Tag your Pets

[Keith]

"My cat doesn't like a collar."

"Tags make too much noise."

"I misplaced the rabies tag."

"My pets never go outside."

"My yard is fenced."

There are a lot of reasons so many dogs and cats with loving pet parents don't have tags.

But if your pet gets out just once without a tag, you could lose it forever.

Pets wearing tags and phone numbers are usually reunited with their pet parents immediately.

All animals are required by City ordinance to wear a rabies tag.

If your dog is lost, the finder or the animal shelter can trace you through the vet's office.

Your pet will be safer if you also include a tag that includes the pet's name and your phone number. You can buy ID tags at pet supply stores.

[Jay]

I wish more people took their pets more seriously. Owning a dog or a cat is not like owning a pet hamster or a goldfish.

Most cats and dogs are a 10 year commitment at a minimum. Everyone who owns a pet should look into spaying and neutering (especially if the are not a trained breeder) not mention tagging or micro chipping.

I could not finish reading this story because the dog my parents have now is a shelter dog.

He was timid in the beginning now he is as playful and as onery a dog can be. My parents love having him around. They tell me its almost like their raising another child. They let that little guy get away with murder compared to our other dogs we had over the years.

I came cross this article in the Oklahoman yesterday. I could not finish reading it because I could picture them putting down Charlie my parents adopted dog. If they had decided to wait a little longer to find a dog.

I will warn you this article is an in your face article about the animal shelter in OKC. Maybe if everybody read this they would realize that they need to spay and neuter. They would also realize that they should not take buying or adopting a dog lightly.

Here it is.............










Animal shelter workers hope to adopt 'no-kill' policy



By John David Sutter
The Oklahoman

Animal Welfare Officer Larry Johnson unlatched the door to dog number 11118A’s chain-link cage at the Oklahoma City Animal Shelter on Friday. The 1-year-old shepherd mix with rust-colored fur hesitated, as if she knew she was one of the 25 dogs that would be euthanized that day, put in a garbage bag and dumped at a city landfill.

By the numbers
26,000 animals were taken to the Oklahoma City Animal Shelter last year.

5,200 good adoption candidates died last year because no one would adopt them.

What you can do
Spay or neuter your pet. The first priority is to prevent overpopulation.

Adopt animals. The Oklahoma City Animal Shelter, 2811 SE 29, is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 4:45 p.m.

Think before you adopt. About 10 percent of adopted animals are returned to the shelter.

Don't give pets as presents. "People don't like to be surprised like that," said Steve Lira, of the shelter.

Volunteer. Animal shelters need help.

Source: Catherine English, superintendent of Oklahoma City's animal welfare division

About 15,000 animals were killed last year by lethal injection at the animal shelter at 2811 SE 29. Shelter officials recently announced they want to achieve "no-kill" status by 2010, but they face criticism now from animal lovers who say no animal deserves to be buried like trash in a landfill.

City officials defend the practice, saying it's cheaper to bury pets than to incinerate them, the most likely alternative.

Money is tight and could be better spent saving the lives of animals, they say.

Johnson guided the dog from its cage with a blue leash and some kind words.

"Come on boy, come on."

"You're OK, you're OK," he said, giving the dog a gentle rub on the nose and then a stroke across her forehead.

Johnson hoisted her onto a metal table with one arm wrapped around her neck, the other under her stomach.

He stayed in the position and continued to comfort the dog as veterinary technician Dan Gannon readied a shot of sodium pentobarbital, a barbiturate that, if delivered intravenously, will stop an animal's heart in a matter of seconds.

Gannon delivered the shot into a vein in the dog's right forearm. Her tense body fell limp on the table.

Johnson picked the dog up again and placed her on the concrete floor as the fifth in a growing line of lifeless dogs, puppies, cats and kittens.

After the round of euthanizations, Gannon checked for signs of life. Moving from animal to animal, he poked a long needle into each one's heart, waiting to see if the syringe would twitch at the pumping of a heart.

Animal welfare officers put number 11118A in a garbage bag, loaded her on a cart with 39 other carcasses, some too large to bag, and wheeled the cart to the back door where she was taken to her final stop at the shelter, the bed of a dump truck.

From there the animals go to the Southeast Landfill at 7001 S Bryant Ave., where they are dumped in a hole and covered with dirt.

Incineration much more costly
Tulsa has used an incinerator for more than a decade. It cost about $75,000 and eats up $65 to $80 worth of natural gas daily, said Larry Briggs, animal control director in Tulsa.

That compares with $15 to $20 a day Tulsa spent to take the bodies to a landfill when the incinerator was down this summer, he said.

"It's not just cost that's all that's involved here," he said. "We have to consider the respect and the feelings of the community. They feel it's much more dignified to incinerate the carcasses than to take them to a landfill."

Oklahoma City's shelter is underfunded -- only able to respond to about 60 percent of calls -- and would have to make other cuts to change its disposal practices, said Neighborhood Services Director Mike Randall.

