Charlie can barely contain himself. At 7 months old, the caramel-swirled Pointer and Staffordshire Bull Terrier mix trips over his paws, clamoring across the pavement.
“C'mon, Charlie,” his owners call out. Charlie obeys, unaware that on this overcast Sunday in Los Angeles, he's not going to the park or on a short walk, but through the doors of the East Valley Animal Shelter in Van Nuys, with a fate teetering on a new beginning or an end.
Charlie is aggressive; he's fought with small dogs, they say. It's made clear by staff that a fight with another dog at East Valley most likely would spell a quick death sentence, but the owners’ minds are made up. Charlie will be calling the shelter his new home into the unforeseeable future.
His crime? He grew up, and like most dogs of his breed, grew big.
Charlie now will play the waiting game. If he's lucky, he'll get adopted or perhaps even rescued. If not, he will die by a lethal injection of sodium pentobarbital, the industry standard, making room for another animal to take his place, at least for a short while.
Charlie represents one of more than 50,000 cats and dogs that were taken in by Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) in the past year. Of that number, 20,000 animals have been euthanized, many times due to overcrowding and lack of space, and that's just within the city. Los Angeles County took in more than 81,000 animals with close to 50,000 being killed.
Despite former Mayor James Hahn’s 2003 declaration that, within five years, Los Angeles would euthanize only animals either too sick to be treated or too aggressive to be adopted, the kill rates haven't disappeared; in fact, they've been rising steadily. Two years ago, 54,191 dogs and cats entered the shelter system and 20,000 didn't make it out alive. The trend repeated in 2009. Almost 15,000 cat and dogs have been euthanized this year, according to cat and dog outcome totals from January to September.
So why is it that Hahn’s pledge didn’t stick? The answer to that question depends on the person responding to it. But most agree the major culprits are a seemingly inefficiently run LAAS, the budget crisis in the city and infighting among those who say they most want to help animals.
Former General Manager Ed Boks gets much of the fault for the lack of leadership and direction at LAAS. Boks, the fourth person in four years to lead the agency when he was hired in 2006, was accused of fabricating euthanasia numbers, criticized for spending time writing in his blog and canceled a spay and neuter voucher program for low-income residents that caused an outcry in the community.
He also planned to make L.A. no-kill by 2010.
He also failed.
Canceling the voucher program, according to animal activist Daniel Guss, was one of the most outrageous and destructive behaviors a general manager could have done. Guss, whose organization, the STAND Foundation helps the pets of L.A.'s homeless population, has written several op-ed pieces that criticized Boks' failures.
In addition, at a Los Angeles City Council meeting in March 2009, in which council members grilled Boks on his decision to cut the voucher program, council man Dennis Zine held up a moving box full to the brim of complaints about Boks that he had received from employees and animal activists.
Shortly after the program was reinstated, Boks resigned effective June 30, 2009. Now, Los Angeles is left struggling to fulfill its goals of becoming a no-kill city once again.
After a lengthy search, Boks was replaced in June by Brenda Barnette, who made her way to L.A. from the Seattle Humane Society to take on one of the city's most unforgiving positions.
Just a few months on the job, she's been criticized for inexperience with open-admission shelters and law enforcement, and linked to breeding and being an American Kennel Club representative -- accusations she said are an exaggeration.
“I was in a local kennel club and I wasn't a rep,” she said. “I've have never done that.”
Barnette is confident that things in Los Angeles can get better.
“Nobody wants to unnecessarily euthanize animals, that's just a given,” she said. “People haven't broken the problem down into smaller and more manageable parts.”
Barnette said that the department must concentrate on finding good adopters within L.A.'s sprawling population and making sure they have the tools necessary for responsible pet ownership, like training classes.
Spay and neuter
Despite the change in leadership, the mandatory spay and neuter law is another point of disagreement, especially among no-kill advocates who say that the policy has led to the increase in impounds and subsequently high euthanasia numbers.
Enforced in 2008, it requires all pets in the city to be spayed or neutered by 4 months of age, with a few exceptions. Violators are subject to three levels of increasing fines, which start at $100 and end at a misdemeanor charge after a third violation.
This policy hits hardest for low-income residents. While the department issues vouchers in either $30 or $70 amounts, depending on a pet owner’s income status, a report from the Spay and Neuter Advisory Committee found the number of spay/neuter surgeries LAAS subsidized decreased by 25 percent for pets of low-income residents.
The Committee provided recommendations in reports to LAAS, including partnering with council members and opening a Spanish/English hotline for questions about responsible pet care, and increasing its efforts in recruiting volunteers.
According to its final report, “LAAS missed every high-impact recommendation made by the Committee.”
Many in the no-kill community correlate the mandatory ordinance to the increase in pet intakes in city shelters. The argument goes that pet owners in L.A.'s poorest communities, who can't afford to pay for surgery or incur fees imposed by the city if they don't, find the most cost-effective option to be handing over their pets to shelters, which must accept any animal that comes their way.
Nathan Winograd of the No-Kill Advocacy Center said he believes mandatory spay and neuter laws are set up to fail.
A pioneer of the no-kill movement, Winograd said forcing people to sterilize pets is the wrong strategy because those who are not sterilizing belong to the lowest income bracket.
He argued that the voucher program is underfunded, saying voucher amounts are too low when you add up the pre-surgical visit, possible vaccinations and blood work, and then the surgery.
Many years ago however, L.A.'s approach to spay and neuter was ahead of the curve. The city provided spay and neuter services in the early 1970s, with veterinarians performing the sterilizations.
“While other cities were seeing death rates increase, because of the low-cost spay and neuter clinics, Los Angeles shelters cut their intakes in half,” Winograd said.
