Video prompts big animal shelter protest

More than 300 animal advocates, many of them cradling dogs, waved homemade signs yesterday outside the Hempstead Animal Shelter demanding greater accountability and safer practices.

"Fire Pat Horan!" protesters chanted, referring to the shelter's former acting director.

Horan was reassigned Monday after a 17-year-old video surfaced on the Internet that purports to show her and other shelter employees taunting a kitten apparently about to be euthanized.

"The video was absolutely disgusting," said protester Meaghan Schuessler, 33, of Seaford, who owns a Chihuahua. "These animals depend on us to speak for them."

Horan did not return a call to her home Saturday.

The video prompted Derek Donnelly, founder of Hope for Hempstead Shelter, to organize the noon rally, he said. The group also wants New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to conduct a financial and operational audit of the shelter.

"Now we are really starting to get people's attention," said Donnelly, who claimed his group has received more than 6,000 e-mails about the video.

Milena Apath, 30, of Valley Stream, brought her Staffordshire bull terrier Macie and her Plott hound Dutch to the protest in Wantagh.

"It's about time to have people at the shelter who care about the well-being of the animals," Apath said.

"We take seriously concerns regarding improper animal care," town spokesman Mike Deery said in a statement Saturday.

In October, town officials conducting an internal review brought concerns about the shelter to the Nassau district attorney's office, which began its own investigation. Hempstead officials have said administrative matters, not mistreatment of animals, are at issue.

Deery called the conduct by those in the video "appalling" and promised an investigation.

He said Horan had been reassigned to Hempstead's General Services Department as the circumstances of the video were investigated.

The shelter has already taken steps to enhance the quality of care, Deery said, including adding veterinary services, retaining an animal behaviorist and hiring a rescue liaison and pet adoption coordinator.