But in the "news", http://www.no-killnews.com/?p=1365, it is reported that Rockwall had a 97% live release rate in August. NOW IN SEPTEMBER ROCKWALL SHELTER HAS A DISTEMPER OUTBREAK!!!! I wonder why.
So famous last words from a "No Kill'er", No Kill News, of:
I’m looking forward to being able to move Rockwall from “No-Kill In Progress” to “No-Kill Achieved” at the end of the year. Which translates into animals having to suffer more than necessary so a bunch of "volunteers" can have their ego trip. Do you think that No Kill News will report on the disease outbreak, thus causing a cease in adoptions while the idiot volunteers want to send exposed dogs into foster care? Do they not think of exposing their own pets and if one of those exposed dogs escapes from the foster, exposing their neighborhoods? No, of course not, they can't see any further than the nose on their faces, if they could see further they would not be Whinonettes.
This is a write-up from Cornell University about distemper and vaccinations. There has always been a strong argument to NOT vaccinate animals coming into a short term holding facility (shelter) from homeless background because, even if you do vaccinate upon arrival, it generally takes 10 - 14 days to reach some reasonable level of immunity. I haven't researched any of these recently but I believe that this is still reasonably accurate information.
The Rockwall volunteers want to vaccinate incoming and put them into foster homes, like the incoming doesn't get exposed to distemper. Again, I don't want a foster in my home until the vaccinations are effective, would you?
And their minds won't let them accept what they have done, instead, just like their puppetmaster, they blame someone else. Of course they are blaming a vet, saying that a vet didn't even examine the dogs before pronouncing a diagnosis of distemper. Although the facebook pages are calling for confirmation of this, none has been offered.
http://www.facebook.com/rockwallpets
Sad news over at the Rockwall Shelter. There has been an out break of distemper. 9 dogs have been put down and there are even reports of the vet that diagnosed it didn't even do an exam! Please read the Rockwall Pets wall for details! Please keep them in your thoughts or prayers.
I'll say a prayer all right. A prayer that lightning strikes and wakes up these fools to what they are doing.
UPDATE: That "No Kill News" seems to be a little slow. There was an update on that blog about what is happening at that shelter but, of course, no admittance as to what the real reason is that caused the outbreak, overcrowding due to the volunteers and their version of "No Kill". This is a comment to that blog's update and it reads very interesting.
"My family visited the Rockwall Animal Shelter on Tuesday, in search of a new dog. We found a sweet pyraneese mix, and after playing with him, we decided to take him home. I was notified that he was heartworm positive, but that his treatment would be paid for. I went through with the adoption, and was planning on giving this dog a second chance, we contacted the vet who would be giving him his treatment, to learn that they didn’t even know when they would have the serum for this rather large dog. It could be months, before they received his medication, due to a shortage of the treatment. I was heartbroken, that I may have to watch this poor dog suffer from heartworms, so my husband contacted the animal shelter, who then informed us of the mysterious respiratory illness that was going around the shelter. We then had to bring the dog back to the animal shelter, so that we did not expose this potential mystery disease to our animals. After reading that they had sick animals on Monday, and we adopted this dog on Tuesday, I am rather upset, that the sick and healthy animals were not already seperated, and being watched carefully, instead of being adopted out!! Now poor innocent animals, are being euthanized due to negligence on the shelter’s part. My concern then was for my other adopted dog, which we have had for a year, whom we had vaccinated, apparantely a dog needs to have a series of 3 shots before they are 100% immune to the disease!! I do not know this dogs past, so I am praying he will be ok, and we are boostering all of our dogs currently for precaution! We are just pretty upset, because we were never contacted by the animal shelter about the potential threat of this deadly disease!! Pray that these animals who are not showing signs, are not euthanized, and instead watched carefully before finding new homes!"
Rancho Cucamonga had an outbreak when they went "No Kill" and they also failed to tell people. The shelter notified the local vets but still parents were wondering how their child came down with ringworm. This is unethical but since when could you call "No Kill" ethical?
5 comments:
I posted the comment above about adopting the pyraneese mix, and I have nothing against the No Kill policy, I have something against animal shelter employees, and the city for not having at least one animal, who was sick, tested before euthanizing 11 animals!!! We spoke to the shelter who advised us that testing was too expensive!! I guess it's cheaper to just euthanize!
