In Davidson County, North Carolina, a devastated family wants to know why the local animal shelter accidentally euthanized their 16-month-old puppy named Blaze. Who can imagine the family’s pain as they went to visit their dog at the shelter on Tuesday – only to find out he had been killed?
According to Wxii12News, Rhea Varker’s Australian cattle dog had been under quarantine for biting her nephew earlier in the week, and since Varker was not able to find the dog’s proof of rabies vaccination, she had to leave him at the shelter.
Assistant County Manager Casey Smith said the dog’s death had been the result of a mistake with paperwork.
“Just a mishap with the paperwork. The intake paperwork, this was a bite dog that came in late last week. And when we had the paperwork, sometimes we had interim paperwork from animal control officers that we intake into our official intaking system at the shelter, and we had not done that yet because we only have two people there on the weekend, and a lot of animals that come in and the paprerwork got crisscrossed, and an accident happened.”
The blame for Blaze’s death was left on the cleaning crew who Smith said accidentally put the dog in the wrong kennel.
Smith stated that in the last five years, the shelter has taken in about 20,000 animals, and this is the first time a mistake like this has ever been made. Smith did apologize to the family, but nothing will ever bring Blaze back, and to the family’s eight-year-old child who loved the pup with all his heart, there just isn’t anyway to explain why something so tragic could happen.
The shelter offered the family another dog, but that is little consolation for the loss of Blaze. Now Varker wants a change at the shelter to make sure this never happens again to another family or to another dog. Smith also wants new protocols put into the system and has been very remorseful and deeply saddened by the dog’s death.
Make sure you vaccinate your dog and keep their records handy. One just never knows when an emergency situation might occur.
The North Carolina Department of Agriculture is investigating the incident.
Rest in peace Blaze. We are sorry that humans let you down.
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Wake up!
Why can’t these shelters put a color coded tag on every animal coming in?? Its not that hard !
I WOULD SUE THE C p OUT OF THEM! BY THE TIME I WAS THROUGH i WOULD “OWN” THAT KENNEL!