Pet Project Hits Fatal Flaw

Linda Nelson stands astride the gulf separating animal advocates from people who run city dog pounds, and she doesn’t much like the view.

Nelson this week was desperately seeking a home for a Queensland heeler she saved from being euthanized at Laguna Beach’s animal shelter after she refused to accept their judgment that the dog was vicious.

An animal lover with three dogs--including two shelter animals--she talked to a lawyer and got the 40-pound dog released Sunday. Within hours, it tried to attack her and one of her dogs.

It was a heartbreaking decision, but when no one else would take the dog, Nelson finally agreed to have the animal put down.

“I did everything I could to save that dog, and I couldn’t do it,” said the Laguna Beach resident, an animal rights advocate who supports pig rescue work on a farm in Northern California. “I can’t keep four dogs and it was vicious. I don’t think I could have found an owner for it.”

Public officials and animal advocates say the problem with the Queensland highlights the difficulty that shelters, and even die-hard pet activists, have in trying to save dogs that aren’t suitable for general adoption. It also reflects the inherent pressures to kill animals that otherwise would spend months in a dog pound before the right owner finally comes along.

“The public needs to realize that there are situations where there isn’t a choice,” said Laura Mock, president of Rescuing Unwanted Furry Friends, an animal-advocacy and pound-support group based in Laguna Beach. “We are so overpopulated because we aren’t neutering and spaying. There has to be a triage situation. Some animals that don’t make the greatest pets have to be sacrificed because there are so many great animals we are trying to make homes for.”

Such decisions are tough for all shelters, even for the smaller public pounds that often are perceived--incorrectly--as no-kill facilities, such as those serving Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel, San Clemente and Dana Point.

Even at these pounds, whose staff prefer to call them “pro-humane” shelters, dogs come in that are either too aggressive, too old or too sick.

“At pro-humane shelters, such as ours,” said Rick Howard, deputy city manager of Mission Viejo, “animals are euthanized [but] only in the animal’s best interest or if it is a threat to public welfare because it is aggressive and has attacked or bitten another animal or person.”

Unlike traditional animal control operations, such shelters often have large volunteer support groups, can limit the number of pets they accept and may go to extraordinary lengths to find homes for all the adoptable animals, said several shelter managers.

One reason for the flexibility of such smaller shelters is that they don’t accept pets relinquished by owners, believing that owners should find homes for unwanted pets or turn to a veterinarian if an old or sick dog needs to be euthanized.

Traditional animal control shelters, which don’t have that luxury, may kill as many as 50% of the dogs that arrive at their door.

The county-run shelter in Orange, for instance, takes all animals brought to it, and makes no distinction between strays and owned pets, said Mike Spurgeon, chief of regulatory services for the Health Care Agency. The Orange County shelter serves unincorporated areas as well as 21 contract cities from Fullerton to San Juan Capistrano.

“In the past, many of the South County shelters have referred people to us when they didn’t want to take the animals,” Spurgeon said. “We were the place of last resort, which we certainly don’t relish.”

Traditional shelters often lack the donations of time and money that can give flexibility to local pounds, such as having a dog trainer work with an animal to deal with its aggressiveness or extensive veterinary care that provides plastic surgery for a dog hit by a car, said Dolores Keyes, general manager of the joint San Clemente/Dana Point Animal Shelter.

“[Traditional] shelters can’t stop taking in animals when they are full,” she said. “You have to make room any way. You have to do marketing and find homes for the most adoptable animals. There are many dogs that you know with a little time and veterinary care you can find homes for. But without those resources, it is difficult.”

The numbers tell the tale.

The county shelter took in 18,898 dogs in 1999 and euthanized 7,704. Half of the euthanized dogs were killed at their owners’ request,

Among several of the county’s small shelters, the kill rates are far lower. The shelter serving Mission Viejo/Laguna Niguel took in 1,295 dogs and euthanized 37. The San Clemente/Dana Point shelter took in 922 dogs and euthanized 53. Of the 353 dogs impounded last year in Laguna Beach, 204 were strays later claimed by owners. Of the rest, 121 were adopted and 31 euthanized, most for medical reasons, shelter manager Nancy Goodwin said.

Yet even those shelters are criticized for being too quick to kill.

“We have those kinds of conflicts all the time,” said Keyes, the pound manager in San Clemente.

Allan Bent of Laguna Beach found a pit bull mix stray in a canyon near his home in October and turned it over to the local shelter. Despite his belief that the dog, which he named Angel Girl, was sweet and adoptable, it was put down a week after he found it.

“We never would have turned it over if we knew it was a kill shelter,” Bent said. “At the time, they killed Angel Girl, she was the only stray in the shelter.”

Bent called every day to check and was assured the dog would be placed after it underwent an evaluation to determine its suitability for adoption, he said. He is convinced it was killed because of prejudice against the pit bull breed.

Laguna Beach officials reject the contention, pointing out that 10 years ago, the city began a policy against euthanizing a dog without holding it for 10 days for evaluation. That became state law this year.

Police Chief Jim Spreine said shelter staff worked with the animal Bent found and determined that it was aggressive. The city can be liable if it releases from the shelter an animal known to be vicious, he said.

“We don’t put a lot of animals down,” he said. “We make every effort to adopt them. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to adopt an animal out that we know is going to hurt somebody and can’t socialize with other animals and people.”

Unlike Bent, Linda Nelson had the opportunity to intervene.

She found the Queensland running down her street last week and took it to her home. Police later picked up the dog and took it to the shelter. When she learned the dog was deemed aggressive and would be put down, she got a lawyer to help her get it released.

To spring the dog from the pound, Nelson signed a liability waiver and agreed not to conceal the city’s evaluation of the animal. She was convinced the dog was adoptable.

“The dog was in the car and it was loving me and kissing me,” she said, describing the ride from the shelter.

At her home, however, it became jealous and aggressive. The dog tried to attack her aging Labrador retriever, a gift from her mother, as she held it on the couch.

Realizing she couldn’t keep the Queensland, Nelson said, she called dozens of shelters, some as far away as Utah, thinking it could be adopted by people with no children or pets. No takers.

“I called every animal rights group I could call,” she said Wednesday, holding two mixed-breed dogs she saved from pounds in Carson and Palm Desert. “I finally talked to enough people. . . . After I got some counseling from [two] animal rights groups, I did do something I have never done before.”

Reflecting on the situation, Nelson said she still feels the pound’s initial decision to destroy the dog was wrong, that an animal behaviorist could have socialized it. She was distraught that she could not do more.

“I am a big enough person to tell you that I made a mistake, but I tried,” Nelson said, her voice quivering with emotion. “My heart was in the right place, but I made a mistake.”