'Utter chaos' alleged at IndyHumane as staff rebels against pet shelter's leader
Nearly 80 people were fired or have resigned from IndyHumane in the last two years. The CEO says changes were necessary. A rebellion has erupted at Indiana's largest nonprofit animal shelter, IndyHumane, accusing its CEO, Donna Casamento, of being abrasive, insular and vindictive. The former workers allege that nearly 80 people have resigned or been fired since Casamamento was hired 20 months ago, and that dogs are not receiving the preparation they need for adoptions and some are being unnecessarily put down due to behavioral issues. The staff cuts have led to a smaller staff and a depleted volunteer corps. Despite the resignations of several board members, two members maintain Casamamo has the backing of the board. The shelter, which relies on donations for 78% of its budget, had $6.9 million in revenue but $7.4 million in expenses in 2022, with a budget shortfall of $738,480.
Published : 4 weeks ago by John Tuohy, Indianapolis Star in
INDIANAPOLIS — A rebellion has broken open at Indiana’s largest nonprofit animal shelter, pitting former trainers, board members and volunteers against its chief executive officer.
The ex-workers at IndyHumane accuse Donna Casamento of abrasive, insular and vindictive leadership that has led to the resignations or firings of nearly 80 people since she was hired 20 months ago, including the chief financial officer, chief development officer, head of human resources and seven board members. Twenty-three of those let go were brought on by Casamento.
As a result, former workers say, dogs are not getting the preparation they need for adoptions and some are being needlessly put down because of behavioral problems.
“It’s a hot mess, toxic,” said John Aleshire, the executive director from 2008 to 2017. “If there is no consistency in staff and low morale, the physical and emotional well-being of the animals suffer. There's a trickle down."
Casamento — the shelter's third leader in six years — said she’s made necessary changes spurred by an overflow of animals and budget constraints. Cutting staff and eliminating some programs are among the “hard choices” that will “keep the lights on and keep things running.”
“When you go through changes not everyone is going to be on board,” especially in an industry where "passions” run high, Casamento said. “I am sorry those folks didn’t agree. Animal welfare everywhere has struggled.”
IndyStar interviewed 15 former employees, board members and volunteers on the record about the shelter, and a handful of others who requested anonymity. The Star also reviewed departure letters sent by several former employees to IndyHumane board members and interviewed Casamento several times, once at IndyHumane, 7929 N. Michigan Road.
The critics have been vocal on social media about their displeasure with Casamento’s practices and leadership. The public rebuke is rare in prominent nonprofits, where former employees generally avoid risking future employment opportunities by criticizing their last workplace, said Gary Roberts, who resigned from the board late last year and is the former dean at Indiana University McKinney School of Law.
“It is utter chaos and has cast a pall over the entire place," said Roberts, who has served on several boards and most recently was the president of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. “She has the worst people skills I have ever seen and has driven off almost everyone."
Despite persistent grumbling and the resignations of a handful of board members, two members asserted Casamento still has the backing of the board, the entity with the power to hire or fire an executive director.
The former workers say the departures have left a smaller staff of mostly new hires and a depleted volunteer corps overworked as care for animals is stretched thin.
“It’s made us sick to our stomachs and we had trouble sleeping at night,” said Melissa Erny, a former volunteer of nine years and a certified animal trainer.
Some of the staff reduction is due to cuts, which Casamento said were needed to eliminate an operating deficit of more than $500,000 for two years straight. The shelter, which relies on donations for 78% of its budget, had $6.9 million in revenue but $7.4 million in expenses in 2022, according to income tax filings. The budget shortfall in 2021 stood at $738,480.
At the same time, the shelter has put more emphasis on customer service and outreach in the community, with the goal of increasing donations, Casamento said.
“As more money comes in, we can refill those positions,” she said. “It is taking us a while to get things sorted out, but we are getting the job done and have hope for the future.”
But Erny and other critics contend Casamento’s changes have led to an untenable cycle in which dogs without proper behavioral preparation are being adopted to unsuitable families who are not screened thoroughly or a good match. That results in more adopted dogs being returned, where they get stressed in kennels and are made even less adoptable, and more likely to be put down, the ex-employees contend. Some mismatched dogs have been returned within days after biting family members or their pets.
“They will tell owners it’s a dog-friendly pet just to get rid of it,” said Jessica King, an animal care tech hired by Casamento who quit six months later.
While she was there, King said, about 20 adopted pets were returned in a typical week.
