Inside the Blue Room : Animals: Humane Society staffers have to euthanize dogs, cats and more every day. Summer is the busiest time.

The 8-week-old kitten purred until it died.

“That’s OK, that’s OK,” said Jolene Hoffman, stroking its charcoal-gray fur. Seconds earlier, Hoffman, director of the Humane Society of Ventura County, had injected two cubic centimeters of pentobarbital sodium beneath the kitten’s rib cage. A painless death would follow in seconds.

The kitten, which didn’t have a name, had not reacted to the shot. It stretched its paws to Hoffman’s shoulders and looked around curiously. Its movements slowed. The kitten licked its chocolate nose as Hoffman cradled it in her arms. Its eyes closed only slightly and then dilated. Its tongue froze in mid-lick. The purring ceased.

“They purr,” Hoffman said. “A lot of them purr when they’re going to sleep because they know they’re getting loved.”

Hoffman laid the kitten on a scraggly blue bathmat that covered most of the stainless steel operating table.

“We never want the animals to be cold,” she explained. She listened with a stethoscope to confirm that the kitten’s heart had stopped.

Hoffman showed why the kitten was euthanized. Its fur was dotted with flea “dirt,” or feces. Its gums were pale gray, indicating anemia. She said the kitten probably was severely infected with parasites.

Later that day, the other four kittens from the litter would be put to sleep and laid out on the bathmat. They would then be wrapped in 20-gallon garbage bags and stored in a freezer. Later in the month, someone would come with a truck to the Humane Society’s office in Ojai. He would empty the freezer and take its contents for fertilizer.

They call it the Blue Room, even though it’s painted a dingy beige, because blue is how they feel when they enter it, Hoffman said.

Blue, a vibrant sky blue, is also the color of the pentobarbital sodium solution. It is stored in small glass vials. As little as one cubic centimeter will put a kitten to sleep in seconds.

This is not the cheery Humane Society the public usually sees: the photos of soulful dogs and cats in “Pet of the Week” features of newspapers; the volunteers who bring friendly animals to preschools and nursing homes; the booths at arts and crafts fairs where you can get a voucher worth $10 toward spaying or neutering your dog or cat.

But the Blue Room is what the Humane Society staff sees every day. There, they kill--”put down” or “put to sleep,” they prefer to say--far more dogs and cats, rabbits and hamsters, rats, even turkeys and pigs, than they can ever place for adoption.

Summer is the busiest time in the Blue Room. It is when the birthing season for cats peaks and when the number of abandoned pets soars as families move or take vacations and discard their animals.

“We have become such a throwaway society, and society throws its animals away,” said Joyce George of Ventura, president of the Humane Society.

During the peak month of July, the Humane Society office receives as many as 60 cats a day, Hoffman said. Almost all of them are euthanized.

“We’re kind of like an assembly line right now, going back to the euthanasia room,” Hoffman said. “It’s kind of a depressing time for staffers.” She said the circles under her eyes deepen every summer. “I’m giving people days off right and left.”

Less than an hour after Hoffman euthanized the kitten, a scruffy, unshaven guy hauled in a cardboard box and laid it on the front counter. Two black and white kittens peered out.

A staff member wiped a weepy residue from the kittens’ eyes and rolled up their lips to examine their gums. Hoffman came over to look.

The kittens had an upper respiratory infection, Hoffman told the man. A vet could treat it. But if he left the kittens there, they would be euthanized immediately because their infection was contagious, Hoffman told him.

“Wow,” the man said. “Wow.”

Still, he left the box on the counter. Then he returned to his car and brought in another box holding three older cats. All five were euthanized within hours.

At least, Hoffman said later, the man took a voucher and promised to have the mother spayed. She was skeptical.

“I know I’m doing a good job,” Hoffman said. “I know I’m doing the right thing. I’m stopping their suffering.”

Because visitors are watching her euthanize a kitten, Hoffman is moved to explain, to defend, to justify what is the most troubling part of her work.

“This is the most stressful job I have ever been in. This is an emotional roller coaster. If you don’t get attached--if you don’t care--then you’re in the wrong job.”

The women on the staff do nearly all of the work in the Blue Room.

“A lot of men come in and work one day and they’re gone,” Hoffman said. “I’ve had more men cry when they couldn’t experience a euthanasia, and leave.”

George said it is ironic that the people who love animals enough to work at the Humane Society are the ones who have to kill them.

Ten years ago as a volunteer, George was the only person euthanizing animals at the Humane Society.

“It really took its toll on me,” she said. “I was getting to the point where I could hardly be civil to people.”

The odds are high that an animal brought into the Humane Society will be euthanized.

Perhaps one in 10 of the dogs brought in are adopted. For cats, the rate is one in 30, Hoffman said. The rest are “put down.” In Ventura County alone, about 20,000 animals are euthanized every year by the Humane Society and the Ventura County Department of Animal Regulation, Hoffman said. Animal Regulation is the government agency that deals with stray animals and those that threaten public health and safety.

The Humane Society, on nearly four acres, works with much more than dogs and cats.

In its reception room are terrariums holding a dozen purebred rats. They are what is left of 500 rats seized this year from a Thousand Oaks woman who was living in filth.

Out back in a pen, a half-dozen goats munch on vegetables. They came from a suspected methamphetamine laboratory in Fillmore that was raided by police. The animals--24 goats in all, 45 chickens, seven pigs and three emaciated horses, were allegedly used as a front by drug makers.

One of the horses died. Two others are being coaxed back to health in Humane Society stables. Now 1 1/2 years old, they are the size of 8-month-olds.

Other horses were rescued during the floods. There is even a makeshift pen that the Humane Society built for pigs, the latest fad in pets.

The shelter recently euthanized one of those pets, a potbellied pig that bit a child.

“Pigs,” Hoffman said, her voice rising. “Now people are getting pigs. When there are dogs and cats dying all over, now they’re buying pigs.”

If there is one thing the Humane Society wants to tell pet owners, it is to spay and neuter their animals. It is unfair to allow new animals to be born when there is no one to care for them, Hoffman said.

The Humane Society believes that euthanasia is the best alternative for an unwanted pet who would otherwise starve, be abused or be eaten by wild animals.

“We have to look into animals’ eyes and say, ‘I’m sorry, but this is the best I can do for you,’ ” George said.

On the day Jolene Hoffman euthanized the kitten, the Humane Society took in 15 kittens and one dog.

It adopted out four dogs, two rats and a rabbit.

And throughout the day, the staff of the Humane Society made several trips to the Blue Room. They euthanized one dog, a hamster and 17 kittens, including the gray kitten with the chocolate nose.

“I’m always sorry,” Hoffman said. “Whenever I inject an animal, I’m always sorry I have to put them to sleep.”