“The more I work here, the less I like people,” admits Animal Care Agent Julie Swenson, one of two animal collection officers working out of the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area on Grayson Road. Swenson and Humane Police Officer Deb Wikmer see first-hand to what depths human cruelty can go. “The things you see…” Swenson stops short. Many of the people working here at the Humane Society feel this shame. There is a near-constant heartbreak and incredulity at people’s behavior as these animal care workers encounter the extreme abuse, ignorance and neglect that people inflict on the animals that have no choice but to come here. Most will never see life outside of this shelter again.

Shelter employees witness the daily surrender of dozens of wonderful pets for the most asinine and selfish of reasons like “It doesn’t like my boyfriend”, “We’re going on vacation. If it’s still here when we get back, we’ll take it,” or “We’ve just painted the living room and the dog no longer matches the furniture.” They see animals come in with injuries from being used as fight practice for pitbulls, from shovel beatings, and gunshot wounds. They carry their starved bodies, weak and unable to stand, a frail and bony 13 lbs when they should weigh 40 lbs. They try to restore health to the critically neglected animal victims of grossly overcrowded and disgraceful living conditions. Constant exposure to this behavior would surely fill any heart with that nonspecific disdain for that species that oppresses another just because it can.

Recently, there was a local multiple neglect/abuse case that included one dog that was permanently sequestered on a closed side porch living in its own filth for about a year. In the same house were puppies from another dog that were so neglected that they had skin diseases and were not growing hair. When found, two of the puppies had been dead at least a week, gnawed on by the rest of the unfed litter. Another dog at the same foul home was so pathetically abused and diseased that its fur was all but gone and the irritated pink skin all over its body folded in on itself lending tremendous age and misery to its expression. Its paws were so swollen with infection that the toes were no longer separated by the natural skin contours of the footpad. No more than septic balls of flesh, the grotesque paws had overgrown and rotted toenails. No one could recognize the animal as a dog.

Worst of all was the broken heart and crushed spirit in their eyes. It was the confusion, sorrow and sheer pain furrowed into their faces that reminded me that animals are sentient beings capable of memory, feeling and emotion. They show suffering as well as absolute joy. These dogs probably wagged their tails whenever they glimpsed the owner, thinking that surely they would be loved this time. The owner of these animals, to punctuate the crime, was a professional dog groomer. Many of the dogs had to be euthanized because they were so far removed from health that they would have infected other animals while prolonging their agony.

Yes, animals are euthanized here, but before throwing a stone, try to understand the environment, the people, and the method by which the Humane Society has sworn to do the best they can to treat unwanted animals with the love and respect they all deserve.

The Business of Animal Mercy
An animal comes to the shelter through surrender by an owner, as a stray, as an apprehension like a rabies or a bite case, or as a rescue. Bite and rabies cases are treated differently than others since they threaten the lives of humans. When someone tells the staff at the shelter that an animal has bitten, they take it seriously. Once an animal bites, it eventually will again. These animals are put down almost immediately. Apart from these cases, the animal goes through the regular orientation routine.

When the animal arrives, its health is assessed in the lab. If healthy, dogs are vaccinated and held 48 hours in quarantine before being put “on the floor” or into the kennels. Cats are vaccinated and held 10 days, a relatively new standard imposed on PA animal shelters to better prevent outbreaks of distemper, a serious airborne viral infection that causes primarily intestinal illness and can be fatal in young, unvaccinated cats, and especially to prevent feline leukemia, one of the leading causes of feline death which can be transmitted through many means including cat fights, sharing food and water bowls, grooming each other, and transmission from mother to kittens before birth. An entire kennel of over 20 cats had to be put down a year ago because of a distemper epidemic.

If the animal is not healthy, a decision is made whether there are enough resources to restore its health. Most of the medications are on-site and administered by well-trained personnel. Some veterinarians like Dr. Bronner of the Hershire Animal Clinic and Dr. Minmagh out of Hershey offer the Humane Society their services to apply the next echelon of medical attention. But if there is no pragmatic or financially realistic way to return an animal to health, it will be scheduled to visit “Garage 2,” the internal codeword for the euthanization and cremation room, so named to avoid upsetting any patrons if an announcement is made.

