The Director of the Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter is responding to criticism of the shelter’s intake practices. In a social media post this week, staff at the shelter were accused of telling people that the animals they wanted to surrender would automatically be euthanized. The author of the post stated that they are getting messages daily from people who say they were told the shelter is full, can’t take their dog, cat, puppies, or kittens, or that if they surrender them they’ll likely be euthanized. “No intake appointment.” “No ‘call us back on this date.'” “Just, ‘We’re full,’ and, ‘Your animal may have to be put down.'” the post said. Shelter Director Jeremiah Lucas says those claims are inaccurate. Lucas said, however, there are times when the shelter is simply full, and in that case they try to schedule intakes further out. As for puppies they Lucas said they will put more than one litter in a kennel, but not adult dogs because of the stress on the dogs it creates. Another criticism is regarding TNR, which stands for Trap and Release. TNR mainly concerns feral cats, which the shelter cannot take. In many cases, rescuers will trap feral cats, have them spayed or neutered, vaccinated against rabies, and then released back to where they were found. In the post, the writer claims that while the shelter says they have a TNR program, it’s really non-existent. Lucas said it does exist, but because it’s a new program, it hasn’t been fully rolled out yet, and it’s only…
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