10/14/2026
I’m always going to be transparent about euthanasia. It SUCKS. But it is also necessary at times. While we get a plaque for being a no kill shelter, no kill status means 90% and above of the animals entering our shelter leave alive. We maintain that. It’s hard, especially when intakes this year are higher than the last 5 years I’ve been here. But it honestly comes down to how the animal handles shelter life and the amount of intakes we get vs the tiny amount of kennels we have. Some lose their minds, some don’t care and love it. High anxiety and high energy dogs simply don’t do good.
That being said, when a dog begins to shut down mentally, becomes stressed to the point that they’re losing weight no matter how much you feed, bouncing off the walls, not being able to hold their bowel/urine function when they once never pottied in their kennel, excessive salivation, we have to make a decision. For a high energy, high prey drive dog that needs a job or purpose, but instead sits in a kennel for long hours, it becomes stressful. The change we see in them over time is heartbreaking. We do everything possible to make them happy. Exhausting them outside to help them mentally during play time. For a shelter with one full time worker, and a part time worker, there is only so much we can do. Full time means running back and forth to spay and neuter appointments, transporting animals to rescues, fielding countless calls around the community, ensuring public safety, doing adoptions, doing intakes, working overtime.
Levi came in March 11, the dog with endless energy, an absolutely amazing dog with people. His life was a ball or squeaky toy. We tried everything, his meet and greet with another submissive female resulted in him attacking her and fortunately he was muzzled but he was relentless. A volunteer reached out to multiple rescues and his shares reached over 500, including out of state, but only 3 people reached out, two owned dogs, the other ghosted us. We have to take public safely as a priority and allowing a dog that has proven to be aggressive to other animals is a serious matter and we cannot allow him to hurt an animal in the home if he was to be adopted.
We extended his date by 4 days hoping for a miracle that someone would want him as an only dog. No one did.
Today we said goodbye to Levi. It was absolutely heartbreaking. But I have to remember that keeping a suffering dog alive is not in the best interest of the dog. We took care of him for 7 months, he was loved as one of my own, as all my shelter dogs are. The shelter is my home away from home, we promoted him, we took him out to try get interest.
Levi, you gave me 7 months of entertainment and I perfected my throw game, juggling multiple balls and toys so I always had something in my hand to throw. You were my buddy. You were a good dog. I’m sorry that your owner dumped you and put this on me. I’m sorry I couldn’t find a home for you. But you were loved for the 7 months you were at the shelter.
To Kenzie and Stevie, thank you ladies for doing everything you could to help spread the word about him, and to everyone else who shared him.
Ultimately, we gave him peace from the turmoil he was experiencing with shelter life, as hard as it was to say goodbye.
Black pitbulls are my heart dogs. So looked over, so misunderstood but forever amazing.
His only flaw was that he didn’t like other animals, making him incredibly hard to place in an only dog home.
