Sources: Horry shelter board schedules private meeting, shelter remains closed

Horry County Humane Society officials closed the Horry County animal shelter Monday and remained closed Thursday and euthanized scores of dogs believed to be contaminated with the distemper virus.

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Sources close to the Humane Society told News13 Thursday that board members met with the shelter’s executive director Renee Macklen in a private, undisclosed meeting late Wednesday at a law firm located at the 48th Avenue North and Robert Grissom Parkway in Myrtle Beach.

Macklen was at her office in the shelter Thursday, but declines requests for interviews with several media outlets to discuss the distemper issue and to find out the latest on the cleaning of the facility.

News13 tried several times to speak with board members since Monday about the distemper situation at the county’s shelter, but none have returned phone calls.

After several attempts to reach Dr. Muhammad Bajwa, the only veterinarian on the board, by phone Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, a woman in Bajwa’s Myrtle Beach office who refused to giver her name, said Bajwa would not talk about the situation because, “Dr. Bajwa is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the shelter.”

News13 left a message again with Bajwa, which was not returned as of this posting Thursday.

Another board member, Lisa Cleary, had not returned phone messages to News13 after calls placed to her cell phone Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The board oversees the Horry County shelter, which receives $536,316 in tax dollars each year from the county, according to Horry County's public information office. However, the county contracts the operations of the shelter out to the Horry County Humane Society, according to county director of public safety Paul Whitten.

A third case of distemper was confirmed by a Conway veterinarian Monday, according to a man who left the shelter this morning.

The man, who wished to remain unnamed, told News13 outside the facility Tuesday morning that he talked with shelter officials about his vet’s diagnosis of the terrier puppy he adopted last month.

Two confirmed cases of Canine Distemper Virus closed the Humane Society Monday and the closing is indefinite, according to society director Renee Macklen.

“Basically there have been some health issues. Under the recommendation of a couple of veterinarians in the local area that I’ve spoken with, they have suggested we close the facility today and go through and clean,” Macklen said.

Shelter officials euthanized 35 more dogs Monday and allowed more to be adopted with plans to put more down Tuesday, according to a News13 source.

The first case was diagnosed by a Conway veterinarian on Oct. 27 after a family adopted a dog from the HCHS and took it to the vet the same day, where the doctor diagnosed the animal with “probable K-9 distemper,” according to HCSC records obtained by News13.

The virus is “contagious, often fatal, multisystematic viral disease that affects the respiratory, gastrointestional, and central nervous system,” according to an animal health internet site.

CDV is prevalent in unvaccinated young dogs, according to the Web site.

A second case was confirmed by the Clemson Veterinary Diagnostic Clinic in Columbia on Nov. 26 after doctors there found CDV in the animal that was sent to Columbia from the HCHS.

“When we read this, we thought this was an isolated case,” Macklen said of the Clemson confirmation.

Director Macklen told News13 that she was unaware of the Oct. 27 diagnosis and had she been informed of the incident, she would have ordered the shelter cleaned and addressed the problem.

The records News13 obtained contained the records from the Conway vet attached to the HCHS record of the animal, all of which came from the shelter.

Macklen also told News13 she was unaware of the Nov. 26 case, although Clemson faxed the form containing their findings to the HCHS and the document was attached to the animal’s record obtained by News13 from the shelter.

Since Nov. 20, the Horry County shelter has euthanized 36 dogs, according to records obtained by News13, but that number isn’t alarming to shelter officials, “We don’t have additional kennel space,” Macklen told News13.

A majority of the animals in the documents were adopted out to the public, then returned to the pound and later euthanized, according to a News13 source.

Following a story on the shelter issue Monday night, several people in Horry County emailed and contacted News13 to report adopting animals from the shelter within the past two months who were later returned to the shelter.

Every dog in the facility who was in the shelter up until Monday who was not quarantined was euthanized, according to sources in the Humane Society.

There’s not word yet on a date of the public meeting scheduled with the shelter’s board.

You can count on News13 to continue to update this story as details become available on the closing and the situation with the virus at the Horry County shelter.