Casamento acknowledged the return rate has risen, but said that's partly because of the elimination of the foster-to-own program. When foster families brought back dogs, they were not counted as returns, she said. The foster-to-adopt program was cut because adopting families are more likely to keep the pets than foster families.
She also said the euthanasia rate has remained well under 10% during her tenure, the standard for a "no-kill" shelter. The "save rate" was 96% at the end of 2022 and 2023, Casamento said.
The shelter euthanizes dogs for medical and behavioral reasons. Seventeen dogs were put down for behavioral reasons in 2023, slightly higher than any of the last three years but much lower than in the five years before that, according to figures kept by the shelter.
Former workers, however, have objected to several euthanasia procedures they claim were unnecessary or preventable to begin with, including:
• None Katy, a 1-year-old black mountain dog, was returned within days after biting a young girl in the adopter's family. Katy was euthanized days after her return.
• None Charlie, who attacked and killed an adopter's dog, was saved from the needle only after volunteers and workers pleaded with Casamento to let them find him a new home. The volunteers made a 30-minute video of Charlie’s plight.
• None Gabriel was adopted three times. The first time he bit the owner's hand and was returned. The second time he attacked the owner's cat and was returned. The third time he bit a child’s face and was sent back and then euthanized, according to King.
With the increase in animals in need of shelter, Casamento said IndyHumane stopped accepting dogs with aggression problems in favor of those with a better chance of adoption. That, in turn, permitted her to eliminate the shelter's behavioral team that had provided individual attention to dogs.
Instead, dogs are socialized in playgroups by lower-paid “enrichment coordinators.” Casamento hopes to again hire trainers "one day,” she said.
Casamento also ended the practice of introducing shelter dogs to adopters’ family pets because the noise, stress and distractions in shelters renders the meetings useless. Staff members now give adopters instructions on how to make the introduction at home in a more comfortable setting.
IndyHumane is a nonprofit organization that shelters about 4,000 homeless dogs and cats a year and puts them up for adoption or fostering. The organization also provides low-cost health care for animals, including spay, neuter and vaccine services.
Its board hired Casamento in July 2022 after a period of leadership instability at the organization. She replaced David Horth, who was fired after heading the shelter for 3 ½ years. Horth had replaced Steve Stolen, who was fired in August 2018, just 18 months after taking the job.
Before coming to Indianapolis, Casamento faced similar complaints from staff about her leadership as executive director for the Palm Valley Animal Society in McAllen, Texas.
A letter sent by more than 12 employees to the PVAS board president cited many of the same complaints about her leadership that former IndyHumane workers are making.
"Donna refuses to ever take ownership of her failures," it reads.
The PVAS board fired Casamento in 2022 after two years, Brandon Hausenfluck, the board president at the time, and two others said.
Hausenfluck would not discuss the reason for Casamento's dismissal but said she did a good job in an "impossible position." The shelter has since operated without an executive director, spreading the position's duties among administrators.
"We could not supplement her with a proper staff," he said. "We went broke that year and had to ask for money from the city. Every ex-director here has upset employees."
Casamento said she had decided it was time to move on from Texas, but would not comment on details of her departure. She said she helped the shelter meet immense challenges at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Texas is a difficult community; we didn't even have a vet on staff," she said. "I didn't see it as a failure. One letter does not make a failure."
Former IndyHumane Human Resources Director Bettye Ellison said she would not have hired Casamento, though she would have been a finalist, because of concerns about the time off between previous jobs. But the decision was taken out of her hands midway through the process.
Ellison had collected 70 resumes and begun whittling them down when the board of directors hired a recruiting firm company, Profyle Tracker, to make the selection. The company presented the board with a list of six candidates.
Doug Rowe, the director of operations for Profyle Tracker, joined the IndyHumane board after it voted to hire Casamento. Rowe said the criticism from the former workers is "only hurting the animals" and ignores improvements that have been made, such as increased animal play time and fixes to the building.
"It's non-fact-based opinions and assumptions from the outside," he said.
Casamento said much of the overcrowding at shelters is a hangover from the pandemic. Pet adoptions and fosters rose as people sought stay-at-home companions, but new owners deferred spaying or neutering their pets.
As COVID-19 restrictions eased, shelters were overwhelmed by people returning adopted pets or putting up for adoption the puppies being born to unaltered pets. The rising cost of keeping a pet also has contributed to the fact that adoptions aren't keeping pace with the number of animals entering shelters, animal welfare groups say.
The imbalance can be seen across the Indianapolis region and nationally. The Humane Society for Hamilton County's $12 million shelter in Fishers, opened in 2021, is already overcrowded despite projections that it would not reach capacity until 2036. According to the Shelter Animal Count, kept by a coalition of animal welfare organizations, the number of dogs euthanized last year was the highest in five years at 359,000.
