business, we depend on other corporate organizations to meet our software needs.  For many years, I used Adobe products to assist me in designing marketing material.  If you spend any time on YouTube, you’ll find Adobe being criticized over their corporate greed.  It has been a long time in coming.  Unfortunately for Adobe, there are other comparable products.  I stopped using Adobe when they first started their subscription service.  I like to be able to buy a product and not have to keep paying ransom to continue using the product.

I recently opened a spreadsheet file and got a notice from Microsoft that my Excel registration was lost.  I could probably search for it, but why bother?  Microsoft is following in Adobe’s footsteps by demanding that I switch to their ransom (subscription) service.  Like Adobe, Microsoft thinks it has the only products out there.  I knew this day was coming, so several years ago I bought a license to the bundle offered by WordPerfect.  The Excel file opened perfectly in Quattro Pro.

Budgets are tight.  If you believe you are being held hostage to your software, start looking for alternatives.  You might be shocked to find a number of open-source (free) business software that is available to you.  These companies are not holding the gun against your head as they think they are doing.  Put them in their place.

I use Corel products for most of my graphic needs.  Affinity is the suggested replacement for Adobe Photoshop.  Although I have Affinity, I usually turn to Corel’s Painter or Paintshop Pro.  I only mention this because I recall that I got the WordPerfect suite through the Corel software.  If you decide to switch to WordPerfect, order the upgrade version if you are using another business suite.  Most companies recognize that your switch from (say) Word to WordPerfect is considered an upgrade in their eyes and you can get the software at half price, around $150.

Corel has a slick plan in which you have the choice of buying the product or renting it.  You can buy Corel Painter for $150 or you can rent it for $100 per year.  The notion is that if you always buy the newest version of a product, then renting it is cheaper because the software is usually updated every year.  With Corel, I find that buying aound Christmas seems to offer the sweetest deals.  But, in my old age, I seem to be fine using a version that is one or two years out of date.  And don’t become like me and feel the need of buying every brush that is available.  They just take up too much diskspace and slow up the loading of the software.  Take if from me, having all of the available brushes will never make you an artist.

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Our First Priority

The most important priority in government service is to protect the public.  Yet this priority is forgotten with today’s public policies.  Even today, we still encounter folks who want to defund those hired to watch our backs.  Opening our borders was such a mistake at a time when we have diminished police protection.

We are experiencing the same thing in our profession: saving animals’ lives overrides keeping people safe.   The worst of this, I experienced in Virginia.  Animal rescue groups would lie to potential adopters about aggressive traits in the dogs they had for adoption.

I was constantly battling staff, volunteers, and even my board of directors about adopting potentially dangerous dogs.  The problem became so widespread that the Commonwealth of Virginia was forced to write laws making it illegal for animal rescue groups to hide past behavior problems with dogs for adoption.  It is a sad day when you are safer buying an animal from the newspaper than getting it from your local animal shelter.

Today’s politics lead to anxiousness.  I was fortunate, I have always felt that God had my back.  Looking back, I realize how difficult it would have been to do the right thing without my faith.  The world does not have the answers, but the solution is only a whisper away.

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Owner Requested Euthanasia

I was recently reading an article in which a woman surrendered her dog to her local animal shelter expecting the shelter to euthanize her dog. She later discovered that her dog was still alive and had been adopted into another home. Feeling cheated, she demanded the return of her dog.

Animals are considered property, so an owner has the right to kill their pet, as long as it is done humanely. Over the years, I encountered so many lame excuses from owner deciding to euthanize their pet that I changed our policies. I got tired of hearing those lame reasons and decided someone had to act on behalf of the animals.  I decided that I could not allow pet owners to make that decision.  I won’t euthanize an animal based on their reasoning skills but felt I must use my own.  As such, I changed our policies to require any animal up for euthanasia should be the property of the animal shelter.

Sometimes it is just obvious when an animal comes through our doors that the animal needs to be euthanized. I have seen many animals that were kept long after when it should have been done and more than once I considered charging the owner with animal cruelty. If the owner has asked to be present when the animal is euthanized, I consider the animal’s condition and the competency of the person performing the euthanasia.

I make it very clear that my organization doesn’t do owner-requested euthanasia. When an owner surrenders their pet to me, it becomes mine. I decide its final fate. If I decide that the animal has been well cared for and is now in need of euthanasia; I will see that it is performed as soon as possible. If the owner wants to be present, I’ll remind them that we are euthanizing my animal and not theirs. They can always go to their own veterinarian to have “their” animal killed. But, again, if they have been good owners and I have competent staff working in the euthanasia room, I may consider allowing them to be with the animal during its’ last moment.

Let’s face it, I have had outstanding people who were a wiz at performing euthanasia, but I would never allow them to EVER talk to an owner during this sensitive time. Hell, I’ve had staff that I tried to keep from ever talking to anyone. Some people are good with animals but fail horribly being around people.

