Desperate need for help – Gaston Shelter, NC
This post is quite old but the situation at Gaston AC has NOT improved.
Permission granted to forward and cross-post!!
There is an immediate need for a rescue coordinator volunteer at the Gaston County Animal Shelter. Unfortunately, all dogs/cats lives coming into the shelter DEPEND on this non-paid position as shelter management does not have the foresight to see or care about saving dogs/cats lives; it is not now nor has it ever been a priority at this shelter to see that the dogs/cats make it out alive. Shelter management sees the overpopulation of pets as a nuisance to deal with, not as living beings that should be shown compassion and love. It is the animals who are punished, not the uncaring people that continue to allow their animals to breed.
The shelter is only open from 11-5 weekdays (no extended hours for people to come before or after work to see the animals) and only open one Saturday per month. They euthanize EVERY day, sometimes twice depending on how crowded it is. Rescues pulling these animals are usually the only chance they have as many are deemed unadoptable by the judgment of shelter workers without a thorough or repeatable evaluation process. They are proclaimed adoptable or “other” as soon as they are dragged through the door into a building that reeks of urine/feces/death and where dogs are barking and pleading for their lives. It’s truly a traumatic environment that causes all but the very confident animals to retreat and cower into their death sentence of being proclaimed unadoptable. It is especially traumatic for the cats as they are thrown into a pen at the end of the run, so they have to be walked down the loud/echoing aisle past all the barking/shrieking dogs before they are tossed (literally) into a pen with a 5 -10 other cats. When it rains the entire pen gets flooded. There is no heat or air conditioning in the cement/concrete building.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE is there someone who has time to devote to try to get the word out about the dogs/cats coming into this shelter and try to find them a rescue??
It is a HUGE undertaking, but these poor animals have no one else to depend on – the kennel workers and animal control officers at the shelter do not care about these enough to devote any time to this effort at all. They don’t care that they get gassed at the end of the day – plain and simple. It’s so very sad for these animals and the conditions that they have to endure for the 3-5 days that they are there. It is truly a jail for animals and they need our help.
If you or someone you know can help, please have them contact:
Leah at lepodz@yahoo.com or Marcie at buckeyepetlover@gmail.com
It doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you can use a computer and telephone during the day. Rescues from out-of-state and the surrounding tri-state area need to be able to speak to someone during the day via email and telephone to coordinate getting the pets pulled from the shelter, taken to foster homes or boarding kennels, and make arrangements for transport. The Rescue Coordinator does not have to physically do these things, but they must be able to communicate freely with people who can.
The few of us trying to do this have been shut down from emailing and taking calls at work, so we are trying to find a person who is either retired, semi-retired, out-of-work, or who works from home that has some time to spare during the day to help the pets in need.
We can give you all the contact information you need: rescue names, emails, phone numbers; names and numbers of people who transport, pull from the shelter, foster, etc.
Please forward this to anyone you know who might be in a position to help. We are DESPERATE to find someone IMMEDIATELY, as we currently have no one able to freely correspond throughout the day.
Animals will die, for lack of being able to communicate in time, if we can’t find someone to help.
.gif)
