Things That Make You Go “Hmm”

The troubled Spartanburg pound in SC spent $17 grand on lobbying last year according to the group’s 990 tax form (page 10).  The Spartanburg pound has no lobbyists on the payroll to my knowledge so I presume they gave the money to one of the large national animal groups who does.  The form doesn’t state to whom the $17,ooo was paid.

In other news, the head of the Spartanburg pound is quitting his job to take a position with the ASPCA as the director of legal advocacy case development, effective April 20.

 

700 Cats Seized from Cat Sanctuary in FL

You may have been reading this week about the arrest of Caboodle Ranch owner Craig Grant. Mr. Grant operated a cat sanctuary in FL and was featured in a satirical piece on the Colbert Report about a year ago. You can see the very funny clip, which shows many of the cats and their environment here.

Local law enforcement, working with the ASPCA, have seized all of Mr. Grant’s cats (about 700). Mr. Grant intends to fight the cruelty charges. If he is ultimately acquitted, will the ASPCA give him his 700 cats back?

PETA has posted an “undercover expose” clip on its website about Caboodle. I’m not linking to it but if you are interested, you can Google it. It shows footage, obtained over a period of several months, of sick and suffering cats.  The thing I have never trusted about the PETA “undercover expose” videos is that they compile them over months. This bothers me for a couple of reasons.  How could any compassionate person watch a pet suffer for months – if that’s what’s happening – in order to document cruelty? Furthermore, if you stay at any sanctuary for an extended period, you are bound to see all sorts of things crop up and there is no way for viewers to know context once PETA has edited down months of footage to 5 minutes. For example, the place may take in one sick/malnourished/whatever cat a month and if you film for six months – BOOM, you’ve got 6 cats in bad shape for your video and you don’t have to disclose that they came in that way.  Also it’s PETA so…

What are your thoughts on this case?

11th Hour Social Media Blitz to Fight for Shelter Pets’ Lives

On Wednesday February 15,  Assembly Bill A05449A will be introduced in the NY state Ag Committee.  This quick kill bill is expected to pass and we need to make our voices heard tonight to keep that from happening.  This quick kill bill is of immediate concern to NYers because it affects their community pets but it’s also very worrying for pet owners everywhere because it sets a legal precedent for more needless shelter pet killing.

And once again, it falls upon “the irresponsible public” to stand up for the lives of pets because the multi-million dollar animal welfare groups won’t do it.  Where is Alley Cat Allies, the nation’s largest group advocating for feral cats?  They should be mobilizing their forces in opposition to this bill which will legalize instant killing for every feral cat in NY.  Where is Best Friends?  They ask people to donate so there will be “no more homeless pets” but this bill might as well be named “no more living homeless pets”.  Why aren’t they mass e-mailing members to take action against this?  HSUS?  Tuh, I know better than to ask.  And of course ASPCA is the group that is leading the coalition to get the quick kill bill made into law.

It’s up to you and me.  Again.  No matter where you live, please take action and voice your opposition to the ASPCA’s quick kill bill.  Then pass this information on to your compassionate animal friends.  Every voice counts.

As always, please keep your comments respectful.

With permission, I am sharing Nathan Winograd’s most recent post on the subject, complete with action items, below.  This is the most succinct explanation I’ve seen.  If you aren’t familiar with the quick kill bill and need more information, there are links at the end.

From Nathan Winograd:

If the ASPCA and Assembly Member Amy Paulin get their way, feral cats and scared cats can be exterminated immediately on intake in New York State shelters.
The ASPCA is pushing legislation sponsored by Assembly Member Amy Paulin that would allow New York State shelters to kill animals immediately if shelter staff determine that the animals are in “psychological pain.” There is no definition of what constitutes psychological pain and no standards to how it will be applied. For the first time anywhere in the U.S., shelters will be allowed to kill animals with no holding period of any time based on the animals’ perceived state of mind, giving regressive shelter bureaucrats unlimited discretion to immediately kill animals based on unenforceable, unknowable, and completely subjective criteria. Not only is this a real and immediate threat to shy and scared animals, as well as feral cats, but it is a very dangerous precedent to introduce in the animal control laws of our nation.

