Los Angeles pounds are poorly mismanaged, abusive houses of horrors

This is a fictional image of a dog pound created by AI. It looks nice doesn't it? Shame all dog pounds (shelters) are not as clean and colourful.

The words of the title come direct from someone who is the best qualified to write them: Nathan Winograd. This post is a reworking of his email to me. I hope he accepts. I want to get the message out but I have limited time.....

A recent report from the City Controller's Office indicates that Los Angeles shelters are euthanizing dogs at unprecedented rates. In August, the latest data available, 226 dogs were euthanized in L.A. shelters, marking the highest number since January 2022. Additionally, over 250 cats were euthanized in July, the highest figure recorded since that date. The kitten save rate plummeted to its lowest in July, with only 69% being saved.

The report suggests the cause is a staff that is incompetent, indifferent, and abusive.

Moreover, there has been an uptick in euthanasia, with dogs languishing for extended periods in dirty kennels without walks, often lacking clean water and comfortable bedding. This neglect leads to heightened stress, which then becomes a pretext for Los Angeles Animal Services to deem them "unadoptable," despite their health and good temperament outside of these conditions.

Simultaneously, cat rooms remain largely or completely vacant, as staff members reject stray cats, causing widespread abandonment. Near one shelter, volunteers have taken on the responsibility of caring for many abandoned cats.

Investigations by the Los Angeles Times have also revealed rabbits suffering from severe injuries, guinea pigs left without food, and hamsters confined in cages soaked with urine and faeces. Furthermore, when a staff member confessed to hitting dogs, it was the whistle-blower, not the perpetrator, who faced repercussions.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a motion that assigns blame for the killings in their animal shelters to various parties, excluding the actual responsible parties — the shelter's director and staff. The Supervisors also agreed on proposals that are unlikely to significantly reduce the killings, including the endorsement of potential statewide legislation. 

Moreover, a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that the county's shelters are euthanizing more dogs, despite a decrease in intake and promises of increased adoptions facilitated by new facilities. The report highlighted violations of county policies by staff during euthanasia, a failure to consult with rescue groups beforehand, and inadequate visiting hours for potential adopters. The article did not address a key factor contributing to the rise in euthanasia: staff preventing non-profit organizations and No Kill shelters from rescuing animals, even upon request.

Rescuers have taken legal action against Los Angeles County under the Hayden Law, which prohibits such killings. The Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that shelters cannot euthanize dogs if rescue groups are willing to save them, barring cases of severe suffering or documented dangerous behavior. Despite this, the county continues to implement policies that circumvent this ruling. While the shelters may be modern, the staff's outdated attitudes result in a high mortality rate for the animals.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also, sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. And, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable. Finally, (!) I often express an OPINION on the news. Please share yours in a comment.

Lily Allen's rescue dog "ruined her life" and she gave her back

Lily Allen and a (not the dog in the story) Maltipoo. Image credit for Allen at base of article.

The news today on the celebrity circuit is that Lily Allen returned her rescue dog to the shelter from where she adopted her (which I believe was a Maltipoo) because he or she ate her passport and the passports of her children. The latest is that PETA has criticised her publicly for surrendering her dog to the shelter in an open letter. AND she said that she has received death threats on social media. It is pretty bad. She did wrong. There is no doubt about it but she does no deserve death threats. And she did adopt a rescue dog rather than buying a purebred. Anyway...

This caused her a huge amount of disruption and distress mainly because she was unable to take her children to see their dad in England for four or five months. 

In response to suffering that disruption to her life she said the following: "And because the father of my children lives in England, I couldn't take them back to see their dad for, like, four months, five months, because this f***king dog had eaten the passports. And I just couldn't look at her. I was like: 'You've ruined my life.'"

As a consequence of telling the world that she felt that she had to return her rescue dog to the shelter from where she adopted her, she received criticism on social media. She told the world about it on the podcast Miss Me? which she hosts with the TV presenter Miquita Oliver.

The singer explained: "We rescued our puppy Mary from a shelter in NY and we loved her very much, BUT she developed pretty severe separation anxiety and would act out in all manner of ways.

"She couldn't be left alone for more than 10 mins, she had 3 long walks a day 2 by us and 1 with a local dog walker and several other dogs, we worked with the shelter that we rescued her from and they referred us to a behavioural specialist and a professional trainer, it was a volunteer from the shelter who would come and dog sit her when we were away, and after many months and much deliberation everyone was in agreement that our home wasn't the best fit for Mary."

