MEMPHIS, Tenn — Animal foster parents continue to raise the alarm over claims about the environment at Memphis Animal Services.
A viewer reached out to ABC24 Thursday, Dec. 28 trying to get help for a woman facing homelessness. This woman gave up her dogs — Oscar and Mamma — to MAS until she gets back on her feet.
Known as "Safety Net Fostering," the idea is to have someone volunteer to care for the two dogs until the owner can provide her pets with a proper home.
Still, the dogs' behavioral status put them at risk for euthanization, a practice that has more than doubled for dogs and cats from 2022 to 2023.
“They're on the urgent list because they’re not doing well in their kennels due to fear, anxiety and stress,” said Lisa Rhey, the concerned viewer. “That's their favorite description to use as a behavioral problem with the dogs to euthanize them.”
Rhey says she has spent close to 15 years doing animal rescue work, including fostering animals for MAS, which is how she found out about Oscar and Momma’s situation. She feared the dogs would not be there when their owner came back.
According to MAS, they performed 897 euthanizations in 2022. They have euthanized 1,878 animals so far in 2023.
MAS Director of Animal Services Ty Coleman said one of the main factors is that they are nearly always at max capacity.
MAS staff said their dog/cat intake in 2023 so far is 9,976, up from 8,667 in 2022, about a 15 percent increase.
“There's more opportunities for animals to become sick — more opportunities for animals to have more of a stressful environment because they're around more animals all at one time,” Coleman said.
Shelter Supervisor Rachel Ghueder says that fear, anxiety and stress is a contributing factor. She said it is especially common in dogs that go from home to kennel, like Oscar and Momma.
“With these animals, they’re in that kennel non-stop,” Ghueder said. “It’s a constant panic attack that just keeps getting worse and worse. They never actually have a relief from that.”
Rhey questions the evaluation process when it comes to these animals, citing an experience she had at MAS in October 2023.
“I was petting a two-month-old puppy when another employee yelled, ‘Don't do that! These dogs are extremely aggressive and will bite!’ And I've already engaged with five or six other ones and there was none of that behavior.”
Rhey says she has lost a dog to euthanization at MAS and does not want that to happen to anyone else.
“I wanted to get the story out so that maybe we could set up a GoFundMe page for her, help find her a place to live so that she could keep her dogs and they wouldn't lose their lives,” Rhey said.
MAS staff told ABC24 that Oscar and Momma’s owner has found them a new home herself and they are set to be picked up on Saturday.
MAS says they are constantly looking for more help fostering animals, especially in situations where they need temporary homes.