Killing Dogs: How is the SPCA Different?

The Agitator's Radley Balko offers a link to an extra-disturbing animal-cruelty story:

A Columbus firefighter admits that he took his two dogs to the basement, tied them up and blasted them with a rifle so he and a girlfriend could vacation without paying to board the animals. "He said chunks of concrete were flying everywhere," Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Heather Robinson said. ... According to Robinson, [firefighter David P.] Santuomo laid down a plastic sheet in his basement and tied the dogs to a pipe, partially suspending their bodies. He shot them at least 11 times. At first, he said the dogs were suffering after drinking antifreeze, but a necropsy proved that he lied.

Neighbors had actually offered to take care of the dogs in Santuomo's absence. The guy evidently preferred killing the animals.

Yes, I'm upset about this too. But then, I was upset back when something not so dissimilar happened in my neck of the woods, and when that dog killer turned out to be the boss of the Hancock County (Maine) SPCA in Trenton. The guy is still sitting pretty today. Not only were he and his organization not held accountable; to this day they solicit donations for their [cough] "no-kill" shelter, and are celebrated for their [double-cough] selfless work by citizens who have no idea what occurs behind the facility's closed doors.

I'm not saying there are no differences between SPCA executive director Doug Radziewicz and the loathsome shell of a human being that is David Santuomo. I'm saying the differences between Radziewicz killing dogs and Santuomo killing dogs are more meager than you'd assume.

Let's look at how the cases are similar.
• An animal, just "taking up space," becomes an inconvenience — check.
• Good people step forward offering to take care of it, but the offer is rebuffed — check.
• Instead, the animal ends up being deliberately killed — check.
• The person in charge of the dog lies about what happened — check.

I trust that the SPCA's execution of Baxter, the Saint Bernard, was not as relentlessly brutal as the killing of the firefighter's animals. Then again, Baxter is still quite dead, regardless of the method used by his killer.

In some ways, I find SPCA deaths harder to take, because we'd all like to suppose that the organization is run by non-sociopaths who would do everything in their power to save the creatures in their charge.

Comments

[Windypundit]

Rogier, I don't want to lose my libertarian credentials or anything, but after reading through all the comments on the "Farewell Baxter" post, I think there's room here for a disclosure law. I.e. force shelters to file reports indicating what percentage of animals are adopted out, kept until natural death, or executed, sorted by species and time-until-disposition brackets.