$66 million “shelter” says it doesn’t have money to buy kitten formula
This and other news for the week ending March 21, 2025
In other news: Adoption appointments kill dogs. Pet lovers force county pound to end adoption appointments. Another week, another pet food recall. Lawsuit filed against pet food company following deaths. Do you have what it takes to save lives? New vegan liqueurs hit the U.S. market. The AKC offers its annual fake news about top dogs. Young, pregnant dog dies in the Iditarod.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
Adoption appointments kill dogs
Two studies prove that requiring adoption appointments leads to fewer and slower adoptions, especially of medium to large long-term dogs — and at regressive pounds, that amounts to a death sentence.
Shelter animals facing death deserve the second chance many well-intentioned Americans are eager to give them. Shelter bureaucrats should not senselessly prevent them from doing so. This one change — ending pandemic-era closures by fully opening to the public without an appointment — will vastly increase adoption and significantly reduce killing. But managers at ‘shelters’ with such policies do not care enough about animals to do so.
Pet lovers force county pound to end adoption appointments
The studies proving adoption appointments kill dogs were conducted at Orange County Animal Care in California, where pound leaders refused to end pandemic-related closures.
Since the pandemic, OCAC has required an approved application and an appointment before a potential adopter can meet a dog. Moreover, the adoption application is dog-specific; even those with appointments cannot meet other animals. Not surprisingly, despite declining intakes, killing dogs, including puppies, rose by 187% in certain categories, earning condemnation from the Orange County Grand Jury. Still, county officials and pound leaders dug in their heels.
Now, after relentless public pressure from animal lovers tired of the killing, the Board of Supervisors has backed down. They ordered staff to return to pre-pandemic hours that allowed potential adopters to visit animals without an appointment, years after the pandemic ended and thousands of animals have been needlessly slaughtered.
L.A. County to stop bottle feeding kittens
It is bad enough that Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care & Control (DACC) staff only give rescuers 2 to 4 hours to rescue orphaned neonatal kittens before those kittens are summarily killed. Soon, they will not even get that.
DACC officials have announced that despite a $66 million budget, staff “will no longer be feeding bottle kittens” once the current stock of Kitten Milk Replacer runs out because “we do not have the budget to order more supplies at this time.”
Where does all the money go? For starters, Marcia Mayeda, the department’s General Manager — who doesn’t work in the actual “shelters” — has a salary and benefits package worth $471,681.00 per year. She spends her time fighting legislation to save animals from pounds like hers and works to make it easier for those pounds to kill animals. For example, Mayeda’s pound killed Bowie, a puppy. Then she helped kill Bowie’s Law, which would have saved other animals like him. These dogs and puppies — like Gabriel — continue to be put to death.
Another week, another pet food recall
