Tensions surrounding the Daviess County animal shelter have intensified in recent months, with conflicting claims about euthanasia practices, overcrowding, intake procedures, and the overall operation under It Takes a Village. Interviews, emails, public records, and years of data show a mix of long-standing issues and new disputes, as former staff, County officials, and ITV leadership offer sharply different accounts of what is happening inside the shelter.
Mass euthanasia claims vs. what the numbers show
Claims of “mass euthanasia” began circulating after a September 25 text exchange on Dr. Julie Gray’s last day at the shelter. Multiple individuals referenced a screenshot from that day in which Tangila Smith, ITV’s director, asked Gray, the former veterinarian at the shelter, to euthanize a number of animals before the end of her shift.
Owensboro Times independently confirmed the message from Smith reads, “Please euthanize all of the hoarding cats that are not sociable and I will give you a list of some dogs.”
Gray responded that she would not be doing that, and when asked why, replied with a text saying “I did a lot to help the shelter but I’m not spending my last day mass euthanizing.”
Ashley Thompson served as the shelter director for years when it was under County control. After the ITV transition, she served as an animal control officer (ACO), but her employment was terminated in recent weeks. In an interview with OT this week, Thompson also cited the origin of the phrase back to that text exchange.
“‘Mass euthanasia’ started with Dr. Gray’s last day, because I was sent a screenshot either the last day she was employed or the day after,” Thompson said. “I was sent a screenshot where Tangila had asked her to euthanize quite a few animals on her last day of employment, and Dr. Gray told her no.”
In an email interview with Owensboro Times, Gray said that declining to perform the euthanasia was based on timing, not because of the number.
“I was asked to euthanize all unsocialized cats and a list of dogs on my last day, but I declined,” she said. “These decisions should have been made earlier, not on my last day when I had given two months’ notice.”
Asked to further explain the process for euthanizing, Gray said, “I was not asked to euthanize often. The former director made euthanasia decisions for space and behavior, and I made medical euthanasia decisions. After ITV took over, I tried to implement daily rounds to discuss animals that were staying too long — whether there was anything we could do, market them differently, etc.”
However, Thompson claimed that wasn’t the last time the term “mass euthanasia” came up. She alleges that Daviess County Sheriff Brad Youngman and County Treasurer Jordan Johnson both explicitly said the phrase.
“They both talked about, you know, going in and euthanizing large numbers of animals so they could get the shelter down to a more reasonable number of animals for them to be able to manage,” she said.
Johnson and Youngman both flatly rebuke those claims.
“That mass euthanasia was ordered — that is completely false,” Johnson said. “That animal control ordered large quantities of euthanasia drug — also false.”
Youngman added, “[Animal control is] not doing euthanasia. There may be a place for it in the future, but not mass euthanasia. Simply helping the shelter … inasmuch as we’re taking animals out there that they’re going to have to euthanize.”
Beyond “mass” euthanasia, critics have raised concerns that animal control officers might soon be pressured to euthanize animals that were healthy or adoptable.
“There was concern about being asked to put down animals that didn’t need to be euthanized,” Thompson said. “People were worried that we were going to be put in a position where healthy animals would have to be put down.”
Thompson and another former shelter employee, Shelby Howard, who left before ITV took over, both pointed to an email from Youngman to Johnson in May 2025 as evidence supporting their claim.
That email, independently viewed by OT, was a list of things discussed during a weekly meeting between Youngman, ACOs, and the DCSO Patrol Division. A portion reads:
Issues: If there is not relief soon the DCFC will have to contract with Humane Society and ACOs will begin euthanizing animals.
Response: (I didn’t know, but…) Evidently this is how or closely resembles how it used to be. The ACOs hate it and do not want this to happen again. I told them we would work on other solutions to avoid having to return to this method. As such I asked the ACOs and mainly Ashley to compile a list of recommendations for ITV to solve some of the issues that didn’t used to exist on levels seen currently. We will work with DCFC on how the present any recommendations but for now I want the list.
“I was relying very heavily on one of my senior animal control officers who was employed here at the time for context that I did not have on how animal control was going,” Youngman said of the summary. “And that email was a product of a meeting with her and the other animal control officers, where I basically outlined concerns that were being brought to me.”
Youngman said he later learned “none of that was factual.”
