Mass Killing of Dogs in Palm Beach County

In yesterday’s Palm Beach Post, Stacey Singer reports that hundreds of dogs were killed and incinerated due to dog flu (and lack of space). Here’s the situation, according to Singer in "A time to kill? Shelter insists it had no choice":

• Two ill dogs left at Palm Beach County Animal Care & Control were treated and spayed and appeared well. But they soon developed runny noses, were determined to have dog flu, and were killed.
• Animal Control staff, in an effort to contain the spread of the flu, killed and incinerated 529 dogs, which is 172 more than the average monthly rate at the pound.
  • The number here that is really important isn’t 529, though it’s certainly tragic. The important number is 357, which with a little subtraction is the average number of dogs killed monthly at Animal Care & Control.

• "Fifty-six of those dogs were put down because they either had the flu or were exposed to it. Others were killed simply because there was no room to keep them alive," according to Singer.
• The public, as well as veterinary experts, cried foul, and accused Animal Care of acting irresponsibly and simply wanting, in the words of Lt. Dave Walesky, the kennel manager, "a fresh start."

Meanwhile, less than five miles away, at the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, there were 100 cases of dog flu, but they used a different strategy to deal with it:

• They separated dogs with any symptoms from the rest of the dogs.
• They treated the dogs with antibiotics and fluids (at a cost of $300-$400 per dog).

The important number there is the $300-$400.

Gray Matter: Although the instinct of many is to be enraged at Animal Care & Control for killing the dogs, if they don’t have the resources to treat them, they want the public to feel comfortable with adopting dogs, and there are thousands of dogs who cycle through Animal Care, what should they have done?

"Maybe they shouldn’t have killed the healthy ones," some have said. And to that, I respond, "They kill healthy dogs all the time."

Let’s take a couple of steps back and deal with the real problem: we need better laws requiring spaying and neutering, and we need to crack down on puppy mills and other kinds of breeders. The real problem is that we are making too many dogs and allowing too many to make more.