What Are Your Feelings About Animal, Care and Control?

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I was reflecting on that horrific story about the pet massacre that took place in Puerto Rico recently and had done a discussion about it a week ago. You can see it here. http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1322061.aspx Then I noticed in the top news stories posted here the same topic was made, and once again I felt my anger about it all. To recap, Puerto Rico's animal care and control went into one town and siezed all the pets from pet owners that lived in projects that had severe no=pet clause. Instead of taking the pets to the animal care and control shelter they instead just dumped the pets off a bridge to their deaths. The whole thing made me think about Animal Care and Control in general. I'll admit I'm no great fan of theirs. Number one they ARE a kill shelter, but as many of my pet rescuer friends have told me, that if you think many of the no-kill animal shelters are truly no-kill think again. There are just too many unwanted pets and too few people willing to adopt pets. The statistics are in general, that for every single pet, from every single shelter is to be adopted every single person in America alone would have to adopt at least Nine pets. From the Humane Society website I got this statistic How many animals enter shelters each year? And how many are euthanized? The HSUS estimates that animal shelters care for between 6–8 million dogs and cats every year in the United States, of whom 3–4 million are euthanized. This is certainly a tragedy. There are simply not enough responsible homes for all of these wonderful, innocent animals. At this point in time, it would be impossible to humanely house every unwanted animal in the United States. Also is this How long are animals held at an animal shelter before being euthanized?Most shelters don't set a maximum amount of time they will hold an animal. In the vast majority of cases, decisions about euthanasia are based on the adoptability of the animal and the space available to humanely house the animal at the shelter. When an animal arrives as a stray, there is usually an established holding period to allow the animal's owner a chance to find him. This stray holding period is often set by law and varies from community to community. The HSUS recommends that shelters hold stray animals for a minimum of five operating days, including a Saturday. After the stray holding period, staff should evaluate the animal to see if he is healthy, friendly, and adoptable. If he is, and space is available at the shelter, they should hold him and try to find him a new home. Rather than giving him a time limit, the shelter should strive to ensure that he remains healthy and adoptable. If the animal becomes stressed, aggressive, or sick at the shelter, or if space becomes a problem, euthanasia may be considered. You can see the whole article here: http://www.hsus.org/pets/animal_shelters/common_questions_about_animal_shelters_and_animal_control.html#3 Now we come to my beef with Animal Care & Control. They claim that they euthanize pets "Humanely"...to that I say bullcrap. The so-called humane way of euthanizing a pet is just too darn expensive for the thousands of pets that go into AC&C to be humanely put down. THEY STILL USE GAS CHAMBERS to kill off the unwanted pets. One time a friend and I were walking toward the main large street in my neighborhood, when this gigantic long-trailer Mac truck with the Animal Care & Control logo zoomed by. My friend said "You know what that is, don't you?" No, I didn't. She said that's the truck that takes the dead bodies of all the pets that were euthanized to the dump. My jaw dropped and honestly I began shaking, thinking of all the dead pets that were killed off and in that truck. Yes, there are too many unwanted pets, but if they are going to be euthanized, can't they at least be humanely put down, instead of shoving them into gas chambers? I have a personal beef with AC&C. Unfortunately my mother had created an over pet population which should never have happened to begin with, and twice we were threatened with eviction. For a long time I was reaching out to many rescuers to at least take in one cat each but none helped out until practically zero hour before real eviction could have taken place. Wonderfully several pet rescuers did come to my help and took many of my kitties and I'm in constant contact with them and they tell me all cats are doing great. Unfortunately, before this happened, our lawyer was ansty pantsy, and told us to get the cat population down, like pronto, so yes, AC&C came into the action. Now fortunately, yet another rescuer was tracking the cats as they went in and she was getting many out and now has them, but not all. Some were immediately put down due to age mainly. The worse was the fate of Porthos. Whenever the AC&C agent came, and it usually was the same one, I was the one, who at least handled the cats to put them into the cages. Then one day, another agent came, and I wasn't able to reach Porthos so he took this metal clasper type thing which went around the neck of an animal and dragged him out and put him into the steel cage. Later that night, I got a call from the rescuer, and she asked me, did you have a cat named Porthos, and I said yes, and she proceeded to tell me that they had to put him down right away, due to severe injuries he had.....He had severe bruises on his back and a broken jaw! I can't tell how friggin guilty I felt that this wonderful cat, perfectly healthy and maybe adoptable and could have been rescued by my rescuer friend had this fate on him. After that I vowed I wasn't going to have AC&C come and take anymore of our cats, which freaked out our lawyer no end..she kept screaming at me to get the population down to just two cats. But I didn't give a shat...no way was AC&C going to get anymore cats. Thankfully the other rescuers helped me out and I was able to place the remaining cats with them Now don't get me wrong, not all AC&C agents are hideous monsters...not all are like the ones in Puerto Rico, or that agent who abused one of my cats. Many actually went to help the Katrina pets that had been abandoned. However, upon the rescuer's suggestion she told me to file an official complaint against the agent as this was outright animal abuse on HIS part and I was later told he was fired from his job as it turned out he had created other "incidents" with pets as well. Sorry this is so long winded...but here's the thing. What are YOUR feelings about Animal Care & Control in general? Do you think moves should be made to at least turn their status of kill shelter to a no-kill one? Don't forget, not that long ago, even ASPCA WAS a kill shelter and is no longer I have a picture of Porthos...no there was nothing wrong with his eye,..he was winking at me when I took the photo