In other news: Despite falsely claiming to be a No Kill city, Los Angeles is killing healthy dogs who are “delightful, affectionate companion[s] with no signs of aggression.” Austin Pets Alive celebrates pound directors who oversee neglect, abuse, and killing, and then illegally retaliate against volunteers who speak out about it. The No Kill Advocacy Center has released the Spring 2024 issue of No Kill Sheltering magazine. Communities are looking for new shelter directors. Washington becomes the 12th U.S. state to ban cosmetic testing on animals. Mutts are the most popular dogs in America. IKEA launches a new veggie dog. Lab-grown cat food goes on sale in Britain. The “academic imposter behind the pit bull hysteria” has a new reason to kill these dogs: trampolines.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
Despite Best Friends calling Los Angeles a No Kill city, pound staff are killing “healthy,” “adoptable” dogs by falsely labeling them “aggressive” or “behavior.” The claim comes from volunteers who have rescued many of these dogs or walked them in the pound before they were killed and found them to be “delightful, affectionate companion[s] with no signs of aggression.”
The City denies it, but no one believes them. The evidence is overwhelming, as is their neglect and abuse of animals. As previously reported, after staff threatened to kill 800 dogs,
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 volunteers say that the dogs are also “being sprayed with a hose” by staff, and if the dogs react negatively, they are “deemed unfit for adoption.”
Volunteers have also,
[O]bserved 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…
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.
Best Friends has a history of defending poorly performing shelters, celebrating pounds that gas animals, encouraging policies that result in more killing such as turning away adopters without an appointment, and encouraging pound managers to [illegally] fire volunteers and rescuers who publicly express concerns about conditions or killing. It has even hired former pound directors who covered up animal abuse and killing in the facilities they managed.
Best Friends is not alone. Austin Pets Alive also celebrates pound directors with a history of neglect, abuse, and killing. Not only did APA celebrate the director of the L.A. City Pound, who is responsible for the neglect and abuse noted above, but after news broke that the director of the Washington, D.C., pound kept animals in filthy conditions and then illegally fired volunteers who publicly called for improved care, APA celebrated her, too.
Austin Pets Alive, the agency primarily responsible for “shelters” nationwide re-abandoning animals, deleted the post after public condemnation.
The No Kill Advocacy Center released its Spring 2024 edition of No Kill Sheltering magazine. The current issue covers:
Recruiting an effective shelter director;
Killing is up, but “shelters” continue their fight to prevent rescue;
Bringing dogs off the streets and into homes;
A community cat program is good for cats and birds;
Artificial Intelligence can help or harm animals;
With one signature, city managers can force “shelters” to improve placement rates;
And more.
Do you have what it takes to save lives?