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?
Dogs are left to rot and languish at our shelter, rarely, if ever, getting out for exercise or socialization. It is an outrage! I volunteer at the shelter and even with a minimum 2-3 hours there, it's hard to go seeing how frantic and desperate the animals are for attention....and not being able to see them all for lack of enough hands and volunteers. Some dogs have sores on their bodies from self-mutiliation or from fighting with each other because they are crowded by pairs or confined to crates or stalls with limited space. Or they cower and shake from fright and from lack of contact & touch. It breaks your heart to see how long some of them have been rotting, weeks that stretch into months & sometimes even close to a year. There are no attractions or events on-site to draw people to the shelter so animals get limited exposure or visibility. Honestly it's the luck of the draw to come out of that place alive. (Intake is about 17,000 with a kill rate of 12,000 a year.)
ReplyDeleteI didn't mention cats: 82% of the population were killed last month. Is there any wonder why the high kill rate for cats when there is no social program for them whatsoever. Volunteers are not allowed to work with cats. They are isolated in cages, supposedly to protect them from disease but they languish and die anyway, from stress or disease.
The dog pictured (Good-bye to a Dog We Never Knew) didn't need to die. The absence of leadership at our shelter with no programs and services to promote adoptions and lifesaving, rampant mismanagement and no accountability are the reasons this dog died despite adequate staffing and a 1.9 million dollar budget.
Why can't something be done to get a new shelter director? I'm new to Las Cruces. I would like to sign a petition to remove the shelter director. Can you post the procedures for doing this? Why not rally for change? The abuse must cease.
ReplyDeleteAt the ASCMV board meeting yesterday, the shelter's director took much time and effort in defending herself against what has come to light about the dogs kept in cages 24/7 in the trailer. She painted the picture as rosy for these dogs because she said it was cooler in the trailer than in the main building and the dogs had windows to look out of. She also blatantly lied that each dog gets out to run in the yard. Even the kennel supervisor told a volunteer the dogs only get out once every morning for no more than 10 minutes when their crates are being cleaned.
ReplyDeleteThe director's rant yesterday was scary on many levels. It showed how uncouth and unprofessional she is, but sadly, the board directing the shelter does not see this. It also didn't help that many of the "yes" people that volunteer at the shelter went up there and talked about how much-improved things at the shelter are. So, these leaders do get mixed messages from the public as well.
There is no doubt this director has to go. Because of a few of us that point out situations that are unacceptable, such as dogs kept long-term in small crates 24/7 in filthy conditions with ZERO socialization and time out of that intense confinement, we are accused of "pointing fingers" at the director and personally attacking her.
I have to say this: I do not personally know the director. I had spent maybe a number of hours trying to talk to her in her office when she first came here. I don't call that an opporitunity to personally know anyone. These are not attacks on her character; they are pointing to serious issues that nobody wants to face.
In today's Las Cruces Sun-News, the director comes out and blatantly says she's going to continue housing dogs in the trailer because she does not think it is cruel and inhumane. That's the twisted world we are faced with fighting here with our leaders and a few ignorant volunteers who blindly go up and say how wonderful the director is.
I would be glad to be one of the first to sign a petition against this shelter's management.
One of the "yes" volunteers got up and said that if Jesus was the director, us advocates would still not be happy. Well, maybe not! If Jesus was doing a poor job at the role of a modern shelter director, we'd have to speak up as well. I have to say the little I did get to know Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock, I can't say I see any character resemblance to Jesus, but when it comes to competent, professional shelter leadership, she does not have what it takes. She proved that yesterday in her public ranting and crocodile tears she was shedding over our rights as citizens to meet with our leaders to discuss issues.
We would be happy if we had a director that both did all they could to save lives while properly and humanely caring for the lives of those housed in the shelter. THAT IS NOT WHAT WE HAVE NOW!
With enough pressure from people change can happen. The Board seems to be made up of people who have little, if any, background in shelter management and don't feel they should have to oversee anything. I hold them equally responsible for the misery of these animals.
ReplyDeleteAs for the shepherd puppy you mention in the beginning of your rant -- it is alive and well and in our rescue. Dr. Beth called From the Heart, as she does on many injured puppies and dogs, and asked us to take it. The minute the dog's stray time was up, she drove the dog to us.
ReplyDeleteAn xray revealed this dog had an OLD HEALED fracture...in fact, he was walking on the leg the day he came to us. He was never in pain in the shelter, but was placed in the splint to ensure no further damage was done to the leg because they did not have an xray machine to assess the injury. You really need to check you facts before you start ranting.
In the past year, we have taken many, many dogs from the shelter at Dr. Beth's request. The Humane Society of El Paso also has taken many dogs. Breed specific rescues have been contacted and taken their breeds. Each one of the rescues has been thoroughly screened (at least we were) as to their spay/neuter, vaccination, medical and placement policies. Seems pretty professional to me.