Some of the feedback on this article had many people feeling that the shelter was wrong to not euthanize the dog and even demanded that the dog be returned back to the previous owner. My response, if it had happened in my shelter, when she surrendered her dog to me, that it isn’t her dog anymore. She signed the dog over to me. I’m now the owner. I will make the decision that I think is best for the animal and if she ever came into my shelter to adopt, I would probably turn her down. I know, I know, I am a public employee whose job is to serve the people. So….. fire me!

For the most part, we public servants have to serve people, but there is a balance that must be kept and we sometimes have to stand up for the animals when they fall into the hands of stupid people. As they say, “I’m sorry if my commonsense has offended you!”

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Veterinary Colleges

In this morning’s new paper, I read that one of our colleges is opening a veterinary school. I thought to myself, “What a wonderful opportunity for the local animal shelter.”

I started my career in animal welfare in Pullman Washington. I could not have picked a better place to start. I was living in Idaho and earning my Wildlife Resources degree when I took the job in Pullman. The City of Pullman used to pull their Animal Control Officers from the students attending the Veterinary College at Washington State University. My background as a military working dog handler gave me a boost into the position.

The Veterinary College and I developed a close working relationship. They needed my help in dealing with abandoned pets and assisting them in making the difficult decision of euthanizing an animal. I got a lot in return.

The College had a problem with people delivering their pets to them for treatment and then abandoning their pets when they got their bill for services. I accepted those animals. Frequently, strays were brought to them that required extensive treatment. Without an owner present, I would aid the College’s veterinarians in deciding to save the animal or euthanize it. In this manner, I helped relieve them of the liability in making that decision.

In return, they would provide the training that I required. I worked with their Head of Ornithology to learn how to capture and handle birds of prey. They taught me how to use chemicals in the capture of animals. My experience was so great, that in the first years that the National Animal Control Association began offering an annual training conference, they did so in Pullman so that they could teach nationally the things that I was learning locally.

Throughout my career, I had the opportunity to work with colleges. In Fairfax County, I worked with a college that trained veterinary technicians and they incorporated much of their study time with hands-on training at the shelter. In Alachua County, I worked with Florida State University where veterinary students would provide hands-on training once a week at the shelter. It is a natural fit for veterinary students to work at their local shelter. A wise shelter director will aid them in seeing that fit.

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Transgenderism in Animals

After writing the last blog, it dawned on me that researching the impact of transgender animals in animal shelters might be another source of alternative income. Hey, don’t laugh. Google it! Others are writing articles as to transgenderism isn’t just a human thing. Just think about the confusion we would experience in regendering all of the animals in our animal shelters. This notion is so stupid that it deserves further research. This is your chance to be on the cutting edge of Woke Research. The idea is so stupid that you’ll probably find people begging to fund your study. Hell, they might even fund your entire budget.

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Alternative Funding

Let’s face it, animal sheltering budgets are among the lowest priorities for government funding. It is incumbent upon animal shelters to seek other funding sources. One funding source that seems to be unlimited is research on climate change. A smart animal shelter director would approach government sources to explore the impact of pet food intake on methane production. The idea is to test various pet foods to see which ones would give pets the least amount of gas. Granted, you and I know that the results would be inconclusive, but that is basically the same results that other climate researchers find anyway. If money is going to be wasted, it might as well be wasted on feeding your shelter’s animals.

One word of caution, stay away from pet sterilization research. If the Woke learned that we are sterilizing animals without their consent, we would be in a sh*t storm of outrage. People would claim that we are attacking an animal’s reproductive rights. So let’s keep that a secret because if we were forced to allow animals to maintain their reproductive state, we would only be forced into killing more animals after they are born.

I know, I know, I should have thought up this stuff years ago and not waited until after I retired; but, I suppose if I had broached this years ago, I would have been forced to retire much earlier. The world has become a much crazier place and I think now is the time to allow one crazy idea to take its place with the rest of the crazy ideas out there.

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Universal Safe Word

I don’t know what triggers dreams; this one I suppose was caused by a jury notice that I received, that triggered a backflash to a previous jury selection that I once sat on. In this dream, I was being questioned as a jury select and asked, “Can a woman say ‘no” and not mean it?”

I responded “It doesn’t matter. ‘No’ is a universal safe word that means no. It isn’t up to the man to determine the truth of the statement, it is a word that should cause the man to do everything in his power to stop what is happening. ‘No’ is a very powerful word and it can turn an act of passion into an act of rape.”

This was a very powerful dream for me; otherwise, I would not have placed it here. Any man who doesn’t honor this simple word should have his member cut off. If a man violates this trust, you know how I’ll rule on your jury.

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Failed Programs

Throughout my career, I wanted to put my name on a couple of innovative programs. I have listed below a few disappointments in the process.

