Where to even begin? This place is an absolute nightmare for the people who truly care for the animals and dedicate their lives to them. Overpopulation is a giant issue in this country right now, and kcpp is not an exception to this. The shelter is ALWAYS beyond max capacity. Dogs are being housed in tiny wire crates in offices, meet & greet rooms, and anywhere else they can fit them. Dogs rarely get an entire kennel run to themselves. At max capacity, every dog shares their kennel with another dog. The quality of life for these poor animals is terrible. They go hours with little to no human interaction, pacing their kennels, howling, crying for someone to help them. KCPP provides these dogs no outlet. They don't get toys, and barely any enrichment. They just sit in their kennels all day, driven insane by their own boredom, until the canine department director decides to euthanize them. The lower level canine care team loves these dogs so much, and they beg and plead their leadership for change, but nothing ever happens. Leadership uses the "poor quality of life" excuse to euthanize 15-30 dogs a month, but never actually attempts to make their quality of life better while they're alive. It truly feels as if management chooses to make these dogs as miserable as possible, just so they have an excuse to euthanize and free up some kennel space. Management will justify their trigger happy euthanasia finger by saying they're "at max capacity" and need space, so they don't have a choice. But if they really cared so much about space, they wouldn't be cutting ties with local rescues and other shelters whenever their incompetent Rescue and Transport Coordinator gets into some petty disagreement with someone. I personally witnessed a conversation in which she recounted receiving an email from a local rescue and LAUGHED about how she told them to F off because they had issues with a couple dogs she sent them. KCPP relied very heavily on this other organization to take dogs from them when overpopulated, and she cut ties with them without a second thought after they hurt her feelings. Not only unprofessional, but completely irresponsible and downright stupid. They've done this with several organizations, and now have very few rescues to turn to for rescue placement. They'd rather euthanize the dogs instead of finding them homes. There is a behavior team at KCPP, none of which are actually certified or qualified to be there. They used punishment based methods and pain as a tool to "teach them a lesson". Several staff have seen and reported members of behavior team dragging dogs across the floor by their leash & collar, picking them up by their collars and dangling them in the air by their throats, scruffing them, beating them with tools, choking them out, sharply yanking their leash to choke them, and on more than one occasion lifting them into the air then slamming them onto the ground. They encourage the use of prong and shock collars, punishment methods loooong since proven to be very detrimental to the dog's pyche. Any reputable trainer would be absolutely shocked and ashamed of these unqualified people who dare to call themselves "specialists". Every single incident I've listed has been reported to upper management, and their solution was to do absolutely nothing. Nobody was punished, nobody was terminated, and nothing ever changed. The behavior team manager still has her cushy spot in the company even after all of this was brought to light. Even after she was witnesses telling someone to "just shock the hell out of him", regarding putting a shock collar on a dog. And now onto management, which is so, so, SO incredibly toxic. I have never worked at a single company more toxic than this one. Every single member of upper management looks out for one another, so they will never be questioned or punished, no matter how awful their actions are. It's an echo chamber of idiocracy, where they all get to vote on which dogs they should kill over the weekend. The lead vet is an absolute monster with not a single shred of compassion or empathy in her body. When someone expresses sadness over a dog dying, she rolls her eyes and wants them out of her sight because they're taking up too much of her precious time. She has been heard saying that euthanasias take too much time, so they should speed up the process by not telling the staff when a euthanasia is happening, and not allowing them to say goodbye. She wants an efficient assembly line for picking a dog out, injecting them, then decapitating them for rabies testing. Emotion is annoying to her, and not something she can be bothered to humor you for. She is also very well known for ignoring dogs' pain or medical needs because she just cannot be bothered to waste her precious time on them. She and her staff can't even be bothered to make sure a dog takes their medication. They just don't care. Low level staff is very well aware of every issue in this company, but most of them are too afraid of retaliation to say anything. Those that do try to say something are reprimanded. They're essentially told to shut their mouths and know their place. Or they're outright gaslighted by management telling them there is no problem, which is so far from the truth. We had team meetings in which our concerns were brought up, and we told us we should not be talking amongst ourselves about issues within the company. They wanted us to smile and take it. Ignore all the issues around us. Disgusting.