“Those were opinions expressed to me that I captured in an email to send to a senior member of Fiscal Court to trigger a discussion. What you don’t see in that email is the result, which is where I met in person with the Fiscal Court staff and we tracked down a lot of those bullet comments in my email and, in some cases, discovered that they were way off base — that they were very heavily opinionated,” Youngman said.
Johnson added, “The idea that discussions about euthanasia were somehow orders — they weren’t. They were internal… discussions about managing space during a heavy influx of animals. None of it ever reached the judge-executive or Fiscal Court as a decision.”
Youngman further noted that, as written in the email, the idea of ACOs performing euthanasia was not new, as they’d performed them while the shelter was under County control. Plus, he said, it does not say anything about putting down healthy animals.
Judge-Executive Charlie Castlen recently expressed frustration when addressing the claims during a Fiscal Court meeting.
“There’s a great deal of misinformation circulated on Facebook about the animal shelter, and I keep seeing this narrative that this Fiscal Court has mishandled the shelter operation, and I feel the need to set the record straight,” Castlen said. “The notion that Fiscal Court or the sheriff’s office have any desire or incentive to euthanize healthy, adoptable animals is utterly ridiculous. No agency benefits in any way from doing so.”
On the operational side, County officials and ITV both said euthanasia decisions are being driven by medical and behavioral factors — not space — and that euthanasia for space has not been the default under ITV’s managed-intake contract.
Asked if they’d been ordered to perform mass euthanasia, Thompson said the ACOs had not.
In fact, ACOs have not performed a single euthanasia since ITV took over.
Additionally, the number of euthanasia is down both in terms of raw numbers and percentages.
Here’s a breakdown of numbers, looking only at April-October for each period (2020 is excluded due to atypical numbers from COVID):
- Average pre-ITV (2013-2019 and 2021-2024, April-October):
- Intake: 2,296 animals
- Euthanized: 558 animals
- 24.4% of intake were euthanized.
- 2024 (pre-ITV year, April-October):
- Intake: 2,121 animals
- Euthanized: 323 animals
- 15.2% of intake were euthanized
- 2025 (ITV, April-October):
- Intake: 1,722 animals
- Euthanized: 165 animals
- 9.6% of intake were euthanized
Put differently, for every 100 animals that entered the system in April-October 2025, fewer than 10 were euthanized. For much of the last decade, that figure hovered closer to 20-30 per 100.
Complaints about current conditions — and how many of them predate ITV
Volunteers, former staff members, and County Commissioner Janie Marksberry have described current conditions as inhumane. Claims have included that dogs are going more than a day without being let out, cats being in cramped or stressful housing, volunteers being pushed out or tightly restricted, and animals not receiving adequate enrichment or medical care.
Smith has pushed back on some of the more extreme claims.
“The shelter is closed Sundays and Mondays, yes. But we have staff there in the morning and evening every day,” Smith said, noting that the staff lets the animals outside every day.
She also noted that some volunteer changes, including minimum ages and hours, were driven by ITV’s existing policy and issues with specific volunteers at the Daviess County location.
Critics counter that, whether or not staff are technically present every day, the level of exercise, enrichment, and human interaction is not what they believe a County-backed operation should provide.
One critical piece of context emerging from interviews and documents is that many of these complaints are not new. The physical building, layout, and some core policies have been flashpoints for years.
Gray said she repeatedly raised standards-of-care concerns during the County-run era — particularly around cat housing and environmental stress:
“The items that I had addressed multiple times with the previous director and Fiscal Court were my goals of improving standards of care that are recommended by the Association of Shelter Veterinarians,” Gray wrote. “All I really needed was a shared vision and plan to move forward and improve these issues.”
She specifically cited humane housing for cats:
“Cats are required to be housed in at least 8 square feet cages with a divider between bedding and food from their litter box,” Gray said. “They should have daily enrichment, provided soft comfortable bedding, and a scratching post to meet their needs. They should not be in visual or auditory range of barking dogs.”
Gray said her request for about $3,500 in the 2024 budget to improve cat housing was denied by Fiscal Court, as were a handful of other requests related to facilities and pet food.
Those requests and denials happened before ITV ever took over.
During an interview with OT, Marksberry was asked about the fact that many of her current criticisms mirror concerns she herself raised while the shelter was still under County control.
A May 2024 email from Marksberry to the other members of Fiscal Court reads, in part, “We have serious organizational, operational and strategic issues at the shelter that need the immediate attention of Fiscal Court. … we appear to be breaking our own animal cruelty laws … By keeping the dogs confined with no care for over 16 hours daily and 22 hours on Sunday, the dogs are being confined in a small area for extended periods, under poor hygienic conditions.”
