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.
