Family dog mistakenly euthanized by animal control

[Hum]

The Minton family of Lexington, Kentucky are recovering after a sad mistake by animal control. Their chihuahua Peanut had gone missing on Saturday after he followed 7-year-old Alyssa Minton to her neighborhood friend?s house. The search for Peanut was unsuccessful so the family called animal control on Monday to see if anyone had found their dog. Alyssa?s father, Jonathan Minton, told WKYT, "They made a report of it. Then Tuesday morning, that's when they came and said, Sunday we euthanized him."

Animal Care and Control?s policy is to keep stray dogs for five days, but Peanut was euthanized after only one day. While the dog was not micro-chipped, nor wearing a collar, Minton told WLEX Lex 18, "They should have triple checked their paperwork before they decided to do anything like that!" Officials said that an employee mistakenly thought that Peanut had been there for five days and when he was brought in, the dog failed a health and temperament screening so the decision was made to euthanize him. :s

Animal control insisted that an incident like this one had never happened before and the worker responsible for the mistake was fired. On Tuesday evening an animal control representative arrived in person to return Peanut?s ashes to the Minton family. The gesture was appreciated and helped ease the family?s pain, but Minton wanted to share his story to warn others saying, "Know that if their animal does go to animal control, or something, you know something like this could happen. I mean, there was nothing wrong with him at all. He was a happy dog.?

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[COKid]

Mistakes do happen and I suppose firing the worker was justified, but a microchip would have prevented this. Dog owners need to be responsible for their pets. Once your dog gets loose, all bets are off.

[Growled Member]

Dog owners need to be responsible for their pets. Once your dog gets loose, all bets are off.

Yes, they do. If you don't take proper care of your pet you can bet someone else will.

[Hum]

I'd hate to have a fat pet -- getting the weight off must be a hardship.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Mistakes do happen and I suppose firing the worker was justified, but a microchip would have prevented this. Dog owners need to be responsible for their pets. Once your dog gets loose, all bets are off.

how would a microchip have prevented this? all it does is act as a dog tag that can't fall off

[Anibal P]

Not surprising at all, you can see where they're priorities really are, it's all about killing the animal;s, not getting them adopted, must have been a PETA "shelter"

[techbeck]

All dog should have a microchip installed. Its not that expensive. And a lot of animal shelters will do it before you adopt a pet.

[Stetson]

how would a microchip have prevented this? all it does is act as a dog tag that can't fall off

Animal Control had no way to know that this was someone's dog and not just a stray, nor any way to contact the owners. The dog was euthanized before the family first reported the missing dog to animal control.

If the dog had been microchipped, it would have shown up when they scanned the dog in and they would have been able to contact the owners.

[francescob]

how would a microchip have prevented this? all it does is act as a dog tag that can't fall off

Mind-controlling microchips could have easily prevented all this.

[Boxster17]

how would a microchip have prevented this? all it does is act as a dog tag that can't fall off

You kind of answered your own question there. They scan the microchip since it can't be lost and they then contact the owners (granted it doesn't do much good if you don't keep the registration up to date).

It's a shame something like this happened but if you can't afford the microchip which will cost you maybe $50 bucks, then investing a couple bucks in a collar certainly seems fairly reasonable.

[Gerowen]

Lexington is our local "metropolis", it's about 2 hours from here, and to us it's a huge city. Here I just go down to the flea market and there's a guy there who stamps brass plates you can put on a dog collar with rivets. The plate with my name and phone number and the collar only cost me $4 altogether, so there are dirt cheap solutions that could have prevented this. Somebody living in Lexington where there's millions of people and their dog could just wander off should have probably at least put a collar on the dog.

Although, when the animal was brought in, they should have probably tagged it themselves with a temporary collar of some kind like you get at a hospital so they could start keeping track of what they had done, where they found it, how long it had been there, etc. The fact that they "thought" it had been there 5 days means that they don't even bother keeping records of animals they bring in.

In this case, both the owners and the animal control are to blame for Peanut's death.

[123456789A]

how would a microchip have prevented this? all it does is act as a dog tag that can't fall off

The dog could have been overclocked and able to escape from animal control.

[Hum]

A microchip should also have some line in there, "Do not euthanize before contacting the owners."

