Pet death mistake; family heartbroken

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For weeks after their dog Lady disappeared from their yard last August, the Rabanes family heard nothing.

"We were praying that somebody had found her and they were taking good care of her because she's a good little dog," said Teresa Rabanes of Wailuku. "Her temperament was awesome."

Then in early March, nearly seven months after Lady went missing, the family learned what had happened to their pet through a telephone call from a former Maui Humane Society employee.

The 5-year-old blue heeler, who was so friendly she would run up to lick visitors, was euthanized after being mistaken for an aggressive male dog of the same breed that was turned in to the shelter around the same time.

"It's just a shock," Rabanes said. "I can just see Lady right now, happy, them putting the leash on her, them leading her and her complying with everything, right up to the last minute."

As upset as they were by what had happened, family members were angered more that they hadn't been immediately told. On Aug. 18, the Monday that Rabanes and her 19-year-old daughter, Amanda, went to the Puunene animal shelter to fill out a lost-dog report, Lady was already dead.

Despite a Maui County law requiring that stray dogs be held for at least 48 hours, Teresa Rabanes said she learned Lady was euthanized the morning of Aug. 17, less than a day after she was picked up as a stray and taken to the shelter Aug. 16. That day, she said she had called the shelter after realizing Lady was gone and was told she would have to file a report in person.

"I can accept the fact if it was an honest, honest mistake," Rabanes said. "We would have been hurt at the time. But it makes it worse now. They lied and they covered it up. That just shows me that there's something wrong."

Jocelyn Bouchard, chief executive officer of the Maui Humane Society, said there wasn't a cover-up, although she acknowledged that, in hindsight, more efforts could have been made to contact the Rabanes family.

"I don't think any of us have forgotten that dog, that incident," she said. "I made the calls to these people, but the message never got relayed. That situation was compounded because the people never found out.

"It was a horrible mistake. Obviously, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this situation and what could have gone wrong. I'm trying to figure out what went so wrong."

Bouchard said the agency "tightened up policy" and now requires signatures of two managers who review the paperwork before an animal is euthanized. "Both of them need to be 100 percent sure if an animal should ever be selected for euthanasia," she said. "Staff can say no if they're not feeling comfortable."

Dogs with licenses are held for nine days, Bouchard said, and the agency has an internal policy to hold cats for five days if they have any sign of ownership, such as a collar, tattoo or microchip, or spaying or neutering.

On any given day, the shelter has room for an average of 102 dogs, 80 cats and 28 other animals, Bouchard said. With an average of 27 animals a day being taken into the shelter and smaller numbers being adopted, reports show 31 percent of dogs, 71 percent of cats and 58 percent of other animals were euthanized in the first eight months of the fiscal year that began July 1.

During that period, the shelter took in 1,722 dogs, with 65 percent of them strays; and 4,077 cats, with 78 percent of them strays; and 669 other animals such as rabbits, birds and guinea pigs.

Most of the animals euthanized were classified as unadoptable because they were aggressive, terminally ill, very old or so young they needed to be bottle fed, Bouchard said, although some such animals have been adopted when matched with the right owner. Of the cats that were euthanized and categorized as unadoptable, 1,938 or 83 percent were feral, Bouchard said.

Last year, fewer animals were taken into the shelter and fewer were euthanized, Bouchard said.

Statistics for the 2007-2008 fiscal year showed a 12 percent decline in animals taken into the shelter from 10,435 to 9,132, and the number of animals euthanized dropping by more than 1,100 from 6,607 to 5,468.

But in the economic downturn, the numbers of animals entering the shelter increased by 14 percent in the eight months ending in February, Bouchard said. She said the increase included 119 dogs, 401 cats and 26 other animals.

The number of animals being turned in by owners has increased, Bouchard said, and more people are abandoning their pets.

"This year, our intakes are up," Bouchard said. "Ultimately, with more animals in the shelter, there is going to be more euthanasia."

Some people have criticized the Maui Humane Society for not running a no-kill shelter.

"No-kill shelters, in theory, would be wonderful," said board member David Cain. "But in practice, especially in a closed community, it's difficult."

