Lawsuit against the pound which kills more animals than “any other reporting shelter in the United States”
News and headlines for August 17 - 23, 2024
In other news: Saying “No” to milled dogs & cats. The New York City pound is a badly mismanaged, abusive, house of horrors. The G.M. of the Los Angeles City Pound is on extended leave. Company launches sale of nutritionally complete vegan wet cat food. Do you have what it takes to save lives? A plant-based diet trumps the Mediterranean diet. A new study proves that requiring appointments to adopt animals leads to fewer adoptions and, thus, more killing.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
Saying “No” to milled dogs & cats
The Fort Collins, CO, City Council ”voted to end retail sales of dogs and cats” in pet stores.
Pet stores generally get their animals from Commercial Breeding Enterprises (CBEs), commonly called ‘puppy mills.’ CBEs engage in systematic neglect and abuse of animals, leaving severe emotional and physical scars on the victims. One in four former breeding dogs have significant health problems, are more likely to suffer from aggression, and are psychologically and emotionally shut down, compulsively staring at nothing.
Under the new law, pet stores can partner with rescue groups and animal shelters to have animals available.
Such laws do three things:
Encourage people to adopt/rescue;
Educate the community about dog and cat (and rabbit) abuse in mills;
Stop that abuse.
And they work: nationally, the number of commercial breeders has declined by 30%, and “Nebraska Department of Agriculture records show that half of the state’s commercial dog and cat breeders have left the business.”
The New York City pound is a badly mismanaged, abusive, house of horrors
New York City taxpayers spent $75 million on a new shelter in Queens. And yet the animals are still neglected by staff, languishing in bloody cages with open sores, caked in fecal matter, with no access to fresh water. It is not only a disgrace; it is a crime.
New York State’s anti-cruelty law, most notably Article 26, Chapter 356 of the New York Agriculture & Markets Law governing the care of impounded animals, specifies that,
A person who, having impounded or confined any animal, refuses or neglects to supply to such animal during its confinement a sufficient supply of good and wholesome air, food, shelter and water, is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by both.
Likewise, Section 353, the general cruelty statute, makes such conduct illegal, regardless of whether it occurs in someone’s home or at a pound. Indeed, New York City’s 311 system specifically encourages reporting of such crimes, noting that,
New York State law defines animal cruelty as a situation where a person causes unjustified harm, pain, or suffering to an animal or neglects an animal's care by not providing it with proper food, water, medical care, or suitable shelter.
That describes conditions at its own Queens facility to the letter.
You can’t move staff with an old mindsight mired in neglect, abuse, and killing into a new shelter and expect different results.
The G.M. of the Los Angeles City Pound is on extended leave
City officials are tight-lipped… about a crisis at the Los Angeles Animal Services department, where General Manager Staycee Dains is on an unexplained two-month leave of absence and the recently named president of the department’s board has left his position after chairing just one meeting…
LAAS officials have not replied to questions about Dains’ leave of absence, and it was not clear when or even if she would return.
Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) is plagued by widespread neglect, abuse, and corruption. In addition to an increase in killings, dogs spend weeks or months inside their filthy kennels without a walk, often without clean water and soft beds to lie on. 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.
In addition, 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.
A Los Angeles Times investigation 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.
Lawsuit against possibly the worst pound in America