In the 1990s, however, faced with budget shortages, L.A. eliminated positions for spay and neuter veterinarians. City-employed veterinarians today do not perform routine spay and neuter surgeries. Instead the city partners with independent veterinarians who operate through an agreement at city-owned clinics and mobile spay and neuter clinics.
But recently, some veterinarians were refusing to accept the voucher, claiming the city hadn't reimbursed them for services since last year. A Board of Animal Services Commissioners meeting cites $121,540 in unpaid vouchers to six different spay and neuter providers.
PetSmart charities announced its $13.8 million Spay Los Angeles Initiative two years ago. Operated by non-profits FixNation and Clinico, the initiative seeks to open seven high-volume spay and neuter clinics by 2012. So far three have been opened, including the newest clinic at East Valley.
Last year, LAAS, represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 347, operated with a $20 million budget, 90 percent of which went to salaries. For 2010-2011, the proposed budget will shave $1.8 million, but the percentage going to salaries remains the same. The cut could mean that 11,000 more pets get euthanized every year.
With budget cuts and the Great Recession still looming, some argue that without a large influx of money, L.A's no-kill goals just won't happen.
The money from licensing fees ($20 for a spayed or neutered dog and $100 for an unaltered dog) could help, however the city is losing millions by not rigorously enforcing it and collecting money. LAAS licenses about 120,000 dogs annually and $7 of each fee collected goes to the Spay and Neuter Program, according to Barnette. The 2008 performance audit cites three sources, including a report by the Humane America Animal Foundation, which conservatively suggests that there are approximately 500,000 unaltered dogs and cats in Los Angeles.
The department also has been criticized for lack of customer service and care for the animals it's responsible for. In 2007, Winograd’s No-Kill Advocacy Center filed a lawsuit against L.A. County, alleging unlawful and abusive treatment of animals at all six county shelters. The lawsuit said that activists found animals wallowing in their own feces, animals that were not being given proper veterinary care and treatable animals being killed before the state-mandated holding period.
Cathy Nguyen, a rescuer, was one of the plaintiffs. When the lawsuit was filed, she lost her privileges to adopt as a private citizen. While she credits the city for making an effort, her views on the county differ- inefficiency problems along with the rumors of rampant abuse continue to plague the system, she said.
While acknowledging that LAAS has been a contentious place over the years, Barnette said she sees the same type of progress toward a no-kill goal for L.A., but says that it's not something that happens overnight.
Barnette also stressed that the marketing and public outreach can use improvement, an area of the department generally cited by many critics as dangerously lacking.
The responsibility of the thousands of animals entering through shelter doors, however, is an umbrella that stretches to more than just the people in charge of caring, feeding, treating and killing the city's unwanted pets.
Candi Cooper, who runs Adoption 911 Rescue, attributes the overcrowding of L.A.'s shelters and euthanasia rates not to government policy but to irresponsible pet ownership.
“That is a problem that humans have created, not the city,” she said. “They're just a product of human negligence; they're just trying to handle the mess.”
For as much criticism that activists dish out to the department, internal conflicts within the rescue community, where bruised egos intertwine with passion, also have hampered efforts.
Jeffrey de la Rosa said he's experienced it.
After a series of events involving a dog named Tux and Barks of Love rescue founder Ashley Greenspan, de la Rosa was accused of being an animal abuser and hoarder and was served a restraining order on behalf of Greenspan on a sexual assault charge. He also was arrested on the charge that he allegedly assaulted a woman from Barks of Love with a deadly weapon.
De la Rosa's said that while he was in jail, his house was broken into and his dogs taken. That was a year ago. He said he still doesn't know where they are, but suspects Barks of Love seized them. He has now filed a defamation case against Greenspan and said the events emotionally destroyed him.
Greenspan said animal control officers are the ones who took his dogs and vehemently denies breaking into his house. She wants de la Rosa, whom she says is harassing her, to leave her alone.
“My life was ruined by this man,” she said.
At the East Valley Animal Shelter, a paper posted behind the desk offers an encouraging message to employees faced with operating in a difficult environment: “Don't give up.”
A week after Charlie was dropped off, the shelter is bustling. Couples and families tour the kennels to find a new member of their brood, while more dogs are surrendered to the shelter. Families go home without Charlie.
Three weeks later, Charlie was meant to be put down. With no interest from adopters, the energetic dog was taking up space. But luck, it seemed, was on his side.
With just days before his time was up, Maria Hall, an attorney who has been using Facebook to get shelter animals adopted, took photos of Charlie.
The photos reached Marjan Torabi, another animal advocate, who shared them as well. Days later, Torabi's friend Julian Saedi in Toronto fell in love with Charlie. Hall, Torabi and others immediately mobilized, coordinating with the shelter workers, volunteers and a kennel, and using their own finances as well as donations, pulled Charlie from the shelter.
With effort and the advantage of social media, Charlie arrived in Canada just in time for Thanksgiving. His owners are smitten with him. Torabi isn't surprised.
“Everybody fell in love with him,” she said. “Even the officer at the airport fell in love with Charlie.”
In a city where passionate animal advocacy is starkly contrasted by cases of cruelty, irresponsible pet ownership and a budget-challenged department accused of being an impenetrable monolith that just doesn't care, the solution depends on harmony.
Solving the puzzle of L.A.'s inability to save more of its animals means more of the pieces fitting together, an idea that Barnette has started her tenure on.
“Instead of assuming that we all have to think the same, if we realize that this is a war on death, a war on unnecessary euthanasia on animals, we have to accept the fact that we all have different roles to get the end result, which is protecting life and providing love,” she said.
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