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Vol. 3, Num. 8

Posted July 31, 2002

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Director defends animal shelter

Dennis Pugh of the Coconino Humane Association says shelter is trying hard to please everyone   

(Longer Web version)

By Dan Frazier
Tea Party Editor

 Dennis Pugh defends himself by saying that it’s not easy being the director of an animal shelter forced to deal with nearly 5,000 lost, abandoned or unwanted animals a year — half of which must be put to sleep. The job, according to Pugh, is only made harder by inadequate funding and critics who invariably think the shelter should operate more humanely. But Dennis Pugh, the executive director of the Coconino Humane Association, says he likes his job. He welcomed the opportunity to meet with me to respond to the recent criticism leveled at him and his shelter.

He gladly gave me a tour of the shelter. I found the shelter to be squeaky clean throughout. It even smelled clean. However, it should be noted that Pugh had been informed of my interest in interviewing him nearly a week prior to my visit, and had not been available earlier, thus giving him several days to prepare for my visit.

After the tour, I spent nearly two hours with Pugh in his tiny office. Unfortunately, at his request, the interview was not recorded. He said recording would make him uncomfortable. However, he patiently answered questions, pausing frequently to allow me to write down his answers. His answers were thoughtful, and well reasoned. With his neatly trimmed gray hair and beard, and pleasant demeanor, he hardly came across as the tyrannical killer I half-expected.

Pugh took pains to avoid saying anything that might upset people or “stir up a hornet’s nest,” as he put it. Nonetheless, when pressed, he acknowledged that it was quite possible that some of his most vocal critics may be motivated not only by a love of animals, but perhaps also by personal animosity. In some cases, critics may even have a financial motivation for criticizing the shelter.

“Some rich people did not get their way,” said Pugh. He did not elaborate. He mentioned a few names, but did not want the names made public. (For the record, he did not name writer Susanne Severeid. It should also be noted that Severeid was not paid for her story about the shelter published this month in Flagstaff Tea Party.)

The shelter’s biggest challenge, according to Pugh, is inadequate funding. He said that last year the shelter’s expenses exceeded revenue by $43,000. In addition to the $182,000 or so the shelter receives from the city and county each year (combined), the shelter brings in another $40,000 or $50,000 in the form of donations and adoption fees, says Pugh. (According to the shelter’s 1999 IRS form 990, the shelter received $136,487 in “contributions, gifts, grants and similar amounts received, direct public support.”

Pugh blames the funding shortfall mostly on the fact that the shelter started an ambitious spay-neuter program. He says that the shelter spent $60,000 on the program last year, exhausting a $60,000 fund that was also supposed to cover education efforts and other programs. One such program is a follow-up program to make sure those who adopt animals are getting them spayed or neutered.

Another such program supports the Flagstaff Pet Assistance League. Despite the shelter’s financial difficulties, the shelter continues to give FlagPAL $5,000 a year to support its spay-neuter program.

“We are almost half of FlagPAL,” said Pugh. In fact, FlagPAL started out years ago as the shelter’s own volunteer auxiliary.

The $60,000 fund that was exhausted by the new spay-neuter program was mostly derived from fees paid by those who adopt animals from the shelter. Through the new spay-neuter program, those who adopt are given a certificate entitling their new pet to spaying or neutering by a local veterinarian. According to Pugh, the new program has meant that 98 percent of adopted animals are spayed or neutered, as opposed to a 75 percent compliance rate prior to the program.

Last year the shelter also spent $1,080 on a separate spay-neuter program designed to assist low-income cat owners in getting their cats spayed or neutered. The program covers about half of the $45 cost, with cat owners chipping in $20. In an average year, the shelter spends about $2,400 on the program. According to Pugh, the little-known program is publicized mainly by word of mouth. Because of the program’s cost, Pugh seemed concerned about the possibility that too many people might learn of the program. He said some people do not understand that the program is really only for low income individuals.

Another reason for the shelter’s budget shortfall has to do with the cost of shots.

“The cost of shots has gone of out of sight,” said Pugh.

Pugh also cited the high cost of safer disinfectants used in place of bleach as a significant expense. He said such disinfectants can cost $15 a gallon or more. These less toxic disinfectants are used sparingly, and bleach is still used for some cleaning tasks where safety is less of an issue.

