Each Year, The City Of Amarillo TX euthanizes over 13,000 Pets. This is their answer to the pet overpopulation problem. This is a form of legal animal cruelty. There are better ways to control the pet population then killing them. Other cities have done it and so should Amarillo. Other cities have gone from killing thousands of innocent and adoptable pets to having a 90-99% success rate in getting these pets adopted. Animal shelters across the country are implementing No-Kill programs that increase lifesaving and reduce the need to kill healthy and treatable pets. ( You can learn more about these programs at http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org.) Currently more than 165 communities in the United States are saving 90 percent or more of the pets they take in, reducing the need for euthanasia mainly to pets who are irremediably suffering.  Other than these 165 and counting communities there are 71 other communities who have a  reported No-Kill rating -- not qualifying for a place among the elite 165 because their full statistics are not available for inspection online.. all said, many many communities are all moving towards No-Kill rating and to save shelter-pets lives and public dollars too in the bargain.

Expecting the citizens of Amarillo to accept killing 13,000 pets every year as a form of animal population control is both inhumane and intolerable. 

Even if you are not a "Pet Person" by changing the way the City of Amarillo handles the Animal Shelter, the tax dollars saved can be used for other areas more acceptable like education or developing new jobs. 

Texas law (Sec. 821.052.) dictates shelter staff follow the current American Veterinary Medical Association’s Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals.  The AVMA’s 2013 publication states that care must be taken to minimize the stress on shelter animals being killed, including sights, sounds and smells in the kill room.  Intra-cardiac injections must only be performed on unconscious animals and death must be verified before the pet’s body is taken for disposal.

In the 3rd week of April 2014  News Channel 10 has posted a video allegedly taken on the loading dock at the Amarillo pound which depicts shelter staff violating every provision stated above. This video is disturbing and shows a fully conscious dog being jabbed in the heart area with a needle then being dragged to a pile of dead dogs on the loading dock.  An ACO told News Channel 10 the facility has no scales to weigh pets.  Pronews 7, which also received and aired the video, talked to someone who says the kill room abuse goes back more than a decade at the pound: “Whenever they’d euthanize them, they’re grab them by the scruff of their neck and skid them across the floor, kick them in the rear end and they’d just laugh about it the time they were doing it,” said Daniel Osborn, who witnessed the euthanasia.

There was a huge public outcry and the director and assistant director at the long troubled Amarillo pound in Texas have resigned in the aftermath of their total and absolute failure in keeping up with the humane and legal norms of animal sheltering. They had no other alternative and their guilt of overseeing torture was out in the open. The Amarillo City Animal Shelter is run by interim Director and a new shelter director is expected to be in position in November 2014. 

Animal Loving folks.. NOW is the time to press for changes to bring better conditions for the animals at this shelter. Let there not be another killl-director in charge of the innocent animals again.

The animals have suffered long enough. The World watches what is happening at Amarillo Animal Shelter. The Public would like a humane and a No-Kill Advocate to be in Charge of this shelter. 

Nothing less will ever do.. neither for the animal-loving public in the USA and elsewhere nor for the long-suffering innocent shelter-pets of Amarillo.

If you would like to address the city officials here is their contact information

Mayor Paul Harpole Mayor@amarillo.gov 806-378-3010

Elen R Green Place1@amarillo.gov 806-371-5131

Brian Eades Place2@amarillo.gov 806-355-6330

Lilia Escajeda Place3@amarillo.gov 806-373-9962

Jim Simms Place4@amarillo.gov 806-352-7572