Animal Shelters

Stepping into the escalating movement to try to find homes for lost or abandoned dogs and cats, the city and Los Angeles County have agreed to start a "no kill" shelter in town. The El Segundo shelter, which will be the first of its kind by the county Department of Animal Care and Control, will rely heavily on volunteers and a city-aided marketing program to help find homes for animals that might otherwise be euthanized, according to El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon.

Mira Tweti does plenty of squawking over the size of parrot cages. Most, she says, are too small for the colorful birds whose charismatic and intelligent natures make them popular pets. That's why the Playa del Rey author and journalist -- whose last name rhymes with "tweety" -- is launching a national campaign to encourage parrot owners to swap their standard-size bird cages for larger ones. Typical bird cages measure 24 inches wide, 16 inches deep and 16 inches high.

An abandoned cat or dog can make the perfect holiday gift. But all too often, Christmas cats and Hanukkah hounds return to animal shelters because they are chosen in haste. At a North Hollywood animal shelter Thursday, Gary Olsen, general manager of the city Department of Animal Regulation, paired up with City Councilman Joel Wachs to promote pet gift certificates to ensure that holiday pets don't return to shelters by summer.

The play's the thing Re " Playing role of patience ," Column One, March 23 I thoroughly enjoyed the article about the life of a theatrical understudy. I've been working in the film and television industry for the last 35 years - not as an actor but as a set lighting technician - and in that time have developed a profound respect for those who suffer the trials and tribulations of the acting life. Some actors can be a pain, of course - a diva is a diva, male or female - but I've found most actors to be amazing, interesting people.

If every dog has its day, the Chihuahua's, it seems, may be on the wane. Representatives from half a dozen Bay Area animal shelters and rescue groups asked the public's help Wednesday in remedying a serious statewide glut of the petite pooches. "All the shelters in California are seeing an upswing in Chihuahua impounds," Deb Campbell, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco animal care and control department, said in an interview. "It's been a slow and steady climb. . . . We call it the Paris Hilton syndrome."

Each year in the United States, more than 10 million dogs and cats are turned over to animal shelters because their owners no longer want them. Of these, approximately 65% do not find a home and are euthanized. We in Ventura County are not exempt from the pet overpopulation problem. Because the Humane Society of Ventura County will not euthanize one animal to free up kennel space for another we are often completely full and have a hard time finding good homes for all the animals that come through our door.

All six Los Angeles County animal shelters will close for two days, Nov. 23 and 24, to allow emloyees to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with their families. The county shelter in the South Bay is located at 216 W. Victoria St., Carson. Although the public will be unable to visit the shelters in search of a new pet or to locate a lost one, staff members will be on hand to take in strays and handle emergencies. Regular shelter hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Police officers and city officials swept into six Los Angeles animal shelters Thursday, confiscating guns and ammunition from employees as part of an expanding internal investigation into the animal services agency. Plainclothes officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and managers with the animal services agency took about 120 weapons, including shotguns, rifles and .38-caliber handguns. The city's 75 animal control officers are issued firearms to kill wild animals that are too injured to transport to shelters.

Ventura County Humane Society and county Animal Regulation Department officials said Tuesday that they will clear space in their kennels for stray Los Angeles-area dogs and cats found during the confusion of the Northridge earthquake. Kathy Jenks, director of the county's Animal Regulation Department, said that because Los Angeles city animal shelters have been overwhelmed by stray dogs and cats found after the quake, she will make room for the animals at the department's facility in Camarillo.

The city controller's office issued an audit Monday concluding that the Animal Services Department is in dire need of a $154-million bond measure aimed at relieving overcrowded conditions in the city's animal shelters.

After more than 50 years as a veterinarian in Burbank, there's nothing small about Martin Small's contribution to Burbank's animal shelter. "I have never done anything more satisfying than what I've done since I've been here," he said. After spending the last several years working full time to establish the shelter's medical program, Small, 82, is now an on-call surgeon. Before he set foot in the shelter in 2004, cats suffered from contagious respiratory diseases and dogs were prone to kennel cough and parvovirus.

The Department of Animal Services has become an unruly place where equipment is unaccounted for, at least $125,000 is missing and up to $1.3 million in potential revenue was overlooked over the last two fiscal years, a new report has found. The audit, conducted over two years and released Tuesday, describes policy and possible ethics breakdowns across the agency, with particular focus on poor supervision and management. In one example, department officials could not show investigators whether donations were spent legitimately.

Los Angeles, which had projected a $72-million shortfall in the current budget, has sewn up the hole halfway into the fiscal year through a series of cost-cutting measures, city officials said Thursday. "It's showing that we're moving in the right direction. We could start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here," City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said. But he warned that city officials cannot become complacent and must continue to rethink the budget because the next fiscal crisis is on the horizon.

A veterinary technician at a Los Angeles city animal shelter was fired last week after officials found that he had subjected dogs to inhumane treatment while euthanizing them. Manuel Boado, 64, was discharged by the city's Civil Service Commission, which concluded that he failed to sedate the dogs he was trying to euthanize, brought dogs into a room with other dead animals and inserted euthanizing needles into jugular veins — a practice officials say was not permitted. With allegations reminiscent of a Stephen King novel, case records open a rare window into the most unpleasant task carried out by the Animal Services Department — killing animals that have no owner when its shelters run out of room.

In another move to privatize some longtime city functions, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to hand over management of a Mission Hills animal shelter to a nonprofit group. Under the plan, Best Friends Animal Society will provide adoption and spay and neuter services at the Northeast Valley Animal Care Center, built three years ago for more than $19 million but never fully staffed because of budget cuts. The deal with Best Friends costs the city nothing and will save the lives of thousands of animals that would otherwise be euthanized each year, according to Brenda Barnette, general manager of the Department of Animal Services.

As money woes strain the city's resources, Los Angeles officials have been engaged in a continuing and important discussion: What are the responsibilities the city handles best itself? And what are those the city can, and should, contract out? Some are obvious: The city should run its own police department, for instance. Some are not so obvious. The latest to fall under scrutiny is the operation of animal shelters. There are six scattered across the city that are open to the public and that take in and adopt out thousands of unwanted and stray animals.

Police officers and city officials swept into six Los Angeles animal shelters Thursday, confiscating guns and ammunition from employees as part of an expanding internal investigation into the animal services agency. Plainclothes officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and managers with the animal services agency took about 120 weapons, including shotguns, rifles and .38-caliber handguns. The city's 75 animal control officers are issued firearms to kill wild animals that are too injured to transport to shelters.

In the latest investigation involving a Los Angeles city agency, officials have launched a probe into the disappearance of nearly 40 dogs, cats and other animals from a Lincoln Heights shelter. Brenda Barnette, general manager of the Animal Services Department, said 64 animals have disappeared from six shelters in roughly a year. Of that total, 39 were housed at the city's North Central shelter on Lacy Street — a missing rate considered unusually high. Although some animals could have been incorrectly listed as missing because of clerical errors, at least some have "wrongly disappeared," Barnette said.