union county animal shelter

Tour of Animal Shelter Is Day I’ll Not Forget
By Pat Shannon
On Tuesday, January 16th a meeting/tour was held at the Union County Animal Shelter with two County Commissioners, Lanny Openshaw and Parker Mills. The animal advocates present were myself, the Reverend Tim Smith, the Humane Society UC President, and lastly, a member of their Board. Sheriff Cathey was there with some of his staff.
The whole purpose of the meeting/tour was to see what could be done to improve things for the animals of this county. After we had our meeting we toured the shelter.
It was then that something occurred that will haunt me as long as I live. As we started our tour there were sounds coming from the back that I’ve never heard before and pray I never hear again. It was coming from a group of dogs that were barking, SCREAMING & HOWLING. It was unbelievably loud and positively ungodly. And yes, it was actual screaming like you’d hear if a pack of dogs were viciously fighting. I asked what on earth that noise was. None of the shelter staff answered the question. I asked again. Again, no answer. We continued our tour and about 10 minutes later were inside another room. There in front of my eyes were the civilian workers washing out debris from the gas chamber. Then it dawned on me. The sounds I’d heard had been coming from that gas chamber. The dogs had been fighting all right; fighting for their lives. They lost.
This is happening five days a week to approximately 75% of the dogs and 90% of the cats that enter our county shelter.
Every time another healthy or treatable animal is killed, we in Union County lose too. Why? Because we were divinely given the role of stewards to the animals, to treat them the way God would have us treat them. Unnecessary and cruel killing does not live up to that role.
Currently there are 8 sheriff department deputies assigned to the animal shelter in addition to 5 civilian employees. The shelter has 102 dog kennels but only 11 kennels are allotted for adoptable dogs. Make sense to you? Me either. This is all with a budget of around $750,000/year. How can 11 dog kennels & a handful of cat cages and no effective programs require 13 staff and nearly ¾ of a million dollars a year?? And this is in addition to a brand new 1.5 million dollar animal “shelter”.
The animals in this county need a shelter that is an SPCA, Humane Society, or whatever you want to call it, that is separate from the sheriff’s department and run solely by animal advocates with programs to drastically cut the kill rate and send the adoption rate through the roof. The county commissioners have been given a program/proposal to do exactly this.
Your support is needed. Want to help? Want a copy of the proposal?
Contact: shelterfriends@carolina.rr.com
Pat Shannon
Monroe

Thank you for posting this. If you have any contacts in Union County that would like to help or would like more information, please have them contact us at unionanimals@yahoo.com. Also, I would like to urge everyone who is not satisfied with the county shelter to please contact the county commissioners.

lets do something about this...............contact me

I would like to help with getting the shelter made into a no-kill first-class shelter. Let's try and get people fired up to take this seriously by contacting anyone possible, media, Internet, and citizens of Union county. I don't know how to do any of this - but I'm one of many, many who care and don't know how to begin the process or what to do (beyond just emailing an official). It's time to take a hard stand on this, everyone, and get media involved. People respond to that. Let them see what the shelter does to animals in a gas chamber, let me see the money they pay for it, and ask for donations to do whatever is needed to get attention to this issue.

I feel so bad I want to see if there is anything I can do . Just let me know . I am going there today and will bring a doggie home with me to save their life.

I feel soooo bad for those animals.I love dogs and cats. I'd love to help!<3
^^^^

I know this is tough! I have 1st hand knowledge of what you went through. While in the Navy in Iceland,I was assigned to base security, we had to put down strays (mostly cats), except they made us use mail bags wrap around a truck muffler!
Then we had to burned the bag.
In Chesapeake, Va. they have a place called the
"Animal Assistant League" where they do NOT put down animals, and it is funded mostly by the city of Chesapeake and donations. We adopted 3 wonderful pets from there!

Count me in. I'm a teacher and would love to get my class/parents involved in any way we could help as well as myself personally. I've rescued two dogs and can't imagine my life without them. I had no idea this was going on at such a high rate and it has to stop.

You have got to be kidding me.

The country is in trouble and this is what you want to whine about...

They are doing best they can

What can we do with them?

So where do we stand on this? What has happened since the original post? I think it's a shame what is going on in that shelter. If there is space, why are they killing???

What can we do?

This is the kindest thing they can do for animals.
What else do these animal gureaus want ?

Most of the animals get treated better than my family.....

What do they need AC units for the dogs or something you animal enthusiasts jerks........

To all you animal lovers,

I know what you can do: Go back to New York City !

Move out of Union County if you don't like how it's done here.

