Arizona Animal Care employee fired for wrongfully euthanizing war-hero dog

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Friday, Nov 19, 2010 19:24 ET
Arizona county employee euthanizes wrong dog, loses job
Target, who thwarted a suicide bombing in Afghanistan, was wrongfully put down earlier this week
By Associated Press

Officials say an employee for Arizona's Pinal County has been fired after euthanizing a war-hero dog that wasn't scheduled to be put down.

The unidentified employee at the Animal Care and Control facility in Casa Grande was placed on administrative leave after euthanizing the female shepherd mix by mistake Monday. The firing was announced Friday.

The dog named Target had been brought to Arizona by Sgt. Terry Young after his tour of duty. He says the dog was lauded for thwarting an attack by a suicide bomber in war-torn Afghanistan.

But Target escaped Young's back yard last weekend and didn't have a tag or microchip. Young later found Target's picture on a website used by the county's dog catchers to help owners track lost pets. He showed up at the shelter Monday to claim his dog, only to find her dead.

http://www.salon.com/news/afghanistan/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/11/19/us_wrong_dog_euthanized_firing

[Arctic Dave]

1. I don't see why they fired the worker.

The dog should have been tagged or chipped. It's the owners fault the dog died.

[Historic NY]

2. Exactly & how many days was the dog at the shelter?

[LisaL]

5. From Friday to Monday.

[flvegan]

4. What part of "euthanized by mistake" isn't sinking in?

Who the dog is or what the dog did doesn't make any difference.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. +1

[blondeatlast]

13. =1. nt.

[BlueJazz]

3. How in the hell was the employee suppose to know? Could the fucking dog talk?

[LisaL]

6. The dog was lost on Friday. The dog was put down Monday.

Does that give the owner enough time to find the missing dog?

[bluedigger]

7. Apparently no one has read the original story.

(Except Flvegan, I know he has)

The owner found the dog gone from his back yard and the gate open. It is unknown how the gate got open...
He located the dog at the pound and thought it would be ok until he could pick it up at his convenience. The pound knew they had the dog. The worker took the wrong dog to be put down.

So the owner was at fault for thinking his dog was in safe hands, and the pound is at fault for not having better procedures in place to identify the dogs in it's care before putting them down. Or the worker is at fault for not following those procedures, if they existed.

The bottom line is that it was a senseless tragedy. As I said the first time I heard of this, life just sucks some times.:cry:

It was nice to hear that there is a surviving litter!:)

[LisaL]

8. It's not exactly correct. The dog was lost on Friday.

The owner found his photo so he knew the dog was at the shelter but believed the shelter was closed on Saturday and Sunday. He came to pick up the dog on Monday but the dog was already put down.

[bluedigger]

10. What's not correct?

He thought it was safe... I didn't add that he waited until it was convenient, because he assumed that the shelter was closed for the weekend (which was incorrect, he could have picked it up Saturday morning). So he was wrong, too, for making an assumption and not exercising due diligence. Nonetheless, a tragedy...

[northernlights]

15. the story has multiple versions...

The version I read said that:

1. Target somehow escaped from the fenced yard on Friday. No mention of an open gate.
2. he found her on the shelter website, paid the fee online but misunderstood the schedule and thought the shelter was closed for the weekend (maybe the shelter site said something like "weekday hours xxx, Sat. hours xxx, closed Sunday" and he misread the 2nd part. end of day, end of week, bad website design?)
3. He came to the shelter on Monday morning -- the 1st day he thought the shelter was open -- and she'd already been killed.

That article also mentioned that he is the medic who saved Target's life when an "insurgent" threw a grenade into the barracks and blew her up. That she'd acclimated to the family's other dog, been housebroken and accustomed to eating dog food, etc. but still had trouble with the new limitations to her freedom. It also said there was a doggie door for them into the fenced yard. Their other dog had not "escaped."

The only significant issue I have with the owner at this point is that the article I read quoted an official as saying the owners wouldn't be fined. The photo I saw of her didn't show a collar. Someone else saw a collar in another photo, but no tags.

So if Target wasn't licensed and tagged, I partially fault the owner. Other than that, I don't think he did anything terribly wrong.

I was just reaching the point of thinking it wasn't totally senseless if it brought to light this shelter's poor policies that have led to multiple dogs almost -- or actually -- being wrongly euthanized. Then they fired the worker who made the mistake, and now it looks like the only good that have come of it -- publicity, a review of policies, maybe more adoptions -- have been whitewashed away. :(

[bluestate10]

9. It is easier to fire the employee than to determine if the shelter is properly funded.

did the worker kill the dog because of money saving demands from higher ups? Arizona is tea party heaven, I don't see governmental functions like animal shelters being funded adequately. If the worker took the fall for poor funding, he or she should publicize orders from higher ups and conditions at the shelter.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

11. They probably are underfunded as most municipal

shelters are. Ironically the owner would probably had paid some significant fines when he picked up his dog. I know it costs my idiot neighbors about $300 every time their dog gets picked up by animal control. You'd think they would learn by now.

[blondeatlast]

14. I grew up in Pinal Cty, and that is hardly a new phenomenon. Lots of rural poor then, now

it's become a full-fledged TeaBaggin, Joe Arpaio-lovin' bedroom county for both Phoenix and the much bluer Tucson.