[timster]

Lexington is our local "metropolis", it's about 2 hours from here, and to us it's a huge city. Here I just go down to the flea market and there's a guy there who stamps brass plates you can put on a dog collar with rivets. The plate with my name and phone number and the collar only cost me $4 altogether, so there are dirt cheap solutions that could have prevented this. Somebody living in Lexington where there's millions of people and their dog could just wander off should have probably at least put a collar on the dog.

Although, when the animal was brought in, they should have probably tagged it themselves with a temporary collar of some kind like you get at a hospital so they could start keeping track of what they had done, where they found it, how long it had been there, etc. The fact that they "thought" it had been there 5 days means that they don't even bother keeping records of animals they bring in.

In this case, both the owners and the animal control are to blame for Peanut's death.

that's way off, Lexington has less than 500,000 people. With that out of the way, I agree with everything else you've mentioned

[Gotenks98]

I would so sue the crap out of them if this is my dog. My little yorkie is chipped already and if this were to happen there would not be enough money available to stop my wrath.

[moloko]

You kind of answered your own question there. They scan the microchip since it can't be lost and they then contact the owners (granted it doesn't do much good if you don't keep the registration up to date).

It's a shame something like this happened but if you can't afford the microchip which will cost you maybe $50 bucks, then investing a couple bucks in a collar certainly seems fairly reasonable.

correct. Microchip has all the data of the owner and the pet. so the animal control could of called the onwers. Problem fixed. Here is another solution. Watch your dog better.

[Gerowen]

that's way off, Lexington has less than 500,000 people. With that out of the way, I agree with everything else you've mentioned

Well it "feels" like millions to me, :p

[n_K]

I would so sue the crap out of them if this is my dog. My little yorkie is chipped already and if this were to happen there would not be enough money available to stop my wrath.

Then it wouldn't happen, you're probably a responsible dog owner unlike the family in this story.

[Mr. Gibs]

I would so sue the crap out of them if this is my dog. My little yorkie is chipped already and if this were to happen there would not be enough money available to stop my wrath.

Probably wouldn't happen because your dog is chipped and probably wears a collar. Why would you keep a pet without either of those? They aren't exactly expensive...

[Digit12345]

I like how they describe it as euthanization when more than likely it's just animal slaughter. Failing a few screening tests automatically qualifies a pet for mercy killing now? Considering the dog was doing just fine the day before it got lost...

And as sensible as it is to tag your pet, some people in here are acting as if it's something you must do or you are at fault. Like you tag your children right?

[Noir Angel]

Mind-controlling microchips could have easily prevented all this.

I don't think the Illuminati and NWO have much interest in dogs...

:p

[Mr. Gibs]

I like how they describe it as euthanization when more than likely it's just animal slaughter. Failing a few screening tests automatically qualifies a pet for mercy killing now? Considering the dog was doing just fine the day before it got lost...

And as sensible as it is to tag your pet, some people in here are acting as if it's something you must do or you are at fault. Like you tag your children right?

Depends on the dog? They said the dog had temperament issues and/or some disease, I dunno.

I'm not saying what happened was right but a lot of shelters have a massive influx of animals they just physically don't have spots for. If it looks like a pet has a low chance of being adopted (aggressive, has medical conditions etc) and there's no space for him...well...

It's really sad but this is what happens when people don't neuter their pets or end up returning the pet they have because they didn't want to put in any effort to train it. And well get a ****ing microchip and a collar, it really isn't that hard or expensive.

[shuichi1986]

If this were my dog to say I would feel outrage would be a gross understatement. They would be prying my hands off this vets throat.

[Digit12345]

Depends on the dog? They said the dog had temperament issues and/or some disease, I dunno.

I'm not saying what happened was right but a lot of shelters have a massive influx of animals they just physically don't have spots for. If it looks like a pet has a low chance of being adopted (aggressive, has medical conditions etc) and there's no space for him...well...

It's really sad but this is what happens when people don't neuter their pets or end up returning the pet they have because they didn't want to put in any effort to train it. And well get a ****ing microchip and a collar, it really isn't that hard or expensive.

Yeah, I agree that it's unfortunate measures like this have to be taken because there aren't enough resources. I just think it's a sad state of affairs how dispensable pets are treated in general.