To the posters

I firmly believe in the right of free speech so I allow posting without moderation. Sadly several posters are using this to attack people rather than the problem. I'd like to offer my apoli\ogies for their actions and cruel words.

One of the most viscious comments stated the Renee would be responsible for the deaths of these dogs because of her actions.

"If i were the shelter i would not save more in there.So you people would stop lying"

No one who cares about animals would even think that a shelter would not save every animal possible under any circumstances. But, perhaps the poster has such a vindicative streak that it is preferable to kill the animals rather than admit to problems.

NM State Human Conference

For anyone interested in learning how shelter conditions can be improved, diseases contained and adoptions increased (among other topics) you should attend this conference.

If the people in charge of the shelter - at all levels - were exposed to current ideas then the lives of these animals would be vastly improved.

Deja vu?

Several years ago The Champion Newspaper of Decatur, GA ran a story on the firing of Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock from the DeKalb County Animal Services and Enforcement.

A Letter to Los Cruces & NM Public Officials

Folks, yesterday was a very dark day in Las Cruces, NM for animal advocates and especially for the animals themselves. I witnessed what had to be the most utterly disgusting display of judicial injustice by a disfunctual government body that defies the basic constitutional rights of the citizens in this community. In my own opinion I would call it judicial murder.

What we were subjected to was our sheltering board allowing the shelter director to stand up in public, with media present, and rant and rave, plus allow her for three hours to spew venimous attacks and accusations about the complainers of inhumane treatment of the animals at the shelter. She expelled thunderous lies about the care of these animals and the way she runs the shelter, all the while with the blessing of a shelterboard that really does not give a damn about the animals. We even have one board member that thinks all dogs should be chained! This same board member said in public at this very meeting, and I quote, "If Jesus himself were the director, you people (meaning we, the advocates) would not be satisfied.

And, if this situation was not bad enough, the public was only allowed 3 minutes to comment on her 3 hours of ranting. If that is not bad enough, we have a reporter at our local newspaper that not only sympathizes with the director, but also will not print anything negative about this city. We have pleaded with this reporter to talk with us so that we can provide proof of our allegations of the complete incompetency of this director and the shelter board and what amounts to a cover-up of what is actually going on inside the shelter. We have proof of lies and even volunteers at the shelter witnessing abuse by shelter staff.

As a footnote, we have turned over much of our material to the District Attorney for review and hope it leads to a grand jury investigation and possible charges of animal cruelty by the director and some of her staff. Without outside pressure from people like yourselves, this may be a terrible loss for our animals. We are not asking for help from others carte blanche. We have what we feel is sufficient proof of our concerns for anyone who asks for it.

There are many people who work and volunteer at this shelter, along with others such as rescue groups who are afraid if they come forward with complaints they will fall victim to the shelter director's proven vindictiveness. I would be happy to provide proof of the same.

I am sixty-three years old and have been involved with alot of community issues in my lifetime. I have never been subjected to such a disgusting display of governmental power at its worst. I can not walk away from this knowing it is the animals that need our help. I can not give up on them. Please find it in your hearts to help us win this battle for the poor animals living and dying in deploreable conditions. Please help us stop this insanity. Please!

Did Vesco-Mock Put a Dog at Risk to Garner Sympathy?

There was a meeting of the Animal Board in Las Cruces yesterday morning, conducted in it's usual manner of allowing Vesco-Mock to speak for as long as she needed but only allowing community members (including us pesky activists) 3 minutes. With a warning at 2:30.

In a misguided effort to show how well cared for the dogs are Vesco-Mock brought in a dog undergoing heartworm treatment. Let us hope that this dog is through with his treatment or yesterday's outing put him at serious risk of dying. Heartworm treatment is difficult on any dog and it can be fatal. The injections have organic arsenic in them which kills the adults worms living in the heart. As these worms die they are absorbed by the body. Having treated too many heartworm dogs (including dogs from this shelter) I have been warned each and every time to confine the dog for 30 days to avoid pulmonary thromboembolism. This means NO exercise, NO excitment and only short walks on leashes for "doing their business". Yet this dog was hauled in from the shelter and paraded around as proof of her "caring for the animals".

Once again her actions show that it is all about her, and not about the animals forced to be in her "care".

Goodbye to a dog we never knew

This handsome boy was in the Las Cruces shetler, under the Director Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock, for 9 weeks. The employees and volunteers and him out in the yard, played with him, gave him belly rubs and pets and had no trouble with him.

