Two agencies are investigating the Weld County Humane Society shelter in Evans on allegations of animal cruelty, a year after the state cleared the facility on charges it was too quick to euthanize animals.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture and the Evans Police Department are looking into a complaint that the shelter handed over a diseased kitten to a new owner and then refused to get the animal proper medical treatment.
The owner, Matt Heidenfeld, said that when he and his wife brought the kitten home in May – along with its mom and three other siblings – they discovered it was draining pus and was malnourished.
When the couple called the shelter the next day, workers refused to help, Heidenfeld said.
“We said, ‘The cat needs medical care’; they said, ‘Well, just let the cat die,”‘ he said.
Someone from the shelter eventually picked the cat up but put it back into the care of the previous foster owner, Heidenfeld said. It was days before Heidenfeld learned the 3 1/2-week-old cat died soon after it left his house.
“The cat may have never got medical care at all,” he said.
The shelter offered to pay for Heidenfeld to take the kitten to a veterinarian, but he refused, said shelter director Elaine Hicks. A shelter employee retrieved the kitten and took it back to the first foster family, but it died two days later.
The complaint, Hicks said, was caused by a lack of communication between Heidenfeld and the shelter.
“We do everything we possibly can for all the kittens and puppies that come in here, and we did the same in this case,” she said.
But the mortality rate for kittens is very high and in this instance the kitten that died was the runt of the litter. “Basically, it was a failure-to-thrive case,” Hicks said.
Evans police declined to comment on the details of the case, saying only that its investigation is ongoing. The Department of Agriculture also refused to comment. If wrongdoing is found, criminal charges could be filed, or the state could order the shelter closed.
“We have a complaint, and since it’s an open investigation, I really can’t say anything,” said Agriculture Department spokeswoman Christi Lightcap.
Several former employees and volunteers at the shelter claimed in April 2006 that scores of animals were being destroyed at the facility before they were given a chance to be adopted.
But an inspection by the state veterinarian cleared the shelter of wrongdoing.
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
