GSD Indy Rescue posted about this issue yesterday on their FB page. Apparently they are being forced to house stray animals when IACS refuses to. What's not being documented is the negative impact managed intake in municipal shelters is having on private/non-profit organizations.
These problems are a common theme in several cities that entered into agreements with BFAS. El Paso turned into such a nightmare they cancelled their agreement with BFAS. Several California cities have been sued (and paid out millions of dollars) by residents who adopted dogs, known by staff to have histories of aggression, but were never informed of their history, per BFAS policy. Several of these adopters were horribly mauled and left disabled for life. BFAS comes in claiming to be the knight in shining armor who is going to bring the shelter to no-kill status, with their "proven" strategies. The only way they are bringing down number is by turning intakes away (managed intake) and telling the good Samaritans who found the animal that they should take the dog to their house for the stray hold period.
Hi Tamara, thank you for sharing these critical examples—they underscore the broader pattern of challenges associated with BFAS’s strategies in communities nationwide. The situations in El Paso and California, where managed intake policies and inadequate transparency around animal histories led to severe consequences, highlight the urgent need for accountability in animal welfare partnerships.
Your point about shifting burdens to Good Samaritans resonates deeply with the issues we’ve observed in Indianapolis. The Managed Intake policy, while intended to reduce overcrowding, often leaves vulnerable animals without professional care and strains public trust. As Megan McNames’ analysis of IACS data shows, intake numbers here plummeted by 46% since 2019—far exceeding national trends—while response times and enforcement activities deteriorated.
These cases, including the lawsuits you mentioned, reinforce the importance of transparency and community-centered solutions. As we await the results from the Indianapolis committee meeting on IACS’s management, your insights remind us why public engagement is vital to advocate for policies that prioritize both animal welfare and community safety.
Thank you for adding your voice to this conversation. Together, we can push for reforms that address these systemic issues head-on.
As you point out, Ed, there is a HUGE piece missing in the shelter data currently being collected, and that is the total number of intake requests. Without this information, the rest of the data is not only misleading, but actually quite meaningless.
Indianapolis has had a substandard animal care & control system for more than 35 years, evident initially when the job was handled by the Indianapolis Humane Society. In the mid-1990s several of the longtime Indianapolis Humane Society critics responded by opening an outstanding low-cost spay/neuter clinic, FACE, which quickly went on to break all records for volume of surgeries performed between surgical complications, working out of a renovated gas station. FACE put Indianapolis in a good position to aim realistically for authentic "no kill" animal control, especially had former city counselor Mike Speedy succeeded in 2009 in passing a spay/neuter mandate for keeping pit bulls similar to the one adopted in 2006 by San Francisco. Instead, pit bull advocacy installed pit bull advocate & Nathan Winograd disciple Doug Rae as animal control director; Rae then killed the proposed spay/neuter ordinance, & then, overwhelmed with incoming pit bulls, was gone within less than a year to fail spectacularly in several other animal control jurisdictions over the next 10 years. Rae left Indianapolis at about the same time there last was a fatality at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where tightly bunched cars routinely race at 170-190 miles per hour. Since then, though, pit bulls have killed at least seven Indianapolis residents, putting Indianapolis in a bracket with Dayton, Fresno, San Antonio, Houston, and Detroit as the most dangerous animal control jurisdictions in the world.
GSD Indy Rescue posted about this issue yesterday on their FB page. Apparently they are being forced to house stray animals when IACS refuses to. What's not being documented is the negative impact managed intake in municipal shelters is having on private/non-profit organizations.
These problems are a common theme in several cities that entered into agreements with BFAS. El Paso turned into such a nightmare they cancelled their agreement with BFAS. Several California cities have been sued (and paid out millions of dollars) by residents who adopted dogs, known by staff to have histories of aggression, but were never informed of their history, per BFAS policy. Several of these adopters were horribly mauled and left disabled for life. BFAS comes in claiming to be the knight in shining armor who is going to bring the shelter to no-kill status, with their "proven" strategies. The only way they are bringing down number is by turning intakes away (managed intake) and telling the good Samaritans who found the animal that they should take the dog to their house for the stray hold period.
Hi Tamara, thank you for sharing these critical examples—they underscore the broader pattern of challenges associated with BFAS’s strategies in communities nationwide. The situations in El Paso and California, where managed intake policies and inadequate transparency around animal histories led to severe consequences, highlight the urgent need for accountability in animal welfare partnerships.
Your point about shifting burdens to Good Samaritans resonates deeply with the issues we’ve observed in Indianapolis. The Managed Intake policy, while intended to reduce overcrowding, often leaves vulnerable animals without professional care and strains public trust. As Megan McNames’ analysis of IACS data shows, intake numbers here plummeted by 46% since 2019—far exceeding national trends—while response times and enforcement activities deteriorated.
These cases, including the lawsuits you mentioned, reinforce the importance of transparency and community-centered solutions. As we await the results from the Indianapolis committee meeting on IACS’s management, your insights remind us why public engagement is vital to advocate for policies that prioritize both animal welfare and community safety.
Thank you for adding your voice to this conversation. Together, we can push for reforms that address these systemic issues head-on.
As you point out, Ed, there is a HUGE piece missing in the shelter data currently being collected, and that is the total number of intake requests. Without this information, the rest of the data is not only misleading, but actually quite meaningless.
Indianapolis has had a substandard animal care & control system for more than 35 years, evident initially when the job was handled by the Indianapolis Humane Society. In the mid-1990s several of the longtime Indianapolis Humane Society critics responded by opening an outstanding low-cost spay/neuter clinic, FACE, which quickly went on to break all records for volume of surgeries performed between surgical complications, working out of a renovated gas station. FACE put Indianapolis in a good position to aim realistically for authentic "no kill" animal control, especially had former city counselor Mike Speedy succeeded in 2009 in passing a spay/neuter mandate for keeping pit bulls similar to the one adopted in 2006 by San Francisco. Instead, pit bull advocacy installed pit bull advocate & Nathan Winograd disciple Doug Rae as animal control director; Rae then killed the proposed spay/neuter ordinance, & then, overwhelmed with incoming pit bulls, was gone within less than a year to fail spectacularly in several other animal control jurisdictions over the next 10 years. Rae left Indianapolis at about the same time there last was a fatality at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where tightly bunched cars routinely race at 170-190 miles per hour. Since then, though, pit bulls have killed at least seven Indianapolis residents, putting Indianapolis in a bracket with Dayton, Fresno, San Antonio, Houston, and Detroit as the most dangerous animal control jurisdictions in the world.