OCEANSIDE
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North County Humane Society in Oceanside has received just one response to its latest search for a veterinarian with a federal drug license.
EDUARDO CONTRERAS / Union-Tribune
A veterinary technician at the North County Humane Society treated Mugsey yesterday. The pit bull mix has been getting fluids to treat dehydration.
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The drug license, among other things, would solve the shelter's problems with how to euthanize animals.
The society has been the subject of a complaint to the San Diego Humane Society over its use of an inhaled general anesthetic to put down a sick kitten. Simran Zilaro, San Diego Humane Society spokeswoman, said yesterday the complaint was still under investigation.
The shelter has been without a contract veterinary service since last spring, when former director Stacy Herro Steel was arrested and later pleaded guilty to illegally obtaining 3,600 Vicodin tablets for her own use, using the licenses of three veterinarians working for the shelter.
Without veterinary service, the shelter no longer has access to a federal drug license that allows it to euthanize animals using the medically preferred and fastest-acting method.
That only one veterinary office responded to the shelter is not entirely due to veterinarians' reluctance to deal with the society after the Steel scandal, said Julie Bank, who became director in July.
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NORTH COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY BOARD
 Julie Bank, society executive director
Julie Moran, management executive with Mohnacky Animal Hospital
Renee Simmons, corporate executive
Pamela Hower, head of a program for ailing or dying pets
Connie Hoban, retired teacher.
Michael Arms, Helen Woodward Animal Center
Conrad Herring, real-estate agent and lawyer
HUMANE SOCIETY FACTS
Where: 2905 San Luis Rey Road, Oceanside.
When: Founded in 1938.
How many: Handled 6,745 animals from July 2006 to June 2006, during which time 1,674 were euthanized.
How much: $2.2 million annual budget.
With whom: Has contracts with the city of Oceanside for animal control since 1963, and with the city of Vista since 1993.
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“There's a shortage of veterinarians,” she said yesterday.
That's true, especially in Southern California, said Pauline White, administrator of the San Diego County Veterinary Medical Association.
Many veterinarians prefer to maintain a private practice, she said, but “there are some who like to work in a shelter environment” and she is running an advertisement for the North County shelter in the association's newsletter.
The shelter has budgeted $75,000 to $95,000 a year for the veterinarian's services, Julie Moran, president of the humane society's board, said yesterday.
She and Bank declined to name the one veterinary firm that replied to the shelter's request for proposals, which was due Monday.
Bank said that in the meantime, the society has had veterinarian services on an hourly basis, and the animals have received vaccinations, spaying and neutering and other medical services as needed.
Kim Cameron, a veterinary technician not employed by North County shelter, filed the complaint over the euthanasia of the cat.
The shelter used a legal but slow-acting general anesthetic called Isoflurane. An animal can convulse during the procedure, which can take as long as five minutes.
Sodium pentobarbital, a fast-acting injected barbiturate, is recommended by the American Veterinary Medical Association Panel on Euthanasia, which the state uses to set standards for the procedure. A federal drug license is required to administer the injection, however.
EDUARDO CONTRERAS / Union-Tribune
Robert Martin and his son, Adam, 6, came to visit the dogs. If
the shelter had a vet with a drug license, euthanasia would be
easier to perform at the Oceanside facility.
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When the kitten was put down, Bank said, a veterinarian was on the phone guiding the humane society staff.
The shelter has been taking most of its animals to the county's Carlsbad animal shelter where its drug license allows the Oceanside staff to administer the drug.
Since Steel left, the Oceanside shelter has had a turnover in its board of directors, which currently has seven members. Three board members have left since Steel departed, and three have been added, Moran said.
There are several vacancies, and interviews are being conducted next week.
The nonprofit wants to maintain a board of seven to 11 members, said Alexis Gutierrez, the society's attorney.
And once things stabilize, the board would like to launch a capital campaign to build new facilities at the 70-year-old shelter. Those new facilities, Bank said, would include isolation areas so it would be possible to keep sick animals longer and not have them infect others.
Despite the controversy and difficult period the shelter is undergoing, officials with the cities of Vista and Oceanside – which contract with the agency to provide animal-control services – say they have received no complaints about the agency.
Lola Sherman: (760) 476-8241; lola.sherman@uniontrib.com
