I Am Not a Thing
May 7, 2011
I am a shelter pet. You may not know my history and I can’t tell you but I was probably someone’s pet before I got here. And I am waiting to be someone’s pet again. I am only here temporarily so you can protect me from harm while I wait for my family to find me. I do not have plague germs on me and although I may be scared of this place, I won’t hurt you. Please handle me with the same care you would handle someone’s beloved pet. Because that’s who I am.
May 7, 2011 at 2:38 pm
I was in your beautiful city last year and had a wonderful time and met some fantastic people. What I see in these phots CANNOT be the BEST you can do for animals. Please use compassion towards these creatures who have no options without people stepping up to give them a hand and some love and concern. Given the widespread negative publicity your shelter is receiving, I believe it in your best interests as well as the animals, to improve conditions, make animals visible and available for adoption. Please seek HELP from the huge, widespread online community if you are unable to meet the needs of the animals without help. Finally, I cannot believe that everyone working in your facility is heartless and cruel…Those of you who CARE about the innocent creatures…PLEASE do SOMETHING about this situation. Thank you for reading my concerns. I hope to see big changes very soon in your facility.
May 7, 2011 at 5:51 pm
This absolutely breaks my heart. I live with four beautiful older cat girls and the thought that they might get lost and end up being treated like this is the stuff of nightmares.
Dear God, please stop the inhumanity. Please stop the killing.
May 9, 2011 at 12:37 pm
I feel the same way db. The thought of one of my five cats – 3 of whom are elderly, being treated like that makes me sick.
May 7, 2011 at 9:15 pm
AARGH! I so want to get in my car, drive the eight or so hours to break down the doors of this place! I want to place catch pole nooses around the “workers” necks and drag them down cold, wet has. I want to pull them around by the skin of their necks and cram them into a size too small cages where they can lay in their own waste for days on end without food, water, or any kind human contact. If they still don’t get “it” I’ll drag them down that cold, wet hall again to the kill room. There is NOTHING Mr. Pepper can say to excuse the way these dogs and cats are being held and carried. How would you feel if these were your own pets? Would you want them treated this way??? Get rid of these cold-hearted bastards you have and bring in animal lovers!
May 8, 2011 at 8:44 am
meet ya there
What I want to do is illegal and would probably land me in jail!
May 7, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Added the intial because I’ve noticed there is another Erica on here. My mom and I live in the Memphis area and she’s a pet sitter. She sent out a mass email to a little over one hundred contacts, that’s a little over one hundred animal lovers in the Memphis area who hopefully forward it on and show up on Wednesday….
May 8, 2011 at 7:39 am
There’s a dog out of his cage laying in the hallway on the Main Area 3 web cam and it’s just breaking my heart that I can’t get to him. I feel so useless when it comes to these animals and the way they are treated at this shelter.
May 8, 2011 at 8:43 am
I copied this post – photos and all and sent it as my “message of the day” to the powers that be in Memphis. There is no excuse, no excuse at all for this. Even if they are going to be killed, they need to be treated kindly until that happens.
@ Erica A – GOOD THINKING! Thanks for helping to get the word out there!
May 8, 2011 at 9:51 am
The poor cat in the bottom picture looks like Oreo who is posted on Memphis Animal Services Volunteeers FB page. He is listed as 6 years old and declawed.
Does this worker seriously think he will be pawed to death?
May 8, 2011 at 11:05 am
JennyL – Could you post a link to Oreo’s listing?
May 8, 2011 at 12:38 pm
cats: http://www.facebook.com/pages/No-Kill-Memphis/161581543900329#!/media/set/?set=a.144468362293584.35060.140376379369449
dogs: http://www.facebook.com/pages/No-Kill-Memphis/161581543900329#!/media/set/?set=a.144453622295058.35052.140376379369449
May 8, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Oreo: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=144468968960190&set=a.144468362293584.35060.140376379369449&type=1&theater
May 8, 2011 at 2:16 pm
More of the same, egads. The petition is only about 800+ signatures to go!!!
May 8, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Maybe I’m confused, but I don’t see anything horrible in the second picture. It’s just a guy scruffing a cat. I’ve had to scruff cats lots of times in order to medicate them, break up cat fights, or sometimes just to move them safely from one spot to another (some cats just hate being picked up in general and will BITE when you pick them up the regular way.)
