As new firestorm swirls around Danville Area Humane Society, security precautions increase

The latest controversy unfolded when the dog — named both Evie and Eve — was surrendered to the local animal shelter on April 10. Amid a time of high animal intakes, the dog was euthanized on April 18.

It was later discovered that the canine had previously come from the Lynchburg Humane Society, an organization that said it would have welcomed its "sweet Eve" back into the facility where she had been on and off since 2021.

"Employees are nervous this time," Paulette Dean, the executive director of the Danville Area Humane Society, told the Register & Bee in a Wednesday evening phone call.

"This is pure nastiness," she explained of the letters and calls the shelter had received. "Nastiness and pure evilness."

In a Facebook post on Wednesday afternoon, the humane society reported that employees had been subjected to "hate-filled" and "threatening" messages and voicemails.

The dog was adopted in November into a "wonderful, loving home," according to the Lynchburg Humane Society. 

On April 10, a couple brought a dog to the shelter, calling her Evie. 

"They said that the woman's mother had just moved in and didn't like dogs, and so they had to get rid of her, so they brought her to us," Dean explained to the newspaper. "They signed all the paperwork, then when they left, we scanned for a chip, recorded it on the intake paper and recorded it on the cage card."

A microchip is a tiny device implanted into a pet's skin that, when scanned, can provide details on its ownership.

In what amounted to a routine matter, according to Dean, an employee called the microchip company and was told the chip had not been registered and there was no information to provide.

Dean thought it was a routine owner surrender.

The same day Evie arrived at the shelter, she was featured on its Facebook page.

"Evie is a 12-year-old sweetheart who was recently surrendered because her owner now has to care for her mother," the April 10 post states. "Through no fault of her own, Evie is now trying to understand a whole new world."

On April 16, another post was made, this time a video showing Evie running about. 

"No one expressed any interest in her," Dean said, explaining the shelter has seen an influx of animals recently. 

One day last week, 34 cats and nine dogs come to the shelter in one day.

"It took us a while to come up with the decision to put her on the euthanasia list," for April 28, Dean said.

The dog had been in the shelter for 18 days.

"And people are saying that's not a long time, and that's absolutely true," Dean admitted. "And if it had been another time of the year, it would have been longer."

Dean also said the dog started to wheeze, which is "never a good thing," especially in an older animal.

After Evie was put down, Homeward Trails Danville came to the shelter asking for that dog. The Danville-based animal rescue organization works with the humane society to foster animals or find new homes.

"We thought that was it, until I got an angry email from Lynchburg Humane Society," Dean said.

The Lynchburg shelter had found out about Evie — the dog they called Eve — and wondered why the animal wasn't transferred back to them.

"A simple microchip scan would have shown that Eve came from the Lynchburg Humane Society, and we would have done what we always do: bring her back to our Center for Pets," a statement from the Lynchburg shelter states. "We are not sure if a microchip scan was done, but we were not contacted about Eve."

Dean stressed the chip was checked the first time and recorded on something called the cage card.

After receiving the email, Dean asked another employee to call the chip company to find out what had happened.  

"So she confirmed what they had first said, it had not been registered," Dean explained. "But then the woman said, 'Wait a minute, let me check something else.'"

This time, the chip company confirmed that in December, something changed with the registration.

"And so if the first person from the chip company had told the staff, we would have called Lynchburg," Dean said of the standard procedure. 

"Shelters all around have an unwritten agreement that when you get an animal that's been adopted from them, you call," she continued. "If we had known she came to Lynchburg, we would not be talking today, because Evie would be back at their shelter."

When the situation started to unfold, Dean said the latest owner learned about Evie's euthanasia from the Lynchburg facility.

"So they called me, screaming and yelling," Dean described.

"And I said, 'So why didn't you take the dog back to Lynchburg?'" she asked. "And she said, 'we called a few times, but they never got back.'"

Dean wasn't sure if the previous owner had left a message with the Lynchburg facility.

Response

On Monday afternoon, the Lynchburg Humane Society posted about the episode, setting off a firestorm against the Danville shelter.

"How many other animals has this happened to at DAHS?" the Lynchurg shelter stated. 

"The needless deaths of pets at DAHS must stop," it continued. "Eve represents the thousands of pets that don't make it out of the DAHS shelter alive. Please share this far and wide. Leadership and policies at DAHS need to change so the lives of the innocent, helpless animals can be saved.

The euthanasia rate at the Danville shelter dropped to 58% in 2025, according to data released in January, down from 65% in the previous year.

It's also a steep decline from 2023's rate, which nearly reached 80%.

Danville has an open admission shelter, which means it takes in all animals.

Of the 3,184 animals that came to the shelter in 2025, 847 were from other localities because those shelters would not accept them, a state report notes.

David Wesolowski, manager of grassroots advocacy for Best Friends Animal Society, has pushed for a 90% no-kill rate since the Danville Deserves Better campaign launched about two years ago, appearing before City Council to advocate for changes.

"What we are seeing here is another example of DAHS's inability, or flat-out refusal, to participate in modern sheltering best practices," Wesolowski wrote in a statement sent to The (Lynchburg) News & Advance on May 1.

"Evie's death is so tragic precisely because it was so avoidable," he said. "The question is how many other dogs like Evie have been unnecessarily killed in the Danville shelter system, and what can be done to guarantee this will not happen again."

Sharing a story by WSET in Lynchburg, state Sen. Bill Stanley waded into the issue, vowing to bring change to the Danville shelter.

"The unwarranted euthanasia of Eve should have never happened, but unfortunately, she landed at the Danville 'Humane' Society, where, in my opinion, their 'kill first, ask questions later' policy too often results in the unconscionable death of beautiful companion animals like Eve, who deserved a warm bed in a loving home, not a burial in the cold ground," Stanley wrote in a Facebook statement.

"I am dedicated in leading an effort for drastic change with this facility," he continued. "Eve was indeed a 'superstar,' and may her memory, and our work together as a community, help other dogs and cats not meet the same fate in the future in both Danville and throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia."

Stanley led an effort to shut down a breeding facility in Cumberland about four years ago. 

"We have always found him to be a very compassionate senator," Dean said about Stanley, calling him passionate about animals.

"He has brought forth some bills that we have agreed with and have encouraged their legislators to vote for, and he's brought some that we didn't agree with," she said.

Dean told the newspaper that Stanley — who at one time did represent parts of the Dan River Region — has never been to the Danville shelter.

"We invite him to come and spend time here, and perhaps he would change his mind about us," Dean said.

The changes

The shelter has taken increased security precautions before, including locking its doors, and is doing that again this week.

A new grant will also fund enhanced security features. 

"We are printing now, new intake records, with a new added question that says, 'Where did you get this animal from?" Dean explained when asked what changes have been put in place.

That way, they will instantly know if an animal being surrendered was adopted from another shelter.

"So if that question had been on the intake at the time we got Evie, then that would have been a non-issue because we immediately would have contacted them," Dean said, referring to the Lynchburg facility.