"There's a multitude of different things that save animal's lives that I would rather spend money on than buying an incinerator," said Gannon, 25, who administers the lethal shots. He said his wife describes him as a "weirdo animal lover."

Outrage for animal lovers
The practice outrages some animal lovers.

"I think it's very offensive because those are little spirits," said Rita Shepherd, who owns 12 cats, nine dogs, nine birds, a donkey, three llamas, a goat and a black-faced lamb. When her animals die, she has them cremated. "Sorry, I'm an animal person. That's just not where they belong."

People who take pets to veterinarians to be euthanized often choose to have them cremated. Some give their furry friends personal funerals at the Precious Pets Cemetery in Spencer.

Linda McCullough runs the cemetery and said that while she supports the city shelter and thinks they do good work, their practice of dumping animal bodies is "disgusting." Her cemetery runs a crematorium and sells urns for pet remains.

The city shelter doesn't tell people about their disposal practices unless an animal owner specifically asks, said Unit Operations Supervisor Steve Lira.

"We have very few people that ask us that question. Most of the animals that go there are animals that have been here as strays for three days or animals that we've picked up that were already dead on the street," he said.

Too many animals
Several city officials and shelter workers said disposal methods are not as important as the root problem -- too many animals going to the shelter.

Last year, about 26,000 unwanted and stray animals went in to the shelter. The city's goal to become a "no-kill" shelter means no animals suited for adoption would be put to sleep. Last year about 5,200 good adoption candidates died because the shelter had no room, and no one came to adopt them.

Catherine English, superintendent of the city's animal welfare division, said she would rather the city spend money working toward the "no-kill" goal than on an incinerator.

English said she hopes the city, in cooperation with a local nonprofit, will start a mobile adoption campaign to show adoptable animals in all parts of Oklahoma City. People are put off by the shelter's southeast Oklahoma City location, she said.

English said attaining "no-kill" status is not up to just the shelter. People need to spay and neuter their animals and be more responsible pet owners, she said.

"This community is a big community of animal lovers," she said. "There are a huge number of animal lovers out there and I would never underestimate that. And that's why I think 'no-kill' will work here."

No city program exists to spay or neuter animals, she said. She hopes that's a possibility in the future.

English said people would protest any kind of animal disposal method. Incinerators could offend religious people who would not want tax money spent on cremation, she said.

Emotional consequences
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality regulates shelters that put bodies in landfills as well as those that burn them. Environmental risks for both methods are minimal, and health risks are nonexistent as long as regulations are followed, said spokeswoman Monty Elder.

"Both of these are designed to have very little impact on the environment. The only difference is that with incinerators, you do not use up landfill space and landfill space is limited," Elder said. "As far as health risks, there should be no difference in terms of risk to the community."

The agency requires landfills to cover the animals with dirt each day to prevent disease-causing flies, she said. They also monitor groundwater quality and water run-off to make sure no products of decomposition infect the water supply, she said.

Johnson and his fellow animal welfare officer, R.D. Lee, said their job of holding down dogs while they're euthanized is emotionally draining, and unfortunately necessary -- at least for now.

"I don't think there's anyone out here that doesn't sit here and get emotional sometimes. It's part of the job," Lee said. "You get hardened to it, but never numb, you can't. It always tugs at your heartstrings."

"I love animals. This is the hardest part of the job," Johnson said in the cinderblock room where lethal injections are given. "That's why we're changing to become a no-kill facility. We don't want to kill these animals."

[mranderson]

"My cat doesn't like a collar."

"Tags make too much noise."

"I misplaced the rabies tag."

"My pets never go outside."

"My yard is fenced."

There are a lot of reasons so many dogs and cats with loving pet parents don't have tags.

But if your pet gets out just once without a tag, you could lose it forever.

Pets wearing tags and phone numbers are usually reunited with their pet parents immediately.

All animals are required by City ordinance to wear a rabies tag.

If your dog is lost, the finder or the animal shelter can trace you through the vet's office.

Your pet will be safer if you also include a tag that includes the pet's name and your phone number. You can buy ID tags at pet supply stores.

Most Cats DO wear collars.

With the noise, you at least know your Dog is near.

The tags can be replaced as long as you or your Vet has the records.

Humm. Your home must really look like a dumping ground... And smell like it too.

Fences break, and Dogs dig.

Even though my Dog has a scar which we can identify her with, she can get loose. I have to chase her. Twice, someone has found her and brought her home... Why?... She has her tags on at ALL times... And they stay current.

Not tagging your pet is like child abuse. Just think how you would react if you lost your kids.

I know. They can speak. Granted. However, they too get lost and you take measures to prevent that. If you fail to do the same with your pet, you do not deserve to own one. Period!

[Keith]

That was a sad story, OklaCity_75, and people should take better care of their pets by having them spayed or neutered (sp?). There is no way that I could work in an animal shelter. I certainly would not want to be the one giving the lethal injection.