1000 Animals Euthanized After Outbreak at Las Vegas Animal Shelter

Last february about 1000 dogs and cats were killed due to what the Las Vegas Leid animal shelter called, a contagious diseases breaking out due to overcrowding. The animals have been said to be suffering from parvo, distemper and feline panleukopenia. The euthanasia of the animals began February 9th, 2007 at the Lied Animal Shelter in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Lied Animal Sheleter was closed for some time before re-opening it's doors.
Holly Stoberski, who works with Heaven Can Wait Sanctuary, said, "They were not properly vaccinating the dogs and cats in a timely manner."

The Humane Society recommended the shelter adopt new policies when they re-opened the shelter, including euthanizing animals after they have been at the shelter for 72 hours as well as vaccinating them as soon as they arrive. This facility houses up to 3000 animals on any given day and before it closed it's doors last year about 200 stray animals were received at the shelter a day.

The sad part is not all the animals that were put down last year were even sick. Some had been euthanized because they had gone unadopted for
more than 120 days and were being blamed for contributing to the overcrowding that helped spread the diseases.

Lied Animal Shelter officials have said they didn't even notice that the animals were sick until people from the Humane Society noticed animals with intestinal and respiratory problems. There was a full time verterinarian at the shelter when all this occured, but all his time was spent spaying and neutering the animals rather than evaluating them when they come in.

The Humane Society was there for a four day on site inspection. They had been invited there by Lied Animal shelter to suggest improvements.

Citizens were extremely upset and outraged hat so many animals were euthanized, so much so they formed a candle light vigil outside the shelter after the animals had been put down. Alot of people showed up to show how upset they were and to and to remember all the animals who lost their lives due to carelessness.

Lied officials say the shelter is run completely differently now. There are vast differences in how the animals enclosures are maintained and kept clean. They say they have increased adoptions by 16 percent and that means less animals are being put down, which is always a good thing.

Officials at Lied also say the only way to make sure your pet doesn't end up in the shelter is to make sure they are microchipped and make sure they have tags that can easily identify you in case they get loose.

In the end though, the most we can do as pet owners is to have our pets spayed or neutered. That's the only way to make sure so many animals
don't end up unwanted in shelters, where they are likely to be put down when they don't get adopted.