Often, there is just not enough room to house every animal so other criteria are considered to free up space. Dogs, more often than cats, spend a lot of time at the shelter without adoption. A few have been there since last Thanksgiving. Very few dogs can go that long without succumbing to “kennel craze,” the stir craziness of being penned up in their individual cages or “runs.” They bounce off of the run walls, barking loudly, snapping and behaving very aggressively when anyone visits the kennel. This is a sort of canine anxiety that is reason enough to euthanize the dog. The shelter is nearly always full and if a dog is beyond recovery and will not make a good pet, room must be made for a more adoptable dog. And there is always a new dog to unseat an old dog.

The sheer number of surrendered animals is unfathomable. Nearly 20 million animals are euthanized in America each year. These numbers could be cut in half, according to one study, if only one fifth of all pet owners spayed or neutered their animals.

“That’s the main reason we have so many [animals],” said Kennel Supervisor Donna Stepp. In three and a half years, Stepp has developed a hard-nosed philosophy about controlling the pet population. “You’re either helping or you’re hurting.”

The Humane Society accepts all animals, regardless of species. While dogs, cats and rabbits are regular customers at the Humane Society, they have also housed ferrets, chickens, peacocks, pot-bellied pigs, a goat, and an iguana. They’ve rescued emus in a cruelty case and have been called out to rescue cows from derelict living conditions. They even accepted a box turtle that was brought in by a family who obviously ignored anything taught in remedial science class saying that they found the turtle in a forest and were concerned that it was lost. The turtle was promptly returned to the forest once the family left.

It’s all part of the Humane Society’s mission: “To protect animals from cruelty, neglect, carelessness, and ignorance; to provide shelter and care for lost, abandoned, and injured animals; to provide educational programs that enhance the bond between people and animals and encourage a public sentiment of humanity and gentleness towards animals; and to promote and encourage responsible pet ownership.”

The Sound and Furry, Signifying Nothing
Euthanization is a sad necessity to life in a Humane Society. There are thousands of unwanted animals, only a few adoptive families and dreadfully little space to hold the animals that remain. The only thing to be optimistic about is that the euthanizing is as humane as possible.

As recent as the 1960s, animals to be euthanized were placed in a chamber and nerve gas was pumped in until the animal was dead. The animal reacted violently to nerve gas. They convulsed, choked, and struggled into death. Their muscles involuntarily contracted so powerfully that they’d break the bones to which they were attached. Often the gassing took hours to ensure that the animal was deceased. The younger animals (yes, kittens and puppies are euthanized) took even longer since they had more natural resistance to the gas. But the 1970s brought about changes to the procedure.

The shelters now use what veterinarians use to put animals to sleep: the phenol barbital solution Fatal Plus. A close relative to the street drug ketamine or “Special K,” Fatal Plus is injected in an overdose amount into the animal’s vein that goes directly to the brain. By going to the brain first, Fatal Plus — called “Blue Juice” due to its color — shuts the brain function down before the heart to keep the animal from feeling its body die. A fine needle is inserted into the wall of the animal’s heart to ensure the stop of the pulse. The whole procedure from start to finish takes five minutes. The animals die so tenderly, they truly look as though they are going to sleep.

Just like humans, the deceased animals are then placed in strong trash bags and put into a freezer until they are cremated. The cremator is a machinated behemoth with corrugated steel skin and a power door that grinds up and down at the same slow, horror-movie speed. In the oven, a strange pale green coats the floor. A shelter employee tells me it is animal fat. I quash a grimace.

The oven is required by PA law to remain above 1,800 degrees during a “burn” which must last at least two hours to reduce all hair and tissue to ash. After, a scraping tool pulls the ashes into a bin at the front. The bones are collected and put into special compactors that crush them into smaller pieces. The ashes and bones fragments are then disposed of in puncture-resistant bags. A burn is done at least once a day, sometimes more, depending on the number of animals that need cremated. For six years the oven has been run by Austin Snyder. “I used to euthanize all of the animals, too,” said Snyder. “But I got burned out. It’s easier for me to see them afterward than to watch them die.”

The Humane Society and its staff seem a very misunderstood institution. “People ask us such ignorant questions like, ‘So, whenever it’s slow, do you take a break from the desk and go back and kill the animals?’ said Janell Belicic, an employee for nearly four years. “They act like it’s something we can’t wait to do.” Absolutely no one at the Humane Society wants to euthanize the animals. “We’d keep them all if we could,” said Stepp. “But it’s just not possible.”

