by Laura Goldman from Care2

Imagine working at an animal shelter and being told by the director to euthanize kittens by putting them in a freezer.

That’s exactly what happened to Bridgett Woodson at the Spencer County Animal Shelter in Indiana last year—not once, but twice. In the first incident, shelter director Christina Payne told Woodson to put a live kitten in a plastic bag and then put it inside a freezer. Woodson refused to do it. Payne made the same shocking request another time, after a kitten had been hit by a car but was still alive.

When Woodson complained to Spencer County Animal Control, one board member admitted that she too had frozen a cat alive when she was running the shelter.

Woodson quit her job and wrote a Facebook post about her experience that got national attention, leading the Spencer County Sheriff’s Office and then the Indiana State Police to launch investigations. Other shelter employees confirmed that they had also been told by Payne to put live kittens in a freezer.

Freezing an animal to death is, unsurprisingly, considered unacceptable and inhumane by the American Veterinary Medical Association. More than More than 132,000 people signed a Care2 petition calling for Payne to be fired and charged with animal cruelty.

Their voices were heard—to some extent. In October 2018, Spencer County Animal Control board members fired Payne, but she faced no criminal charges. At the time, Indiana’s animal cruelty laws did not apply to shelter employees who euthanized domestic animals.

In good news for the state’s animals, that preposterous law has been changed. Rep. Ryan Hatfield authored House Bill 1615, which prohibits animal shelters, humane societies and city animal control departments from using any form of euthanasia other than sodium pentobarbital or a derivative, administered in a way that causes a painless loss of consciousness and then death. Freezing an animal to death, along with electrocuting or heating an animal to death, would be considered torture.

That portion of the bill was inspired by the freezing of the kittens at the Spencer County Animal Shelter. When Hatfield first introduced the bill three years ago, it also included tougher penalties for animal abusers. Unfortunately, that part was removed from HB 1615this year.

Still, Hatfield called it “a big step forward” when Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill into law on April 29. It goes into effect on July 1.

Earlier in April, Gov. Holcomb signed another bill that will prohibit anyone convicted of an animal abuse offense from owning, harboring or training a companion animal. This new law also goes into effect on July 1.

Hatfield said prosecutors have told him HB 1615 will result in more animal cruelty prosecutions. “That is the ultimate goal,” he told RTV6.

The new law should also result in fewer cruel and painful deaths for shelter animals in Indiana, all thanks to one compassionate employee. Woodson should be commended for taking action to help prevent these from ever happening again.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

For more on this story go to: https://www.care2.com/causes/frozen-kittens-inspire-indiana-to-enact-humane-euthanasia-law.html