On July 27, 2009 Paul, an employee, said he was agressive towards him and this boy was killed.

After at least 9 weeks of being kept in this very small cage did it finally get to be too much for him? Was any attempt made to determine why he was allegedly aggressive? Could he have been in pain from living under the conditions that exist at the shelter.

Was his death necessary?

Tell us your shelter stories

Over the last 8 months we've been trying to get the powers-that-be to take some accountability for allowing Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock to create misery and suffering for many animals under her care. Here are some of our stories:

Several weeks ago a young german shepherd was broke to the shelter with a probable broken leg. It lay in a kennel, untreated, for 4-5 days. One day a splint appeared on the leg and then the dog disappeared. Was it adopted? Put in a medical facility? Or did he end up in the landfill? The shelter has not told us.

About the same time as the german shepherd came in a small white dog was brought in, obviously very ill. It lay in a cage, untreated, for several days before it died. Alone and probably in pain.

Earlier this year a basset, Angel, was one of the lucky ones. She was brought to the shelter on a Friday with a broken pelvis. The shelter would not treat her and were very reluctant to release her to rescue. Finally they relented and Angel was brought to a vet who kept her over the weekend from observation. Instead, she has a fractured pelvis which required major surgery, as evidenced in the photos. She has screws in her pelvis which will remain forever. Becasue of her injuries she was unable to poop. The vet had to intervene. That Monday she was referred to a surgeon for further treatement. I am happy to report that Angel eventually made a complete recovery and is living with her very wonderful furever family.





Recently a pair of bassets were unlucky enough to find themselves at Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock's shelter. They were heartworm positive and probably had a tick-related blood condition. Rescue offered to take them in and treat them. Dr. Vesco-Mock, who does not willingly work with rescue, told the rescue they could have the girls "if" they survived being spayed. An independent vet confirmed they very well might have died during surgery. When the rescue received them they were both infested with ticks and fleas. After four hours of professional grooming they had removed over 400 ticks between the 2 of them, not to mention countless fleas. Iris amp; Rose got lucky - enough phone calls from officials forced Dr. Vesco-Mock to release them to rescue without being spayed. They will undergo heartworm treatment and when they are done with that they will be safely spayed.
Iris & Rose




We've read and heard of other horror stories from people who adopted pets from this shelter. Many concerning supposedly healthy dogs who get home and come down with parvo, distemper or other diseases that the dogs should be vaccinated for in the shelter.



Will you share you stories with us?

Shelter or Puppy Mill?

These are disturbing photos taken at the shelter in Las Cruces, NM during the month of July 2009. You can see animals left in cages with no water and the floors covered with feces and other filth. The director, Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock, DVM, makes little effort to keep "her" facility clean for either the comfort of the animals or the health of both animal and humans who are in contact with this filth. There is also an abandoned house that the shelter uses to keep animals in. Reports from volunteers (an audio tape will be posted attesting to this) say that the carpet got so infested that it had to be torn out. When cages were moved maggot, cockroached, feces, urine and other filth was growing underneath them. Yet the animals were still kept there. Animals, if they were lucky, were out of their cages for about 5 minutes each day while their cages were being cleaned. Often they were not checked on again til the following day. If they knocked their water bowls over or pooped or peed in their cage they lived in it until a person (hopefully) came by 24 HOURS later to go through the same charade. I expect to see pictures like this from a mill bust, not from a "shelter" that is supposed to provide safely to the animals unfortunate enough to end up there.

The first 3 pics are from puppy mills. The cage is beyong filthy and one can only imagine the the horrors of being forced to live in it.






These were taken in July 2009 at the Animal Services Center of Mesilla Valley in Las Cruces, New Mexico after Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock was in charge for over a year.


="LC Shelter 07/2009">

Citizen Call to Action

Help us please!!!

The following is plea for help and an explanation along with photographs as to why we need public statewide support. A group of concerned citizens including members of the Humane Society of Southern New Mexico, rescue groups, shelter volunteers and private pet owners have been working diligently through the government system to correct shortcomings and failures of the Animal Services Center of Mesilla Valley in Las Cruces, New Mexico for many months. We feel there is a grave situation at this shelter which involves almost every aspect of shelter management, medical care, rescue resources, public service, court held animal maintenance and community involvement.

