Last year, a three week renovation of the Butler County Animal Shelter led to a strong effort by the facility to find homes for all their pets.

One Morgantown animal shelter volunteer, however, is claiming un-necessary euthanizations have started to take place in recent weeks.

Ann Nash says she's been able to find homes for 700 animals in the past six months, but now, she says she's concerned that too many animals are being put to death in Morgantown.

One county official argues the shelter is just following the law.

"When we have healthy animals that can be placed into a home, why kill them? Why kill that animal?" Ann asks. "I'm not even allowed in the isolation building no more. Now, I don't know what's been brought in, and I won't know what's been euthanized."

She says that on at least four occasions, dogs and cats have been put to sleep, even though a rescue crew was coming to pick them up.

According to David Howery of Clean Slate Animal Rescue, one incident involving the euthanization of three mother cats prompted him to take all the shelter's remaining cats.

According to Shelter Manager Franklin Morris, it's purely up to a veterinarian to decide if an animal is too diseased or aggressive to be adopted.

"If I see they're not acting right or looking real poorly, my first obligation is that animal," Morris says. "They call the vet to come check it out."

As for the time spent in an isolation area, Butler County Judge Executive David Fields says animals are required to be held for a period of inspection before they can be put up for rescue.

"When an animal is brought in to the animal shelter, we're required by law to keep that animal for a minimum of five days," says Judge Fields.

According to Ann, the shelter can be doing better.

"I was told, this is a business," says Ann. "These dogs lives aren’t a business. They breathe. A lot of dogs are peoples' babies. That's all they have. All I want to do is save them."

Judge Fields concludes that he's proud of the shelter's current rescue rate, which he says is well over 90%. It's a statistic he largely credits to Ann.