By Karen Gutierrez
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A government employee is secretly videotaped shooting stray dogs and tossing them in a pile. Some twitch and whine, not yet dead. He ignores them.

The tape makes national news. Kentucky is embarrassed. Outraged animal lovers demand change.

And a Boone County woman named Beckey Reiter vows to make it happen.

Beckey Reiter, director of the Boone County Animal Shelter, in the shelter with mixed breed puppies. She was instrumental in getting a law passed that outlaws routine euthanisation of dogs by shooting them. (Patrick Reddy photo)

In the two years since that tape surfaced, Reiter has worked to ban gunshot as a routine method of euthanasia in Kentucky, one of few states where it still occurs. Ohio law doesn't specifically forbid euthanization by gunshot.

She strategized with legislators, called allies late at night and fired off e-mail to a network of animal advocates.

This spring, Reiter got her way. On the last day of the legislative session, the General Assembly passed a law that brings Kentucky out of the dark ages of animal control.

No more euthanasia by bullet. No more glorified crates passing as shelters. And no more national reputation as one of the worst states for humane treatment of animals.

"I was ecstatic," Reiter says. "This bill, in essence, has rectified 50 years of neglect."

Says Eric Blow, director of metro animal services in Louisville: "She and the bill's sponsor are absolutely responsible for getting it passed."

As director of Boone County's animal shelter, Reiter didn't have to get involved. Hers is a modern facility with adequate funding, many adoptions and a long-time practice of euthanasia by injection.

The legislation wasn't going to help her directly. But she knew it would mean a lot to her brethren around the state. And she was angry about the consequences of Kentucky's backwardness: the serious bite injuries, the property damage caused by roaming strays, the suffering of so many abandoned animals.

The videotape was especially disturbing. For years, some Kentuckians had defended gunshot as a painless death, as well as a cheap and easy one for rural counties.

Then came the tape, made by a concerned citizen who dressed in camouflage and hid behind the dog pound in Henry County, about an hour southwest of Cincinnati. The tape showed the caretaker methodically shooting dogs in the head, tossing them in a backhoe and grabbing more.

Some kept whining after they were shot. The footage made national TV.

"It was extremely stressful to even hear, look at, consider," says Reiter, who has worked in animal control for 17 years. "It just changed everything."

The year before, Rep. Roger Thomas, D-Smiths Grove, had introduced a bill to ban gunshot except where public safety was threatened or suffering animals couldn't wait for lethal drugs.

The measure went nowhere. Thomas tried again last year, but again the bill died in the Senate, despite lobbying by the Kentucky Animal Control Advisory Board. Reiter is chairwoman of the group, which includes hunters, farmers, county officials and veterinarians.

This spring, Thomas kept Reiter apprised as the bill again passed the House. Then it got stuck in a Senate committee led by Al Robinson, R-London, who said it would be too much trouble for rural counties.

In a last-ditch effort, Thomas tacked the measure onto a Senate bill dealing with veterinary licenses.

It passed. Reiter rejoiced. Robinson lost re-election this month.

And in Henry County, the dark days of 2002 are long past.

When the dog-shooting tape became public, county magistrate Wayne Gunnell called Reiter for help.

He and several other elected officials had been horrified by the images. They wanted permanent change. But others in Henry County had gotten defensive, criticizing news reports as sensational and the man who made the tape as a disreputable meddler.

Gunnell was so skittish that he arranged to meet Reiter for dinner in another county. He wanted to avoid talking in front of "everyone and their grandma, who all have ears and telephones," he says.

Reiter told him how to get grants through the Animal Control Advisory Board. Then the Kentucky Humane Society offered to run a shelter for the county, and Reiter gave advice on what to include in the contract.

"She was just a wealth of information," Gunnell says. "I don't know if Boone County realizes what they've got up there."

Today, Henry County pays about $55,000 a year for animal control. That's $15,000 more than before, but it's well worth it, Judge-executive John Brent says.

People can actually adopt stray animals in the county now. There are spay-neuter clinics. And lethal injection is the norm.

Someday, Reiter predicts, even gentle deaths won't be necessary.

"I know there's an end to it," she says. "We just have to get there."

New law's provisions

Provisions of Kentucky's new animal-control law include:

• Gunshot shall not be used as a routine method of euthanasia. It is permitted only when animals threaten the safety of people at the shelter or in the community, or when animals cannot be seized or have an injury causing them to suffer.

• Cats and ferrets must be vaccinated against rabies. (Previously, this applied only to dogs.)

• Animal shelters must be free of debris or standing water. They must provide adequate lighting, ventilation and sanitary conditions. Animals must have adequate space to stand at full height, sit, turn and lie down. They must have daily access to uncontaminated, edible food and water.

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E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com