A Letter from a Shelter Manager - anonymous in North Carolina I think our society needs a huge "Wake-up" call. As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all...a view from the inside if you will. First off, all of you breeders/sellers should be made to work in the "back" of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don't even know. That puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not a cute little puppy anymore. So how would you feel if you knew that there's about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is going to be dumped at? Purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or "strays", that come into my shelter are purebred dogs. The most common excuses I hear are; "We are moving and we can't take our dog (or cat)." Really? Where are you moving too that doesn't allow pets? Or they say "The dog got bigger than we thought it would". How big did you think a German Shepherd would get? "We don't have time for her". Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs! "She's tearing up our yard". How about making her a part of your family? They always tell me "We just don't want to have to stress about finding a place for her we know she'll get adopted, she's a good dog". Odds are your pet won't get adopted & how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of the "Bully" breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't get adopted. It doesn't matter how 'sweet' or 'well behaved' they are. If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of execution, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don't have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment. Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down". First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails. Until they get to "The Room", every one of them freaks out and puts on the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it's strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs depending on the size and how freaked out they are. Then a euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They will find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and screams. They all don't just "go to sleep", sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves. When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know and it probably won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always buy another one, right? I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that it will always be there unless you people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter. Between 4 and 5 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you can stop it. I do my best to save every life I can but rescues are always full, and there are more animals coming in everyday than there are homes. My point to all of this DON'T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE! |
 Abandoned chihuahuas play in their pen at the East Valley Animal Center in 2009. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) |
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Police officers and city officials swept into six Los Angeles animal shelters Thursday, confiscating guns and ammunition from employees as part of an expanding internal investigation into the animal services agency.
Plainclothes officers from the Los Angeles Police Departmentand managers with the animal services agency took about 120 weapons, including shotguns, rifles and .38-caliber handguns. The city's 75 animal control officers are issued firearms to kill wild animals that are too injured to transport to shelters.
Brenda Barnette, general manager of the animal services department, said investigators were trying to determine what guns the agency has and how they are being used.
"We suspect there are some missing guns," said Barnette, adding that she does not necessarily suspect that the weapons were stolen.
Maggie Whelan, general manager of the city's Personnel Department, which is assisting in the probe, said she believed that no more than three guns are actually missing.
"I can't say for sure because we're not certain," she said.
The sweep came two months after Barnette revealed that the department was looking into allegations that shelter workers stole animals and sold them for a profit. And it occurred less than a month after city officials confirmed that there is an investigation into time card fraud involving department employees. Five employees are on paid administrative leave pending the internal investigation's outcome.
At least eight personnel investigators are looking at the shelter agency. Meanwhile, City Controller Wendy Greuel is working on a wide-ranging audit, saying that the department is "out of control at a number of levels, from time card issues to having a handle on resources they have — including how many guns they have and how they're being used."
Animal services officials "did not have an appropriate inventory of all the guns that they had in their possession," Greuel said. "They felt it was such an urgent issue that they called the LAPD."
Lt. Troy Boswell, who works in the city's East Valley shelter, said police handed shelter workers a note from Barnette and then took .38-caliber handguns from the premises.
"We were given no explanation," he said.
Barnette said she was also looking into reports from her shelter managers that department employees used guns to euthanize critically injured or terminally ill small animals, including turtles, squirrels and birds. She said such a practice was dangerous because bullets could ricochet off pavement or another surface.
She said weapons should be used only to euthanize large animals that cannot be treated medically, such as a deer caught in a fence.
"If you've got something as small as a turtle or a squirrel or something like that, it just seems to us that the correct procedure would be bring it back to the shelter, so it can be taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center or it can be euthanized," she said.
LAPD officers have been providing expertise and assistance to animal services personnel during their audit. The department will safeguard the weapons that were seized, LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith said.
"We are going to hold on to them until the audit is done and they want them back," Smith said.
He noted that no warrants were executed during the operation.
david.zahniser@latimes.com
Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.
Plainclothes officers from the Los Angeles Police Departmentand managers with the animal services agency took about 120 weapons, including shotguns, rifles and .38-caliber handguns. The city's 75 animal control officers are issued firearms to kill wild animals that are too injured to transport to shelters.
Brenda Barnette, general manager of the animal services department, said investigators were trying to determine what guns the agency has and how they are being used.
"We suspect there are some missing guns," said Barnette, adding that she does not necessarily suspect that the weapons were stolen.
Maggie Whelan, general manager of the city's Personnel Department, which is assisting in the probe, said she believed that no more than three guns are actually missing.
"I can't say for sure because we're not certain," she said.
The sweep came two months after Barnette revealed that the department was looking into allegations that shelter workers stole animals and sold them for a profit. And it occurred less than a month after city officials confirmed that there is an investigation into time card fraud involving department employees. Five employees are on paid administrative leave pending the internal investigation's outcome.
At least eight personnel investigators are looking at the shelter agency. Meanwhile, City Controller Wendy Greuel is working on a wide-ranging audit, saying that the department is "out of control at a number of levels, from time card issues to having a handle on resources they have — including how many guns they have and how they're being used."
Animal services officials "did not have an appropriate inventory of all the guns that they had in their possession," Greuel said. "They felt it was such an urgent issue that they called the LAPD."
Lt. Troy Boswell, who works in the city's East Valley shelter, said police handed shelter workers a note from Barnette and then took .38-caliber handguns from the premises.
"We were given no explanation," he said.
Barnette said she was also looking into reports from her shelter managers that department employees used guns to euthanize critically injured or terminally ill small animals, including turtles, squirrels and birds. She said such a practice was dangerous because bullets could ricochet off pavement or another surface.
She said weapons should be used only to euthanize large animals that cannot be treated medically, such as a deer caught in a fence.
"If you've got something as small as a turtle or a squirrel or something like that, it just seems to us that the correct procedure would be bring it back to the shelter, so it can be taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center or it can be euthanized," she said.
LAPD officers have been providing expertise and assistance to animal services personnel during their audit. The department will safeguard the weapons that were seized, LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith said.
"We are going to hold on to them until the audit is done and they want them back," Smith said.
He noted that no warrants were executed during the operation.
david.zahniser@latimes.com
Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.
