By Elsa Maxey

“Well, everyone said to take them to the animal control center where they would have a chance to be adopted to a good family,” stated Donna Pruitt, when she took two stray kittens to Sugar Land Animal Control on Gilligham. She had been looking after them for about two weeks.

What happened after she did it, left $20 to feed them, and returned less than three hours with her 84-year old mother to show her the kittens turned out to be quite a shock. The kittens had been put to sleep.

She contacted the Star, which inquired about the incident in relation to the city’s operating procedures resulting in the city’s follow-up with Pruitt. “When animals cannot be adopted, it is our standard procedure to contact those who left the animals (if they leave a contact number) and provide them with the option to retrieve the animals,” said Doug Adolph, Assistant Director of Communications.

Pruitt said that she did not own any cats and that the kittens had been living on her front porch. “I have been feeding them twice a day as I left for work and came home,” she said and added that she has three dogs and loves animals.

“They (the kittens) would jump upon a table I have on the porch and I would pet them for a minute as they ate,” she said. “As soon as I came home they would come running to me.”

On Thursday last week, she took them to animal control in a carrier at about 9 a.m. She was told the staff was cleaning cages and moving animals around and would have a cage to put them in. She was asked to come back about noon to pick up her carrier.

Pruitt said she left the money with animal control and told staff it was to help provide the kittens with food for a while. She came back at 11:45 a.m. with her mother when she asked about seeing the kittens.

“The woman at the desk just looked confused,” she said, and that the animal control officer hollered saying that those were feral kittens that had been euthanized immediately. “I nearly passed out,” said Pruitt. She said that she could have found homes for the kittens herself and would not have resorted to taking them to animal control had she even had “any glimmer of an idea they would euthanize them.”

Pruitt, who said she was met with rudeness by animal control city staff, “cried all the way home over what I had done,” and says she cries now just thinking about it. “They had my phone number, as I had left it when I dropped the kittens off. They had our $20. Shouldn't that have bought me an explanation or at least a call before they murdered the two kittens,” she asked.

“City policy requires that all animals brought to our facility must be held for at least 72 hours; most are held much longer and in some cases over a year,” Adolph stated in response to the Star’s inquiry, and he also confirmed that the kittens were euthanized shortly after arriving at the city’s animal services facility. “Because policy and procedure was not followed in this incident, administrative action will be taken against the employee,” he reported and said that policy and procedure will be reviewed with all staff.

Adolph also told the Star that the city's Community and Environmental Director and Animal Services Manager has met with Pruett, who accepted the city’s apology for the incident.

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