St Louis County Animal Control killed someone I loved and nearly killed me.
When I first started working at the St Louis County Animal Care and Control Center in July of 2020 it was only ever supposed to be a temporary gig. I had lost my job due to COVID and needed something to hold me over until I could find a better, “real” job. I’ve always loved animals and I figured that spending a month or two walking dogs and cleaning up poop would be doable until I could find something else.
But within my first week of working there something strange happened. For the first time in the 20 years of my adult life, I truly found joy and fulfillment in my work. I wasn’t just walking dogs and scooping poop. I was connecting with these animals and doing my best to make their lives better. I had been warned by some of the other staff that the management could be difficult, and they were right. But I also had the benefit of working for two of the best supervisors I have ever had the pleasure of working for. Christina and Mandy were the kind of supervisors that you were glad when they were working.
The rift between these two and the rest of management was clear from the start, though. And it wasn’t long before Christina had felt pressured to resign. But it was when Mandy was fired in December that things really began to go downhill. With the only real advocates, the staff had it was clear that the management viewed the staff as the “enemy”. Workers were being overworked and under-supported.
For a long time though I was able to look past the treatment of staff and focus on making sure that I was able to give the animals the best care possible. In particular, this was true of the dogs that were scared or anxious and difficult to work with when they first came in.
Dogs like Boss the pitbull who was first deemed too dangerous to be released, but then I was able to help him to show the kind affectionate dog he was that allowed him to be rescued.
Or Gus the hundred-pound hound who was terrified of being on a leash but wanted nothing more than to cuddle. And with slow, careful, baby steps I was able to help walk him on that leash right out the door to his new foster family.
Or Dottie the 70-pound puppy who didn’t know her own strength, but learned how to play and listen during our time together.
And then there’s Tennessee. When this pittie came into the shelter he was scared and would duck and cower whenever someone came near. But over time I helped him to learn to trust people and the joy of a good butt scratch. For several weeks before he left I would make sure to save at least a few minutes at the end of my day to stop by his kennel. I would come in and just with him for a while, his head on my lap. When I learned he had been adopted and would be leaving on my day off I made sure I made a special trip up to the shelter just to say goodbye to him before he left.
And there are so many other stories of dogs I’ll never forget like Blueberry, Nissa, Sir Snuggles Sniffington, Harlem, Titan, and more than I could possibly take time to tell about here. All dogs who truly touched my heart and got their happy ever after. Sadly, that’s not the case for some dogs there. Dogs like Derry.
When Derry first came into the shelter I didn’t have much interaction with him. I walked him once or twice, but never really got the chance to know him well. When he accidentally bit a volunteer he was sent to the Quarantine Hold room. Since this was a room I regularly worked I got to see Derry almost every day. In Quarantine, he was scared and anxious. The room is small and very loud and the dogs are confined to a cell no bigger than six by four feet 24 hours a day for at least 10 days straight. In this high-stress environment, Derry became agitated and aggressive toward the other dogs in the room. Once his ten-day quarantine was over he was moved to a room where he was the only dog there.
It just so happened that this was another room where I routinely worked and would continue to see Derry on a nearly daily basis. Having witnessed his behavior on quarantine I was at first hesitant to try to handle Derry in the isolation room, but it had to be done to make sure his kennel was cleaned. To my relief, I was able to move Derry to an empty kennel for cleaning with no problems. But Derry needed more than a clean kennel, he needed enrichment. So, I steeled my nerves and took Derry outside for a walk. We stuck to the back parking lot where we were unlikely to encounter any other dogs that might trigger him. The pavement out back wasn’t as nice as the grass out front but he still got to be outside and sniff the fresh air and feel the sunlight on his fur.
We did a few laps around the lot, he pulled on the leash but didn’t try to drag me across the asphalt. As we walked I watched his body loosen, his muscles start to relax. I called his name and his tail let out a little wag and he turned his head back in my direction. I could see a calmness in his eyes that was not there in quarantine. He looked almost peaceful. He looked unafraid.
Over the next few days, I tried to make a point of spending time with Derry. The longer he spent away from the barking, howling, chaos that is the Quarantine Hold the more at ease he became. Then a minor miracle occurred. He had been getting the sedative Trazodone to try and keep him calm, but the vet staff had taken him off the medication to see how he would respond. As the medicine left his system the agitated and aggressive dog from Quarantine didn’t return, instead, an almost wholly new dog emerged. This “new” Derry was friendly, affectionate, even playful. I began spending time with him in his kennel. He would play and cuddle. He would kiss my face and nose my hand if I stopped petting him. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He was happy.
Derry was euthanized March 10th 2021.
