Be Humane

Hu·mane

adjective

Characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed

synonyms

Merciful, kind, kindly, kindhearted, tender, compassionate, gentle, sympathetic; benevolent, benignant, charitable

antonyms

Brutal

I started working for the Amarillo-Panhandle Humane Society just about a year ago, give or take a couple of weeks. I was already somewhat familiar with the facility, having performed my volunteer hours there in order to gain my Certification to become a Dog Trainer. In addition to that, I'd been there several times just being a resident of Amarillo.

The Humane Society is essentially the adoption arm of Amarillo's Animal Control. APHS is housed on the same property as Animal Control, and must therefore abide by the City's rules and regulations. This means it is a kill facility.

When a stray animal is picked up by Animal Control, it has three days to be reclaimed by its owners. If it has a name tag, rabies tag, or microchip, the owners are contacted and have five days to retrieve their animal. Unfortunately, the identifiable pets are in the minority. (There are a total of 8 buildings on the property with one reserved for tagged animals; the building is smaller and usually has the fewest dogs in it.) Even then, the owners often refuse to pay the impoundment fees and leave their animals there to die.

The lucky ones who are extended by the Humane Society are granted an extra five day stay in hopes that the small amount of time will be enough to find them a new, loving home. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Through breed specific rescues and external foster programs, an additional number of animals get a ticket out. Because of the Humane Society's new Executive Director and the staff she assembled, adoption rates are higher and euthanasia rates were lower while I was there than they had been in the history of its existence.

Saving lives was important work for me. It was also the hardest work I've ever done. Not just physically (working outside in snow or 100+ degree heat, carrying huge dogs who refuse to walk on a leash because they're so frightened they just shut down), but mentally and emotionally. The staff tried to prepare me for what I was about to endure with pep-talks and warnings... but no amount of second-hand stories can prepare you for the horror or the atrocities that humans do to animals on a daily basis.

My first day on the job, I went with a co-worker to pick up a litter of kittens from the vet. The vet had diagnosed them with feline leukemia. Perfectly happy and healthy kittens are euthanized every day because there aren't enough homes. We certainly couldn't adopt out the sick ones. We took them directly to the EU room and my partner asked me, “Do you want to wait and watch?” Do I want to watch them die? That's enough for day one, thanks. I'll skip it. (Although I would later carry several animals back who were severely injured and hold them while they were injected so that they would know someone was with them. I figured if it was going to be their last breath, they should know that someone cared. Even if it made me cry.)

At the end of my first week, I was given a stack of “yellows” (the carbon copy we received of the intake form from Animal Control) and told to go match them up to the puppies in the kennels of the puppy building. If there wasn't a dog matching the description on the sheet, I marked a blue line through it and kept counting. Those puppies hadn't been adopted. They hadn't been reclaimed. I was counting dead puppies. I drank myself to sleep that night.

Some time during my first month, a family came in to reclaim their missing pit bull. I was relieved, knowing that more of those die than any other type of dog. One more reclaim is one less death sentence. I went to the kennel with the family to leash their dog and could tell the dog was horribly frightened, even at the sight of his own family. Something was wrong. What dog wouldn't be happy to finally see his family and get busted out of jail? As we got closer to the door of the Humane Society, one of the bigger kids said something ugly and kicked the dog. I stopped, stuck my finger in his face, and said as sternly as I could without yelling, “Do NOT kick the dog!” He was stunned for a second but I could tell it hadn't made much of a difference. Within a few minutes, I found out why. I watched the dad of the family drag the dog out to their truck, pick him up by the skin of his neck and his back legs, and pile drive him face first into the bed of the truck. I was FURIOUS.

I went next door to Animal Control to tell them what I'd seen. “Isn't anybody gonna DO anything!?” Nope. According to Texas state law, the dog is that man's property. He can do anything to it that he wants. I was told to let it go. Walk away. Don't get involved. It's none of your business. “If you actually CARE about this job, you'll lose your damn mind.” The Director of AC tried to console me by telling me to give it about a week and if I still remembered, I could have an officer dispatched to their address to do a welfare check on the dog. I wasn't going to forget.

