DOB appx March 30, 2009. This litter of 8 was at the Eau Gallie shelter.

Evidently on June 10, 2009 due to escalating political issues at this shelter, Channel 9 was called and showed up at the shelter to interview the county veterinarian.

This is all escalating in response to the no-kill and workgroup agendas which are trying to clean up the shelter practices and get more animals saved.

The vet refused to come out of her office all day.   See http://www.wftv.com/news/19716446/detail.html.

Well on June 10 this backfired, and the county shelter was "unable" to test any cats for adoption", so all the cats (and dogs?) waiting to go up for adoption were killed.

By about noon they had run out of body bags because they had already killed so many.

We rushed down there and saved this litter and a couple more kitties without really checking history or health so we got what we could get - we had limited schedules due to our work plus the shelter was "under fire" so many of the workers were distracted by the day's events...and thanks to Shannon we pulled a few at the last minute. One we were interested in was already in kitty heaven. Sigh.

We point no fingers but the PUBLIC needs to call BASE (Brevard Animal Services and Enforcement) at 633-2024 and find out why the vet would not talk to the media (after all they are county employees and report to the taxpayers). And why the cats all had to die as if this was a necessary big kill for disease or something? (NOT!) There was no distemper outbreak...was this in retaliation of the Channel 9 expose? 

And where is this audit that was supposed to be completed by now? Folks, there is alot of reform that needs to take place here. June 10 the animals paid the price. They were killing all cats who were not up for adoption and not being held for stray time. That's alot of animals, considering 25 cats a day had been turned in for a couple of weeks due to the economy.

Back to the litter.....All of these guys are ready!!! There are 3 left, Cricket, Buddy and Buster.

Update regarding the no-kill agenda -- in the FL Today paper dated August 6, the no kill agenda was made to look like an idiotic idea. What everyone has to remember is there are certain proven steps that have to be taken in a specific order, and the agenda usually takes 5 years to complete. So yes it takes an average of 5 years of really hard work to become no kill for a county shelter. The first few steps we have barely begun. We weren't quite ready for the killing to completely stop -- unfortunately that is the part that takes a long time.  So the no-kill agenda steps were taken out of order and huge misunderstandings were had all around. If you want to know the agenda, go buy the book "Redemption" by Nathan Winograd. That is the book that has the steps to be taken. Several counties have done it in Florida, including Jacksonville, and Indian River.

Contact Mona at meowmail1@gmail.com