The photographs taken support the allegation that care and maintenance of animals at this shelter amount to “overwhelmed caregiver hoarding” and were taken surreptitiously as photography is prohibited by the management of the shelter. It becomes painfully obvious why. The photos show the conditions in which dogs “quarantined” for two weeks health watch prior to transfer to a Denver, Colorado shelter for adoption are being held. The holding area is a manufactured home formerly used as a caretaker residence by the previous contractor adjacent to the primary building. The feces and urine smeared on the cage wire and floors, on the walls and running under the tarps on the floor indicate the state of un-cleanliness routinely maintained. Both sick and apparently healthy animals are housed in the former three bedroom residence. The photos are from two different days, July 17 and 25. The cage crates are often double stacked.

The accompanying Animal Legal and Veterinary Medical Consulting Services, Inc., operation assessment of the Animal Services Center of Mesilla Valley details many of the concerns that the general public and animal advocacy have expressed for some time.

http://allearsbassetsanctuary.com/ascmv.pdf

These photos do not demonstrate the other serious issues at shelter that continue which include no written policy manual and what appears to be the uneven handed implementation of any existing unwritten policies, poor to non-existent assessment of animals on intake, poor to non-existent monitoring of injured animals, lack of adequate veterinary care, improper housing of large and small dogs together, improper housing of unaltered opposite sex animals together, improper housing of different temperament dogs together and escapes from unsafe cages resulting in animal injuries.


One very recent example is a small terrier having broken both front legs on different days for the above reasons. The last incident resulted in the dog receiving no veterinary care for the leg from a Wednesday when the leg was broken to perhaps the following Monday when the dog was allegedly was turned over to a rescue which was supposed to fix the leg. This was after a registered rescue group was refused to be allowed to rescue the dag and provide veterinary care on the previous Saturday. Only the week or so prior a German shepherd puppy remained, unable to walk, in a crate for 72 hours without veterinary care before the Alamogordo German shepherd rescue was allowed to get the dog into its care and provide veterinary care. It had a broken pelvis! The veterinarian who subsequently did the repair indicated a second surgery may have been necessary due to the delayed care the dog was provided.
After the initial holding period of at least 3 days for another male shepherd was complete and it was enter the adoptable area, the shelter staff anesthetized the dog to neuter it only to discover it was already neutered. It has been reported numerous times that misdiagnosis of injuries and misreading of test results have hampered or endangered animals being cared for at the shelter.

On at least four recent occasions, attempts to rescue cats and dogs by shelter registered non-profit rescue organizations have been rejected by shelter management although such resources if utilized could have significantly reduced the work load and cost to the shelter. Volunteers at the shelter for the most part worry that reporting concerns to the staff about animal health or facility conditions will result in being denied volunteer status.

Another recent event involved two bassets that were determined to be heartworm positive and probably suffering a blood disorder transmitted by ticks. When a rescue group attempted to rescue the dogs, the shelter management stated if the dogs survived the spay surgery the following Monday then the rescue could get the dogs. That group intervened so they could get the dogs into rescue and be treated for heart worm and the blood disorder before the surgery. Checks with three independent veterinarians indicated based on the information available these two dogs were not good candidates for surgery and the rescue group interceded correctly.

Questionable temperment testing procedures seemed to contribute to unnecessary killing of dogs and, in particular, cats that are labeled timid or aggressive (in the month of June feral cat declarations took the kill rate to about 82% of the cats at the shelter.) The high rate of disease issues for the shelter was perhaps exacerbated by the lack of appropriate cleaning, inadequate ventilation, no animal stress relief, insufficient veterinary care and poor supervision of work procedures. Much of the failure to meet the needs of the animals in these areas was blamed on “too busy”, “understaffed”, and community failure to be responsible pet owners, none of which are acceptable responses to correct poor shelter management.


We have met with the governmental entities, the shelter director and Board of Directors for the ASCMV but to little or no avail. One response heard often is the authorities hired an “expert” to do the job and they should not micromanage the work there. However, we have pointed out the last four professional and community reviews have identified the same issues repeatedly and the shelter management has not shown the leadership or the vision to begin to address these. The current director’s inability to interface and work cooperatively with the community and utilize the wide array of resources offered has dramatically delayed, and adversely affected the resolution of the shelter problems. The authorities have shown little support to provide the supervision or policy to set a course for the management to follow. We are asking you, the reader, to contact the following persons to tell them of your support to clean up our shelter and provide the humane animal care by meeting the basic national shelter standards as identified in the assessments that have been provided and corroborated by local animal advocates and the general public.