Animal shelter closes their storefront adoption centers

It was just last June that I wrote about the Las Vegas animal shelter’s new storefront adoption centers.  These satellite centers, located in strip malls around the city, brought a selection of dogs and cats to different parts of the community.  The centers were brightly-lit, clean, and kept convenient hours, making them ideal for people who wanted a new pet and who might otherwise be tempted to shop in a pet store.  I really wanted to work in one of the stores as I thought they were a great idea, but by the time my Green card arrived, I’d already found other work.

It’s good I wasn’t counting on that job as something I could be really dedicated to, because yesterday the last of the satellite centers was closed down, reportedly because Lied Animal Shelter is having financial problems.  These storefront adoption facilities were about the best thing Lied has done for the animals in years, and it’s unforgivable that they’ve been closed, given that financial problems at Lied are the result of well-documented mismanagement.  Don’t forget that Lied is also the facility which was shut down by the HSUS in February, and that resulted in over 1000 animals being euthanized because of disease and overcrowding.  A full report on that incident has just been released by the Humane Society, and it reveals a policy of allowing animals to die rather than euthanizing them in an attempt to maintain an image of being “no-kill”.  Disease was allowed to spread unchecked because it helped reduce the number of animals while allowing the shelter to pronounce that they never euthanized a healthy or adoptable animal.  I haven’t seen the entire report, which I understand is quite lengthy, but I hope to get my hands on a copy of it so I’ll understand more of the details.

The Lied Animal Shelter now has new management, they only hold animals for 72 hours before they can elect to euthanize them, and they have a full-time vet on staff.  It’s hard to know how much has changed, though, because the “professional animal shelter management” world seems fairly politically-incestuous, with a lot of the same people revolving through the doors of different shelters.  I’ve seen criticism that in the upper echelons of management, the same people still have their hands in the funding cookie jar, so it may be that the shelter remains a disaster waiting to happen again.  The good thing is that a lot more people are paying attention now, so maybe problems can be fixed before they reach the level of “crisis”.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the fact that despite its penchant for ostentatious excess, Las Vegas doesn’t have a world-class animal shelter facility.  We should be able to build the most amazing facility in the entire world with the spare change which is dropped on the Strip each day, but it’s never been done.  I’ve never even seen it suggested.  Steven Wynn could built it for the price of one of the paintings he likes to put his elbows through.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 06/28 at 11:32 PM

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