- September 11, 2024
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Several former volunteers at the Flagler Humane Society spoke at a Flagler County Commission meeting and at a Palm Coast City Council meeting earlier this month to criticize the shelter’s policies and treatment of animals.
Criticisms included overcrowded conditions, no protocol for euthanasia, no transparency of financial records, dogs that are not walked daily and too often not given clean water.
Humane Society Executive Director Amy Carotenuto said she knew there were some disgruntled volunteers who had made posts on social media but the coordinated public comments at the two meetings caught her by surprise.
“I didn’t know they were going to try to organize this kind of negative campaign against us,” Carotenuto said. “We can’t make everybody happy. The main thing is to try to keep the animals happy and comfortable.”
One former volunteer said she and two other volunteers were let go because they complained about a pit bull mix named Guapo, who was euthanized last month. Guapo was a volunteer favorite, she said. Another speaker said Guapo was a healthy 2-year old. A third said Guapo was set up to fail.
Carotenuto and Animal Care and Placement Manager Kyndra Mott said Guapo came into the facility in December as a stray. He was a 65- to 70-pound pit bull that had problems inside his kennel. He was barrier reactive, Mott said, and he didn’t show well to potential adopters.
“We had an incident with him in a play group where he grabbed onto the neck of another dog and shook him. So he tore the dog's neck open and he needed 22 staples. After that, he was kind of placed him on an eval,” Mott said. “We had a guy interested in taking him, but he had grandkids that would come over. So we did a meet with them and he showed offensive aggression without a barrier. He lunged and growled, snapped directly at the children. Other issues with him was he was difficult to walk. Only very experienced, strong dog walkers and staff could take him out. He also escaped the back kennels a couple times. So it all added up. We have to take into consideration public safety. And if we didn't think he was going to be containable and if he would be offensively aggressive to animals or children, we felt it wasn't safe to place him.”
The Humane Society uses PetPoint software, which most shelters do, allowing shelters to compare all of their animal statistics with other shelters around the state or country, Carotenuto said. The Flagler Humane Society has a euthanizing rate of 5% this year while Florida shelters as a whole have a 12.5% rate and nationally the rate is 13.2%.
And since the beginning of 2023, they’ve had nearly 3,000 adoptions, she said.
“So we really are doing pretty well,” Carotenuto said.
One complaint she agrees with is the Humane Society is overcrowded. There currently are about 100 dogs and 200 cats in the shelter. Some of the dogs have been there over a year.
“We don't turn anybody away,” Carotenuto said.
Last week, a woman brought kittens in and told them that if they didn’t take them she would throw them in the woods.
“She probably wouldn't have done that, but we took them,” Carotenuto said. “There's no way they would have survived. So we had to take them.”
The county allocated $284,000 to the Humane Society last year which included animal control. Palm Coast has its own animal control officers. At least three commissioners — Leann Penington, Donald O’Brien and Greg Hansen — suggested they look into the issue further.
