Los Angeles threatens to kill 800 dogs in four weeks

In an email to volunteers, Los Angeles Animal Services staff threatened to kill 800 dogs in four weeks if volunteers did not come up with solutions to get them adopted. In the same email, staff told volunteers they did not want to hear about the need for programmatic solutions, putting the volunteers and the dogs in a no-win scenario. After public outcry, the shelter’s General Manager backpedaled, calling the email “shocking” and “100% untrue,” even though it was reviewed and approved at the highest levels before going out.

Jake Miller, the volunteer coordinator for Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS), the city pound, met with and emailed volunteers to say the City would kill 800 dogs over the next four weeks if the volunteers did not devise solutions for “overcrowding.” He also stated he did not want to discuss real solutions — refusing to have “conversations about reforms and programs.”

In other words, Miller threatened volunteers that staff were going to poison 800 dogs unless the volunteers did the job taxpayers give LAAS over $31 million annually to perform. He then turned around and said he was not interested in discussing comprehensive adoption efforts, including offsite adoption events, ramping up the foster care program, improving behavior through socialization and training, holding neglectful and abusive staff accountable, or making the shelter more welcoming to adopters, even though such programs would eliminate the threat of killing and despite overwhelming evidence that such “conversations about reforms and programs” are urgently needed. 

A volunteer responded that LAAS holds the dogs in a “Hunger Games situation, setting them up to fail, with questionable methods such as placing random dogs together and marking them as aggressive if they don't get along, even if they have a positive history with their next kennel mate.”

The dogs, the volunteer says, are also “being sprayed with a hose” by staff, and if the dogs react negatively, they are “deemed unfit for adoption.”

There’s more:

On Sunday at South LA, I observed over 100 dogs without beds, some lacking water or have green [algae-covered] water, while others were confined in cubbies for extended periods without access to water. The conditions were distressing, with soaked floors, cages and beds covered in feces, and an overwhelming odor that prompted people to cover their nose and mouth. 

Filthy kennels that lack beds or any comfort for dogs.

While some dogs had algae-covered water, others had no water. In still others, the kennels were flooded, creating a fecal soup but the dogs had no beds to get out of it.

How can dogs present well to potential adopters in that condition? How can adopters spend time getting to know the dogs when they have to cover their noses and mouths due to an overwhelming stench of feces?

There’s even more. 

Volunteers documented that cat rooms are mostly empty and, in some cases, entirely empty, while staff at the pound turn stray cats away, leading to mass abandonment. Across the street from one of the shelters, volunteers are forced to care for many of those abandoned cats.

Empty cat room.

Cats are abandoned across the street from the shelter after staff turns away people trying to bring in stray cats.

The abandoned cats are fed by volunteers, not staff who are indifferent to their welfare.

There’s still more.

A Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that dogs spend weeks or months inside their kennels without a walk. As a result, they experience increased stress, giving LAAS an excuse to kill the dogs as “unadoptable” even though they are healthy and of good temperament outside their kennels. The Times also uncovered rabbits with gouged eyes, guinea pigs without food, and hamsters in urine and feces-soaked cages. And when an employee admitted to striking dogs, the volunteer who exposed him was punished, not the abuser.

And yet, those who should be defending the animals are instead defending their abusers. As part of a long pattern of legitimizing neglectful and abusive practices and even subsequently hiring fired, abusive staff, Best Friends Animal Society fraudulently claims Los Angeles is a No Kill community. Best Friends also encourages the “shelter” to fire volunteers who complain. But after a swift backlash by volunteers, LAAS General Manager Staycee Dains backpedaled, calling Miller’s email “shocking” and “100% untrue,” even though it was reviewed and approved at the highest levels before going out.

Tragically, it isn’t just Los Angeles that is failing. It is Austin, TX. It is New York City. It is Denver, CO. And it is getting worse. 

As I have repeatedly warned, animal “shelters” are returning to old practices, including more killing, despite declining intakes. This is unsurprising as groups like Austin Pets Alive, Best Friends Animal Society, and the ASPCA legitimize and defend regressive practices, including making pandemic-era closures and policies permanent. As a result, despite 300,000 fewer intakes nationally in 2023 compared to pre-pandemic levels, dog killing increased 12%. While cat killing initially dropped, numbers are now rising.

I also repeatedly warned that with groups like Best Friends and the ASPCA working to silence critics of inhumane practices, opposing whistleblower protections for rescuers who expose inhumane conditions, and shutting the public out, the result would also be more neglect and abuse. Specifically, I warned that these changes would,

Erase [the] tremendous gains made by the No Kill movement over the last decade to force greater public access, as well as to force better and more sensible adoption/reclaim hours, all of which have been key to reducing shelter killing nationwide.  

But there’s another reason why closing doors to the public is so dangerous for animals: public scrutiny keeps neglect and abuse in check. Rescuers, potential adopters, volunteers, and other members of the public are the community’s eyes, ears, and heart. If they are not allowed to visit the facility unannounced, animals will suffer in silence.

These concerns are coming to pass. In addition to The No Kill Advocacy Center receiving a growing number of complaints, state officials nationwide are also reporting more neglect and abuse in “shelters.”

That includes killing animals without holding them as required by law, failing to get medical care for suffering animals, leaving them in a truck that climbed to over 100 degrees resulting in death, leaving dogs without water, and dogs and cats dying in their cages.

Killing and abuse thrive in darkness. And Los Angeles, like other cities, is growing darker still.