Recent euthanasia's at BARC has some rescue groups, animal shelter director at odds

HOUSTON - "They think we want to euthanize animals for some reason or we don’t care about the animals," said BARC Director Greg Damianoff. "That couldn’t be further from the truth."

While some 95% of all the animals brought to BARC make it out alive, some are euthanized.

"Somebody wanted to foster this dog, Milo, and they started calling and e-mailing and nobody responded and emailed her back until 4 o’clock in the afternoon," said rescuer Krysten Powers.

BARC says the dog needed to be picked up by 5 o’clock and the foster mom couldn’t make that happen.

"BARC did not even offer her the option of a transport driver she didn’t even know we existed," said rescuer April Bowerman. "I’m a transport driver."

"If it didn’t come to pass, we have to euthanize the animal. We’ve already made that clear. For whatever reason, we are the villains for that because it didn’t come true," Damianoff said.

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"Guys had brought in a badly injured dog," said rescuer Shireen Hyrapiet.

"It’s front lower leg was broken twisted," said rescuer Deja Land. "I took a video and within three minutes, I had a rescue that would take him."

"My heart went out to that dog," said Hyrapiet. "It looked like it was in really bad shape, but the fact that a rescue was ready to take it, to put money in to save that dog's life, I don’t see why it just couldn’t be given a change."

"If the general public is now going to have the authority to override a licensed practitioner of veterinarian medicine whose been doing it for 35 years in a shelter, where are we going from there," said Damianoff.

"Recently we’ve seen a lot of dogs put on euthanasia lists that are aggressive or not friendly or reactive," said rescuer Claudine Vass. "We need to know how do you determine that."

"I don’t think this shelter is run by someone who is compassionate about the animals," said rescuer Sandee Roquemore Maxwell. "To be honest, I think it’s a paycheck."

"We might have 80 people that are constantly hitting us over the head. Am I going to make everybody happy, I don’t think so," Damianoff said. "I don’t think anyone who is director of this place is going to make that happen."

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The shelter director tells us he wants to have a meeting with all the rescue groups so they can combine resources and make a big difference.

We will let you know when that happens and we will be there.