The Maui Humane Society recently asked an organization that bills itself as a no-kill shelter if it could take care of a cat with upper respiratory disease and her kittens, only to be told the group wouldn't take a sick cat.

"The Maui Humane Society is not the bad guy here," board member Paul Davis said. "We're sitting here in a finite situation with people throwing animals at us and people turning around and saying, 'You're not doing a good job.' The Maui Humane Society is not murdering animals. If the term must be used, the public is murdering animals by not doing the right thing, by not helping the situation, by not being responsible citizens."

"Anybody can be a no-kill shelter," Bouchard said. "What we want is a no-kill island. We certainly want to stop euthanizing."

She said people can help by adopting animals from the shelter, volunteering to help foster animals until they're ready for adoption, and spaying and neutering their pets.

Veterinary assistant Kelly Maguire said recent large spaying and neutering efforts in the community seem to have had an effect. "For the first year, I can really see our numbers going down," she said in March. "Kitten season hasn't started as early."

Of the nonprofit agency's nearly $3 million budget this year, $1,547,000 or 56 percent is from county funding. That funding is projected to decrease by 4.3 percent in the next fiscal year, Bouchard said.

While a lack of space is usually the reason animals are euthanized, that wasn't a factor in the case of the Rabanes family dog.

Bouchard said neither the dog nor the other blue heeler had an identification tag. "They had been moved so one was in the other one's kennel," she said, explaining how the mistake was made.

The Rabanes family wasn't told their dog had been euthanized when they went to the shelter to report her missing in August because "we weren't 100 percent sure" at that point, Bouchard said.

"We wouldn't want to say something to them if it wasn't the case," she said. "We did confirm it.

"There wasn't a cover-up," Bouchard said. "We called the first day; we tried to get ahold of them. We may not have pursued that as aggressively in hindsight."

Bouchard said she left telephone messages on an answering machine and with someone at the Rabanes' home.

"I have a feeling that there was some major communication issues here," Bouchard said. "Perhaps they got those messages but thought we were calling to have them look at a dog."

Both Teresa Rabanes and her daughter, Amanda, who was listed as the dog owner on the lost report, said they didn't receive telephone messages from the Maui Humane Society about Lady.

But on March 2, Amanda Rabanes said she got a telephone call asking whether the Maui Humane Society had ever contacted her about Lady.

Aimee Anderson, the former Maui Humane Society director of animal control, said she made the call shortly after learning information that made her question whether the family had been told their dog had been mistakenly euthanized.

At the time, Anderson said animal control officers had questioned whether the dog should be euthanized because there was no paperwork but they were told it was the right dog and were ordered to euthanize it.

After asking questions of Amanda Rabanes and realizing that the family hadn't been

notified, Anderson said she told the family what had happened.

"It didn't have anything to do with undermining or hurting the Humane Society," said Anderson, who had worked for the organization for 20 years before leaving in September. "It had to do with someone having closure for their dog. As a pet owner, you need to have closure."

Amanda Rabanes said she was "heartbroken."

The family has fond memories of the 2-foot-tall, 50-pound dog they considered part of the family, Teresa Rabanes said. "She loved you to pieces. She didn't growl or run to bite you. She loved affection."

Rabanes said she immediately called the Maui Humane Society and left a message. She said Bouchard called her back the next day.

"I spoke to Teresa on the phone as soon as I got the message," Bouchard said. "I asked her, 'What can I do,' knowing there's nothing I could do. She did say it would be helpful if I would apologize to her daughter face to face. They all came in. They were so clearly upset and angry, yet they all took the time. I just thought they were the most wonderful family. It was just a difficult situation.

"I felt bad that, on top of having to learn that their dog was euthanized, they were led to believe it was a cover-up, but it wasn't."

Rabanes, her two daughters and her niece met with Bouchard.

Rabanes said she's still searching for answers.

"I hope and pray that nothing like what happened to us has happened to others," she said. "For the future, I hope this never happens. There should be a system in place to prevent this from ever happening again. If it means going to a shelter where they don't put an animal down, so be it. To me, putting an animal down - that's the extreme."

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.