My Response to the Recent Daily News Editorial

The Daily News editorial characterized the job of General Manager of Animal Services as to be impossible due to fragmented and violent activist segment of the Los Angeles animal community, and to attacks by various politicians looking to make a name. I assume the editorial was targeting Councilmembers Zine, Cardenas and Alarcon, as they led the charge to investigate community-wide complaints about Ed Boks and the malfunctioning of Animal Services.

Why the writer blamed all difficulty of running the department on "activists" when employees, residents, rescuers and an entire larger segment of the animal community and Council was complaining about Boks and the shelters' performance escapes me.

The editorial never, ever addressed the issue of job performance by the various general managers or the department.

One General Manager was referred to as being hospitalized due to job stress from the activists. The writer is talking about Don Knapp who had epilepsy and was sustaining almost constant gran mal seizures. Dan hid his epilepsy from the City until well after he started his employment as GM. The public loved Dan and his job until the Mayor forced him to round up street dogs prior to the Democratic convention. Then criticism may have exacerbated Dan’s epilepsy. Dan likely would have been having gran mal seizures by that point even without job stress.

The editorial writer, like reporter Rick Orlov, states that Boks and other GMs suffered from “shifting support” by City leaders out of political opportunity. Who is the writer talking about, councilmembers, Zine, Cardenas and Alarcon? What opportunism is the writer talking about? The activist community, the union, Animal Service employees, and rescuers have been asking for action to get Ed Boks to resign for almost three years and the Mayor took no action. Council did because the Mayor refused to act.

The writer writes the City should drop the goal of No Kill, that no one knows what it means, and the concept is only a sound bite for campaigning.

In fact, the definition is becoming increasingly clear. "No-kill" means no adoptable, treatable or trainable animal will be put to death; eventually they will all find homes. Since this definition begs definitions of “adoptable,” “treatable,” or “trainable,” an easier to understand and operational definition is gaining wider acceptance: A general admission shelter is “No-kill” if 90% or more of all animals impounded make it out alive either through adoptions or by rescue by various non-profit rescue groups. This 90% “save rate” would apply to ALL animals impounded: sick, injured, old, vicious, kittens, puppies and adult animals.

No kill recognizes that there will always be a percentage of animals that should be put down for public safety or because of irremediable suffering. This means finding foster parents to bottle feed 3 week old kittens without mothers until they are adopted, providing good medical treatment for newly impounded sick and injured animals, working well with rescue groups and working to find homes for the hard-to-adopt animals, the elderly and those with chronic health issues.

Some smaller cities have approached that 90% mark, such as San Francisco and Reno Nevada, both hovering just short of 90%.

Critics of No Kill say the problems of the big city are a completely different ball game. However, the former head of San Francisco’s Animal Care and Control agency, Carl Friedman, says this argument is nonsense. He stated that while Los Angeles has more animals at risk, we also have far greater resources than San Francisco.

Friedman’s organization had less than $3,900,000 (2007) budget and had 48 employees compared to Los Angeles City’s 357 employees and $19,800,000 budget (proposed 2008-2009). San Francisco has 750,000 people and an associated pool of potential adopting homes, while LA has 4,000,000 people and much larger housing base.

Reno Nevada impounds about 16,000 animals a year and saves 90% of the dogs and 86% of its cats, even though they have triple the per capita impound rate of LAAS or County. Their foreclosure crisis, like most of Nevada, is at least as bad as LA.

As to the suggestion that the City should be absorbed by the County, I have never heard anything more ridiculous. The County shelters are a nightmare compared to the City shelters. Two pie charts show the difference.

PIE CHARTS AREAT: http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com/2009/05/mayedas-kill-rate-in-2006-compared-to.html, I would attach them to this email, but many people do not open email with attachments.

One note, there is an “Other” category for the final disposition of impounded animals.  The other category is for missing, stolen or animals that Died In the Shelter (D.I.S.) while under shelter care. The largest component by far is the Died in Shelter numbers. Therefore, you need to add the “Other” category percentage to the Euthanasia percentage to really understand what dismal failures both systems are. The total “kill” rate for County goes up to 82%, while the total kill rate for the City rises to 58%. 

Think of it. At County, of every 100 cats impounded, only 18 make it out alive. Do we want that for the City, or do we want the No Kill 97% live release rates of Ithaca New York, or the near 90% return rates ofSan FranciscoCharlottesvilleVA, or Reno

Why on earth do you think anyone in Los Angeles who wants to improve conditions at its shelters, would trade a 55% kill rate for cats currently obtained by the City for a 78% kill rate currently obtained by the County?

The writer certainly has not performed minimal research regarding the performance of the LA City shelter system vs County, versus shelter systems elsewhere, but this is how our activist community judges LAAS’ efforts: the number of animals placed into homes and not sent to the rendering plant. That is, we judge on the live save rate.

