Death of Shelter Dog in Pennsylvania Sparks Outrage

PITTSBURGH - Dec. 15, 2013 - PRLog -- The death of “Blue” the Pit Bull Thursday morning at Animal Friends Shelter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania created a media firestorm that polarized the pet-loving community. Battle lines were drawn over the shelter’s decision to euthanize the dog after another dog was attacked and seriously injured by “Blue”. Long considered a “No-Kill” facility, their reluctance to allow local trainer Paul V. Anthony to take and “rehab” the dog stirred another controversy over dog training methods and tools.

Veteran Dog Trainer Linda Kaim of Lionheart K9 was asked for her opinion of the recent events. Having worked in both the shelter community and as a private dog trainer for almost 40 years, Kaim agreed to offer insight to both sides of the argument.

“It’s understandable that the Shelter, in the execution of its operational charter, would not allow the dog to be made available to the public, but they need to make a critical analysis of their own operating procedures to assure that something like this doesn’t happen again. I think it’s unfortunate that the shelter determined the dogs’ life should be ended after warehousing him for 11 months. The shelter freely admits that the incidents that invoked the death sentence were human errors and in the first incident where a dog was actually killed, I believe the statement was made that the first dog actually attacked “Blue”, who was on-leash at the time of the incident. The second attack came months later, and was again the cause of human error. “Blue” escaped his own confinement and attacked another dog that was passing by. That dog apparently survived,” Kaim stated.

Having worked for shelters for many years, Ms Kaim also added, “It’s a bold statement that they were trying to train this dog and had ‘made great progress’ in the 11 months they had him in custody, but it would occur to me that if they were having issues of that magnitude, they probably would have been far better off looking at other training alternatives that address the problem a little more succinctly. Training with treats is great, but it is important that a dog, any dog, get adequate feedback by interrupting inappropriate behavior and being more proactive in what we expect from them behavior-wise. This nonsense that a tool is bad or inhumane and shouldn’t be used is simply not an acceptable excuse any more. If the dog is worth 11 months of tying up resources and man-hours, it would seem to me that those resources would have been better spent on locating alternative solutions much sooner than waiting for the dog to attack yet another dog,” she said.

“The media outrage is expected, from people who don’t understand the pressure placed on shelters who warehouse and attempt to re-home as many dogs as they can afford to. This is a heavily funded shelter, but by the same token, you don’t make an 11 month commitment to an animal, to hold him up as your poster child at the sacrifice of helping other animals, and then destroy him out of hand because you are too opposed to a tool or a philosophy. It’s foolishness. Dogs die every day unnecessarily because of emotional trope that shelters and rescues think will alienate their donors. I think the more dogs you are able to help would be a sure-fire way to get more donations, personally,” Kaim concluded.

Miss Kaim went on to say “It’s unreasonable for any shelter to put forth as much effort as this one did for one dog and not expect fallout when they make the decision to euthanize. It is their right to do so, but making headlines over this dog, nurturing a followship for this dog because of his personal story and then setting him up to fail is pretty startling. It’s not the first time it will happen, nor the last, but their transparency needs to also include the expertise of people not on their immediate payroll to provide alternatives for the truly difficult dogs in their care, or to openly admit that dogs will be euthanized for behavior beyond their scope to deal with, and why.”

Submitted by: The Accountability Project, Defending Responsible Animal Ownership Through Advocacy

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