Also, the shelter up there eats up and spits out directors ... there must be a reason. Seems though, while people are quick to offer criticizm, you don't seem to be offering much in the way of solutions....other than to fire the director. Far better to reach out a helping hand and take the high road than myre in the muck.
Brandy G
From The Heart Rescue
The shepherd was one of the lucky ones. Other dogs have not been so lucky.
ReplyDeletePeople have tried over her tenure to discuss probelms and solutions and have either been ignored or dismissed. I have a hard time believing you can look at the filth that many of those animals live in and believe this is a well run shetler. Or that you can support her decision to continue letting them live that way.
The director is willing to work with select people but won't work with folks she doesn't like including many in foster and rescue who could help the pound save animal lives. The director especially likes people who endorse her with statements like Brandy G made at an ASCMV board meeting telling the board to only listen to the director and pay no mind to animal advocates. That borders on brown nosing and is propaganda at the least coming from a so-called expert. I am very happy about the animals saved and rescued by Brandy G from the pound here. They are truly the lucky ones who escaped the city and county 2 million dollar killing machine.
ReplyDeleteI can only comment on what I have read in articles and what has been reported by an extremely reliable source, close personal friend, and animal welfare advocate that I have known for over 23 years. I am in the business of helping to find solutions, and what I would like to propose is this the following. I would like to see a neutral party assigned to the task of organizing volunteers and their duties at the shelter, as well as the recruitment of new volunteers. This will take the pressure off of the director; if in fact there is any undue pressure on her. Not only will it facilitate some change, but hopefully this will give the recruitment process a little more variety. The board needs to approve this however and that may be difficult to convince them of this. There are several low cost and free negotiating groups/clinics all around the country; perhaps one of these organizations could be contacted to help the negotiating process stay focused. As of now the communication is so broken and it has become a he said she said.
ReplyDeletehttp://samndis.spaces.live.com/
that is so said dr beth spends her time fighting with a bunch of nuts, when she could be trying to rescue more animals.Dogs is all you care about it's a good thing she thinks of cats & all animals.DR Beth has droped the euth rate from 90% to 60%. What have you people done but bitch about her since she started.frank is crying about a report that was made on her first day blammeing her for what DACHS left her.what did he say at the meeting i've been working on drains for 4 yrs why.you should mind you're own problems and let her run the shelter "oh" thats right hssnm wants to run the shelter.they have no exp runnig a shelter. maybe funral home?.So let's waste our time trying to tear her down and not rescue animals what a good christan thing to do.
ReplyDeletedont you people have a tree to go hug somewhere far away.
ReplyDeleteHey anonymous, If you want to make a fool of yourself, that's alright with me, but you really need to get a grip of the English language.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous" is obviously a blind follower friend of the director. How else could he/she defend the status quo of high killing and animals who rot in cages with no enrichment and little public attendance at the shelter to adopt or look. The standard of comparison that "anonymous" uses is a joke because he/she is using the kill rate percentage of the useless director DACHS hired who killed everything in sight before the current director came. The current director warehouses and holds animals for lengthy periods only to kill most anyway or else they succumb to disease. If the director spent time responding constructively to legitimate criticism instead of lengthy rebuttals that don't help anything, we'd get somewhere. But it's not going to happen because the leadership and accountability aren't there. Sadly, taxpayers are stuck with a very expensive killing machine.
ReplyDeleteDr. Beth has to deal with one of the worst counties in the country as far as animal abuse and neglect, and she is doing a damn fine job of it. If you people spent even half the time you spend tearing down Dr. Beth on helping to educate the people who put the animals in the shelter in the first place, the citizens of Las Cruces who keep their dogs chained up outside to have as many litters as they can, or let them run the streets, you might actually see some change start to happen.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous" please say exactly what you mean by the "fine job" the director is doing. Those words are pretty ambiguous. You need to give a listing of life saving programs and services in effect at the shelter, a listing of all the non- profit animal organizations and all foster and rescue groups the director works with and, don't forget, all the community groups the director has volunteering at the shelter or helping with projects. My observation is there is VERY LITTLE community support or participation at the shelter because people don't like "the pound". Lack of public engagement caused by the director who should be the chief public relations and marketing person will keep it a pound. Don't excuse the director for what is inexcusable. People were clamoring to work with the new director when that person first arrived 14 months ago. Many advocates and volunteers hung in a long time hoping things would improve but the reality is the director is not competent in the position hired for. If the director were competent and reasonable, all resources would be utilized in her community and concerns or issues would be looked at constructively instead of defensively and with anger and vindictiveness. Animal advocates do TREMENDOUS work in lifesaving, preventing animals from going to the shelter, spending their own money to help animals, and all the programs and services with the organizations they belong to. It really is awesome what the dedicated network of animals folks in this town do and they give much hope and promise for change. They will prevail, FOR THE ANIMALS sake.
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