Albany Humane Society responds to video posted online that sparked animal abuse complaints

ALBANY – The Georgia Department of Agriculture conducted a Thursday inspection of the Albany Humane Society after being alerted to a video posted on social media that showed a person yanking on a dog’s lead and lunging at the frightened animal.

The individual who was handling the dog in the video was a city of Albany Animal Control officer who was bringing the dog in for intake, and the dog was reunited with its owner less than an hour after the video was taken, according to Humane Society Director Lulu Kaufman. 

The inspector reviewed the video that had been posted online and on TikTok, as well as a video of the owner with BJ, the dog, taken several weeks after the incident, she said. The video was taken in January by a disgruntled former employee but was not released until April.

“The Department of Agriculture watched the videos and spoke with interim shelter Manager Jackie Harris and interviewed employees and cleared us of any wrongdoing,” Kaufman said. 

The video was taken by a former Humane Society employee on the day of the incident but was not released until she left after she was not selected as manager in favor of Harris, who had 30 years experience as an animal control officer in Lee County and has been at Albany Humane for five years, Kaufman said. Allegations also were made online that the dog had been euthanized. But BJ had been brought to the facility in the past and staff recognized the dog and contacted the owner.

“If she was so concerned about an animal being abused, why did she wait all these months and not post it until the day that she moved on?” Kaufman said. “It wasn’t until after she quit that she sent that video to Facebook. 

“That doesn’t excuse any unacceptable behavior. That was an animal control officer handling the animal. The animal control officers are in charge of the animal until they turn it over to us.”

The video showed the city employee with the dog before it had been placed in the custody of the Humane Society, which contracts with the city of Albany and Dougherty County to house stray and abandoned animals picked up by animal control officers, Kaufman said. The two entities bring an average of about 10 to 15 dogs each day to the facility.

“We are an open-admission shelter,” the director said. “We take in dogs all day, every day, and we don’t know their behavior. A lot of times they are scared. They can be sick, they can be dangerous, they could have been used for fighting. We don’t know how they’re going to react. “We do everything we can to make them feel safe while they’re with us. Once we take charge, we begin decompressing, deescalating (with) the animal.”

Jackson spoke with the animal control officer at the time but did not file a formal complaint about the incident, Kaufman said. That employee is now working with a different city department.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) also was alerted to the video that was posted on social media and has offered to train animal control officers who work with the governments, Kaufman said.

The public is welcome to come in to see the conditions at the shelter as well as to volunteer to interact with the animals, the director said. With so many animals and a small staff, it is difficult to provide walks and enrichment activities to the up to 250 dogs that can be housed at the facility.

“We open our doors, and we want people to come in and see how our animals are treated,” Kaufman said. “They can walk dogs. They can sit in with the cats. We can’t adopt ourselves out of (animal overpopulation) in Albany, but we can encourage the community to have their pets spayed and neutered to try to solve this problem.” 

The Humane Society transports about 1,200 dogs per year to adoption organizations, she said, and in some instances has held a dog for several years hoping for adoption.