Animal Shelter News

``I saw the guy bent over, and I saw the puppy on the box,`` Sciuto said. ``I thought he was making something with a hammer - the next thing I see is the dog go limp.``

Sciuto said he isn`t sure that he saw a hammer but is sure that he saw the employee with a sticklike object. The employee was hired 18 months ago to fill a position created by the Stokes County Board of Commissioners in response to criticism that the shelter was dirty and too often left unattended.

LaVerta Sciuto said there were six dead puppies piled against the wall in the hallway of the shelter. The seventh was lying by itself, twitching while they talked with the employee, she said.

``It left me speechless,`` she said. ``I couldn`t believe what I was seeing. I didn`t say anything to him - neither did Steve - but we couldn`t believe it.``

LaVerta Sciuto said the employee, while taking information about her lost dog, apologized for what she had seen.

``He`s telling me how sorry he is that we had to see this,`` she said. ``He said nobody wanted little hound puppies and that they couldn`t get rid of them.... I`ve never seen anything like that before in my life.``

George is investigating and will give a report Monday to Jerry Rothrock, the Stokes County manager. Robert ``Buster`` Robertson, vice chairman of the board, said the board will probably discuss the incident at its meeting Monday.

``It`s one of those things you don`t like to hear,`` Robertson said. ``But we`re going to take hold of the situation and do what we have to do.``

Meanwhile, George said the shelter has changed its policy of killing unwanted animals. Under the old policy, all strays not adopted were gassed with carbon monoxide. Under the new policy, all small animals, including
puppies, will be killed by injection, which is considered the most humane method.   (*correction, they still use gas)

``We started that today,`` George said Friday.

The incident comes just days before the county is supposed to open bids for construction of the new animal shelter. Many county officials had seen next week`s bid-opening as an important milestone in the county`s effort to overcome past problems with the shelter.

In 1984, the N.C. Humane Federation complained about conditions at the shelter, demanded that a new one be built and started a media campaign that drew national attention.

Among the complaints were that some of the animals were not buried after they were killed. On one 1984 shelter tour, an investigator found the carcasses of four dogs and a calf.

Commissioner Banner Shelton, who campaigned hard on the animal shelter issue in last fall`s election, said the incident and its timing angers him.

``Before we get the first brick laid on the new shelter, we`ve got another mess to clean up - we`ve got another embarrassment to deal with,`` he said. ``I had hoped that we had gone beyond the point of being embarrassed.``

Shelton said that the one employee isn`t the only person to blame.

``There is a chain-of-command problem,`` said Shelton, adding the employee
had apparently been improperly trained. ``We can`t just look at one man. We`ve got to look at the whole chain of command - right on up to the county manager. I`m ticked. I mean it - ticked.``

So are others.

``It`s horrible. It`s just terrible that this has happened. I hope this is an isolated incident. That is my hope, but I really don`t know,`` said Sandy Boughman, vice president of the Stokes Humane Society.

Julie Goodin said that the call was first reported to the Forsyth chapter of the society. Goodin, the Forsyth director, said this is the worst cruelty report in more than a year.

``I realize this is a rural county, low on funds,`` she said. ``But this has got to be stopped. Stokes has been investigated before. But after all the brouhaha died down, they`ve gone right back to doing things like they always do.``

 

Charges will not be brought against a former Stokes County animal shelter
employee who clubbed a puppy to death with a hoe handle, the county`s district attorney says.

``You look at the facts and you look at the law,`` said prosecutor Dean
Bowman, ``and it just doesn`t fit that he should be charged. You can`t be fair and objective in applying the criminal law if you ride the tide of emotionalism, and I`m not going to do that.``

Bowman`s statement came after an investigation prepared last week by the
county sheriff`s department. The probe was prompted after Steve and LaVerta
Sciuto of Walnut Cove told authorities they saw Charlie Fulk beat a puppy to
death and saw six other puppies` bodies piled in a hall at the shelter.

Fulk denied killing the other puppies, saying the litter had been sick and
the puppies died on their own. But he said he did kill another puppy because
it appeared to be near death.

After the incident was reported, County Manager Jerry Rothrock restructured the animal control department and said improper supervision was at the root of the problem. Rothrock reassigned Fulk and demoted his supervisor, Roscoe
Young, to animal control officer.