Transforming LA Animal Welfare: A Call for Genuine Collaboration
Challenging Past Failures, Building Trust, and Prioritizing Community Needs
Los Angeles, a city renowned for its vibrant culture, diverse communities, and rich animal welfare history, is once again at the forefront of a purportedly transformative initiative aimed at revolutionizing animal welfare. The LA Animal Services (LAAS) Shelter Support Collaborative hopes to be a groundbreaking partnership designed to tackle longstanding challenges within the city’s shelter system. LA has certainly seen its share of disappointing “transformative” initiatives and this announcement has understandably sparked some skepticism among local activists.
Understanding the Collaborative's Mission
The Collaborative brings together a coalition of nationally recognized organizations, including the ASPCA, Dogs Playing for Life, Jackson Galaxy Enterprises, Michelson Found Animals Foundation, Outcomes for Pets Consulting, Petco Love, Petsmart Charities, San Diego Humane Society, UC Davis Shelter Medicine Program, University of Florida Shelter Medicine Program, and VCA Charities.
This diverse group has committed to working alongside LAAS to address both immediate and long-term systemic issues. Their core tenets focus on ensuring safety for pets and people, humane treatment within shelters, and maximizing life-saving efforts through innovative strategies. However, one local activist quipped that "they are circling the wagons to regain their power," reflecting a need for these organizations to build trust through transparency and effective action.
Addressing Public Concerns with Effective Spay/Neuter Programs
Critics have voiced concerns about the Collaborative’s minimizing of spay/neuter programs and the risk of animals being left on the streets. In response, the Collaborative claims that increasing spay and neuter capacity is a fundamental goal. However, to be fundamentally effective it is crucial that spay/neuter efforts focus on the animals most at risk of euthanasia in shelters—particularly pit bulls and feral cats. Pit bulls are disproportionately represented in shelters due to overpopulation issues.
By promoting targeted spay/neuter initiatives specifically for pit bulls, their numbers in shelters can be significantly reduced alleviating shelter overcrowding. Similarly, Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs for feral cats help control their populations humanely, preventing future generations from entering shelters. Without such targeted efforts, this initiative risks continuing LA's long history of ineffective spending without achieving meaningful declines in shelter intakes.
A Cautionary Note on Metrics
While there is some optimism about the potential for positive change, it is essential that this Collaborative avoids relying solely on statistical metrics that can be misleading. Managed intake and community animal release policies seem designed to obfuscate the facts on the ground and have proven harmful in many communities. Genuine progress must be measured by tangible improvements in animal welfare and community safety, not statistical manipulation.
Call for Policy Recall
A troubling fact concerning the Collaborative, is the number of its members that endorsed the 2020 “pandemic” policy recommending shelters release intact adopted animals when spay/neuter services were not immediately available. Advocates for this policy include the ASPCA, UC Davis Shelter Medicine Program, and the University of Florida Shelter Medicine Program. Understandably, this policy has raised significant concerns among animal welfare advocates.
Kristen Hassen’s Outcomes for Pets Consulting is a member of this Collaborative. Hassen was the leader of Human Animal Support Services (HASS) organization that played a pivotal role in persuading the National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA) to adopt this spay/neuter policy – turning the clock on animal control’s spay/neuter advocacy back decades.
This policy, initially adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, was intended to alleviate overcrowding and reduce stress on shelter animals when surgical capacities were limited. However, critics argue that such policies have led to increased breeding and have exacerbated the very shelter intake issues the Collaborative now, ironically, want to solve.
The members of the Collaborative must prioritize sustainable solutions, such as mandatory spay/neuter programs before adoption and targeted community spay/neuter initiatives for breeds overrepresented on euthanasia lists in shelters. This approach will help prevent overpopulation, alleviate shelter overcrowding, and regain public trust in their commitment to humane animal welfare practices.
Building Trust Through Action
To build trust with a skeptical public, the Collaborative must emphasize transparency and accountability. Detailed implementation plans are reportedly being developed to ensure measurable outcomes and sustainable change. This is said to include updating policies based on best practices and providing comprehensive training for staff and volunteers.
However, critics express concern that these “best practices” may reflect Kristen Hassen’s controversial managed intake and community animal release policies, which have reportedly led to a significant rise in stray animals, public safety risks, health concerns, and stretching local animal services thin in places like Fairfax, VA; Tucson and Douglas, AZ; and El Paso and San Antonio, TX.
In San Antonio, a tragic incident underscored the dangers of prioritizing shelter depopulation over community safety. Under Kristen Hassen's community animal release policy—often referred to there as the 'let them roam' approach—three pit bulls were returned to their owner despite multiple public complaints. These dogs later escaped and fatally attacked an elderly man, highlighting the significant risks associated with such policies. This incident has left local officials grappling with the aftermath and community members questioning the priorities of animal services.
To avoid repeating past mistakes, the Collaborative must engage meaningfully with community members, local officials, and local animal welfare experts and advocates. If it does so, this initiative could become the kind of "transformative" effort that Los Angeles has long hoped for—one that truly lives up to its promise by setting a new benchmark for animal welfare and public safety.
Ed Boks is a former Executive Director of the New York City, Los Angeles, and Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Departments, and a former Board Director of the National Animal Control Association. His work has been published in the LA Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Real Clear Policy, Sentient Media, and now on Animal Politics with Ed Boks.
Great article and very timely! Thanks for all you do with these informative articles.
Ed, thanks for your coverage of this. It is such a complicated issue and it seems like there's a price to be paid (by the innocent animals) no matter which route is chosen. At my local shelter, no animal is adopted out without being spayed or neutered first. That's a hard rule... We have a smaller numbers of animals to deal with now, which frees some resources. A year or two ago a painful decision was made to not renew the contract with one of the cities that we served for years- because of their large number of strays and also the lack of cooperation on the part of that police department (which actually put our ACOs in potential danger). So our shelter is no longer overflowing, but we all worry about how the animals are faring at the new shelter that now has the contract with this particular town.
I know shelters have different mandates and funding structures, and I think what that means is that our shelter has to accept anyone, if we have the contract with that town. I've heard that some shelters that only have easily-adoptable animals that are quickly placed, they achieve that because they turn away the "less desirable" animals - which means they probably are euthanized quickly so the public never sees them. My current dog is a lovable pittie who bears the scars of having been mercilessly over-bred and fought, but she is extremely sweet. At some shelters she might have been immediately put down.