Animal shelters respond to Beauties and Beasts concerns of euthanasia

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Beauties and Beasts Rescue says it will no longer be pulling dogs from the Wichita Animal Shelter and marketing them after the Wichita Animal Shelter euthanized dogs on short notice last week.

“The goal is to help them see what we do and to understand that we need the time that we’ve asked for and the respect that we’ve earned, and until then, we’re not going to help them,” Vice President of Beauties and Beasts Randi Carter said.

The shelter says last Tuesday night into Wednesday, over 30 dogs came in, and they are obligated to take the new dogs. They had to make space for them.

“We are obligated legally, if we don’t know who the owner is, to hold that animal for 72 hours, which means every animal that comes into our care has to remain in this building for at least three days,” Animal Service Supervisor Lt. Derek Purcell said. “The events of Wednesday, and that was an extraordinary circumstance, that was a situation where even our expectations were exceeded, and we were just we were doing our best to make the best of a terrible situation.”

In order to make room for them, they determined which dogs required the most resources.

“Kansas Humane Society, they come over when the animals are here, and they review each one of the animals to determine what needs each of these animals have, if they have behavioral issues that need addressed or if they have medical issues that need addressed, things that require more resources, because resources, takes from the shelter,” Lt. Purcell said. “It slows down the flow of animals, and actually the flow of animals, that saves lives. We took the animals that were in our care, and we found the 11 dogs that had resource issues that we were aware of that were going to impact our ability to take in more animals the greatest.”

Then, they say they notified the rescues of the dogs on the deadline.

“The Wichita Animal Shelter is in a partnership with the Kansas Humane Society,” Lt. Purcell said. “In essence, the stray or lost animals come into our shelter, and they go through KHS for placement. That includes communication with Rescues. Typically, I would send an email with lists to KHS Rescue. At the outset, the initial request was to put the dogs that required the most resources on the deadline that ended before we opened. That group of dogs had 11. The rest of the dogs placed on the list were communicated orally between myself and KHS Shelter Management. I believe the total on the second list was 7 or 8.  I’m of the understanding that they were notified but that the timeframe was very short.  If they weren’t, that would have been a product of the amount of work we were all engaged in. Between both facilities, it was all hands on deck, everyone was doing everything they could.”

Beauties and Beasts said they were not aware of all the dogs about to be euthanized.

“We didn’t even know the dog was in danger,” Carter said.

The tight 15-minute deadline was because they had to get the dogs out before the shelter opened because that’s when more dogs start to come in. Carter says she cannot get to the shelter that quickly.

Carter says they have had an agreement for years in which the animal shelter would tell Beauties and Beasts when a dog was going to get euthanized, and they should have adequate time to do it.

“We’ve had an agreement with the shelter for long-standing that if anything is going to have to be euthanized, they’re to call us immediately, let us know, get a message to us,” Carter said. “We didn’t even know the dog was in danger. They did not even tell us that the dog was euthanized. The only reason we know it was euthanized is because I personally saw the euthanasia list.”

Carter also says the shelter euthanized dogs that weren’t yet evaluated, but the shelter says the evaluations weren’t yet published.

“They’re never supposed to euthanize a dog that was scheduled to go to KHS,” Carter said. “I’ve never had them do that, which they did. They also euthanized dogs that were never evaluated. So these were never never part of the agreement that we agreed upon.”

“I discussed with them (Kansas Humane Society) what dogs in our facility that they evaluated that maybe hadn’t been updated so I can determine if there are any other dogs that require more resources than either of our facilities were able to get, and we came up with a second list of dogs that they had evaluated, but due to the sheer population of their facility and the population at ours, we weren’t going to be able to give them those resources,” Lt. Purcell said.

The Wichita Animal Shelter is a no-kill shelter, meaning its euthanasia rate is below 10%. Over the last few years, it has been 2-3%.

“We have marketed every single one of those and helped that euthanasia rate become a no-kill,” Carter said. “They have never given us credit for that. They have never given us thanks for that. So at this point, we’re gonna pull out, and we’re gonna let the numbers speak for themselves. Their euthanasia numbers are gonna go up.”

The Executive Director of the Wichita Animal Action League (WAAL), Christy Fischer, says the animal welfare world is drowning right now.

“We are seeing unprecedented numbers, and this is nationwide. It’s not just Wichita,” Fischer said. “We have never seen numbers like this. The number of animals that are coming in on a daily basis as strays, cruelty cases, neglect cases, bites, it’s just astronomical.”

She says the city should consider the financial help the animal shelter needs.

“The city shelter is very underfunded and understaffed,” Fischer said. “So when you look at national best practices for animal welfare for sheltering, our city’s budget for Animal Services is very, very low.”

WAAL has not experienced issues with the animal shelter. She says the most important thing is the capacity of care rather than the physical capacity available.

“Every shelter manager should be considering something called capacity for care,” Fischer said. “And that’s basically, in a nutshell, what is legal and ethical boundaries for how many pets that they can take care of? So that’s feeding and watering and cleaning and medications.”

She says what can combat the pet overpopulation issue is getting pets spayed or neutered and committing to taking care of them.

Fischer explained no one likes euthanasia, but unfortunately, that’s the point many shelters are at across the country.

“When unfortunate things like euthanasia for space have to occur, no one wants that,” Fischer said. “Everyone’s trying to do their best to avoid that. But they also have other legal ramifications that they have to consider.”

Carter also says there were open kennels, but the shelter says they fill to capacity for care rather than filling all the space so all the dogs are cared for properly.

“If you start filling up all of your kennels, the only thing you’re doing if you do this for an extended period of time is you ensure that there’s a higher likelihood that these animals aren’t going to be careful appropriately,” Lt. Purcell said. “So if you operate the shelter with all of your kennels full, you are doing a disservice to the animals you’re trying to care for.”

He says operating at maximum capacity limits his options to negative outcomes.

He says the disagreement lies with how the shelter is ran: not euthanizing any dogs or euthanizing dogs so they have to resources to properly care for the ones they have.

“When you simply look at the situation as a “do not euthanize anything anywhere,” what you inadvertently do is you decrease the ability to provide animals with what they actually need,” Lt. Purcell said. “There’s shelter management, and there’s the no-kill movement. I kind of equate it to candy. It’s easy, but that leads you to mismanagement of the shelter.”