I was away on vacation when friend and fellow animal rescuer, Emily Tanen, was fired from her job as the New Hope Liaison at New York City’s Animal Care & Control.
Emily Tanen was fired from her job at AC&C for caring too much.
Because of the photos Emily took of at-risk dogs she then promoted via social media sites like Facebook, hundreds of dogs found forever homes and escaped being killed at the overcrowded city shelter. However according to AC&C, who is contracted by the Department of Health, Emily violated her contract by having people pose with the dogs in the photos.
One of Emily’s many heartbreaking albeit lifesaving photos.
While I am so sad for what Emily’s absence will mean for NYC’s homeless dogs – especially pitbulls – I have no doubt that she will go on to do tremendous and beautiful things.
Fellow writer and friend Michael Mullins covers the story in depth here.
I hate it when red tape ties good people’s hands. I hope she finds a rewarding place to work that appreciates her dedication and creativity.
This makes me really angry. She was helping so many animals who needed her! It sounds like a case of new management “cleaning house” so that they don’t encounter any resistance in implementing crappy new policies (such as the euthanizing of dogs who score in the middle on the temperament test). I hope her firing has the opposite effect, and draws scrutiny to those policies instead.
And looking through the photos that she took…she’s amazingly talented at capturing the dogs’ personalities!! Such a shame, because they’re the ones who will really be hurt by this. So, so sad.
Unfortunately I can’t see the video because it won’t play for me in Canada (that whole pesky border thing), but I think it’s pretty sad that she lost her job over something like this. A warning would seem to be more appropriate (and really even that seems unnecessary.