Anon, first let me thank you for adopting from a shelter and I hope the new one is working out for you.
I haven't really seen any evidence of anything, testing, diagnosis, results. The point is that when you go "No Kill" there will be disease outbreaks, happens all the time to those shelters. When this happens, the animals suffer, they may end up with life altering problems from the disease, it stops adoptions and creates even more overcrowding. It is a vicious circle.
And I have in my 5 decades of rescue realized that the general public, which includes yourself, Anon:35, jumps to conclusions because they are unaware of how shelters operate. Keep in mind that the shelters answer to the taxpayer and not all people who pay taxes have pets. They aren't that crazy about paying for medical for animals when they see the budget cuts for services for children and the elderly. If you had to chose to save the life of a child or a dog, which one would you chose? Yes, it is cheaper to euthanize. The politicians have to listen to their constituents and when they are gripping about the high cost of maintaining animals, then the tests are too expensive. There's usually more to the story than you realize.
I know distemper quite well and in many cases, it is not best to save their life. Not when it means they will spend their life in less quality. Distemper can leave a dog with many problems. The dog then becomes unadoptable and the choice to send it to a "sanctuary", another nice word for a cage, prison. A dog without a master does not have a life and sentencing them to less than they deserve is immoral. I've said it before and I will say it now, there are far worse things that can happen to a pet than being euthanized in a shelter. I know, I have seen those things. I don't wish it on anyone to see what I have seen, but people need to, then they will realize the same thing. There are times when the needle can't go in fast enough. Let's hope you never have to experience those nightmares.
I have gone through complications of Distrmper with a stray we took into our home four years ago. We were not aware that this dog had distemper until two years later, when he started having seizures. We were forced to put him down, but he had a chance at a very nice life! My family and I'm sure others would have been glad to pay for testing of at least one animal at the shelter, who showed signs of being sick! Not only could it have saved healthy animals lives, but informed the public of the true disease that was spreading!!
Anon:24, that's really nice that you have the money and can afford to pay for testing. However, if you will read other posts and see that these "No Kill" shelters are selling pets for $10, do you think those people looking for a bargain will pay for testing, or for that matter, even bother to take a pet to the vet?
Are you aware that vaccinations for distemper takes about 2 weeks to become effective? Do you think a shelter can afford or deal with closing their doors for 2-3 weeks? You don't understand the ramifications of a distemper outbreak in a shelter situation. It's not as easy as saying I will pay for a test, not even close.
And what if the outcome of treating a dog with distemper is like yours? People don't want to adopt problems, they want a healthy dog. And if those dogs did come out of distemper with problems such as you experienced, and no one wanted to adopt them, what happens then? Send them to a sanctuary? Oh, then sentence them to a lifetime of living in a cage, without the hope of a Master. A dog is nothing without his Master and to keep a dog from one is torment, torture. Yes, there's a lot more to the story, Anon.
I am way late on his but will post for the record. One of the reasons the vet did not test was that he knew by symptoms that it was within a range of diseases all of which he would treat the same! Testing was an unneeded expense much like your own Dr. does not test everytime you have a sore throat. And yes it takes two weeks or so for the first shot to be effective and that is only about 80% effective. So if you take in 1000 animals 200 are still at risk after 2 weeks! It amazes me how many people who say they love animals suddenly become Jr. vets without any vet knowledge at all and then wonder why they are not welcome in a shelter. For the record too let me state the Rockwall facility was a new multi million dollar facility that took many years to get the bond election passed so the citizens were not exactlly pounding down the door to spend money. The facility was built so that incomming animals could be isolated and if ill would not infect the entire kennel. Prior to "No Kill" the shelter had gone 4 years with no disease! After no kill their was this outbreak and then another in 2012 even worse. And yes all due to animal overcrowding and having to mix healty animals with incoming animals. So for any politicions reading this going "No Kill" overnight simply to apease a few will always result in this because the "germs" did not read the book. Also for those who advocate for animals realize the puppies and the old dogs are the ones to go first and it is not a pretty death. A final thought. The people that passed that information on to mister Winograd knew full well why the vet made his decision but in their zeal to make the shelter look bad choose to ignore that.
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