Stray Dog Survives Euthanasia Chamber
7/21/06
Reprinted from WTOCTV.com in Savannah, Georgia
You always hear cats have nine lives, but a Hinesville dog is starting on her second.
Animal Control was putting her and three other dogs down, but after 30 minutes in the gas chamber, she still survived.
People who run the Liberty County Humane Shelter say they're not sure how, but they're hoping her story can serve as a catalyst for shutting down the gas chamber for good.
Watching her tail wag Friday afternoon you would never guess what horror this happy-looking dog had gone through just a day earlier.
Deborah Palpal-Latoc, with LCHS, says "It will never leave me. I have had nightmares and don't think I'll ever forget this as long as I live."
Palpal-latoc saw first hand. When a chamber filled with carbon dioxide failed to kill the two year old dog, she helped pull her out of the cage and get her to a veterinarian.
"the dog above her -- it's bodily fluids were dripping all over her," recalls Palpal-Latoc with tears in her eyes. "And she was cowering and scared and foaming at the mouth and trying to get out."
Now the dog, who's since been named "Amazing Grace," is serving as an example.
People at the humane shelter say gas simply isn't a humane way to euthanize stray dogs.
"It is very hard. I would never do it again," says Wendy Thompson, who worked as an animal control officer for three months.
She says long before Amazing Grace showed up, she probably put several hundred dogs and cats to death in the same cages: "Having to put an animal down, I actually did cry several times. I had to walk off and do what I need to do, get through it."
The humane shelter's been fighting gas for years -- and thinks that with Amazing Grace's help -- they may have finally won. They've been told that Animal Control will be moving to lethal injection next week.
A lot of people probably would like to adopt Amazing Grace, but she's already been spoken for.
Workers at the humane shelter say instead, folks should try and save a different animal instead.