As a new fledgling in Pullman Washington, I wanted to praise people for being responsible pet owners. Back in those days, you could actually find them. So I started ACO looking for RPOs. The acronyms didn’t catch on. I had to keep explaining that it said “Animal Control Officer looking for Responsible Pet Owners.” Again, that didn’t catch on. While on patrol, I would stop a person walking with their pet to check for the obvious: a license tag, a poop pickup baggy, and the general good health of the animal. If they met those requirements, I had a bag of goodies, even a signed certificate from the Mayor. I think most people didn’t like being loaded down with those goodies while walking their dogs. Oh well.

My most disappointing project was helping battered women in Salt Lake County. In the program, I worked with the local police, the community services program, and the women’s shelter. The idea was that many women wouldn’t leave an abusive situation because the option of leaving the situation forced leaving a pet behind. So, we would take in the woman’s pet while she sought a new life. The first woman had two dogs. Once her dogs were secure in the animal shelter, she then went into a women’s shelter. After a few days, we couldn’t reach her. Her friends later claimed that “she climbed into the cab of the first truck driver that came through town.” She had dumped her dogs on us. In the following months that we worked the program, we had only helped one woman. What was left was all of the abandoned pets that were left behind in the shelter. In many cases, I think the pet would have been better off being left with the woman’s partner. I am afraid that many women take the pet away from their partner just to be mean. This program had all of the makings of being a wonderful program and to this day, I am still upset over how it played out.

One of the biggest problems we face in picking up stray animals is the large number of pets who roam the streets without identification. Twice, working with the National Animal Control Association, I was given a grant to buy an ID engaging machine for use in Milwaukee Wisconsin, and again in Roanoke Virginia. The idea was to ensure that every pet leaving the animal shelter was wearing a new collar and identification tag. This program proved that the only ones interested in seeing pets with identification were the shelter staff. Over and over again we witness the same pets being picked up without ID, returned to their owner with new identification, and picked up again with no ID. It felt like the pet owners were going out of their way to keep identification off their pets. This was such an eye-opening experience for me that anytime I had a chance to facilitate an ordinance change, I would make it mandatory for any pet that came to the shelter three or more times without wearing identification to be microchipped.

Probably the biggest failure that we experienced was dealing with an ordinance in Portland Oregon that required anyone selling puppies to be required to have a “selling permit.” The notion was to identify the folks who were filling up our shelter with the puppies that they couldn’t sell so that we could encourage them to spay/neuter their breeding animals. The newspapers were “supposed” to include the pet permit number in the new paper ad. None of the newspapers complied because they felt that we were overstepping our authority. The ordinance did little to stop the overcrowding in our shelter. Let’s face it, people will breed their pets to get a few dollars for a couple of puppies in the litter and then abandon the rest of the litter; they would continue to do this year after year after year. The worst part is that when the animals are dumped on us, the owners act like they are doing us a favor. In the animal welfare business, you have to suffer more than your share of idiots.

Another major failure was offering a deferred payment plan so that people could bail their pets out of the shelter without having to pay the full amount of the impoundment fees. We kept seeing incidents of people walking away from their pets when faced with the cost of paying a fee to get their pets out. I thought that allowing a 60-day deferment would offer up an opportunity to get the dog home (let’s face it, people mostly don’t come looking for their lost cat) and offer them some time to make payments.

It turns out that once the pet is back home, lost are the thoughts of ever making good on the payment plan. I only remember a few (I mean I can count on two fingers) the number of people who honored their agreement. Collections companies claimed that there was too little incentive for them to go after the owners because pet owners were the most stubborn people they ever had to deal with.

Keep in mind that the recidivism rate for these dog owners is high. So little time goes by that the dog is once again in the shelter. Of course, the idea of offering a deferment plan goes out the window and the owner is now faced with past and present fees. You are once again giving the owner a chance to abandon their pet at the shelter. I have to admit that some owners angered me so much that I wanted to charge them with animal abandonment for walking away from their pets.

In case it just dawned on you that you were missing a tool in your toolbox, there is a problem with charging people for animal abandonment when dumping their pets on you. The major provision of animal abandonment is to abandon an animal without any provision of providing adequate care. Hey, animal shelters provide “adequate care.” Unless you have a specific ordinance of dumping an “owned animal” at the animal shelter, my earlier suggestion of charging the owner is BS. But that doesn’t prevent you from writing the ticket and seeing if it changes the mind of the owner. In my mind, there should be a law, but animals are considered property and a person can disown their property at any time.

The only place in which the deferment plan had any hope of working was in Virginia where I worked with county tax collectors to treat pets as property. People paying their property bills would see an added charge for the deferred payment. I know what you are thinking, “So what do you do with renters?” Good question, in Virginia, they also tax your vehicle as property. So the renters are covered (if they own an automobile) as well. I know, it is a mean way to deal with the issue, but it kept people honest. But now, looking back, I see that integrity is a concept that belongs only to a few people that I have encountered.

Running an animal shelter has its share of disappointments, but that doesn’t mean that you should give up. Your job is to care for every animal that comes into your shelter, even if that means that you have to deal with their owners. The animal side of the business is very rewarding. The people side of the business rewards you with war stories that you can later share with your friends.