From Deseret News archives:
Owner says dog illegally euthanized
Former shelter employee Barbi Carroll is calling for director Shirley Bybee to be removed from her position following what Carroll says was an illegal euthanization of her microchipped dog last week.
Carroll's 8 1/2-year-old yellow Labrador, Peykos, was euthanized Thursday after spending four days in the South Utah Valley Animal Shelter, 582 W. 3000 North, Spanish Fork.
Carroll says she was out of town April 16 when Peykos was let out by a family member to go the bathroom and ran off. The dog was picked up by Provo police that day and taken to the shelter.
The legal holding period for dogs with identifying tags or microchips is five days, which Carroll says means Peykos still should have been alive when she went to the shelter Thursday.
Bybee says shelter workers told her they checked the dog for a microchip and didn't find one, which shortened the legal holding period to three days.
Because the dog was injured and no one had come to the shelter to claim him, "I felt like it was only fair to the dog to end its suffering," Bybee said.
Bybee said she found out after the dog had been euthanized that it belonged to Carroll.
It was also later confirmed that Peykos did have a microchip and that Carroll had called the shelter more than once about the missing dog, she said. Those phone calls were taken by an intern, who Bybee said "never relayed that message to any of the real employees."
"I called (Carroll's) voice mail and apologized about what a horrible incident this is and let her know that I feel terrible," she said. "I had no idea it was her dog."
Bybee blames the incident on a false reading by the microchip scanner and poor communication by her part-time staff and interns.
Carroll says that's not good enough.
"This is not an isolated incident at all," she said. "It's happened before, and I don't want it to happen again."
In February, a volunteer with an Orem-based rescue group accused Bybee of euthanizing dogs because she was mad at the group and didn't want it to have the dogs.
Bybee called those accusations "completely untrue."
Carroll, an employee at the shelter at the time, says Bybee's response to both allegations shows a refusal to take responsibility for her actions.
"This woman constantly blames everything that goes wrong on her employees," she said. "She's the director. She's ultimately responsible for what goes on in there. She needs to stand up, be an adult and be responsible."