She also wrote in part that, “The organizational structure at the shelter is preventing us from accomplishing our mission. We depend too much on volunteers to provide normal operational duties, while management authority is not clearly defined.”
She then wrote that, “We have a public perception problem at this shelter. We are doing a poor job of communicating with the public, because callers and visitors speak with staff or volunteers who are not sure themselves about the shelter’s policies. There are reports from the community that citizens are being treated rudely, or not being given correct information.”
In the interview this week, Marksberry acknowledged the similarities between the current complaints about ITV and those made in 2024, but said the difference is that the problems were not corrected then, and have not been corrected now, despite being told by ITV that they would be.
She further noted in her interview that her 2024 email described her attempts to restructure leadership at the time. A portion of the email includes her recommendation to hire an executive director to whom Gray and Thompson would both report.
“In fact, ITV has made it worse,” she said. “… All along the shelter has needed direction and needed change, and that’s what I advocated for. They didn’t fix it. It didn’t get changed.”
In a recent Fiscal Court meeting, Marksberry also said, “In my opinion, we took a fantastic animal shelter and we totally wrecked it. We were the envy of other counties in Kentucky. We had a brand-new spay/neuter clinic, we had our own full-time shelter vet, and an extremely capable and caring person in charge of animal welfare.”
In her interview, Marksberry clarified that she meant the facility itself, not the operation.
“By ‘fantastic shelter,’ I meant we had a brand-new spay-neuter clinic with a full-time vet that we could have used for low-cost spay and neuter, and that would have helped with the overpopulation of animals,” she said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get that under control.”
Managed intake vs. open intake: expectation vs. reality
Another major tension since the transition has been whether the shelter should accept every animal immediately (“open intake”) or temporarily delay certain intakes, such as owner surrender of healthy animals, when full (“managed intake”).
Thompson and Marksberry point to a line in the ITV contract that they interpret to mean the shelter should be open intake.
“ITV shall maintain appropriate space within the shelter to accommodate animal intake from the Owensboro Police Department, Daviess County Sheriff’s Office, Daviess County Health Department, Daviess County Fiscal Court, and citizens who reside within Daviess County without requiring an appointment.”
However, when asked if that means open intake, Smith flatly said, “No.” She added that ITV made it clear from the beginning that they were managed intake.
Explaining the difference in owner surrenders and strays, Smith said, “If someone says, ‘I don’t want my dog anymore,’ they have to fill out a surrender form, and then we take them when we’re able to. We set a day and time to surrender them. Or we try to help them keep their animals. … We’re getting strays brought in every day. They’re not being turned away.”
Johnson said the County’s contract with ITV allowed ACOs to bring in animals tied to statutory or legal requirements, but in practice, this meant owner surrenders and non-emergency animals could be admitted as strays if brought in by ACOs..
“The ACOs had been effectively circumventing … the intake methodology by accepting owner surrenders from individuals who were placed on a waiting list by ITV,” he said.
When asked if ITV was at capacity, Smith simply said, “Every shelter is at capacity.”
Gray went into further detail.
“We were actually overcrowded prior to ITV’s takeover, but to a lesser extent,” she said. “According to ASV standards of care with multi-compartment housing, we should have housed only 30 cats and 62 dogs. We routinely had approximately 80 dogs and 80 cats on average. Under ITV, there were times we had over 200 cats and 100 dogs.”
Gray admitted that euthanasia numbers had significantly dropped, but said that doesn’t tell the whole picture when a shelter is overcrowded.
“Currently animals that don’t require intake are coming to the shelter when it is significantly over capacity,” she said, backing up Johnson’s note that owner surrenders were really being admitted as strays due to ACOs taking them in. “If the two worked together better, they could make sure that the animals who truly need the shelter’s care were taken in, and those that didn’t need immediate sheltering wouldn’t be. That is how best-practice shelters work and how they ensure high levels of care. The community and animals need not only a decrease in euthanasia rates but also a reduced population so that the shelter can provide the level of care the community expects and the animals deserve.”
Youngman said he began holding the periodic meetings with the ACOs for that very reason, an attempt to better work together with ITV based on feedback from his employees. He pointed to the email Thompson and Howard mentioned.