Whether you are from New York or not, please speak up for the animals:

• Email Ed Sayres: esayres@aspca.org

• Post comments on the ASPCA Facebook page: www.facebook.com/aspca

• Post comments to twitter: @aspca

• Email Amy Paulin: PaulinA@assembly.state.ny.us

• Post comments on Paulin’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/assemblywomanpaulin

• Post comments to twitter: @AmyPaulin

Learn more:

Gone in 60 Seconds

The ASPCA Fights for More Shelter Killing in NY

Betty in the ASPCA Commercial

I change the channel as soon as I hear Sarah McLachlin’s voice singing for the ASPCA in one of their commercials.  I can’t stand the sad music paired with the parade of one-eyed pets asking for more money for a multi-million dollar organization that fights against shelter reform and no kill.  So I had never seen an ad, featuring a mama GSD mix named Betty, until Billy showed it to me.  (I couldn’t find a good link to the commercial but it’s apparently on TV all the time and has been for years.  You could probably just go turn on your television right now and see it.)  Billy thought the ad was manipulative in that it showed this pitiful mama dog, shaking in a cage, but never told what happened to her.  Was she still at the pound?  How did she respond to her veterinary treatment?  Did she need an adopter?

I decided to poke around online to see if I could find out about Betty.  When I found what appeared to be a legitimate response from the ASPCA regarding Betty, I e-mailed the following to Billy:

Many people have asked online about the dog you wondered about from the ASPCA commercial. Apparently that footage is from 2003 and she has since been adopted:

Thank you very much for your email regarding the dog named Betty in our commercial. When the ASPCA found Betty she was injured badly with a fractured vertebra, she could barely move but she continued to care for her new born pups. All of her pups were successfully adopted and shortly after in February 2003 Betty also found her new family and given the name Apple to start her journey with her new pet parents and another canine. Eight years later, Apples parents inform us that she is just as beautiful and intelligent as the day they brought her home and was a wonderful addition to the family. She spends her days chasing squirrels around five acres and being spoiled by her parents. Apple couldn’t have wished for a better life. This is just one of many rescue stories with a happy ending. Sincerely, ASPCA Public Information

I thought this would probably reassure him.  Not so.  His response:

Well – that makes it even more exploitative and manipulative that they’ve known all along and can’t put an update on the commercial. That would mean less donations. I’m sure someone had to dig deep to find this info. out.

He has a point.  Have you seen the commercial with Betty and her pups?  What do you think?

Need Help Reporting a Possible Crime in NYC

I believe a crime may have occurred with regard to Gloria, a NYC cat whose badly broken leg you see on an x-ray above. While there is no way to know how her leg was broken, we do know some facts, courtesy of John Sibley’s blog, and it is within those facts that I believe a criminal investigation is warranted.

Gloria was abandoned at an ASPCA mobile clinic in Queens, presumably in late December 2011.  The ASPCA brought her to the pound.  This is a copy of her cage card at NYC Animal Care & Control:

Before I get any further into Gloria’s story, I want to pause and ask you to think about something: Why would anyone leave a cat at an ASPCA vet clinic?  While we don’t know the specific answer for why someone left Gloria there, I think it’s reasonable to assume that generally speaking, a person does not abandon a cat at an ASPCA vet clinic because the cat has a loving owner who is willing and able to continue caring for her.  In other words, any reasonable person would assume that a cat left at an ASPCA vet clinic needs something.  It may be something as simple as a home.  Or, considering this was an ASPCA mobile veterinary clinic, it may be the cat needs some type of veterinary care.

There is really no way of knowing what the situation is until a vet examines the abandoned cat.  My thinking is, upon discovery of an abandoned cat at an ASPCA veterinary clinic, there is an obligation to conduct a basic veterinary exam to determine at least that the cat does not need urgent medical care.  If the plan was to take her to the pound, the veterinary exam would be necessary to determine that the cat was in a stable condition and ok to be transported to the pound.  As such, I am operating on the assumption – although I don’t know this for a fact – that a vet at the ASPCA mobile clinic performed a basic exam on Gloria before she was sent to the pound.

Back to the known facts in Gloria’s case.

She arrived at NYCACC on 12-29-2011 and was examined (presumably by a veterinarian) on that day.  She had a second veterinary exam on 1-15-12, when she was placed on the kill list for having a cold.  This is a copy of the pound’s notes regarding Gloria:

Remarkably absent from the veterinary exam notes is any mention of the fact that this cat was suffering from a badly broken leg.  I’m not a pet psychic but I can guess Gloria was in no small amount of pain, perhaps accounting for the “tension” noted in her behavioral exam.

