Animal Resources responds to allegation that shelter threatened to euthanize kitten if a foster could not be found the same day
Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – In an email regarding a social media post about a resident’s attempt to take a kitten to the Alachua County Animal Resources (ACAR) shelter, Interim Shelter Director Dianne Sauve told Alachua County Commissioners that the messaging “should have been softer.”
The social media post shown below (with the poster’s name redacted) was sent to Commissioners on July 12:
The post reads, “I was once an advocate for this place but can no longer do so. Last night I found a 3 week old kitten in the middle of the median on the highway. She was in a dangerous spot and crying so I could not leave her. I work 7 days a week also have 12 cats; I was unable to give her the care she needs so I called Alachua Animal Control. They told me I could bring her in but if they could not find a foster for her THAT DAY THEY WERE GOING TO EUTHANIZE HER. So they were going to kill a healthy kitten rather than deal with her for more than 24 hours. I did find another rescue to take her, fortunately, but for them to so casually kill baby animals simply because they don’t want to deal with it is Absolutely Unethical and Ridiculous. DO NOT BRING YOUR ANIMALS HERE OR THEY WILL KILL THEM RATHER THAN DEAL WITH THEM. Absolutely despicable. This place used to care about animal lives but make excuses now to kill them.”
Sauve’s email to Commissioners said the post was made by someone who is known to ACAR and who frequently brings cats and kittens to the shelter. She wrote, “While I cannot speak to the exact conversation between [the poster] and our customer service representative, it was reported by [the poster] that he was told that a kitten that young would require around-the-clock formula feeding by bottle. My understanding from our employee is that [the poster] elevated the conversation and demanded to know an outcome if we could not find a volunteer to handle feeding throughout the night. Although we have not had to make such a decision to date, [the poster] was told that euthanasia could occur.”
Sauve said she reached out to the poster for further discussion, “but he was not receptive.” She added, “I also found that our messaging should have been softer, and I will endeavor to make that improvement with staff.”
“Post was made by someone who is known to ACAR and who frequently brings cats and kittens to the shelter.” The ‘someone’ has twelve cats already; how do we know they aren’t breeding them and then taking those they don’t want to ACAR to get rid of them? —#@*%! They should be charged for dropping off the cats.
Crazy cat 🐈 lady…
This is not uncommon for kittens under 6 weeks old. Three week old kittens need to be bottle fed every 4 hours and if there’s no foster available, the kittens will die because there’s no one at the shelter working 24 hours a day. The best thing to do is leave kittens alone if they look healthy even if you don’t see a mother nearby, and if they are in distress, how about keeping them yourself until they’re at least 6-8 weeks old and can be spayed or neutered instead of dumping them off? Why does everyone want a solution that doesn’t involve them doing any work themselves? There are plenty of resources out there about this, please educate yourself and become part of the solution.
Maybe if the same philosophy could be implemented downtown…
Just sayin’
Law enforcement can drop our downtown problem off at the jail asap!…no waiting!
If you don’t like that philosophy, then take one home for a day and you will be done with BS nonsense fast!
Quote “ … I work 7 days a week also have 12 cats”.
Is this person single or neglecting her cats?
I would have suggested dumping the kitten at Operation Catnip’s HQ ( which is in the Duckpond hood), where plenty of NGO admins have civic awareness yard signs, and admins live at. It’d be more humane. There should be a donation bin in there someplace.