A dog that mauled a volunteer at a North Haven animal shelter has been euthanized, according to the shelter.
A volunteer at The Animal Haven was attacked last week as she opened the door to the room where the dog, named Sarge, was being held.
“It is with terribly heavy hearts that we are informing the public that we had to have Sarge humanely euthanized today,” The Animal Haven said in a Facebook post.
The volunteer survived the attack, but she suffered severe bite wounds to the face and has undergone reconstructive surgery, the shelter said.
The operators of the shelter said Sarge was a big, strong dog but had never before shown aggression while at the shelter and the volunteer was familiar to the dog and visited him regularly.
Sarge was vaccinated for rabies when he arrived at the shelter, but operators said they could not rule out that the change in his behavior was caused by rabies and that he may have been infected prior to receiving his vaccination.
The victim is being treated for rabies as a precaution.
“Our hearts go out to our friend and volunteer who was severely hurt by Sarge and to her family during this very difficult time,” The Animal Haven said in a statement.
The plan was for Sarge to be quarantined for at least 10 days to see if he showed symptoms of rabies, then The Animal Haven would look for another facility that will accept Sarge and is better equipped to handle him.
Desmond’s Army, an animal advocacy group, said earlier this week that all options should be exhausted before euthanasia and Sarge deserved to be rehabilitated at a place with enough resources to give him that chance.
“He needs the chance for it to be determined — being in a facility that, you know, is knowledgeable with triggers and working with that, and ultimately working Sarge into a foster home to adopt if they’re able to do that,” Zilla Cannamella, of Desmond’s Army, said.
On Wednesday, The Animal Haven posted that they determined that euthanasia was needed after consulting veterinarians, animal behaviorists and animal control.
“Sarge’s unprovoked attack on our volunteer resulted in level 5 bites to her face (the highest level short of death). Sarge’s behavior was described as ‘pathologically abnormal’ and ‘untreatable and unrehabilitatable.’ Given that, the possibility that Sarge would again attack and severely injure another human being was far too great to responsibly and ethically be ignored,” The Animal Haven posted on Facebook.
“As much as we would have loved to have simply transferred Sarge to another facility, we could not do so without endangering others and exposing them to very significant risk. And of course, Sarge certainly could not be safely fostered in someone’s home, as was suggested by some people. We therefore had to make one of the hardest, if not the hardest, decisions we have ever had to make in The Animal Haven’s 77 years of saving cats and dogs,” the post goes on to say.
The Animal Haven said they understand that many people will be very upset.
“We can only hope that they can understand, at least a little, the horrible dilemma that we were in, and that all of us at The Animal Haven are extraordinarily upset with this outcome. We knew and loved Sarge and greatly mourn his passing,” Animal Haven said.
“We also know that a group of people, who claim to love animals but, apparently, are intent on destroying The Animal Haven, will continue to speak ill of and defame us. They will spread more lies on social media, as they have been doing now for months. They will probably picket at the shelter again and continue to threaten the safety and lives of our staff, volunteers and animals. All we can say to every one of them is that our dedicated staff and volunteers will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of homeless and abandoned cats and dogs and ensure that The Animal Haven is here for animals in need forever,” the post says.
“We also want to clarify that despite having to make this very devastating and painful decision, The Animal Haven remains a no-kill shelter. As Best Friends Animal Society’s definition of no-kill says, “The no-kill philosophy acknowledges that euthanasia may sometimes be an appropriate choice in rare cases of irremediable canine aggression in which public safety cannot be reasonably assured and other interventions would compromise the animal’s quality of life,” The Animal Haven said.
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