Too many counties in the Great State of Tennessee are kill shelters, the refuse volunteers, refuse to implement adoption, do not allow photos, do not use pet finder. Some spend NO time trying to find out who the owners are, even if they have tags. They refuse to call rescues when they are many reputable rescues out there that do NOT sell to labs. The shelters themselves are selling to labs...live and dead animals. Some of them have operating hours of less than 30 hours a week. They are not following state laws that are already in effect. Some shelters are using questionable methods to destroy animals to save money, yet, this is clearly breaking state laws of humane treatment. The changes that need to be made include:
1 Establishing the shelter’s primary role as saving the lives of animals;
2 Protecting all species of shelter animals;
3 Making it illegal for a shelter to kill an animal if a rescue group or
No Kill shelter is willing to save that animal;
4 Requiring shelters to provide animals with fresh food, fresh water,
environmental enrichment, regular exercise, veterinary care, and
cleanliness;
5 Requiring shelters to have fully functioning adoption programs
including offsite adoptions, use of the internet to promote their
animals, and ample adoption hours when the public is available;
6 Prohibiting shelters from killing animals based on arbitrary criteria
such as breed bans or when alternatives to killing exist;
7 Requiring animal control to allow volunteers to help with fostering,
socializing, and assisting with adoptions; and
8 Requiring shelters to be truthful about how many animals they kill and
adopt by making shelter statistics public.