From: Smith, Doug
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:41 PM
Subject: Devore Animal Shelter
Hello to all,
I know some of you have received emails stating animals at our shelter have suffered frostbite and have contacted our department and others with your concerns. Thank you for your concern for the pets at our shelter and be assured their health and safety are our primary concern.
As to the circulating emails, our kennel buildings are all equipped with automatic heating units. These units are thermostatically controlled and operate throughout the day / night as needed. All of the units were recently checked and serviced prior to the cooler weather arriving.
All dogs in the kennels have access to this heat system and no animal has suffered frostbite at the shelter.
The dog in which the circulating email references was maintained at another animal shelter prior to arriving at the Devore facility on Wednesday (11-24). Upon arrival at Devore, the dog was observed licking the top of its left front leg and the area appeared irritated. The dog did not display signs of discomfort or distress, only the licking of this area of the leg. To ensure the health of the dog, it was immediately transported to a veterinarian for examination / treatment, was maintained at the veterinary hospital over the Thanksgiving Day holiday, and on Friday (11-26) was released from the veterinary hospital, transported back to the Devore Shelter, where it was adopted. The diagnoses from the veterinarian was not frostbite and the dog did receive treatment for its diagnosed condition. The time this dog was at the Devore Shelter was a few minutes upon the date of transfer and the time it arrived back from the veterinary hospital until it was adopted.
While in fact, our shelter does use water in the daily cleaning / disinfecting of the kennels and water is used to rinse the kennels clean throughout the day as needed, no animal is subjected to freezing concrete floors. Again, the health and safety of the animals is our primary concern.
Again, thank you for your concern and I invite you to come and visit our shelter.
Douglas Smith
Supervising Animal Control Officer-II, Shelter Services
County of San Bernardino
Animal Care and Control
909-887-8055 Public
909-887-7519 Fax
Thank you for your factual, informative response.
ReplyDeleteHaving shared the sequence of events with animal rescue groups, why would the animal rights activists want to continue to "badmouth" Devore animal shelter?
Spreading rumors about the treatment of animals at the shelter is not helpful to the public, to the animals, or to reputable rescue groups.
Spreading these rumors is not beneficial to the reputable rescue groups that like networking with Devore and helping the animals because these rumors make us look like we are uninformed and even worse - irrational.
Are there any laws which protect the people or organization that are harmed or threatened by the Internet? Someone needs to be held accountable if their actions are hurting animals, the shelter, or the staff.