Thankfully, Gloria was rescued by Pets Alive.  They are not vets but after one day with Gloria, they realized something was wrong and brought her to their vet for an exam.  Their vet determined her leg was broken beyond repair and amputation was required.  She had the surgery the following day and is recovering well (donate to help with Gloria’s veterinary bills here).  The veterinary surgeon determined that Gloria’s leg had been broken for at least a month prior to amputation.

NYCACC allowed Gloria to sit in a cage for weeks with a broken leg – long enough for her to catch a cold and be placed on the kill list.  Neither veterinary exam noted her broken leg nor are there any notes about providing pain medications.

ASPCA had an obligation to have one of the vets at the mobile clinic conduct a basic exam on Gloria.  I don’t know what happened there but I think probably one of the following occurred:

• The vet at the ASPCA clinic examined Gloria, found her leg was badly broken and the ASPCA decided it didn’t want to spend the money on helping Gloria so took her to the pound.

• The vet at the ASPCA clinic examined Gloria and somehow completely missed that she had a badly broken leg.

• The ASPCA performed no veterinary exam on Gloria and transported her to the pound, not knowing if her condition was stable enough to survive transport.

If ASPCA cruelty investigators raided a home, found a cat with a severely broken leg and determined the leg had been broken for at least a month, I believe the officers would arrest the owner for animal cruelty.  No excuses.

In Gloria’s case, the ASPCA is potentially implicated in the crime so obviously they can not conduct an investigation.  But that does not diminish the need for a cruelty investigation.  Who can we contact to request a criminal investigation?

As far as non-criminal wrongdoing, I think it would be appropriate to contact the veterinary board for New York state.  Hopefully the board can conduct an investigation into how a vet missed Gloria’s badly broken leg at the pound twice or if perhaps the veterinary exams are not being conducted by qualified staff.  I hope the board can also determine whether the actions of the ASPCA constituted neglect, abuse or both.  All of these outcomes appear to violate the state veterinary board’s rules and regulations so if any have occurred, the board will surely want to investigate.

ASPCA Says 41 Dogs Alive but Not How Many Were Killed

When pet advocates began asking questions about 41 dogs transported north from a SC shelter by the ASPCA in November, some peeps took to kerfufflin’.  That’s presumably why the ASPCA put out a release on its website making sure that everyone knew these 41 dogs were all alive and (mostly all) adopted.  That’s great for those 41 dogs.  But the primary concern pet advocates had was that the shelters these dogs were sent to kill pets.  As such, whether or not any of these 41 pets were killed does not address the concern here.

To truly put this alleged rescue into perspective, we would need to know more information than the ASPCA is giving us.  They want us to remember one number:  41.  That’s how many dogs they say were rescued in this transport.  But the 41 figure has no context because we don’t know the number of pets who were killed at any of these shelters in preparation for their arrival nor do we know how many pets were killed during their stay (November and December).

The 3 shelters who accepted these dogs are:

• Capital Area Humane Society, Hilliard, OH  – Site does not appear to be current; mentions an intention to become a limited admission shelter in 2009; has some old, scattered figures for adoptions but not for total intake or number killed

• Bay Area Humane Society, Green Bay, WI  (32% kill rate in 2010) – This site does have monthly reports but there are no reports posted for November or December 2011.

• Animal Humane Society, Golden Valley, MN  (33% kill rate in 2010) -The site offers a complicated annual report but it runs on a fiscal year, not a calendar year; no reports posted for November or December 2011

Can anyone request complete intake & outcome stats for the months of November and December 2011 from any of these three facilities?  Unless we find out about whatever killings took place during this time period, there is simply no way to put the ASPCA’s claim of 41 dogs rescued into context.

Kansas Humane Society Needlessly Kills Healthy Dog, ASPCA Defends the Killing

Shannon Nott received a yellow Lab puppy as a gift from her daughter early last year.  She named her Lucy.  While Ms. Nott worked during the day, Lucy did the typical things you would expect of a young Lab left alone – she dug at the carpet, chewed on furniture and chewed a hole in the wall.  Not knowing how to handle Lucy’s destructive behavior, Ms. Nott agonized over the situation and ultimately decided to take Lucy to the Kansas Humane Society so they could adopt her out to a good home.  Last week, she surrendered Lucy to the Kansas Humane Society along with “her rawhide bone, toys, brushes and a new bag of dog food”.  Ms. Nott was very distraught over her decision but thought it was the right thing to do.  She signed the surrender form, including an acknowledgement that she was choosing not to purchase, for a $30 fee, an option to reclaim the dog if she changed her mind.

