SPOKANE COUNTY- Spokane County confirmed that 14 dogs were euthanized at SCRAPS Wednesday morning.
The county confirmed that 13 of the dogs euthanized were part of a recent series of behavioral assessments conducted by The Canine Assessment Of Risk For Shelters (CARS). The behavioral assessments are designed to see if dogs that are deemed dangerous by SCRAPS can be rehabilitated or not.
One of the dogs euthanized was not assessed by the CARS team, according to Patrick Bell, the Communications Director for Spokane County.
According to an email from Bell, that dog was euthanized for being “self-harming and suffering from mental health issues.”
NonStop Local reporters learned of the euthanizations after receiving texts from Kevin Vanhook, a former SCRAPS employee who was fired months ago after an argument regarding the behavioral assessments with SCRAPS Director Jesse Ferrari.
Vanhook told NonStop Local a current SCRAPS employee told him about it. He claims the current staff member — and other employees– found out about the dogs being euthanized after it had already been done.
Vanhook and others do not believe the dogs euthanized were a danger to society, but that the assessments they underwent were stacked against them.
“As we predicted, these dogs would fail. Every single one of them so far, has failed. They’ve executed them…Euthanasia means good death. And in some cases, that is correct. When an animal’s suffering, to end that suffering… you would use euthanasia. These dogs did not get a euthanasia. they were executed,” Vanhook said.
The deaths of these 14 dogs comes the same month Spokane City Council Members, Michael Cathcart (District 1) and Karen Stratton (District 3), released a statement regarding the treatmentof animals at SCRAPS.
Both council members have been working on an ordinance to make it more difficult to euthanize animals.
“It feels almost like retribution for the ordinance that we put out a week ago. And that we’ll be voting on here coming up soon,” Cathcart said.
The ordinance would ensure that animals at SCRAPS are euthanized only when necessary.
“I learned it from a text message from you [NonStop Local Reporter, Steffi Roche] that the SCRAPS organization made the decision to euthanize 14 dogs. And it’s frankly… it’s pretty egregious. Not to get into any one of those animals. But, the process overall has been incredibly frustrating,” Cathcart said.
“The assessment is not the tool that ultimately decides euthanasia. Humane euthanasia is at the discretion of our director, and it’s only ever employed as a last resort…I just want to be clear, SCRAPS does not use euthanasia or euthanize animals due to capacity issues. So, the dogs that were euthanized that were part of the 14, it was only becayse they were an untreatable threat. And that’s a public safety risk,” Bell said.
Bell told NonStop Local that many of the dogs assessed had histories of dangerous bites and aggressive tendencies.
Spokane County published a statement on their website regarding the behavioral assessment. It includes 16 files regarding 16 dogs…but it is unclear if these were the dogs euthanized.
“There was no proactive statement or proactive effort by SCRAPS to let the public know that this decision was made… and here’s why. In fact, if you read those behavioral assessments, it really doesn’t give you a clear picture as to which animals were actually euthanized,” Cathcart said.
Spokane’s City Council also issues a statement Wednesday calling on SCRAPS to attend their meeting on Monday to answer their questions.
SCRAPS has declined.
“We appreciate the invitation. The shelter operations and management is really dedicated to the facility here…we have 24-hour presence at SCRAPS. And so, we think it would be even more advantageous if the City Council were to come to SCRAPS to sit down with us,” Bell said.
The first reading of the ordinance was supposed to be in a few weeks, but with the new development, the Council will be voting on the ordinance on Monday.
