About

The Humane Society of Eastern Oregon, also known as Pet Rescue of Hermiston, is not doing a very good job at sheltering animals in its care. In this day and age, with such a wealth of information on animal shelter best practices available online, there is no excuse for it.


 About the author:
I lived for many years in Corvallis, Oregon, home of Heartland Humane Society, for which I volunteered for 5 years. I also have volunteered for about 10 other animal rescues, I continue to be very active in the rescue community here in Eastern Oregon and Washington. I'm also very active in the online animal rescue and welfare community.  I also worked as a vet tech for three years. I also own dogs of my own, and have competed with them in dogs sports like agility and flyball. I've attended seminars on dog behavior and training, including a three day intensive seminar on training shelter dogs to reduce stress and increase adoptability put on by Kelly Dunbar.

That's my background. I'm not an expert in anything, but I feel that I have a better-than-average grasp of the history, current trends, and policies relating to animal shelters in North America.


What should an animal shelter look like?

(The following is written by Shirley Thistlewaite):

"Pets impounded at shelters are either lost, in which case their owners want them back, or they are in need of a home, in which case the shelter should release them to an adopter or a rescue group so that can happen.  Since it is unknown which category strays fall under at the time of impound, the shelter staff should get to work right away to determine that.  Check the pet for an ID tag and scan him for a microchip.  If either is found, start making calls to find the owner.  Photograph the pet and post him online.  Check the shelter’s lost pet list along with the local lost pet listings online and in the newspaper.  Shelter the animal for at least the mandatory holding period so that his owner can reclaim him.

Concurrently, get the pet checked out by a veterinarian.  Determine if he is in need of treatment.  If the need for veterinary care is urgent – that is, if it would cause the pet to suffer pain or other harm by not receiving treatment during the holding period – treat the pet.  Continue looking for the owner while the pet is receiving the needed vet care.  If the shelter refuses to provide care for stray pets, issue an immediate plea to the public for a foster or rescuer to provide the urgent vet care during the holding period while the owner is being sought by the shelter.  Obtain the urgent vet care – do not allow the pet to suffer simply because the shelter has not yet determined if the pet will be reunited with an existing owner or adopted to a new one.

This is so not hard.  Not killing impounded strays while simultaneously looking for a possible owner and obtaining vet care is an actual thing that is being done by hundreds of open admission no kill shelters all around the country.  Yet many pet killing facilities view these actions as contradictory in nature."
This is the type of sheltering system I expect in every community in North America. Not perfection, but functional and existing for the aim of re-homing pet animals who are temporarily homeless. This is the bare minimum of what we should expect.

In this time in history, as pets are becoming more popular than ever and owners are spending more money than ever on their pets despite a financial downturn, functionality and low rate of euthanasia  are exactly what we as a community should expect as the norm from our animal shelter.

When I moved to Hermiston in 2010, one of the first things I did was email Pet Rescue (aka Humane Society of Eastern Oregon) to offer to volunteer. This was the response I got:

Text response reads: "we appreciate you wanting to help out. All our volunteering is done between 8:45 am and 5 pm Tuesday through Saturday. Right now we are good on volunteers. (emphasis mine) You are welcome to come down and fill out a volunteer form and we can call you when needed."


One of the most important parts of a functioning shelter system is a robust volunteer program. This is especially true for shelters on a shoestring budget, who rely on volunteers to do everything from walk/train/socialize the animals, clean cages/dishes/toys, to managing the front desk, answering phone calls and email, and organizing and staffing community events.

While this email is polite, it's very strange for an animal rescue or shelter to say they don't need more volunteers. A good animal shelter continually and actively recruits volunteers and removes as many barriers as possible to have them help.

This point was driven home to me when I next contacted a private rescue and offered to volunteer for them. The difference was stark: They responded to my email within hours; sent the volunteer form as an email attachment so I didn't have to drive anywhere to fill it out; described exactly what type of volunteer work they needed, their mission and philosophy, and a preliminary plan for how I might fit into their organization; and how/what type of training I might need (none, as it turned out). That is a large reason why I chose to give my limited volunteer time to them instead of Pet Rescue. Another large reason is they are much more transparent about their record keeping and activities. More on that in later posts.

Later, I visited the Pet Rescue shelter building in Hermiston to see what it looked like. I suspected that if there was one red-flag raised, I'd likely see others.

Issue #1) There are only two animal holding areas, one for dogs and one for cats. There is no area to quarentine sick animals that I could see, and no separate room to perform euthanasias. It's a small building with limited space to hide such rooms, but I suppose I might have missed a back room or something.


Issue #2) The dog runs are small (a common problem with older shelter buildings, and not necessarily a deal-breaker), however every single run had more than one dog in it. Most had three or more. While it's common and accepted practice in animal sheltering to have more than one dog per run, it's considered best practice to match dogs carefully so that they don't fight or become more stressed by their cage mates. It's unusual that there wasn't even a single run that contained only one dog. I didn't ask, so it's possible that there were dogs in foster homes at the time and that all the dogs had been matched. I have my doubts, however.

Issue #3) there were no toys or beds or blankets in any dog run. Providing toys and comfortable bedding is a cheap and easy way to lower stress for shelter dogs, and is considered best practice. Being in a shelter is stressful, and without outlet, many dogs can develop behavioral issues which make them more difficult to adopt, or more likely to be returned after adoption. There are many programs out there where non-profit animal shelters can get toys and beds for free, so there's no reason for their absence accept laziness or uncaring or ignorance.

Issue #4) None of the dogs I saw that day had been vaccinated on intake. As I've talked with many people who have adopted pets from The Humane Society of Eastern Oregon, and seen many of the adoption forms, it's obvious that pets are almost never vaccinated upon intake, and only sometimes vaccinated on the day of adoption. Vaccinating on intake is considered best-practice and is one of the most important ways to prevent disease transmission in the shelter (aside from quarentine of sick animals).

Issue #5) It was a Saturday afternoon when I visited, and there was no one else on the property that I could see, except Beau Putnam the owner and manager, who was at the front desk. There were no other visiters and no volunteers. This seems especially odd after hearing via email that they didn't need more volunteers. A normal Saturday at Heartland Humane society meant multiple dog walkers working at once, cage cleaners working, cat socializers, dish washers, and at least one person answering phones. Maybe I coincidentally visited at just the perfect moment between some volunteers leaving and others arriving, but I doubt it.

The only really positive thing I could see was that everything looked clean.

There are many other issues that I've come across since my first visit, and I'll talk about them more in future posts.

But, by far the biggest issue of all: Pet Rescue has a bad reputation in its own community. I've had a chance to talk to hundreds of pet owners who live in Hermiston and surrounding areas. The very best  opinions can be summed up as "they're doing the best they can".

I don't believe this is true. That's why I started this blog. I plan to lay out specific examples where Pet Rescue is failing in its implied mission, and ways they can improve immediately.

I'm not the first to try to educate Beau Putnam on his outdated sheltering policies, but I hope that one more voice speaking up will eventually lead to change for the better.