Exactly one week later, I asked dispatch to send an officer out for a welfare check. The dog was outside on a chain, dead in their yard. No tickets. No charges of animal cruelty. No prosecution. NOTHING. “Let it go?” I couldn't.

I came home that night and vented my frustrations on Facebook. I posted a video of L7's song “Shit List” with a caption naming the owners of the dog. “This is for …... whose dog is dead now because I didn't stab them in the face when I had the chance.” (The face stabbing isn't really a thing I would have done. I admit I was being emotional.) Animal Control supervisors saw it and called MY supervisor who then called me and said I had been instructed to remove it immediately. “They might know she posted it, and we can't have that.” I was actually hoping that someone I knew would forward it to them. I wanted them to know I posted it. I wanted them to know that someone was watching and that what they had done was deplorable. Legally, I wasn't even allowed to publicly humiliate them. Within a week, my supervisor had a new list of employee regulations and guidelines we all had to sign, including the promise that we would never speak of or mention anything regarding business of the shelter in public or on social media.

I cried almost every day. Every face behind every kennel trying to claw their way out while screaming for affection would seep their story into my soul. The heart-wrenching indifference of humans was turning me into one of those animals who saw people as the predators. Because I cared - just as I had been warned - my sanity was in serious jeopardy.

I was regularly called a “murderer” for working in a kill shelter. It didn't matter that I poured everything I had into my job and often went above and beyond what it took to get every animal I could into a decent home. Nobody who works for the Humane Society or Animal Control WANTS to see animals die. They certainly don't enjoy it. An overwhelming majority of them are on medication because of it, myself included. It's because of the general public – not the animal staff – that thousands of animals in our area per year have to die. They die because of neglect. They die from starvation by people who don't realize they need to eat every day. They die from lack of medical treatment. They die because people have litter after litter after litter of unwanted puppies who have no homes. They die because people can't be bothered with flea and tick treatments. They die because they chewed on a rug when they didn't have any toys. They die because they're given as gifts to people who didn't want them. They die because people don't have fences and dogs break chains. They die because people let their dogs out and when they get picked up, they don't want to pay their tickets.

The people at Animal Control aren't the bad guys. I've gone to bat for them publicly on more than one occasion. They have incredibly hard jobs and get bashed way more often than they deserve. Then there came a time when they needed me to do it again, but I'd signed that nifty “shut-it” clause. If I wrote anything in their defense, it would first have to be approved by my immediate supervisor, then the board of directors for HS, then finally the City Commission. I wound up posting my story anonymously.

The people at AC are there to keep people and animals safe. Sure, you're upset about your tickets, but would you rather have had your dog hit by a car? Possibly picked up by a stranger who tossed it into a dog fighting ring? (Those aren't just Pit Bulls, by the way. People use Boxers, Dalmatians, Ridgebacks, Rottweilers, Dobermans, German Shepherds, cattle dogs, and even smaller ones who would never be seen as “vicious” by normal standards. Having a Beagle or a Yorkie doesn't keep them safer from sociopaths.) Or perhaps left to their own devices, roaming the streets for months until they starve to death? Is THAT better? No, it isn't. At least when they're picked up and put in a kennel they have safety from the elements, food and water until you come to get them. IF you come to get them. If not, it is then squarely on the shoulders of the Humane Society staff to do their best to clean up the mess with which you couldn't be bothered.

One day I was walking through the Quarantine building for sick and injured animals. I don't remember what I was looking for but what I found knotted my stomach. At first, I couldn't tell if it was the worse case of mange I'd ever seen or if it was something else. My fears were confirmed when it was decided this boy had actually been set on fire. I knew that nobody was going to reclaim him. I knew that he would be dead by the end of the week. All I could do was talk to him and try to comfort him with pain pills and treats.

In this particular instance, I knew that no cruelty charges would ever be filed. No one knew who owned him and nobody knew who did this to him. Nothing would ever be done to the monsters who sealed this dog's fate. I'm positive they're roaming the streets today and this couldn't have possibly been their only victim. Granted, that's me assuming this wasn't an accident. It could have been, but I don't find it very likely.

People often forget that there is a direct correlation between animal abuse and people abuse. People living in a household with someone who can do this to an animal, will likely face domestic violence issues themselves. That's not just me being emotional about it - it's a FACT.