Every employee must know how to euthanize to relieve one who might need a break from the somber duty. As human nature forces us to callous ourselves against repetition, there is no skin that can long endure the psychology of ending a life to save another.

Most of the employees have rescued pets. Like a proud grandmother, Care Agent Swenson had pictures at-the-ready of Rudy, a pitiful pitbull puppy whose body was hollowed and skeletal because his owner was too afraid of pitbulls to feed him or his brother, who was dead a day when Swenson got there. The most recent picture of Rudy shows a fattened dog, laying imperially in Swenson’s living room.

Nothing makes the staff at the Humane Society happier than letting a good pet go to a good home. “The looks on their faces make it all worth it,” said Swenson.

Today, a Beagle named “Georgie” has that exact look. She is going home. Eleanor Kramer, retired, has saved Georgie. She had been at the shelter for two weeks and would surely have had to make way for another dog. Kramer is a member of the Penns Woods Therapy Dogs Club which trains dogs to be ideal visitors at nursing homes, children’s hospitals, Alzheimer’s clinics, and the like. Will Georgie be a good Therapy Dog? “She will,” says Kramer as Georgie wags her tail so hard that her whole body wags with it. Because Kramer is a senior, she qualifies for the Mature Pets for Mature People program. Through this plan, citizens over 60 can adopt any animal over 5 years old free of charge. Georgie is just one of the four or five animals that will get adopted each weekday and the 10 to 15 that get adopted on Saturday and Sunday.

Sadly, 15 is also the average number of euthanizations done each day. When Swenson came in today, she had an adult tabby cat in a cage. The cage was now empty. Where is the cat you brought in? “He had a broken back…” said Swenson and gave a pensive, slightly guilty look. The cat had gone to Garage 2.

Just like that, one goes home. The other does not.

Free Love
The animals’ time at the shelter is probably very frightening. Most are surrendered pets that had a home and a lap to curl upon. Some have known nothing else. The employees have little time to actually give the animals some recreation. So, to make the animals’ tenure a little more tolerable, a small crew of volunteers donates a few hours a day to holding the cats and walking the dogs, playing with them, petting, talking, running with them, anything. They give them as much intense love and attention as 15 minutes will allow. With all of the animals housed (on this day there were 37 cats and kittens and 62 dogs) equal time is imperative. Today, an extremely pleasant, rosy-cheeked English woman named Felicity Fox brought a new dog out every 15 minutes, introducing him/her by name to me, hoping that I was a prospective adoptive parent. Slightly out of breath from running for nearly an hour straight, Fox said she gives each dog 10 to 15 minutes of both walking and “quiet comforting time.” Fox appeals to anyone who has as little as three hours in the week to help walk the dogs along with her. All of the shelter employees use superlatives when describing Fox and the other volunteers. “They really are great for the animals,” said Belicic. “Amazing people.”

Those who cannot offer themselves can offer to protect an animal by putting from $5 to $30 toward the adoption fee for an animal. These “Guardian Angels” can be as much a saving grace as a call from the governor would be for an inmate on death row. Georgie had $10 put on her by an Angel, but since she was free, the $10 will be transferred to another animal. One can also sponsor a cage for $100 a year, or permanently for a larger fee.

The Humane Society also accepts other donations that are related to animal care, like cat and dog food, kitty litter, and even shoeboxes that are quite comfy to many surrendered cats that once had a bed of their own. The shelter goes through all of these donations daily and will accept nearly anything given.

The Humane Society is not associated with any government. It operates solely on donations and fund-raising projects, works closely with rescue organizations, and tries a variety of innovative programs to reduce the numbers of stray animals in the community. With such a limited budget, tough decisions are made at the Humane Society that are hard on the heart.

“I am in favor of anything that keeps you living happy with your pet,” says kennel supervisor Stepp. “If you need to declaw your cat to be happy, do it. But everyone needs to spay or neuter their pets.” The animals would rather be with you than here at the Humane Society waiting for adoption. For those who shop for pedigrees, what is the best reason to adopt a pet? Shelter Manager Hohle says without hesitation, “To save a life.”

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