Management had deemed Derry unsafe despite the notes of his continued improvement by myself and one of the Vet Techs. Derry was not given a chance to go to rescue. The person who made the decision never took him out of his kennel or even asked staff about Derry’s behavior and the notes in his file were ignored. He was never given a chance.
From time to time I have been asked to help with euthanasias. I wasn’t on the 10th. I didn’t know when Derry was being put down. It wasn’t until I was coming back from lunch that I passed by Derry’s room and saw his kennel door open. I walked in, hesitantly, expecting to see it empty. It wasn’t empty though. Derry was there, laying sprawled out on the floor, alone. Sedated but still conscious. I sat on the floor next to him and petted his back as I sang him lullabies. He tried to lift his head to look at me but did not have the strength. I fought back tears as I told him, “It’s ok, buddy. Nothing to ever be scared of again. Just go to sleep.” I stayed with him until his consciousness finally slipped away.
I was so confused by the decision that it almost quieted my sadness and my rage. Almost. I sent an email to Dr. Duriss and Rhett Nicks asking if I could simply get an explanation on how decisions were made about the pathways chosen for animals at the shelter. Why was a dog like Derry who was a favorite of some of the staff and showing real signs of improvement euthanized while other dogs were being given chance after chance.
A few days had passed and I hadn’t heard anything in response to my email when Dr. Duris saw me in the hallway and called me into her office. She started by asking if I had gotten a reply from Rhett about my email. I had not gotten an email from him, and I never did. Of course, that was the way things were done there. When I sent an email asking about a dog like Derry, or Dottie before him I wouldn’t get an email in response. Instead, Dr. Duris would come to me and give me an answer in person. Which on the surface sounds like a good thing, a nice personal touch from the boss. But what it really meant was that there was no record of her response. She couldn’t be held to anything she told me because there was no paper trail after my initial inquiry.
Her answer to why decisions were being made the way they were was because Rhett was too busy and overwhelmed. This may be an excuse for decisions being delayed, but not an excuse for why a decision was made. But after that quick non-answer was given she moved onto what she really wanted to talk to me about, my Facebook profile picture.
After Derry had died I made his picture with a rainbow bridge my temporary profile picture. Apparently, someone had used this picture in posts disparaging Dr. Duris and the shelter. I told her that I had simply posted a picture of a dog I cared about who had died. My post included no comment or description. She admitted that she could not force me to take it down, but implored me to think about posting pictures like that in the future. She said that it can upset people with “nothing better to do”. I couldn’t help but see the irony that she made sure to take time to talk to me about a picture I shared of Derry but never bothered to talk to me about Derry.
Conditions for the staff continued to get worse after that. A new Supervisor was hired and instead of lightening the workload, she began harassing and bullying workers. Things finally got to the point that I could no longer handle it. I’ve had anxiety attacks before. Some pretty big ones in the past. But none of them had ever felt quite like this one. My chest was tight and I was having a hard time breathing.15 minutes later I was being taken to the hospital on a stretcher with an irregular heartbeat, temp of 101, and a blood pressure of 200/100.
Thankfully my heart seemed to be doing fine and I was released from the hospital later that afternoon. I was told to take a couple of days off of work and see my primary care doctor before I returned to work.
I was glad to have some time to rest, but I was going to miss getting to see all my four-legged friends at work. Most of all Blueberry. Little Miss Blue had been at the shelter for over 100 days and had stayed just as sweet and cute for the entire duration. She had just been adopted and would be leaving before I would be able to make it up there to say goodbye. It broke my heart to not be able to see her again but I was so happy that she’d finally found her furever home.
After a few days of rest and recuperation, I returned to work on light duty restriction. I had been back to work for about an hour when I was called into the office. I had some paperwork to turn in for my time out so I handed the stack of papers and was ready to get back to work. But before I knew what had happened I found myself being chewed out by both supervisors. I was accused of lying three different times. And when I tried to challenge these accusations I was stunned. Instead of being welcomed back with any amount of care and concern for an ill employee I was met with more abuse and accusations.
They had finally broken me. They had turned the first place where I had ever felt satisfaction and fulfillment into a place where I felt fear and humiliation. I had had enough. I knew that I could not spend one more minute working somewhere I was treated so inhumanely. I turned in my ID badge and left.
I was afraid of what would come next for me as I looked into an unsure path. But as I drove from the shelter with my windows down I felt the cool air in my face and the warm sun on my arm and I felt my body loosen and my muscles relaxed as I realized that I no longer had to fear the abuse I had suffered there. I looked back and felt a sense of calm and peacefulness come over me. I may no longer be there to protect those animals but now I was free to fight for them.
