By Dana Gentry/Nevada Current
Clark County, which has thus far stayed out of the controversy over The Animal Foundation, is auditing the shelter, which euthanized almost twice as many dogs last year as in 2021.
“Clark County is concerned about every aspect of the issues we are hearing about The Animal Foundation, and we have moved forward with an internal audit of The Animal Foundation to determine if the contract requirements in place are being met,” spokesman Erik Pappa wrote in a statement to the Current, in response to questions posed to commissioners about the shelter’s 91% increase in the kill rate.
The City of Las Vegas is also auditing the shelter.
“That gives us some hope,” says Tracy Paz, a volunteer with Kiss My Paws and the Doggie Task Force, which has documented the calls for lost, stray and dead animals it has received and responded to in recent months.
In September last year, a County spokesman said officials were satisfied animals at TAF were not at risk.
Now, in addition to the audit, the County will “aggressively pursue options which may serve as part of the solution to the urgent animal welfare concerns in our region which have continued to grow since the pandemic,” Pappa wrote.
Commissioner Tick Segerblom says he’s looking into the possibility of providing government funding to the volunteer rescues that currently pay for medical and other care for animals obtained from TAF. “We are considering helping them,” he said.
Paz says she was “covered in blood from scraping a schnauzer off the street” when she confronted Segerblom at a campaign event last year. “He seems to want to do something.”
In late September, days after asking the public to help ease overcrowding at the shelter, TAF stopped accepting dogs from the public in an effort to stem the spread of a contagious disease. It is now relying on the public to find the homes of stray animals, and is setting appointments, sometimes a month out, to relinquish found or unwanted animals.
The county’s contract with TAF expires in 2025.
“We can’t take another two years of this,” said Paz.