The writer is correct that the shelter might be better run by non-profits; however, setting up the administration of such an entity would be very difficult as it would involve the current shelter employee unions, civil service, ownership questions about the buildings and its contacts, and whether any group of LA’s small rescues be able to paste together the resources to run such a large system. Setting up such an organization probably would be an ideal situation, but the obstacles are daunting to say the least.

I urge the Daily News editors to get a clue in terms of numbers and performance before shooting from the hip about stress allegedly causing a previous general manager to be hospitalized, and who have not heard about all the lawsuits by activists against the County system. I simply can’t believe that the Daily News still doesn’t own the numbers and problems with both systems, or offer a more concrete plan by which a "fragmented" and violent activist and rescue community could pull off a non-profit takeover. If you could offer some ideas grounded in plausibility, we’d all listen.

4 comments:

CDOC Dogtalk said...

First of all, I absolutely agreed with Ed that no on one who cares about animals would ever trade the results in the City of Los Angeles with the horrific situation in the County of Los Angeles.

But I have to disagree about getting, at least in the short term, to a level playing field. In the City of Los Angeles, 35% of the dog intakes come from owners turning in their animals; compare that to the 14% in Santa Barbara County.

Owner turn-ins are not typically young, healthy, well-socialized dogs; those are kept. People use LAAS as a humane euthanasia stop for old, ill, and behaviorally challenged animals. And that is one of the reasons we have animal services - there will always be that kind of a need.

So until we can deal with that issue and make dogs more valuable to their owners, Los Angeles will not be able to achieve Nevada and San Francisco rates.

But what we can do is to take this opportunity to think about our model, take a good look at Calgary and commit to all of us joining forces to implement such a program in Los Angeles. With no restrictive laws, no breed bans, no limit laws, Calgary has removed barriers to licensing. 91% of dogs and 42% of cats are licensed. And that means, that unlike Los Angeles, where we return fewer than 15 percent of dogs to their owners, we would be returning 90%. That leaves more than enough room in the shelters to hold healthy adoptable dogs until the right home is found. And the money generated by licensing (more than four times what we get now) would allow us to make the kind of improvements we need and offer free sterilization to all who want it.

We hope all animal lovers in Los Angeles will join with Concerned Dog Owners of California in calling on the City Council to take a sensible approach to this issue, one that will solve budget issues and save lives.

Anonymous said...

I have to disagree with #1 on a key point. I volunteer at a private shelter that takes owner turn-ins and while one would like to believe that there would have to be something wrong with a dog for the owner to turn him or her in, that is very often not the case.

We got a dog back in January of 2008 who had been adopted in 1999. The owner's excuse? "I don't want the dog anymore." Perfectly nice, well-behaved dog.

We're now in the process of taking back a dog adopted from us last year as a puppy by a family. The reason the mother is dumping the family pet is because (surprise!) her teenage son is not pulling his weight looking after the dog. She gave him a warning and since he didn't shape up she is punishing -- the dog. But don't think she is a heartless witch, she assures us "the family loves the dog."

This is a black Pit Bull. Any guess how many years this poor dog is going to wait for another home? We're a no-kill shelter and we will look after him and love him. But we can't replace what this woman is coldheartedly yanking away from this dog, even though the dog has done nothing wrong.

Her son will learn a lesson, but I think it will be far different from what she intends. That's another kid learning that dogs are disposable objects, only to be kept around until they become inconvenient.

This dog is young, healthy, and well-socialized. We get owner turn-ins of all ages, all temperaments. The only sick dogs we get are strays, or dogs pulled from City and County shelters.

Of course we don't get the owner-requested "euthanasia" cases because we're no-kill, but we get everything else.

Ed Muzika said...

All muni shelters must take owner requested euthanasia. However, it is illegal to kill the animal unless sick, injured or already dying. Otherwise the animal goes through the same evaluation process, except they don't have to be kept 4 days waiting for the owner. Therefore they can be put up for adoption immediately.

I am ramping up my County info/spy system, but unlike LAAS and Boks who hang onto dogs and cats for long periods to keep the kill stats down, Mayeda waits the bare minimum required by the Hayden Law and then executes them. Her shelters are rarely crowded.

Ed Muzika said...

All muni shelters must take owner requested euthanasia. However, it is illegal to kill the animal unless sick, injured or already dying. Otherwise the animal goes through the same evaluation process, except they don't have to be kept 4 days waiting for the owner. Therefore they can be put up for adoption immediately.

I am ramping up my County info/spy system, but unlike LAAS and Boks who hang onto dogs and cats for long periods to keep the kill stats down, Mayeda waits the bare minimum required by the Hayden Law and then executes them. Her shelters are rarely crowded.