To the editor: As a powerful advocate for shelter animals, I consider that nothing will change till there’s efficient management in Los Angeles. I refuse to attend for the system to repair itself as a result of, within the meantime, harmless, pleasant, wholesome animals die. (“Head of troubled L.A. Animal Services steps down amid high euthanasia rates, overcrowding,” Dec. 2)
Due to this fact, I’m proposing concrete steps that members of the general public can take to avoid wasting extra animals.
- Take into account adoption over buy. Yow will discover nearly any breed at a shelter or breed-specific rescue.
- Don’t breed canines, and spay or neuter your pets. We can not work our means out of pet overpopulation with extra canines and cats being born day by day.
- Take into account fostering from a rescue group or a shelter. Rescues are overwhelmed and can’t pull canines from shelters if there are not any fosters. Even a number of days or even weeks will preserve an animal alive.
- Take a shelter canine out for a day hike or dwelling for the weekend. This reduces stress and makes them extra adoptable.
- Volunteer at a shelter or rescue. Volunteers are those who stroll the canines, present love and assist get them adopted.
- Contact your native council member, attend metropolis council conferences and voice your complaints. We’re all taxpayers and mustn’t tolerate funding the mistreatment or killing of adoptable pets.
Melissa Klaskin, Los Angeles
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To the editor: The actual trigger for concern at Los Angeles Animal Providers, or LAAS, isn’t euthanasia. It’s the nonexistent high quality of life for animals who’re warehoused in filthy, crowded circumstances for months on finish and the routine and reckless practices of turning away animals and failing to answer emergencies.
These points predated former LAAS Normal Supervisor Staycee Dains’ tenure, and her resignation gained’t clear up them.
Mayor Karen Bass has didn’t take significant motion regardless of urging and provides of assist from native teams. She should now appoint a supervisor who will prioritize animals’ high quality of life (not “live-release” numbers), preserve shelters’ doorways open to all, see that each name for assistance is promptly dealt with, make sure the moratorium on yard canine breeding is vigorously enforced and drop the dishonest “no-kill” rhetoric that created this catastrophe.
In any other case, animals will preserve struggling by the hands of the company that needs to be defending them.
Lisa Lange, Los Angeles
The author is senior vice chairman of communications for Folks for the Moral Therapy of Animals.
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To the editor: The phrase “euthanasia” shouldn’t be used to explain the deaths of wholesome and adoptable shelter animals, because it implies a compassionate act. As a longtime shelter volunteer and canine rescuer, I consider it’s extra correct to say these animals are being killed.
Years in the past, it was obligatory for shelter workers and volunteers to cross an internet course on find out how to handle and cut back the emotions of concern, nervousness and stress, or FAS, in canines. Seasoned volunteers had been usually profitable in serving to these canines, and plenty of had been adopted or rescued.
However underneath Dains’ management, many canines with FAS had been seen as harmful or struggling. Canines had been unfairly labeled with behavioral points, resulting in many being added to the kill listing.
Dains has left, however her insurance policies perpetuate the labeling of “rescue-only” canines. This has dire penalties, as volunteers are prevented from serving to these animals, resulting in the pointless deaths of many younger and wholesome pets.
Granted, shelters battle with extra pets coming in than leaving. Consequently, the variety of harmless pets being killed is on the rise, which is a tragic actuality.
Sherry Brewer, Sherman Oaks
