This is a letter I sent a friend over the summer who was interested in my thoughts after the THS was raided June 2, 2009.
I'm well thank you. The situation at THS.... they have some really messed up policies. For years I've known that they make aggressive dogs available for adoption, dogs that have actually killed other animals. I called to ask about a German Shepherd my friend was interested in and was told "he's a biter. oh, and he's killed a raccoon". By comparison ODHS doesn't make dogs known to be aggressive available for adoption. We have a temperament assessment process and an assessment committee that meets and assesses dogs every week. It not only allows us to identify aggression it shows us how the dog is likely to react in certain situations so that our behaviourist and volunteers can customize the dog's training and handling protocol. If a dog is aggressive and we think it's going to bite someone or kill another animal in the community it is humanely euthanized. This doesn't happen often but it does happen. We feel we have a responsibility to the people and the animals in the community as well as the animals in our care. Tim Trow doesn't share that view and the policies as THS reflect that.
I should say that I generally try not to pass judgment on other shelters or rescues unless there's blatant irresponsibility involved, but even what is responsible and what isn't can be subjective. A lot of groups in the rescue community are quick to crticize one another. Everyone wants what is best for the animals and everyone thinks their way is best. You see this a lot in the dog community actually. Many don't make an effort to see shades of grey, it's just black and white. An organization thinks its way is the best way, therefore a different ways is either inferior or just plain wrong. I don't agree.
There are obvious pros for a low or no kill shelter, but there are some cons too, and unfortunately there is a need for high kill shelters. If every shelter kept every animal until it was adopted (which can take a while) there'd be far more strays on the street which we can all agree would be a pretty terrible life for the animal. If an animal is euthanized due to crowding at least it isn't starving and freezing on the street waiting to meet some psycho or get hit by a car. We don't euthanize due to crowding, except in the rarest of circumstances, but I can understand why high kill shelters exist. THS does not euthanize for crowding at all which means it exceeds capacity several times a year. It is forced to have adoptathons and pretty much give the animals away. This encourages people who would adopt on impulse to adopt and a lot of the cats end up on Craigslist because the adopter wasn't committed. On the plus side it gets animals in to homes, on the down side a lot of the homes aren't forever homes. Shades of grey. There's an upside and a downside to almost every possible shelter policy. In the end people who run shelters do what they think is best. In my opinion the problem isn't other shelters, it's people who abandon and/or refuse to spay and neuter their pets.
I should also mention that Tim Trow has a reputation a cowboy. He does what he wants and the hell with what anyone else thinks. This is not all bad. THS has been adopting pitbulls and pitbull crosses under other names (ie. terrier cross, boxer cross) to circumvent the pathetic breed ban. On the surface it seems very irresponsible and risky. I viewed it as a form of resistance that would save dogs lives. As long as adopters are told what they're actually adopting (I don't know if they were or not) it's all I can do not to cheer and fist pump. As with everything else there are pros and cons to having a cowboy run the show.
Now having said all of that I was shocked and horrified by the allegations of neglect and leaving animals to suffer and die rather than humanely euthanize them. The OSPCA's raid on an affiliate shelter is totally unprecedented. There is bad blood between THS and the OSPCA (cowboys don't like to follow the rules) however I can't imagine OSPCA would raid THS if there wasn't a need to. I won't be privy to any details of the investigation until they're made public. Obviously if Trow's policies cause animals to suffer unnecessarily he has to go and should be charged if charges are applicable. It's inexcusable and unforgiveable.
So what have do we know since that letter written back in June? We know that the top tier of shelter managers (Mr. Trow, Mr. McCracken, Mr. Betchel and Mr. Bernadino) have been arrested and charged with cruelty to animals, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, and obstruction of a peace officer. Obstruction of a Peace Officer? Really? Didn't TSH cooperate fully with the raid in early June? Apparently not.
"The OSPCA received information that [on June 2] approximately two dozen animals were moved around the shelter and kept out of the eyesight of the SPCA because of the condition they were in,” he said. “There’s also a number of animals euthanized. In other words, the shelter management took active steps to ensure that [OSPCA] Officer [Kevin] Strooband was not able to properly conduct his inspection.” (Globe and Mail).
The image that keeps running through my mind is Conrad Black scurrying down the hallway in the middle of the night carrying boxes he believed held evidence that would legally damn him. If the allegations of moving animals, or hastily euthanizing sick and suffering animals once the raid had been announced and commenced are true that's equally damning in my opinion. But I'm reluctant to condemn all of the accused without knowing all of the facts. Investigators cast a wide net when laying charges and it's not impossible that some charges will be dropped at some point down the road. The rescue community will be watching and waiting. In the court of public opinion these guys are already screwed.
On a random note I've worked in a shelter environment in some capacity for 10 years. To say the environment is hectic would be an understatement. But I bet my life that we've never put a live trap in a ceiling and without bothering to check on it until it was removed. Make no mistake. The cat in the ceiling at TSH (now known as the mummified cat) suffered a long, miserable death of starvation and dehydration, and who knows what medical conditions it may also have been afflicted with. And it wasn't just found in the randomly in the ceiling,
it was caught in a trap. That means somebody knew it was there, knew it was stationary, contained, and just never brought it down from the ceiling to provide it with food, water and care - the necessities of life. What I find especially sad is that investigators were tipped off about it, which means someone at that place knew about it in addition to the person who set and later abandoned the trap.
There's a lot to be angry about. There's a lot to be sad about.
I hope most people will choose to direct their anger towards the perpetrator(s), and remember that there are still over one thousand animals at THS that need daily care and forever homes. I also hope most people will remember that a majority of staff at any shelter have chosen to work there because they love animals and do their best to provide care and a good quality of life until the animals are adopted.
Many shelter staff have done heroic things that you'll never hear about. They do their work quietly, behind the scenes, through exhaustion and tears, every single day. If you've adopted your pet from a shelter you probably won't know their names, or the names of your pet's foster parents if your pet was hand raised in a home because it was young or sick to go up for adoption. You probably won't hear about any desperate and expensive measures that may have been taken to save your pet's life, the sad details of any illnesses or injuries your pet was nursed through. You probably won't know if a vet technician's decision to force-feed your pet because it was too sick to eat on its own saved your pet's life. You won't know the names of the volunteers who spend hours socializing cats and walking dogs, or the careful screening that went into the adoption process so that a "furkid" could become a member of your family. It takes a village to save a single animal's life. Please remember that when you read about a few bad apples.