“What you do see in that email is the way I operate,” he said. “When my employees come to me with concerns, I act on them. When people have a question or comment, I take it to heart. I have an open-door policy. I have a delegate in place who they elect every year who has unrestricted access to the command staff. We have multiple ways that my employees can bring concerns to me, and I always act on them.”
Alleged plans for a second facility
Another point of dispute has been whether County officials intended to build an additional facility to help ITV manage overflow. Thompson said she believed County leaders were preparing to open a second structure specifically to support ITV’s operations. Howard made a similar claim in her interview.
Johnson and Youngman said directly that there were no plans to build a second facility for overflow or to assist ITV.
Thompson and Howard pointed to emails as alleged proof that there was a discussion of a new building. One in particular was sent by County Commissioner Chris Castlen to Marksberry and Youngman in July 2025 and was intended to be a recap of a meeting held the day before.
However, Marksberry said in her interview that the bullet points about a separate building were inaccurate.
“[Chris] sent me an email after the meeting and said, ‘So let me recap our meeting. So we build a separate building, we hold them in there for five days, and then can animal control euthanize after that?’ That was never, ever brought up, and I was shocked when I got that email,” Marksberry said. “… What I said — which is what they do in Woodford County — is that [Woodford County has] a separate small building. It’s probably 1,200 square feet. That’s their animal control building, and it’s down the road from their shelter. That’s where the stray holds go.”
She added, “But no — what we meant by a separate building, and I did suggest it, was to help stop them from being overwhelmed with hoarding cases or whatever. If they had room in a different building, they could put those animals there, and they really need to be quarantined as well, not brought straight into the shelter to bring in a bunch of diseases. That’s the other side of it. But it was never said, ‘Oh, and then after five days we can euthanize.’”
However, officials said talk of a separate building never progressed beyond that.
Confusion over whether an ACO resigned or was placed on leave
A separate point of confusion involved an animal control officer whose employment status became part of the public debate.
In her interview, Howard acknowledged the ACO’s wife “posted publicly about why he quit” and that another citizen spoke about the incident during the Fiscal Court meeting that same night. Asked about OT’s understanding that the ACO is still employed, Howard said he “rescinded his resignation.”
Thompson gave a less certain account. She said the ACO texted her “and said he was on administrative leave and that he resigned.” OT questioned how those could both be true, and Thompson said she “didn’t understand it either.” She then said she knew he’s back at work.
Youngman directly contradicted the claim that the officer had quit. He said the individual had been placed on administrative leave — not removed — and later returned to work.
The sheriff said the ACO came to Youngman and “based on a summary of the conversation provided to him by one of the other animal control officers, was pretty upset.”
“We had a discussion,” Youngman said. “The result of that discussion was that I placed him on leave. It was not a disciplinary matter. It was for personal reasons. And then he, at the end of that leave period, came back to work and is at work today. The next thing I know, that night at the Fiscal Court meeting, a lady mentioned that he had quit. I think that she was given bad information. I think almost the entirety of this entire [shelter] topic is based on bad information, because I’ve been here for every step of it.”
What’s next
Marksberry has made clear she wants the County to end the contract with ITV.
“I am very upset about it. I think it’s wrong. I think it’s failing our community,” she said. “It has to change because animals are suffering and people are suffering from lack of service they used to rely on through Daviess County Fiscal Court.”
Thompson agrees, saying, “I mean, it all comes back to the community. The community is not getting the services that they need.”
Youngman and Castlen said the controversy has been driven by bad information.
“I’ve been misquoted. I’ve been accused of lying. We — the Fiscal Court and I — have been accused of a cover-up. None of it’s true,” Youngman said. “[Almost none] of these people who have made accusations about me were present for any of these meetings. And it’s just shocking to me that they refuse to accept the truth.”
Castlen made a similar point during his public statement, saying the County has not mishandled the operation.
“This Fiscal Court cares about animal welfare, as demonstrated by the funding commitments and various programs we have implemented since we first came into office. I think things are looking good,” he said. “I would ask that our citizens please get their facts from the agencies that actually have the facts, and stop believing or circulating Facebook posts that are either wildly inaccurate or outright lies. … I also want to say I really appreciate that ITV has not thrown in the towel.”
Castlen ended his statement with a request to turn all energy toward helping ITV succeed, saying:
“I would encourage everyone: if you would spend all the negative energy and instead use it for good, for the shelter and for the animals, I think we would all be much better off.”
