About 170 dogs and cats were euthanized Monday at the Tangipahoa Parish Animal Shelter. 

According to Parish President Gordon Burgess, there was an outbreak of a dangerous viral airborne infection inside the kennel.  Burgess does not know how many animals were infected, but said many were showing symptoms like "bloody stool, diarrhea, and vomiting."

Rachael Sance is a former shelter employee and says she is outraged by the recent incident.  Sance recently went back to the facility as a volunteer because of a lack of staff, and had no idea her chance visit to the shelter on Monday would prove to be the last time she would ever see the more than 170 cats and dogs she had cared for.  "The next thing I knew they were going to euthanize everything."

Sance says she adopted as many of the pets as she could, and picked out nine dogs.  They are now the only animals left from the shelter, but Sance says that did not have to be the case.  "There were several healthy dogs that were there."

Sance says a veterinarian checked out the nine dogs on Tuesday evening, and was told all were free from serious illness.  A few have been put on antibiotics for several days, but Sance says that is normal for shelter animals, and argues the same should have been done for the rest of the cats and dogs.

Tangipohoa Animal Rescue worker Barbara Jaeger says the mass euthanasia was completely unnecessary.  "I mean I can see euthanizing some that are sick and suffering that should be done but to just euthanize everything in there and we could have found rescue groups to help place them if they were over crowding.  It was treatable."

Burgess says doing otherwise would have created a widespread danger.  "We did not want expose the community with some sick pets."

The shelter has been closed since the pets were put down on Monday.  The facility will likely remain under a strict quarantine for the next five days, until the facility can be cleaned several times.

Former employees of the shelter say a lack of manpower led to the unsanitary conditions, and now blame management for cutting back shifts dedicated to cleaning the facility.

"It takes about 6 hours," said former shelter employee Lindsay Rohan.  “And they've been getting it done in three."

Rescue workers, including Sance, still believe not all of the animals had to die.  "I walked back there at one point and they were all piled on top of each other, just laying there dead."

The parish is now conducting their own investigation into the incident and should release those findings next week.