Because of funding difficulties, the shelter is sometimes understaffed. With starting-pay for most new employees about $6 an hour, employee turnover is high. By doubling the annual fee the county pays to the shelter, Pugh hopes to increase starting pay to $7 or $8 an hour, with higher pay for good employees once they are trained. Pugh hopes to also substantially increase the fee that the city pays within the year.

“We need to get people up into the $10 to $11 an hour range,” said Pugh.

The shelter currently has 7 employees, including Pugh. There is also an eighth person, an unpaid night watchman who is on call for emergencies and who helps with cleaning on the weekends. In exchange for his services, the night watchman is provided living quarters in a mobile home in the parking lot.

Pugh said he takes home about $40,000 a year for his role in overseeing the shelter’s operations. Pugh started out at the shelter shoveling snow and doing other chores in 1967. He was 16 years old. Except for a few years in the late 60s and early 70s when he worked as a roofer and oil rigger, he has worked at the shelter ever since. He took office as director of the shelter in July of 1984.

Despite the current funding crunch, the shelter has spent money recently on a variety of maintenance projects to upgrade the facilities. These included spreading white gravel over the dirt parking lot and over the two outdoor dog runs. Also, new tile was installed in one section of the facility and a leaky section of a wall was recently rebuilt.

Regardless of funding problems, the animals keep coming every day. Pugh recalls the time a woman brought 78 animals to the shelter in a single day. One day last year 32 cats were brought to the shelter. Most days, the shelter must make room for 10 to 15 new animals. Typically, the shelter has 50 to 70 live animals on hand.

Pugh read to me from a hand-written letter given to him the day before I interviewed him. The letter was from an animal control officer who wrote that the shelter needs to do a better job of making room for new animals. The officer said that the shelter should be euthanizing animals faster to make more room for arriving animals. Pugh declined to give the name of the officer who wrote the letter.

So while some members of the public criticize the shelter for dispatching animals too hastily, there is also pressure to put animals to sleep faster.

“We’re the ones caught in the middle trying to please everybody,” said Pugh. “People in general, they don’t get the math.” 

Pugh, who says he is good with animals, sometimes finds himself having to put animals to sleep when the shelter is shorthanded. On two recent occasions, the experience of putting a batch of animals to sleep left him in tears.

 “It’s a really difficult job here,” said Pugh.

Nonetheless, Pugh said that the experience of working at the shelter provides valuable training. He gave me the names of several former employees whose training at the Coconino Humane Association may have helped them in their careers. These include Cindy O’Leary of the Alaska Humane Society, Jack Roberts of the Coconino Health Department, Reena Cureton of the Sedona Police Department and Shelaine Lindley of the Flagstaff Police Department.

Lately, the shelter has come under increased criticism from some members of the public. Nonetheless, Pugh hopes the shelter has retained a positive reputation.

“I think the general public’s perception of how we do our business is good,” said Pugh. “If the perception has changed, it’s because of undeserved articles in the paper.”

In particular, Pugh recalls with disappointment the reputation-damaging article about the shelter that appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun in December. Pugh maintains that the reporter who wrote the story never visited the shelter, relying mostly on the claims of shelter critics. Anne Minard, the former Sun reporter who wrote the story, insists she did in fact visit the shelter.

Though initially hesitant, Pugh ultimately welcomed the opportunity to meet with me to answer some of the specific allegations leveled against the shelter recently.

One of the biggest concerns of critics has to do with how the dog stalls are cleaned. Critics worry that dogs are routinely getting wet when the stalls are hosed out. Though Pugh admits that the dogs are not removed from the stalls, he says that care is taken to avoid getting the dogs wet. He says that usually only their feet get wet. However, Pugh also notes that some dogs like to chase hoses and may even bite at a stream of water, thus getting wet. He says that a “puppy cart” is used to hold very small dogs while their stalls are hosed out.

Despite Pugh’s assurances, with stalls that measure only about 3-feet by 3-feet, it is not hard to imagine dogs being unable to avoid getting wet while the stalls are cleaned. The National Animal Control Association recommends larger holding pens for all but the smallest dogs. For instance, NACA recommends that a large dog have 24 square feet of space — a space measuring nearly 5-feet by 5-feet.

During my visit, the concrete floor of some of the stalls appeared slightly damp, as did a few of the dogs. However, none of the dogs appeared to be soaked or dripping. 

Another concern is that the dogs sit or lie directly on the hard concrete floor. During my visit, it appeared that only one dog in 10 had a small towel on which to rest, and these towels appeared to be damp. Pugh said that towels are only provided to young dogs and to older dogs. He said that to provide towels to all the dogs would be impractical.