Former workers at IndyHumane say staff turnover has worsened the overcrowding problem there.
“It’s disorganized, chaotic and sloppy,” said Corey Hardwick, an animal behavior specialist who left after 18 months. “Dogs are not being screened. Time is not being spent on their behavior. Red flags on adopters are being ignored. They sit and sit and go through so much kennel stress they aren’t fit or safe to go back into the community.”
Sara Lawson, an animal care technician for 6 ½ years who quit in October, called the process "an expedited Chick-fil-A order in the lobby just to get them out of the door."
Then, when the dogs are returned, there is nobody left to train the bad habits out of them for safe re-adoption, she said.
The former workers said they felt a sense of helplessness under Casamento, who they say dismisses suggestions and gives little positive feedback. Some described their time under her as the worst in their lives and emotionally draining.
"Quality leadership includes collaborating with appropriate team members before making decisions. Donna has none of these qualities,” Jennifer Bledsole, the former chief financial officer and interim executive director, wrote in an exit letter.
Ellison, the former human resources director, resigned six month after Casamento was hired but keeps a running tab on how many employees have left: 79 so far. Casamento did not dispute Ellison's tally but said turnover in shelters is traditionally higher than most industries, ranging from 38% to as high as 75%. The shelter currently has 58 employees.
Casamento said she is up front with workers and volunteers about what she expects, with priority given to the animals' well being. Those who can’t live with the changes are “managed out,” she said.
For example, she said, the lights in the kennel are now turned off for an hour before the shelter opens to calm dogs, which means volunteers can’t play with them as they used to.
“Some people think it is a place where you just come and play with animals, but this is a lot of hard work. You have to clean bins and scoop poop,” she said. “We are looking for leaders, for good folks to do animal care.”
She said the pace of attacks on her has been dizzying.
"I shouldn't have to spend so much time on detractors," she said. "Especially when they don't want to hear my side."
The director has so far enjoyed the public backing of the board, according to Board President Brooke Crosley and Rowe.
"She has done what we asked her to do and modernized operations” at a place that needed “cultural change," Crosley said. “What we’ve done is bring it up a notch” on the business side while making the facility “more people-centric."
“There is more accountability but also more opportunity for people to come and grow,” Crosley said.
Tiffany Morrison, a human resources generalist hired by Casamento, said she “appreciates” the CEO's style.
“She doesn't sugarcoat anything,” Morrison said. “I disagree with her a lot, and she takes it gracefully and sometimes even agrees with me.”
Several former employees have sent their complaints to board members, to no avail. Crosley said the board doesn't involve itself in day-to-day operations and generally passes the emails along to Casamento.
“We encourage them to build a relationship with her,” Crosley said. "Donna is the most educated person we’ve had in that spot in a while."
Several former employees described some of Casamento’s choices as baffling, even dangerous.
She hired a veterinarian she knew from Texas, Melissa Stansell, who told IndyStar she refused do surgeries because of concerns about the medical unit. Stansell’s husband was also hired and made a splash by posting unconventional videos to encourage adoptions.
In the videos, Cameron Shoppach holds up dogs underneath their front legs and swings them side to side, with their hind legs dangling. He claims it is an efficient way to measure a dog’s temperament; if they don’t resist they are good candidates for adoption.
The videos were featured in news stories and earned Shoppach 72,000 Instagram followers and the title of “dangler-in-chief." The shelter and Shoppach said the videos increased donations and adoptions but some animal behaviorists said the practice was harmful for animals.
“I was horrified,” said Connie Swaim, a dog trainer who volunteered at the shelter and asked to meet with Casamento about the videos. “I watched a hundred videos and I’ve yet to see any dog not exhibit stress behavior. It is not a good way to showcase dogs and it is a way to set them up for bites when they go home.”
Shoppach isn't the dangler-in chief anymore; he was fired at the end of February and his wife was asked to resign.
Shoppach said he was let go in a dispute with Casamento over a video he posted about an abused dog he adopted, London. Once close to Casamento, he said his stint at IndyHumane was "the worst 10 months of my life."
In a last video, the couple announced their departures before downing shots.
“F--- that place,” Shoppach says in the video.
Casamento said she could not comment on why Shoppach was fired because it was a personnel matter. But she thanked him for helping raise money through the video.
“I wish them both well,” she said.
Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418 or email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Facebook and X/Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyHumane staff, volunteers take stand against animal shelter's CEO