By Ashley M. Casey

Staff Writer

After years of volunteering with local animal shelters, Dawn Brocious, Nanette Kittell and Nancy Hohler were horrified to see what can go on behind closed doors: inadequate veterinary care, excessive euthanasia rates and other instances of neglect and abuse.

“We’re drawing a line in the sand. We need to fix it,” Brocious said.

Now, the three women have founded a group called Animal Shelters 911. Their goal is to rectify problems in local shelters and one day pass state legislation with stricter rules for running a shelter. The group held an interest meeting June 27 at the North Syracuse Education Association building.

According to AS911, laws governing shelter animals are too broad and vague. As a result, Kittell said, some shelters do not provide adequate access to clean drinking water and underfeed their animals by giving all of them the same portion size, regardless of the dog’s age and size.

State law also says municipalities are required to provide a pound or shelter for stray dogs, but shelters are not required to take in cats.

“As bad as things are and as wrong as things are, it’s not illegal,” Kittell said.

New York state requires municipalities’ dog control officers to keep records of dogs they have seized, but records of what happens to dogs after they arrive in shelters are spotty. According to a 2016 report from the Journal News, a daily newspaper which covers the Lower Hudson Valley, the NYS Department of Health has failed to keep records on the numbers of dogs euthanized and the amount of euthanasia drugs — such as sodium pentobarbital — shelters keep on hand.

New York state law allows shelters to euthanize dogs for health reasons and if, after five days, no one has reclaimed or adopted a dog, for space and population control.

The Journal News also stated that many shelters “farm out the procedure to private veterinarians and others simply fail to file required state reports” on euthanasia rates. Since many shelters are private agencies, they are not required to make certain information public.

“They are anything but transparent,” Kittell said.

Dr. Steven Bruck, a Marcellus-based veterinarian, said he has witnessed the consequences of incompetent medical care in one local shelter as well. He said he often performed surgery on kittens’ eyes to repair damage from untreated infections. Another vet, he added, would discontinue or change the medications he prescribed

“It’s unconscionable. Veterinary care when I was there was inadequate,” he said. “I was called old-school, and they didn’t like my form of medicine.”

“Just because it’s a shelter animal doesn’t mean it gets less care,” Kittell said.

AS911 organizer Nancy Hohler said the problems do not end there. She said that employees at the shelter at which she volunteered would take extended smoke breaks, would not administer medication properly and would not properly exercise the dogs, leaving volunteers to pick up the slack. Hohler said she witnessed shelter employees taking home donations of dog food or medication for their own pets. Some employees, she said, would mark a dog for euthanasia because they were afraid of the animal, didn’t like it or thought it would be too much work to rehabilitate its health or behavioral problems.

“They’re vindictive. They abuse the animals,” Hohler said. “It’s heartbreaking because it doesn’t need to be that way.”

Karen Antzcak of the Animal Alliance of Greater Syracuse was one of about two dozen attendees of the meeting. Antzcak said she has witnessed inadequate care as well.

“They don’t have proper protocols [such as deworming] that would help with nutrition,” she said.

There is a wealth of resources shelters can call upon to improve their standards of care, Antzcak said. In addition to the many people who would like to volunteer within an animal shelter, she said, there are lawyers in the area willing to assist with animal cruelty cases. Many dogs are unavailable for adoption while their cruelty cases are worked out in the courts, and these lawyers could help get the animals relinquished sooner so they can find their forever family as quickly as possible.

“There’s even free conferences they could go to [for] shelter training,” Antzcak said.

AS911 is looking for more members to get involved in their cause. Eventually, they would like to organize protests and letter-writing campaigns to expose the abuses in local shelters, but they need more people willing to help.

“You can’t reform the shelter without [them],” Brocious said.

To learn more about AS911’s mission, visit animalshelters911.com or contact [email protected].