“If we had the money to pay somebody to do laundry all day, we’d do more towels,” said Pugh.

Also, washing so many towels would quickly wear out an ordinary washing machine. The good news is that the shelter installed a large front-load commercial washing machine about a week prior to my visit thanks to the generosity of Lillian Heart. Unfortunately, the washer was out of service the day I visited, awaiting repairs.

Heart, a former board member, established a trust fund prior to her death to help the Coconino Humane Association. Money from the fund is being used to install new doors and windows at the shelter.

Another often heard concern is that the animals do not get enough exercise. However, Pugh stressed that the animals get a lot of exercise. In fact, he expressed concern that some of the dogs may at times get “worn out” by the all the exercise they get. Volunteers frequently visit the shelter to walk dogs within the confines of the fenced-in areas adjacent to the building. These two dog runs each measure about 15 feet wide and perhaps 100 feet in length. According to Pugh, employees will sometimes let a dog out to play in these areas if the dog has not been exercised in a while.

Some critics contend that the shelter does not make enough of an effort to get animals adopted, and puts too many to sleep. However, Pugh says that last year the shelter only euthanized 48 percent of animals. He says that this compares favorably with the 67 percent euthanasia rate that was the average at similar shelters just four or five years ago.

Pugh provided these figures on animals handled by the shelter in fiscal year 2001- 2002:

* Pugh said that the total animals handled during the year was 4,873, adding that his total did not include 29 animals in the shelter at the time of the count.

** Percentage figures do not total 100 due to rounding.

Pugh said he could not provide me with a list of those who had adopted animals. However, he insisted that detailed and accurate records were maintained. During my visit to the shelter, I saw several visitors to the shelter who appeared to be inspecting dogs for possible adoption.

Pugh also said that the shelter maintains a file of “lost” pet reports with descriptions of lost pets as described by their owners. The shelter maintains another file of “found” pet reports with descriptions of found pets as described by those who find them. Pugh said that the files are used to match lost pets with their owners, especially in cases in which the lost pet has not been turned in to the shelter and the owner calls looking for it. 

“We try to get the two people together,” said Pugh.

However, Pugh encourages those who find stray pets to drop them off at the shelter because descriptions are often inaccurate or misleading. Even pet owners sometimes provide poor descriptions and are urged to visit the shelter to verify whether or not their pet has been turned in.

As for those who say that Pugh should not leave the decision of whether or not to euthanize an animal to the employees, Pugh disagrees, noting that the employees who clean the stalls and feed the animals day in and day out have the best sense of which animals are the most adoptable.

“They’re the ones working with the animals. It should be them (making the decision),” said Pugh. “They’re the ones that are giving them all the love and attention. They’re the ones that know their dispositions. They know if the animal sneezed.”

Faced with the difficult decision of which animals to put to sleep in a crowded shelter, a sneeze might make all the difference in the world.

“We really try to get quality animals to the public,” said Pugh.

Of course, sometimes mistakes are made and animals are put to sleep that perhaps should not have been. One mistake that Pugh vividly recalls was the case involving Susanne Severeid, a writer who visited the shelter a few months ago. Severeid’s troubling experience at the shelter was one of many reasons that ultimately motivated her to research and write this month’s Flagstaff Tea Party cover story. Severeid was concerned about the fate of a certain dog. She was told, “There is plenty of space and the dog is healthy.” She was also told the dog would not be euthanized while she tried to find someone to adopt it. She was promised that the dog would be safe for at least a couple of days. However, another employee put the dog to sleep within 12 hours.

According to Pugh, the mistake that was made in Severeid’s case was not necessarily one of putting an animal to sleep prematurely. After all, according to Pugh, the dog had been at the shelter for two weeks — a long time for any dog to be at the shelter. According to notes in Severeid’s day planner, the dog had, at most, only been available for adoption for eight working days. Pugh says that the real mistake was made when the employee promised to hold the dog that interested Severeid. Severeid says that it was not just this one employee making a promise; the receptionist was also in on the conversation.

 Pugh says that though shelter employees can sometimes hold a dog for a person who wants to pick it up the next day, Severeid’s case was different because she did not want the dog herself. According to Pugh, Severeid was not even sure she could find a home for the animal.

But, according to Severeid, she knew she could find a home for the dog, and Pugh did not know the details of Severeid’s hold-request until after the dog was dead.