Ms. Nott went to her car in the pound’s parking lot and called her sister, sobbing.  Together, they decided that Ms. Nott should go back and get Lucy and they would “figure something out”.  But when she returned to the pound’s lobby, she learned the Kansas Humane Society had already deemed Lucy unadoptable – due to the description of the inappropriate chewing behaviors – and had killed her.

Kim Janzen, the Humane Society president and CEO, said, “To an outsider, it’s going to seem that we acted rashly, but we didn’t.”
[...]
Janzen said she couldn’t say how often an animal is put down in the relatively short time frame that Nott’s pet was.

Really?  Couldn’t say?  So I take it this is not an isolated case of barbarism on the part of the Kansas Humane Society but rather one of many – too many to count apparently.

It doesn’t help an animal with severe anxiety to be placed in a kennel, and that animal’s stress would raise stress for other animals at the shelter, Janzen said.

“Ultimately, what we wanted to do is avoid putting the animal through additional stress.”

How kind of the Kansas Humane Society to avoid subjecting Lucy to the stress of sitting in a kennel by subjecting her to the stress of the kill room instead.

Most people won’t adopt a large pet with such behavior, she said.

Well maybe, but definitely nobody will adopt her if she’s dead.

The newspaper contacted the ASPCA for comment on the situation and the ASPCA representative basically says the owner should have tried harder to find the dog a home herself and the pound is not to blame for the immediate and needless killing of Lucy:

“When faced with the incredibly tough decision to relinquish an animal, the ASPCA encourages pet owners to explore every possible option — including checking with local breed rescue groups and no-kill shelters as well as friends, neighbors and family members to see if they might be able to help care for that animal — before relinquishing it to an open-admission shelter that in all likelihood is already overburdened.”

See, the Kansas Humane Society is already overburdened.  So they really can’t be faulted for taking a normal, healthy Lab immediately to the kill room.  Cos, you know – overburdened and stuff.

You know who else is overburdened?  Every rescuer I know.  Every no kill shelter I know.  Every caring pet owner who takes in a pet off the street or puts food out for community pets or fosters pets off death row from their local kill shelter to save their lives.  And yet none of them are killing pets.  How can the ASPCA seriously defend this abominable practice?  Where is the condemnation for the killing of Lucy and those like her in pet slaughterhouses all over this country?  It’s outrageous.

Shame on the Kansas Humane Society for killing Lucy and shame on the ASPCA for its failure to condemn the killing.  Both organizations should be overburdened – with shame.

SLED Investigating ASPCA Partner Shelter for Embezzlement

The Charleston Animal Society in SC doesn’t say on its website how many pets it kills each year.  But it does point the finger at who is to blame for shelter pet killing:

The pet overpopulation problem

An estimated 3 – 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized each year in our country.  Because there are more unwanted pets than there are available homes, each new litter of kittens, puppies, rabbits, and other animals leads to the euthanasia of animals already waiting for new homes.

There is no pet overpopulation problem.  There are no unwanted pets.  There are enough homes for every shelter pet in America.  Each litter of pets born into the world does not cause the killing of shelter pets.  The people who kill pets at shelters are responsible for their own actions.

In the spring of 2008, the Charleston Animal Society moved into a “brand new state-of-the-art 31,000 square feet” building as Charleston County joined the ASCPA Partnership.  The partnership’s goal makes mention of “no more unnecessary euthanasia of adoptable animals” and states:

Through its participation in ASPCA® Partner Community™, Charleston County has pledged to move towards a 75 percent save rate for homeless companion animals by the year 2012.

The Charleston Animal Society is the only open admission shelter in the county, taking in more than 10,000 pets each year.  So how are they doing in their goal to reach a 75% save rate ?  I don’t know because they don’t post their stats online.  I e-mailed an inquiry this morning regarding the stats but haven’t yet received a reply.