There was another case with a dog named “Sponge Bob.” He came in with a broken jaw and a dried up, dangling eye. He'd been that way for a while. The owner signed him over to be euthanized because she didn't want to pay the vet bill. The Humane Society decided to pay for it and got him to a vet. According to the vet, the dog wasn't hit by a car as the owner claimed must have happened. The break to his jaw was too clean. And since it was the eye on the opposite side of the broken jaw that had come out, the vet determined that the dog was most likely kicked with such force to the jaw that his eye had been dislocated from the socket. Now, because I didn't personally see what happened, I was told not to make any declarations or assumptions which is usually the wise decision. However, once the previous owner of the dog admitted that she had seen her grown, 40+ year old son repeatedly kick her animals, there was very little doubt in my mind as to whom the offender was. And wouldn't you know it, as soon as the vet bills had been taken care of through the generous donations of strangers, the woman decided she wanted the dog back. 

Nobody saw it happen though, so it couldn't be proved. His mother certainly isn't going rat out her own son. Once again, animal cruelty charges won't be filed. And I was once again reprimanded for being too sensitive.

When DO animal cruelty charges get filed? That's the million dollar question I'm still trying to figure out. APHS employs the ONE person who is certified to investigate animal cruelty in the top twenty-six counties in Texas. ONE girl – twenty-six counties. Needless to say, she's a little overwhelmed.

The trick to this is that the Humane Society can only investigate inquiries outside Amarillo city limits. Since that's the case, the sheriff's department of the offender's county must first be contacted. If the Sheriff doesn't feel like picking up the case because his county doesn't have the time or resources (or give-a-damn) to deal with it, it's out the window. There are endless amounts of red tape that prevent these prosecutions.

Earlier this year we were involved with some hoarding seizures from a woman in Dalhart. Our cruelty investigator had been dealing with this woman for four years and couldn't get anything done to her. There were finally enough people involved that the news outlets started paying attention. Once the spotlight was on the officers, they had to do something. After THREE seizures back to back on different properties, more than a hundred animals in total were confiscated. She finally served a few days in jail.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/20628819/nearly-70-animals-seized-from-dalhart-women-for-possible-cruelty

Aside from that one case, I haven't really seen any others prosecuted. I've never heard of ONE inside the city limits. Why is that? “It's none of your business.” Well, then whose business IS it?

Amarillo Animal Control officers are allowed to give tickets for inadequate food, shelter, and water. That's about it. Their hands are tied because there aren't any laws in place to back them up. Even if there were laws in place in defense of the animals, AC is only there to write tickets. They can't prosecute any of them. That would be the Potter County District Attorney's office. Someone needs to ask them why they're letting people get away with murder.

Some of the more observant readers may have noticed that I previously mentioned I haven't been legally allowed to speak about any of these things. “What makes you able to talk about them NOW?”

They can't fire me now. Here's why:

On Tuesday, July 2, I went to work just like every other day. We've recently been painfully understaffed and it was often down to me and one other girl in the office (who is due to have her baby in 2 days, which left me with a lot of the legwork). I took a call from a sobbing and belligerent woman in Indiana because her pit bull had shown up in our tagged building. I went next door to the AC office to check on the dog's paperwork before I could decide if it was worth the effort to try and put together a transport for the dog across the country.

While I was standing there, a man came in with another pit bull to drop it off. He said he was moving and couldn't take it with him. It happens every day. Knowing that “owner donates” who are dropped off with AC are taken straight to the back room to be put down, the girl behind the counter said, “Sheaaaa, come look at this beautiful dog! Could you guys put him up for adoption?” I exhaled a sigh of exhaustion and went around the counter to see the dog, even though I knew he had about a 1% chance of ever being adopted (and that's a 1% chance IF he's exceptionally well-mannered and has been perfectly socialized). I knelt down sideways and reached my hand out for him to sniff it. He growled. Studying animal behavior is what I do every day. It's not just a hobby for me. I knew exactly what that dog was thinking and precisely why he reacted the way he did. He was scared senseless and had NO idea what was going on. His owner obviously didn't know that or didn't care and proceeded to smack the daylight out of his dog. Right in the face. Right in front of me. 