This is not to defend MAS, which is truly a horrible place, but if you want to incite outrage, a pic of a guy scruffing a cat is not going to do it, since picking a cat up by the scruff is considered a pretty normal way to move or restrain an angry cat.
May 8, 2011 at 8:19 pm
It seems highly implausible to me that every cat at MAS is angry and requires scruffing. I’m not going to fill up the blog with all the photos I have of cats being scruffed but I have posted quite a few. To me, it conveys an attitude of nonchalance and non-involvement with the lives in their care.
May 8, 2011 at 9:24 pm
If this is Oreo, and it looks just like Oreo, this is what the volunteers put under his picture:
>>A225560 Oreo, Domestic Mediumhair, 6 years old, Male, Front declawed. This picture isn’t so great but he wouldn’t be still enough for a better one. LOL He’s really a sweet cat, just wanted to be petted. :)<<
May 8, 2011 at 9:58 pm
I’ve dealt with a lot of cats, too, and have never had to scruff them to get them from point a to point b. I’ve had to scruff them to hold them for a blood draw, perhaps, but never by the scruff to move them. There are other ways of handling an angry/scared cat that are much more humane.
May 9, 2011 at 9:37 pm
@Yesbiscuit – I did not know you have a lot of pictures of cats being scruffed. If they are scruffing them as a main way to move them around, then yes that is cruel and does show that they really don’t care about the cats as fellow living beings.
@db – I work in a rescue’s cattery with 53 cats on premises every day. Today I had to scruff one cat to move her quickly from the porch back into her hallway (she likes to slip between your feet when you open the door). I chose scruffing in this instance because she had run right up to this other cat who starts fights, and I wanted to avoid that happening. The cat was scruffed for probably 30 seconds, if that. I also scruffed a cat in order to pill him today (grab the scruff, they open mouth to meow, shoot pill in, done!). I do wish cats were as easy to pill as dogs – you wrap it in cheese! Pill pockets don’t work with many cats.
And just in case you think I’m mean, I spend the rest of my time, when not cleaning, petting, brushing, and playing with the cats. I even cleaned kitty ears today. Thankfully most of them were pretty good, it can be hard to do that all by yourself when they squirm and claw at you.
May 8, 2011 at 9:42 pm
The first pic is bad enough but then I saw the 2nd one and it was just sad…this is stuff nightmares are made of. I would say this is like how someone holds a trashbag, but we all saw the infamous garbage can pic so…
May 8, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Indeed, pets are not ‘things’, anymore so than the person reading this right now is a ‘thing’.
Yet in kill ‘shelters’, pets are treated like ‘things’, namely an old pair of shoes that you throw in the garbage with no guilt.
Such ‘shelters’ are full of mentally ill, or atleast spiritually sick, employees. Lemmings, who follow their fellow lemmings, who obey the status quo like a cult obeys the false ‘messiah’, as they jump off of the cliff of ethics, love and reverence for life, and land on the jagged rocks of indifference, speciesism,ignorance and arrogance.
(No offense to real Lemmings).
May 9, 2011 at 11:51 am
It’s a hard enough life for any animal to be placed in a shelter but to see these pics and how these animals are being suspended in the air is inhumane and NOT what I’d expect from anyone who works with animals. This shelter pretty much looks like a prison but human prisoners have more rights and are treated with more compassion !!!
May 9, 2011 at 11:52 am
It’s the individuals in these places, I have known ACO’s who cry real tears because they had to put an adoptable healthy animal down. They have taken several home: to the point they can no longer take another soul in. I wonder if this makes him feel like a real man? Probably is not any better with his children and wife……Showing compassion now thats a real man!!
May 9, 2011 at 12:01 pm
Terrible
May 9, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Why do they allow sadists like this work in animal shelters?
May 9, 2011 at 1:53 pm
It takes more effort to be cruel than compassionate. Why do they allow people like this to work around animals especially since Shelters are a very scary place all on their own. Add in the human contact and it should be one of comfort and caring. Not a human who is callus and cruel. These photos are heartbreaking. Makes me ashamed of our species….
May 9, 2011 at 2:18 pm
I am crying right now for the way that inhumane person handled those cats.I am ashamed to be a human.
May 9, 2011 at 4:50 pm
HEY GUYS! Just found the following video on YouTube!
May 9, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Unbelievable! Just because we are the top of the food chain doesn’t give us the right to treat animals like that. I don’t think that’s what our creator had in mind. We’re suppose to take care of the earth and the animals in our care-not mistreat, abuse and exploit.