However, even if they reach the 75% live release rate, we know from the numerous open admission shelters around the country who have ended the needless killing of healthy/treatable pets that a live release rate of 90% or greater is the standard.  In other words, a kill rate of 25% would not be indicative of the stated goal regarding an end to the killing of adoptable pets.

Setting all this aside for the moment, the Charleston Animal Society’s website, like the sites of many shelters, has lots of space dedicated to asking for donations.  One page states that your donation will help the group “provide food, shelter and medical care to nearly 12,000 homeless animals each year”.  That sounds swell.  And surely all those who have given money to the Charleston Animal Society, including the ASPCA, would take comfort in believing their donations were spent on community pets in need.

Unfortunately, that apparently is not what’s been happening with the money at the Charleston Animal Society:

In emails obtained exclusively by News 2 reporter Rebecca Ryan, Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon writes:  “It has come to my attention that the Charleston Animal Society [...] has discovered some internal issues involving personnel and moneys that are missing, misappropriated, or otherwise not spent in professionally excepted [sic] practices.”

[...]

In other emails from Charleston County Council members, one council member said the Animal Society Board was writing checks out of their own pockets to cover up the “thefts”.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating.  The board of the Charleston Animal Society issued a statement putting the allegedly embezzled funds at $69,000 over a period of several years.  The board’s statement hints that the 2011 save rate for the facility may be as low as 50%.  It paints the alleged embezzlers as a few bad apples.  The statement also contains this gem:

The timing of this discovery couldn’t be worse as we head into the last two weeks of the year, when those donors who make our life-saving work possible plan their year-end giving.

Dang, what a lousy time of year to have SLED knock on your door asking about tens of thousands of missing dollars.  *sniff*

As far as exactly which dollars were allegedly embezzled, the investigation is ongoing but naturally the county wants to know about the money it pays to the shelter:

Charleston County Council member, Elliot Summey, said so far it doesn’t appear any money is missing from the pool the county gives to the Animal Society.

So if it’s not the county money that’s missing, where would the alleged embezzlers be siphoning funds?

A photo on the Charleston Animal Society's website shows a $600,000 check from the ASPCA.

Blame the public for killing.  Lie about no kill.  Steal money from kind-hearted donors.  Where did Charleston Animal Society get its playbook?

Watch this space for updates.

Can Anything Be Done about This Freak?

Paul Zhang has admitted to trapping dozens of cats in Queens and Brooklyn recently, taking them to three different vets to be killed.  Mr. Zhang says they are feral colony cats he’s been feeding and now that he’s moved to a new location, is doing them the “kindness” of killing them.

“I can’t bear the thought of my animals getting out or being abandoned,” Zhang explains. “So I did the best thing I can consider: For them to never experience any suffering. So I put them all down. Because I also think Animal Care and Control does shit adoptions. I’m sorry, I’m a little prejudiced but I’ve seen the people that come in to adopt there and I would never let my cats go with them.”

I’m sorry you’re a little prejudiced too.  But not half as sorry as I’m sure your feline victims are.

At least one of the cats he trapped and had killed at a vet’s office was someone’s pet cat named Anthony.  The clinic where Mr. Zhang says he had Anthony and several other cats killed is Antelyes Animal Hospital which says:

We did euthanize several cats for him, believing that we were doing the right thing. [...] After that we told him we will not help him anymore and to find another vet. He threatened to drown the cats at home. This when his true sick nature was finally displayed to us. We deeply regret that we even helped him for a short time.

And by “helped him”, the clinic means “killed cats”.  It sounds like if Mr. Zhang hadn’t made the drowning threat, the vet would still be pocketing the checks and killing cats.

Can’t the Mayor’s Alliance do something?

[T]he Mayor’s Alliance, for which he says he has helped TNR (trap-neuter-return) thousands of cats, has demanded he return the traps they gave him.

Uh – I guess I should say, can’t they do something meaningful?

ASPCA – this guy is rounding up cats and having them killed in your backyard.  Where are you?

The Terrorists Win

Remember when ASPCA published documents calling no kill advocates “extremists” and specifically named the group in Austin as one of the threats to the status quo of the catch and kill shelter model, even going so far as to reportedly refer to them as “a terrorist organization” at the SAWA conference?  Good times.  But that was then.  Well ok, it was just a few weeks ago.  But this is now!

Facebook posting from the ASPCA on November 30, 2011.

The ASPCA has officially supplied money – $100k – to a terrorist organization.

If you see something, say something.