In any case, Pugh recalls “chewing out” the employee for his mistake. The employee no longer works at the shelter. Pugh says he understands Severeid’s frustration with the shelter, but adds, “Everyone bent over backwards to help Susanne.”

Pugh works under the direction of a board that meets every other month. The board meets in a tiny office adjacent to the shelter’s reception area. According to Pugh, members of the board serve because they care about animals. Some board members also have relevant experience. For instance, two board members, Richard Livingston and John Fife, are local veterinarians. Some board members have served for years. Nicholas Gabriel III has served for 15 to 20 years, according to Pugh. Pugh says that though the board meetings are not advertised, members of the public could conceivably attend if they, say, had a presentation they wanted to make to the board.

“I don’t want to hide from anybody,” said Pugh.

 Pugh also said that the shelter has agreed to at least one third-party inspection in the near future. The county has been demanding a third-party inspection as a condition of contracting with the Humane Association. Pugh said that though all the details have not been worked out, it appears that the inspection will be conducted by Johnnie W. Mays, a Kansas City-based representative of the National Animal Control Association. Pugh was not sure if inspections would become a routine part of the shelter’s operations.

As for the Coconino Humane Association’s questionable ties to the Humane Society, Pugh says that the shelter is in fact “affiliated” with the Humane Society of the United States, and receives literature periodically from the Humane Society.

I have touched on much of what I saw during my tour of the shelter already. However, a few additional observations are perhaps worth mentioning.

The shelter is located at the southern terminus of Fourth Street. The turn-off from Butler is easy to miss, though there is an old sign along Butler Avenue directing eastbound drivers to the approaching turnoff to the “Humane Society.” From Butler, it is about a mile down a dirt stretch of Fourth Street to the shelter, located around a curve in the road atop a small hill. 

Inside, just beyond the reception area and adjacent offices, is the area where the dogs are held. The dog area is a large room partitioned lengthwise into three sections. City and county dogs are kept in different sections of the room. The largest section, in the middle of the building, boasts high ceilings and is amply illuminated by six skylights supplemented by fluorescent lights. Stalls on the outer perimeter of the building are also well lit, separated from a long row of large windows only by a pedestrian walkway. Throughout the dog area, the stalls are arranged so that dogs cannot see one another. This probably helps to keep the dogs calm. Nearly every stall had a dog in it, but only a few dogs were barking during my visit, and only sporadically. Many of the dogs appeared to be resting or asleep.

Four doors in the dog area, two on either side of the building, open directly to the outside where the fenced-dog runs are located. These doors apparently are left open much of the time during temperate weather to provide ventilation. None of the stalls has a direct opening of any kind to the outdoors and no dog can access the outdoors without a human to open the chain-link gate on the dog’s stall.

The cats are kept in one of two separate rooms, isolated almost entirely from the barking of the dogs. These rooms are much smaller. The cats are kept in cages that, though smaller than the dog stalls, allow the cats more freedom of movement because of the smaller size of cats. These cages are framed with plastic and reminded me of the pet carrying cases often seen at airports, though they are larger than most. The cages are stacked on top of one another, three or four high. The cages are lined with newspapers. The newspaper appeared fresh and clean during my well-announced visit.

The room where the animals are euthanized features a stainless steel table fitted with a rubber mat. According to Pugh, only larger animals are put to sleep on the floor. (According to Severeid, when she visited the shelter, small and medium sized dogs had all been euthanized on the floor. A table was not being used.) There was nothing about the room to betray its deadly role, aside from the drain in the floor, which, like everything else, was surprisingly clean. Heavy duty black plastic trash bags were stacked on a cabinet in one corner of the room. Dead animals are placed inside the bags before being loaded into a large walk-in cooler in an adjacent room. Ultimately, the bagged animals are trucked to the landfill.

 Click here to read a longer version of the article about the shelter by Susanne Severeid that appeared in the August edition of Flagstaff Tea Party.

Click here to read Susanne Severeid’s letter describing how she was told the shelter would not put the dog to sleep for at least a couple of days while Severeid tried to find a home for the dog. The dog was put to sleep within 12 hours.

Click here to read letters to the editor about the story above and the animal shelter. 

 Click here for a list of current officers and directors of the Coconino Humane Association.

 Click here to read the award-winning but controversial story by Anne Minard about the shelter published in the Arizona Daily Sun Dec. 16, 2001.

 Click here to read Amy Durant’s editorial defending the shelter and taking Minard to task. The editorial was published in Flagstaff Tea Party in January, 2002.