County urged to switch euthanasia method on dogs

LOGAN (AP) -- Another rural southeastern Ohio county is under pressure to stop euthanizing stray dogs in a gas chamber.

Sign-carrying protesters rallied outside the Hocking County Courthouse in Logan Thursday to urge county officials to change the euthanasia method to the more human lethal injection -- which is also more expensive.

Animal activists denounced the gas chamber as barbaric and inhumane and demanded an end to the practice.

County commissioners listened but said they would continue to use gas to put down dogs at the shelter. They said they couldn't afford the added expense of switching to lethal injection.

Fewer than a dozen of the state's 88 counties still use gas. The rest have switched to injection.

Officials in two adjacent rural counties voted recently to make the switch.