Bye..........bye.........bye.. .......bye.....
no loss for us..........
Yeah--Let's get started with the first lady that wrote in........leave lady.........

you backwark people there you think its ok to gas dogs in your inhumane dog pound.people like me from wisconsin have to stick our nose in since you idiots think its ok to gas innocent animals. you dont gas your death row prisioners so why dogs who did nothing? i would kill someone over my dog he is my family he runs the house.i wish you people would get rid of your inhumane way to kill dogs that you people put in the pound there to die.
i am glad i dont live there id be in prison.

LBJ wrote:

Tour of Animal Shelter Is Day I’ll Not Forget
By Pat Shannon
On Tuesday, January 16th a meeting/tour was held at the Union County Animal Shelter with two County Commissioners, Lanny Openshaw and Parker Mills. The animal advocates present were myself, the Reverend Tim Smith, the Humane Society UC President, and lastly, a member of their Board. Sheriff Cathey was there with some of his staff.
The whole purpose of the meeting/tour was to see what could be done to improve things for the animals of this county. After we had our meeting we toured the shelter.
It was then that something occurred that will haunt me as long as I live. As we started our tour there were sounds coming from the back that I’ve never heard before and pray I never hear again. It was coming from a group of dogs that were barking, SCREAMING & HOWLING. It was unbelievably loud and positively ungodly. And yes, it was actual screaming like you’d hear if a pack of dogs were viciously fighting. I asked what on earth that noise was. None of the shelter staff answered the question. I asked again. Again, no answer. We continued our tour and about 10 minutes later were inside another room. There in front of my eyes were the civilian workers washing out debris from the gas chamber. Then it dawned on me. The sounds I’d heard had been coming from that gas chamber. The dogs had been fighting all right; fighting for their lives. They lost.
This is happening five days a week to approximately 75% of the dogs and 90% of the cats that enter our county shelter.
Every time another healthy or treatable animal is killed, we in Union County lose too. Why? Because we were divinely given the role of stewards to the animals, to treat them the way God would have us treat them. Unnecessary and cruel killing does not live up to that role.
Currently there are 8 sheriff department deputies assigned to the animal shelter in addition to 5 civilian employees. The shelter has 102 dog kennels but only 11 kennels are allotted for adoptable dogs. Make sense to you? Me either. This is all with a budget of around $750,000/year. How can 11 dog kennels & a handful of cat cages and no effective programs require 13 staff and nearly ¾ of a million dollars a year?? And this is in addition to a brand new 1.5 million dollar animal “shelter”.
The animals in this county need a shelter that is an SPCA, Humane Society, or whatever you want to call it, that is separate from the sheriff’s department and run solely by animal advocates with programs to drastically cut the kill rate and send the adoption rate through the roof. The county commissioners have been given a program/proposal to do exactly this.
Your support is needed. Want to help? Want a copy of the proposal?
Contact: shelterfriends@carolina.rr.com
Pat Shannon
Monroe

Thats what happens when a county is run by good old boy uneducated hill Billy red necks.

rose gauthier wrote:

you backwark people there you think its ok to gas dogs in your inhumane dog pound.people like me from wisconsin have to stick our nose in since you idiots think its ok to gas innocent animals. you dont gas your death row prisioners so why dogs who did nothing? i would kill someone over my dog he is my family he runs the house.i wish you people would get rid of your inhumane way to kill dogs that you people put in the pound there to die.
i am glad i dont live there id be in prison.

Rose these red necks buy a puppy, six months later they don't want it, because they are to stupid to train it, or its not a cute puppy anymore, they get rid of it somehow,, then you see them 6 months later with another dog,,,, on and on it goes, They are just stupid uneducated hill Billy red neck losers here in the South.

Elections are aproaching, the first thing is to get a qualified candidate to run against the current sheriff and support him/her to the hilt. Vote against all incumbents and anyone who has ever been a county commissioner or is a current one. This problem has existed for decades. If you look at the money you will find that most county employees are paid more than the taxpayers who pay their salaries. Public servants are no longer serving the public, instead they are ruling them. This is not a newcomer problem and it will take a joint effort by newcomers and lifers to put a stop to this criminal behavior.

To "fed up native",
That's how we got the two women on the county commission. It was the animal advocates who came out in droves to get rid of the good ole boys. At least we got two voted out. It's a good start.

Now we need a sheriff who is pro-animal welfare and sees that gassing family pets and feral cats is NOT the way to go.

Brenda wrote:

Thank you for posting this. If you have any contacts in Union County that would like to help or would like more information, please have them contact us at unionanimals@yahoo.com. Also, I would like to urge everyone who is not satisfied with the county shelter to please contact the county commissioners.

I was told to contact you by Audrey at Charlotte Kennels. A cat that we feed in woods behind our home had 4 beautiful kittens and we were looking for a shelter to take them and find them homes. We have 4 already, and casn not sadopt more. BUT WE ARE ONLY LOOKING FOR A NO-KILL SHELTER . I guess Audrey recommended the wrong place.