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Noted author Jim Willis barked in this urgent alert regarding the Mason County Animal Shelter which is facing a massive euthenasia of unwanted yet healthy dogs. According to another message, the County Commissioners are not giving the shelter staff any more time. The Commissioners will be taking over the shelter very soon and putting down all but 50 dogs.

Some of you know me as the author of “How Could You?” During the years I spent in that region, this is one of hardest working shelters I’ve known, with a committed staff and volunteers, and they bent over backwards, for years, to work with other animal rescuers in order to save animals’ lives.

The same cannot be said for that county’s commissioners, who should be there right now helping to scoop poop and bathing dogs and cats, and making them better available in other venues for adoption, instead of taking the “easy” way out and condemning healthy, adoptable animals to death.

Please call all the media in the area, and if you are local and vote, please make sure these commissioners are not re-elected, and elect some animal-caring people instead.

The chair of the commission, Bob Baird, doesn’t make himself available by e-mail.

Please mail:
Commissioner Miles Epling, milese@suddenlink.net
Commissioner Rick Handley, Rhandling@bellsouth.net
County clerk Diana Cromley, masoncoclerk@eurekanet.com
Circuit clerk Bill Withers, masoncircuitclk@citynet.net

Please call the commissioners, during office hours, at: 304-675-1110
Please also contact all print and broadcast media in the area and demand that the mass murder of the animals be televised and reported on. Contact the below correspondents and I’m sure they’ll provide you with a media list.

Our question to all of the Mason County government and the State of West Virginia, should be, “how could you?!”

Thank you,
Jim Willishttp://www.crean.com/jimwillis

Here is the original email asking for help:

Dear Rescues/Volunteers:

Panic is beginning to set in. We are now looking at 18 days to move 200 dogs, or the county will regain control of the Mason County Animal Shelter and euthanize all but 50. So many of you have worked relentlessly all summer trying to help us place as many dogs and puppies as you could, and we are very grateful. Others of you have helped in the past and have faced difficulties of your own as many volunteers are on vacation during the summer while at the same time it seems to be the peak season for pet abandonment.

Our story is no different than countless other shelters who face overcrowding and the pressure to make the choice to kill perfectly healthy or at the very least, easily treatable, dogs and puppies for the sheer sake of numbers. Knowing that, I am still going to beg you to think of everyone you know in the rescue business. Please, please, put out every plea you can to assist us. We are willing to transport van loads wherever needed. These animals are our friends and family and have trusted us to give them a chance for a better life. If I sound desperate, it’s because we are. We have had to fight with everything we had to even get the summer months to try to get them out to safety.

As the deadline grows closer, the county “vultures” are starting to swarm, visiting the shelter to count how many remain. The bad part is that not everyone is even listed on our Petfinder site. I assure you if you can help in anyway, any request for information about a particular breed or size or temperament of dog will not go unanswered. We do have a tremendous number of black dogs: labs, setters, hounds, terriers. Until the past several months, I never realized that color had it’s prejudices in animals, too.

Our suddenlink accounts are not reliable as of late. Many e-mails have not gotten through some cyber glitch. Please use this address. Again, if it’s only one or two you could find space for, that’s more lives saved.

God Bless, and thank you.
Angela
Mason County Animal Shelter