Two pit bull dogs were brought to the Dothan Animal Shelter in Alabama, USA last Wednesday. On Thursday when the staff reported for work they discovered that the dogs had killed 29 cats.
The dogs had forced their way out of a pen by pushing on galvanised bars to knock the bars out of their clamps. They then forced their way through a chain-link fence to attack the cats and kill them. They went on a terrible rampage of destruction.
Dothan City Commissioner, Beth Kenward, told WTVY:
“These dogs were able to eat their way out of, for lack of a better term, and attack these cats. That is horrible.”
“Those dogs forced their way out of a pen. They pushed hard enough, that they pushed this metal bar, this flat galvanized bar, out of the clamp.” – Bill Banks, the shelter director.
The mayor admitted that the shelter needed an upgrade.
Note: the dogs were strays recently brought to the shelter. I don’t know if the cats were in sight of the dogs and if so whether this is normal in shelters. There is a discussion on who is at fault: please click this to participate.
Comment: you have to agree with the mayor. It appears that the basic infrastructure of the shelter is inadequate to contain the animals safely. It is extremely distressing, for obvious reasons, when animals in a “shelter” end up killing each other because of a lack of adequate funding or carelessness or for whatever reason. This is a human failure and the victims in this instance are unwanted cats. They were there to be helped and found new homes.
Were there any cats who somehow survived?
I’ll check that but I don’t think we have the information.