Los Angeles Department Of Animal Regulation

Because of budget cuts, the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation will close all six city animal-care and control centers at 5 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, beginning May 15. Centers will remain open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Emergency and medical staffing will continue on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday agreed to combine two bond measures into one $532-million initiative that will ask voters in November to pay for upgrading and building fire stations and animal shelters in selected sections of the city. In recent weeks, the council has debated whether the issues should be merged on the ballot. Some members have also questioned if the bonds favor only those sections of the city that would receive the money.

A 21-month search for an administrator at the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation has ended with the selection of Gary S. Olsen, a 24-year employee who has served as the department's interim chief. The city's Animal Regulation Commission selected Olsen this week after the top candidate for the job dropped out, citing concerns that Mayor Richard Riordan's Administration would collapse the department into the county Department of Animal Care and Control.

Citing a dire need for more animal control services in the San Fernando Valley and South-Central Los Angeles, the city's top administrator recommended Monday adding two new shelters to a proposed Nov. 7 bond measure. Building the shelters would double the number of shelters serving those areas and would increase the bond proposal from $110 million to about $150 million.

When the call came in the middle of the night on Feb. 24, the news was pretty bad, Teri Jones remembered: A tractor-trailer hauling 143 cows had overturned on the Foothill Freeway in Sylmar. Over the next eight hours, Jones and her volunteer Equine Emergency Response Team worked alongside officers from the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation to save about 70 cows.

The executive director of the Humane Society of Sonoma County has been named director of the troubled Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation, ending a 18-month search. Dan C. Knapp, 38, will take over the $82,000-a-year post Jan. 1. He replaces Robert I. Rush, who resigned from the department in 1992 after 24 years.

A citizens coalition is seeking a court order that would force the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation to improve what the coalition calls poor care of impounded animals and overuse of euthanasia. "My 17-year-old blind and deaf dog wandered out of the yard in Studio City at approximately 1:30 p.m., was taken to the East Valley shelter, and was dead by the time I arrived at 3:30 p.m. to pick her up," one woman said in court papers.

A fake press release was sent out Monday claiming that the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation would be auctioning "pelts, horsehides and feathers" from euthanized animals--an apparent effort to influence a measure on the ballot today that would bring more citizen oversight to the department. The department's acting general manager, Elza A. Lee, said the city has no intention of auctioning off animal parts.

When the call came in the middle of the night of Feb. 24, the news was pretty bad, Teri Jones remembered. A tractor-trailer hauling 143 cattle had overturned on the Foothill Freeway in Sylmar. Over the next eight hours, Jones and her volunteer Equine Emergency Response Team worked alongside officers from the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation to save nearly 70 cows.

A canceled meeting of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation to discuss the city's ban on coyote trapping has been rescheduled for March 23, officials said Tuesday. The meeting of the department's board of commissioners will substitute for a Jan. 23 meeting that was canceled because the gathering site was damaged during the Jan. 17 Northridge quake. The rescheduled meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at Parkman Middle School, 20800 Burbank Blvd., Woodland Hills.

Citing the dire need for more animal control services in the east San Fernando Valley and South-Central Los Angeles, the city's top administrator recommended Monday adding two new shelters to a proposed November bond measure. The new shelters would double the number serving those areas and would increase the proposed $110-million bond proposal for animal services to about $150 million.

James T. Connelly, the judge, has just about had enough. Testimony has dragged on for days and there is no end to the legal wrestling, with each side challenging one arcane detail after another. Once again, Connelly interrupts the questioning of a witness. "I really don't understand the purpose of such excruciating details," he says, chastising the prosecutor. "We could go on forever. This hearing has to end sometime." The acrimony is typical of any fiercely fought trial.

Two years after authorizing a plan to implant identity microchips in pets, Los Angeles city officials have yet to implement the program--even though it could potentially save thousands of animals from being euthanized. The program, mandated by the City Council in January 1998, calls for electronically tagging all dogs and cats adopted from the city's six shelters.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas suggested Tuesday that the city establish a mandatory policy of spaying and neutering dogs and cats to reduce the public health and safety crisis from stray, injured and vicious dogs roaming the streets. In his proposal, Ridley-Thomas asked that the city's Department of Animal Regulation report on the feasibility of implementing a mandatory policy and how similar laws in other cities are faring.

In a setback for the veterinarian who examined Pal the pug, a judge Thursday threw out part of his lawsuit against Los Angeles animal regulation officials. The ruling that a search of the vet's office was legal leaves intact Dr. Mel vyn Richkind's defamation claims against the city, which are due for jury trial Monday. Richkind was the first veterinarian to examine the dog after its Encino owner found Pal near death, with much of his skin torn off in 1997.

People may still disagree over what killed Pal the pug, but this much is certain: The spirit of the Encino dog that died two years ago lives on and on--this time haunting a lawsuit by a veterinarian against the city of Los Angeles. Dr.

A Sonoma County animal-welfare official hired to rejuvenate the beleaguered Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation backed out of the job Friday, saying he was worried that the post might be eliminated by Mayor Richard Riordan to cut costs. Dan C. Knapp called city officials to say he will remain as executive director of the Humane Society of Sonoma County rather than risk the $82,000-a-year general manager's post here being eliminated.

Pet owners can have their dogs or cats vaccinated against rabies and other diseases at a series of clinics held in the Valley over the next two months. The Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation has scheduled the clinics at various recreation facilities. Rabies vaccinations cost $4 and others will range from $5 to $11. Dog licensing also will be provided at many of the clinics.

Los Angeles pet owners whose dogs or cats wander off may soon be able to turn to the Internet for help finding their beloved runaways. Councilman Joel Wachs introduced a motion Tuesday to put photographs of lost pets online. The images would be posted on the Department of Animal Regulation's Web site. The department currently posts lists of lost and stray animals in each of its six animal shelters.

The City Council has approved a new partnership between the city's Department of Animal Regulation and a PetSmart store in Reseda. In a deal that has been in the works for nearly a year, the Valley animal shelters will take over a viewing room at the store to display animals available for adoption. Officials hope to average three dog and three cat adoptions per day at the site and annually generate about $67,000 in animal sales and $10,500 in dog license revenue from the program.