Basil ‘Doc’ Jones’ compassion and service to animals began in 1940

The last person on Earth we wanted to hurt was “Doc Jones,” but we did with our Nov. 8 front-page story about “euthanasia day” at the Sullivan County Animal Shelter.
Dr. Basil A. Jones is no villain. He has the guts to do what few of us can fathom: put down the unwanted pets that too many of us in this region discard like Lean Cuisine boxes after the microwave oven chimes.
Doc Jones, 82, was fine with the story, but the headline “The Executioners,” has brought him personal grief and cost his veterinarian practice some business.
“He was so depressed” after seeing the headline, says longtime friend and client Gus Sorensen, of Bristol, Va.
It’s sad that some clients have chosen to abandon a doctor who has devoted 60 years to companion animals. If you dumped Doc Jones over a headline we published, I urge you to reconsider.
Doc Jones is compensated for euthanizing shelter animals but is in no way accountable for the national outrage that is pet overpopulation.
Headline aside, the story about a typical euthanasia day at the Sullivan County Animal Shelter was one of our year’s best articles, and I continue to defend every word of it. Crafted by reporter Claire Galofaro, the story gave an unflinching account of what every community in America experiences with tax-supported animal shelters forced to clean up the mess of irresponsible pet owners.
The only real contention with the article by Jones’ army of admirers is the headline, “The Executioners.” It was stark and factually defensible, but came off to some as harsh – a literary jab to the stomach of a well-meaning man who performs a grim task forced upon him by irresponsible pet owners.
Doc Jones relates with the utmost of graciousness that the story has cost him up to 20 percent of his business.
That’s just wrong. This country could not build enough animal shelters to house the millions of stray dogs and cats that our society casts off each year. Euthanasia is the price we all must pay.
Doc Jones has done his part to remedy this problem by advocating spaying and neutering and by adopting two stray cats and a dog named Carter Fold Opie.
“Opie” accompanies the doctor every Saturday night to Carter Fold, a bluegrass venue in Hiltons, Va. Carter Fold is Doc Jones’ only source of recreation. He has his own seat on the front row and watches each Saturday night as a parade of ladies pick up Opie and dance with him, or just get their photographs taken with the beagle-Jack Russell terrier mix.
Doc Jones took in Opie after he was found near death, barely able to walk and suffering from Rickets. The vet was advised “I best put him to sleep. But his little brown eyes looked up at me and that short tail wiggled, and I said let me keep him a little while. That was four years ago.”
Doc Jones’ first exposure to the care of animals was in 1940 at age 12.
Bristol, Va., veterinarian Hugh H. Adair spotted Jones hanging over a fence at the Farmers Livestock Market. “Can you write so that I can read it?” Adair asked the boy. Jones said yes and for every Friday the next four years recorded in a ledger the ear and hip tags of cows sold to breeders at the market.
When Adair retired after 40 years, Jones took over his practice after graduating from Auburn University.
“He and I together have served this area for 100 years,” says Jones, who works out of his Blountville home – an 1896 farmhouse.
Sorensen has been taking his animals to Jones for 40 years. Several years ago, he watched Jones charge an indigent elderly couple one dollar to treat their dog.
“How can you do that?” Sorensen asked Jones, who responded: “They can’t afford that dog. You have to charge them something, though, because you can’t take their dignity and pride.”
Our story on “euthanasia day” at the county animal shelter will go a long way toward Jones’ goal of a society that spays and neuters its pets. The last thing we intended was to strip away his dignity and pride.
Don’t hold Jones accountable for euthanasia day. Save that for your friends and neighbors who let their pets roam free or abandon them.

J. Todd Foster is managing editor of the Bristol Herald Courier and can be reached at or (276) 645-2513. He wishes all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and will be on vacation this week and columnless next Sunday.