Another city turns its back on animals
This and other news for the week ending July 25, 2025
In other news: The double check serves two important purposes. A 14th anniversary for an injured little bird the “experts” and “professionals” wanted to kill. Do you have what it takes to save lives? Communities are looking for someone to run or help run their animal shelters. U.S. Department of Justice files a lawsuit to expand the abuse of animals.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
Oakland turns away needy kittens
As I recently reported, Oakland Animal Services, the city pound in my hometown, refuses to assist kittens in mortal danger, such as taking up residence in car engine blocks. This is par for the course in Oakland, which is ground zero for failed ideologies to the detriment of both animals and people. Despite being the highest-taxed city in the highest-taxed county in the highest-taxed state, the city claims it is still struggling financially and therefore refuses to provide even basic government services, like law enforcement. This is nothing more than mismanagement and a lack of accountability, which are often caused by single-party districts. However, things have now deteriorated from bad to worse.
The City Council voted to embrace Human Animal Support Services (HASS), a program peddled by groups such as Best Friends, Austin Pets Alive, and the National Animal Control Association, and individuals such as pound “consultant” and abuse apologist Kristen Hassen.
Under HASS, euphemistically referred to as “community sheltering,” shelters stop taking in animals, telling people to handle them themselves, turn them loose, or leave them on the sidewalk. This puts the onus on residents to do the job they already pay shelters to do through their tax dollars. It also puts animals in harm’s way and ignores their right of rescue.
The impact of the policy change was almost immediate:
A woman arrived carrying a tiny newborn kitten she had just found in the street.
“This little baby was under a car, a parked car,” she said, expecting to drop it off.
But then she was told there was no one available to accept it, and she left with the kitten still in her arms. Whether it lived or died was now her problem. The volunteers said the shelter has been an easy target for the budget ax and they have been dealing with more and more cuts every year. But now, they say they have been cut too far and the solution of turning away animals from an animal shelter is really no solution at all.
Hiding behind the corrupt individuals and groups peddling HASS, Oakland pound officials called turning away this kitten a “best practice.” The idea of bottle feeding the kitten was not even a ghost of a thought in the minds of anyone in a leadership position. We have Best Friends, Austin Pets Alive, and Kristen Hassen to blame for this.
A gentle reminder to do the “double check”
Many years ago, while Jennifer and I were driving home, I turned to Jennifer to say something, and that’s when I saw him in the gutter. Dead. Or so we thought, given that the black cat was upside down, paws in the air with what looked like rigor mortis. I asked Jennifer to check on him, “just in case.” When she went outside to look at him, he turned his head slightly and looked up at her. He then moved his mouth: the silent meow.