First she was Eve. Then Evie. Now she's the poster pet of Danville shelter reform

When Kim Brown, of Scottsburg in Halifax County, adopted the new family pet in November, they dubbed her Evie.

Now the 12-year-old canine is the poster pet — figuratively and in the literal sense — for change at the Danville Area Humane Society, where she was euthanized on April 28, 18 days after she was brought to the shelter.

A microchip in the dog was registered with the Lynchburg Humane Society. Although it's an unwritten rule, shelters generally will return a pet to another facility once they find out.

A phone call with a microchip company first revealed it was not registered, the Danville shelter reports. Another attempt after the euthanasia with the same company — and a little more digging — revealed it was, in fact, registered with the Lynchburg shelter.

On May 4, the Lynchburg facility detailed the episode on Facebook, launching a vocal rally for changes at the Danville Area Humane Society, including a petition for a community meeting and state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, vowing that reform will come.

That's one reason why Lynchburg went public with it.

"Yes, we want to make change," Jill Mollohan, executive director of the Lynchburg Humane Society, told the Register & Bee in a phone interview.

"We want to teach them how to look up a microchip properly," she said. "We want to just save more animals."

Although it's decreased, Danville has a 58% kill rate for animals. However, it's also an open-admission shelter, meaning no animal is turned away.

Critics say even open admission shelters can lower euthanasia rates.

"There has been somewhat of a relationship, but it's mostly one-sided of us trying to help them, pull animals from them, and being ignored or rejected every time," Mollohan said of working with the Danville shelter over the years.

She said it happened in October when the Lynchburg facility offered to take 21 cats.

"And they refused," Mollohan said.

The reason was that Danville didn't agree with Lynchburg's adoption contract, which didn't limit the cat adoptions to indoor pets only.

The Lynchburg official also said easier policies would help Danville empty its shelter.

She said "adoption barriers" were "unnecessary, antiquated and very judgmental."

Dean has previously said that all decisions are centered around the welfare of animals, defending opponents wanting to streamline the adoption process.

"I don't know what their barriers are, but I have heard from many, many people who are wonderful people, wonderful pet owners, that they were not allowed to adopt there," Mollohan told the newspaper. 

Sue Bell, the founder of Homeward Trails Animal Rescue, forged a new partnership with the Danville shelter earlier this year, all with the aim to bring down the kill rates.

With a $7,500 donation from the Danville shelter, Homeward Trails went to donors and asked for a match, now raising $15,000 to specifically provide Danville services for 2026.

Bell told the newspaper that it's going to continue to help the shelter, including the local group Homeward Trails Danville, coming into the shelter a few times a week to coordinate foster and adoption options.

"We will continue to provide services to the community," Bell said Friday. "We have no intentions of leaving."

However, she said change is needed, but it rests with the shelter to make the reforms.

"We are here in the community to support those changes and to support whatever progressive programming can happen to result in greater life-saving," she said.

In fact, her team was in Danville over the weekend with free spay and neuter drives for cats.

"We support that change, but change has to have come from the shelter, change has to come from the City Council," she said. "Homeward Trails cannot and will not drive that change."

Best Friends Animal Society, a national organization, brought a campaign to Danville in 2023, taking aim at the high rates. Locally, the movement was called Danville Deserves Better, with members appearing before Danville City Council to lament the figures and call for a no-kill operation to be established.

Its Facebook page was quiet until last week's exposure of the euthanasia situation.

As of Saturday evening, an online petition demanding that Danville City Council host a "citizen town hall" to address what it calls "urgent action to address system failures" had garnered more than 400 electronic signatures. 

The Danville shelter endured a never-before-seen level of attacks last week, with new security measures in place. Although a locked door was named as one of those actions, the door was unlocked when the Danville Register & Bee visited on Friday afternoon.

Staff members have been inundated with attacking phone calls, Dean said.

Also, the backlash only adds to the problem of getting in more animals that can be saved.

"It's so hurtful when you read comments saying, 'I would never adopt from a kill shelter,'" Dean said.

"Isn't that counterintuitive?" she questioned. "Isn't that setting the shelter up to have more euthanasia?"

Facebook pages are flooded with comments, some verging on outward threats

"Nastiness and pure evilness," is what Dean called it.

"What's happening in society today, we have lost our ability to disagree without being disagreeable," she said, not only highlighting the shelter, but other areas of squabble also.

So far, only one change has emerged at the shelter, following the microchip lookup snafu. 

Dean showed the newspaper a new line on an intake form that now reads "I got the animal from," when a person comes to surrender the animal.

Both Bell and Dean have previously said that change needs to happen in the community.

"It is not the shelter's fault that they fill up with animals every week," Bell told the newspaper earlier this year. 

Spaying and neutering pets is often viewed as the largest game-changer in the animal welfare world.