The City of Calhoun Animal Shelter
Although I do not recall the exact date of this inspection, I do know that it was conducted sometime between December 2003 - July 2004.
An animal control facility located in north Georgia that, during my employment, still used gas as a method of euthanasia for it's animals. During an inspection I observed two tall tanks stored inside of the dog run. The Director told me that they hook the hose from the tanks to the dumpster that was located on the other side of the fence, and gassed the animals in order to euthanize them. He pointed out a huge steel lid that had chains on it and said after the animals were put in the dumpster, the lid was lowered down and then they hooked the hose up. I inspected the dumpster and observed it not to have a viewing window, a divider to separate the animals while being euthanized, and the seal around the lid was cracked in several places. The Euthanasia Report 2004 states that all enclosures must have a viewing window to monitor the animals as well as a divider to separate the animals during the euthanasia process.
My supervisor told me that this establishment had been grandfathered in before the Euthanasia regulations went into effect.
I'm not clear on how a dumpster, without a viewing window, nor a divider, can be in compliance, no matter how many grandfathers are involved.
A viewing window is required to ensure the animals can be monitored during the gassing process. A divider is required in order to prevent dogs, and cats, from becoming violent during the gassing and attacking one another.
Per his instructions, I wrote out a violation for the cracked seal around the dumpster and left. What happened to the animals up til the new dumpster seal came, if ever, I do not know. I don't know that much about gas euthanasia but I've been told, like a chemical injection, as long as it is done right, it is painless. I have also heard that the animals suffer horribly during gas euthanasia. It sounds extremely inhumane regardless.
Georgia Department of Agriculture Tommy Irvin Found In Comtempt - Violation of The Department of Agriculture Animal Protection Rules
We've just learned that the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) and its commissioner, Tommy Irvin, have been found in contempt of court by Judge Tom Campbell of Fulton County Superior Court. This ruling comes after a more than seven-month legal battle that began when PETA received reports that dogs and cats were being cruelly and illegally gassed to death by various pounds and shelters in Georgia and that the Georgia Department of Agriculture was not upholding a 17-year-old law, the 1990 Humane Euthanasia Act.
The lawsuit was filed by Law firm Schiff Hardin LLP in Atlanta on behalf of two plaintiffs: a former Clayton County Humane Society employee—whose dog was hit by a car and then killed in one of the gas chambers—and former state representative Chesley Morton, who introduced Georgia’s Humane Euthanasia Act in 1990. PETA sent a cease-and-desist letter to Cobb County on April 5 requesting assurance that the shelter would comply with the law, but the letter and subsequent communications were simply ignored on the basis of a "grandfather clause," which the county incorrectly claimed gave them an exemption from using humane methods of euthanasia.
It is simply incredible that private citizens had to go to court to get the department to abide by the very laws it is charged with enforcing, but the recent announcement that the GDA is finally being held accountable for their actions is a major victory, and hopefully it will help to shed some light on the brazen disregard for the law and for animal suffering that places like Cobb County have been getting away with for years in a crude attempt to deal with the cat-and-dog overpopulation crisis. Euthanasia is a tragic necessity while 6-8 million animals are abandoned in shelters in the U.S. alone every year and breeders continue to manufacture more for profit, but unwanted animals discarded by society must be offered a dignified, humane exit if death is the best we can offer them. There is no excuse for employing inhumane methods which simply prolong and intensify the suffering of these unwanted animals. - The Peta Files
This was apparently long overdue. With the problem establishments that I was dealing with during my employment, I was not aware that the Doa was breaking this particular law. Cobb County was not in my thirteen counties so I never saw this chamber. But I can tell you why I probably was not aware of the Doa being in violation.
At some of the animal control shelters I inspected, right after I was hired, my supervisor accompanied me. I remember hearing him tell these licensees that if they wanted to see what a state of the art gas chamber looked like, go to Cobb Co. Hell, I just assumed everything was on the up and up if my supervisor was giving a sales pitch on it.
Good job, Ray !
I know of one person that, months after this lawsuit was settled, emailed a request to the Animal Protection Division asking for a current list of Georgia shelters still using the gas chamber. She was told, by management, that a list couldn't be released due to it being 'under investigation'.
That excuse is getting old.
This, Georgia Animal Protection Division, is what goes on in a gas chamber, while you are filling out the paperwork marking pass, pass, pass on the "Euthanasia" criteria.
A personal transformation took over my life in 1988, when I was a witness through a small porthole window of an animal shelter gas chamber doing its savage business.
Two of the employees began pulling and tugging larger dogs toward the chamber -- this in itself was savage. The eyes of the dogs were full of fear as they were shoved into a large cylinder with another six dogs, all types. Next, five puppies were placed in the chamber.
Noise. Yelling. Fighting. All scared, they shivered again and again, their eyes huge, their nostrils flaring. They were completely bewildered. One dog in the chamber, a male chow mix about one year old, started snapping at the puppies. All the dogs and puppies were in a desperate struggle, and the gassing had yet to begin.
Then a button was pushed, and the two employees walked away as the chamber machine began pumping out streams of carbon monoxide. The little puppies started to paw at the glass window. After one full minute they started to whine and then produced a piercing squeal. Then the larger dogs started a high, mournful wailing, then a deeper howl that rose in great desperation for 45 seconds.
The time from inception of hell for the dogs and puppies to the completion of their cries of desperation was between two and six minutes.
As the employees walked away, I knew it was my love, my honor, my devotion to animals that I must not blink and watch every second, every animals struggle to avoid death. However, tears from my heart did overwhelm me that tragic morning, and the final insult was having to load the bodies of the dogs and puppies into a pickup truck and haul them to a local garbage dump.
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