One X user wrote: “Lily Allen is all that’s wrong with the world, got a puppy, used it for likes on Instagram, and then sent it back to the home because it chewed up her family passports that she left within its reach.” - A lot of people would agree with this.

Update: this is a picture of Mary. A black dog! It is from her Instagram page. I am not sure that this dog is a Maltipoo. She looks like a mongrel (mixed breed) to me. 

Mary. Now returned to the shelter from where she was adopted. Image: Instagram.

Liliana lives in New York with her husband, the actor, David Harbour and her two children, Ethel Mary, 13, and Marnie Rose, 11. She added: "We actually did adopt a dog already, but then it ate my passport and so I took her back to the home. She ate all three of our passports and they had our visas in. And I can't tell you how much money it cost me to get everything replaced, because it was in Covid and so it was just an absolute logistical nightmare."

She didn't say which specific pet she was talking about but my research indicates that she was a Maltipoo, which looks like a little, fluffy white terrier-type dog. These are small dogs and small dogs are popular.

The dog was named Mary and she adopted Mary in 2021 from Animal Haven, a New York-based animal sanctuary. Mary had her own Instagram account.

Allen added in her frustration about this incident that "Passports weren't the only thing she ate. She was a very badly behaved dog and I really tried very hard with her, but it just didn't work out and the passports were the last straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak."

She said that she was keen to get another dog which the family had decided to name Jude Bellingham after the English footballer.

As mentioned some criticised the singer on X. For example, one user wrote the following: "That's her fault, not the poor dog's. She is clearly an idiot of the highest order for not keeping important documents away from animals."

Another added: "There are no badly behaved dogs only badly behaved owners. A dog did not ruin your life, you ruined your own life by not being responsible for your belongings."

My comment: these comments are essentially correct. And it's down to her as well to ensure that her dog is trained. This was a double whammy of arguably irresponsibility from Lily Allen in both failing to ensure that her documents were kept in a safe place and arguably in failing to ensure that her dog was properly trained before adopting her or training the dog after the adoption (but see below). 

I appears that the dog acted up due to separation anxiety. That points to the fact that she was not in a position to adopt the dog in the first place as she is away from home a lot it seems. I think that is the problem. She was not in a place to adopt a dog. It is said that dogs should not be left alone for more than 4 hours. Other people helped her keep Mary company but it did not work out.

I think that there is one good thing to say about Lily Allen regarding this incident: she had the courage to take the dog back to the shelter and admit her failings I presume at the shelter. She would have told the shelter that the dog was badly behaved but in doing so she was indirectly and by implication admitting that she had failed herself as well. I think that was quite courageous because some people don't have the courage to do that.

Lily Allen image credit: By Justin Higuchi from Los Angeles, CA, USA - Lily Allen 04/25/2018 #22, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79414080

Update: Lily Allen is angry at PETA. She claims that the organisation has 'added fuel to the fire'.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

British government seriously underestimated the number of XL bullies

News media today report that there are seven times more XL bully dogs in the UK than the government thought which has seriously undermined the government's new law that XL bully dogs need to be registered and some strict rules complied with if they are to be kept.

Because many XL bully dog owners don't want to register their dog or comply with these laws designed to protect the public they are abandoning them sometimes at shelters and sometimes simply abandoning them in public places.

And as there were so many more XL bully dogs in the country than estimated, rescue centres are struggling to deal with the massive influx. Welfare charities are overwhelmed as they try to cope with the fallout from the ban on this breed.

The UK's Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) believed before the new legislation came into force that there were 10,000 XL bully dogs in England and Wales.

Now that registration is necessary they are able to accurately know the number which is around 55,000 because 55,000 dogs have been registered for an exemption certificate.

However, a further 15,000 to 20,000 dogs are thought to be unregistered and so they are on the streets illegally.

That means that there are around 70,000 XL bully dogs in the country which is seven times more than the 10,000 that the government believed was the case.

This is a UK government screwup essentially. Another one in the eyes of detractors of the present UK government.

Animal welfare charities say that the government's failure in this respect when planning legislation to ban the dog is now causing huge problems.

The Association of Dogs and Cats Homes said that the sharp rise in the number of XL bully dogs abandoned to their shelters or confiscated under the law means that all the rescue centres in Britain's biggest cities are full.