Imagine being less than 1/4 the size of your protector. Now imagine being dragged into a strange place and not knowing why. Imagine only being able to sense that something is wrong and that your life is about to change drastically without being able to do anything about it. Imagine cowering in fear. Imagine being able to hear hundreds of other animals crying simultaneously just outside the door. Imagine being able to smell the rotting corpses of the other animals who didn't get adopted out and wondering if you were next. Imagine vocalizing your fear in the only way you know how to, and then getting beaten in the face for it by the only person on earth who is supposed to care for you.

Within a fraction of a second, I DID imagine all those things. I felt that dog's heart racing inside my own chest. I was helpless and angry and disgusted, all at the same time. And I snapped.

Before I knew what was happening, I saw my hand raise itself into the air. My brain flickered a futile synapse, “Stop!” But before the command of logic had processed, it was too late. The damage had been done and could not be reversed.

As rumors spread, surely the legend of what happened that day will grow. Years from now, I will have knocked out the man's teeth and given him a concussion. That's not really what happened. Dude got popped upside the head. It wasn't any harder than a mother smacking the hand of her toddler for picking up a piece of candy it shouldn't have... if that toddler is muscular and 6'3” tall.

I went on about my business. Back at the Humane Society office, I called next door and apologized about the happenings. The girl who answered said that the same man was on his way to our office. He was there before she finished her sentence.

I gave him our intake sheet for him to fill out but wanted him to know that I was doing him a favor. I apologized for my reaction while I pulled out my business card with a picture of my dog Beau on it. I told the man, “This is my dog.” I pointed at pictures on the wall of my other two (now deceased) pits and said, “Those were my dogs.” He said, “You got pits?” Yes, I do. And that's why I'm sensitive about their abuse. We went back and forth and I promised I would do everything I could to help get his dog into a new home. He thanked me for my help and shook my hand. I thought that was the end of it. It almost was.

At closing time, I saw my boss come in the office with the Vice President of the Humane Society board. I didn't take the time to consider it odd because I was in the middle of an adoption with some other people. Everyone was smiling and laughing and taking pictures. I congratulated them and they went on their way.

Then I heard, “I need to see you in my office.” Okay. Even in that instance I still had no idea anything was wrong. I casually said, “What's up?” She looked at me with confusion and disappointment and said, “Did you HIT somebody today!?” Oh. That. Yeah. I guess I wasn't supposed to do that, huh? Is that gonna be a problem? “You did it AT Animal Control, ON city property, AND in front of witnesses. It's a HUGE problem.” I hung my head in shame as I finally came to process the situation. I knew I couldn't explain why I did what I did, and I certainly couldn't defend it or justify it. I looked at her and said, “I understand you gotta do what you have to do.” Because my supervisor is also a very dear friend to me, I know it put a dagger in her heart to tell me, “I have to let you go.” I had put her in the position where she didn't have any other choice. I'd finally become too much of a liability. It wasn't the first time the word “liability” had been tossed in my direction, but it was the last I'd hear it in that building. We all knew from day one it was only a matter of time... and the time had come.

All too often I heard the words, “I don't know how you do it; I couldn't do it.” Well, apparently I couldn't do it either. Not for much longer than a year.

I only sulked for a day or two before I started seeing it as a gift. “Emancipation” is a fitting word. My heart wanted a way out but my mind kept telling me I was needed there. The way in which it finally unraveled was the easiest ticket the universe could have possibly handed me. It kept me from leaving in the back of a cop car or in a straight jacket. Either of the aforementioned routes would have been highly unpleasant, although highly plausible as well. I don't begrudge anyone on staff for the way things happened. That was all MY bad and I'll own it. I still love, respect, and miss them dearly. Someone has to keep doing the work that I'm not able to do.

I wanted more time to read and study. I've got that now. I wanted more time to do the job I love – training people and their dogs. I've got that now. I longed for the ability to use what I learned in my year at the Humane Society as an opportunity to teach people through writing about it. I've got that now. As for my sanity? That has yet to be determined.

Feel free to follow my training adventures at https://www.facebook.com/DogTrainingBySheaWhite