My Response to Kathy Davis Sent to Council

Kathy,

Yes Kathy, there has been improvement in adoptions by 4.000 cats and dogs over last year period of 12 months.

BUT, New Hope adoptions are down by 1,000 from last year through June. In fact, this is the lowest number of animals adopted by rescue groups in five years.

This is not a claim for success.

The Returned to Owner number is up by about 8.5% over last year, but is no improvement at all over five years ago, despite all the microchipping. We are not returning more animals to their owners.

This is no claim to improvement.

Euthanasia for dogs and cats is up a horrible 4,000 compared to last year, and is the worst kill year in the last four years, and the second worst in five years. In fact, the past 12 months were not the third largest kill year. Only one year was worse according to your posted stats, July through June, 2004-2005. http://laanimalservices.org/PDF/reports/CatNDogIntakeNOutcomes.pdf

This is no claim to improvement.

The number of animals that have died in the shelter from disease and fighting/injuries is down a 25% from last year, but last year was the worst on record. In fact, every one of the other past four years had fewer deaths from disease and injury, despite now having a staff of six vets. Only last year was worse.

Also, despite more spay/neuter certificates and in-house spay/neuter surgeries than ever before, the numbers of animals impounded, including feral cats has risen dramatically, by almost 10,000 animals compared to two and three years ago.

One cannot claim the spay/neuter program has helped reduce impounds unless you have data that most of the increased number was owner turn-ins.

In fact, the only category where Animal Services has been doing better is adoptions; all the other statitical disposition categories are notices of failure.

Even New York City has moved ahead of Los Angeles when they had been trailing in performance for years.

Last year was horrible in terms of animals dying, and this year it is worse. Te actual live save rate is dropping.

The nutty five year plan posted by Ed Boks addresses none of these failures or even acknowledges the problems. The system is failing.