A trustee of the charity, David Bowles, said: "I think we are also getting to a stage where the police kennels and local authority shelters or pounds are also at capacity so there is no other space left. I don't think the government worked this through. They hugely underestimated the spaces they needed. It's a real worry now as to where the dogs are going to be housed."

The charity has 166 rescue centres in the UK.

This has resulted in some XL bully dog owners being unable to find somewhere to surrender their pets and they are abandoning them on the streets which can obviously pose a danger to the public.

In addition, veterinary charities are also saying that they are getting overwhelmed with requests to castrate XL bully dogs (sterilise or neuter) which is a requirement under the new laws in order to keep the animal.

Under the legislation XL bullies that were more than one year old when the ban came into force must be neutered by the end of June this year. Defra needs to receive confirmation that the animal has been neutered. If they don't the owner's certificate of exemption becomes invalid which means the owner is at risk of a criminal record.

Dermot Murphy of the RSPCA said:

"We remain strongly opposed to breed specific legislation and instead want to see the government commit to improving and enforcing the current breeding and dog control regulations and to promote responsible dog ownership."

Defra said: "We are continuing to engage closely with veterinary, rescue and rehoming organisations to monitor the impact of the XL bully ban."

There are arguments that breed specific banning of dogs is unfair and bad thinking. That's because problems with dogs being aggressive is about the individual dog and not a breed. In fact, the founder of the XL bully dog breed, an American, says that the breed should be amiable and friendly. They were not originally created to be aggressive. 

The problem comes from people who make the dog aggressive by giving them steroids and training them to attack people. As usual, it is a human problem not a dog problem and unfortunately also as usual it is the dog or the animal that suffers. Many XL bully dogs have been put down as a result of this law.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

American families dump pets as costs surge

NEWS AND COMMENT: Although some shelters have quite definitely gone against the grain in terms of having too many cats and dogs to rehome [check out the empty shelter], in general, The Times reports that US families are dumping pets as the cost to keep them has become untenable. This is mainly due to inflation and lack of proper long-term budgeting, I believe.

The Times reports that American animal shelters are at their most overcrowded in years. The reason? Fears over the economy. And the end of boom times when many dogs and cats were adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

I feel (I hope not harshly) that many people adopted dogs and cats who shouldn't have. This was impulse adoption without really doing due diligence to figure out the costs and even more importantly to check out the health of the animal that they were adopted. 

That last point particularly applies to the French Bulldog which is one breed which is being dumped on shelters faster than many other breeds. Clearly the owners have found out how expensive they can be to take care of.

RELATED: The French bulldog money pit and dogflation.

However, many adoptions were carried out responsibly. Many people relinquishing their companion animals have lived with them for a long time. It's be tough for some to consider relinquishing their pets.

However, according to the Shelter Animals Count, there are an estimated 250,000 more companion animals in shelters this Christmas then there were over the same period last year.

And it appears that many if not most kennel operators say that they are in crisis. Their facilities were already overcrowded before the Christmas festivities.

As mentioned there was a sharp rise in pet ownership during the pandemic. One in five households in America had a companion animal according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

There are fears over the economy in America and the rising cost of living. The cost of owning a pet is out of reach for many. They decided to abandon their animals.

Kim Alboum, of the Bissell Pet Foundation, an animal welfare organisation, said that "The economy right now is really challenging for a lot of families. And with the housing crisis, people are losing their homes and our having to downsize or move in with others. And this is a recipe for disaster for people that have larger dogs."

The Times reports that shelters are experiencing a big influx of puppies in particular including those of the French Bulldog breed as mentioned. There's been a period of inflation recently in America resulting in vets and pet product businesses raising their prices making it even more expensive to be a pet owner.

I'm told that veterinary prices jumped by 9% from November 2022-November 2023 according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics. Pet food costs rose by 5.6% over the same period.

Sarah Barnett runs an animal shelter in Philadelphia. She says that she has seen hard economic times which has challenged pet owners financially.

She said that people are losing their jobs have to decide between putting food on their table or feeding their companion animal. They've been left with few options.

Obviously, many people giving up their companion animals have had a very long term and good relationships with them. And I agree with Sarah Barnett in that not all people self-indulgently adopted cats and dogs during the pandemic. 

Lesson?

The story really highlights a very valuable point namely that looking after a companion animal properly is expensive. You can't do it properly on a shoestring. Perhaps the first stage in the adoption process is to check your budget, work out the maths, and make sure you maximise the chances that you can and will be able to afford to look after your new friend to a good standard for the remainder of their lives.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.