Humane Society Advice

I am a former shelter volunteer and was President of the Board of Directors for Accomack and Northamption Regional SPCA. Here is my perspective:

County vs Donations/Shelter vs Pound: We struggled with this dual role for years and finally voted to end our contractual relationship with the counties, thus ending our "pound" function, and decided to become a real shelter. The loss of funds were a real challenge but the SPCA has survived. Many of us feared a county run pound would be a horrifying place and wanted to keep the pound function if only to control it. I was not among those.

The Humane Society here needs to be just that and let the county run a pound and have the animal control officers. Yes, it costs money, but not much more than they are paying now, except for construction costs. $300k a year would probably take care of most of the salaries. Maybe more.

You do see a lot of terrible stuff in the shelter and you do develop a real disdain for the public. That sort of burnout is an unfortunate side effect. I can tell stories that you would wish you could un-hear once I finished. A heart breaks a thousand times a week in a place like that.

However, that is no excuse to play God. That is not an excuse to intrepret the law the way you see fit. It sounds to me like Lugo needs to go - she has gone past what you need from a competent shelter manager. My own SPCA and our staff & directors constantly frustrated me in terms of the roadblocks they kept adding to the adoption process. The requirements got so ridiculous that only those promising to build a mansion for the dog and feed it caviar had any hope of getting it adopted. Meanwhile we just kept squirting em, bagging em and stacking them in the freezer. That sounds graphic, I know. But that is what happens. You see enough of it, you either become callous or you have an emotional breakdown. It sounds like Linda Lugo has become callous and needs to step down.