14 dogs die from heatstroke at kennel
Waycross, GA (US)

Incident Date: Friday, Jul 1, 2011
County: Ware

Disposition: Not Charged

Abuser names unreleased

The heat has killed dogs at the Waycross animal shelter because the kennel isn't wired to power fans, but a city official said Wednesday that help is on the way.

Okefenokee Humane Society shelter manager Ben Hood said 14 dogs have died of heatstroke in the past three months, including a 7-month-old black Lab that died Wednesday.

"We've had record high temperatures this year," Hood said, "but we don't have any fans in the kennel because we don't have any electricity out there."

The 140-by-40-foot kennel can house up to 100 dogs and 20 cats at a time but not comfortably and certainly not safely, Hood said. The sun hits one side in the morning and the other in the afternoon, exposing the animals to intense heat under the metal roof.

"We have a misting system, but we can't use it all the time because the dogs aren't allowed to sit in water," Hood said.

Animals also are given frozen bottles of water and are sprayed down frequently.

"They're still dying in this kind of heat," Hood said.

The cash-strapped organization headquartered on the southeast side of Waycross has the materials to wire the kennel, Hood said. It shelters strays collected by the county and the city, and City Manager Deron King pledged to send an electrician to do the wiring, Hood said.

That help has been slow in coming, but Waycross City Engineer Frank Baugh said Hood won't have to wait much longer.

"The city manager relayed this to me yesterday," he said. "I'm hoping that we can get somebody out there this week."

The kennel was built a couple of years ago for $68,000, Hood said, well over the $15,000 originally budgeted. But the wiring was left unfinished.

Hood said the shelter still faces other problems, including animals that are illegally dumped onto the shelter grounds.

"Some of the surrounding counties don't have animal control, so we get a lot of animals thrown over our fence," he said. "The perpetrators that we can identify through our camera system are prosecuted."

References

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