Tag: New Hope

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What’s new at LA Animal Services? by Ed Boks

Have you seen what’s new on the LAAS Website?www.laanimalservices.com 

You can now translate the website into nine different languages.

There is a new Blog below on the cruelty of tethering called, “Chains of Love or Abuse”.

The New Hope Program scheduled to roll out within the next month or so is described. The document on line is just to help the rescue groups get acquainted with the program. LAAS will have a public meeting to explain the program in detail within the next couple of weeks. The program will not be implemented until after the public meeting.

A report on Operation FELIX (Feral Education and Love Instead of X-termination) is now on line for your information. It details why TNR (Trap/Neuter/Return) is the only viable, humane, non-lethal method for effectively reducing the feral cat population in any community or location.

My position on many common sense approaches to humane animal care on a community wide level is also available under GM’s Position Statements.

Also read about Patrick, the Irish Setter mix, adopted by a member of the Mayor’s Office at a City Council meeting on St. Patrick’s Day!

And much more.

Also, don’t forget to check out Dana Bartholomew’s new article on LAAS in The Daily News.

Euthanasia for dogs and cats in January 2006 was down 25%, and down 33% in February, and we are on track to reduce euthanasia 40% in March (its at 39.79% as of this writing on March 24th) compared to the same months in 2005. Stay tuned!

Please consider being a life saving Foster mom or dad this puppy and kitten season. More info on our enhanced Foster Program coming soon or contact our volunteer Department for an update.

Together we can make LA the safest City in the US for our pets!

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New Hope comes to Los Angeles by Ed Boks

LAAS is preparing to ask our Commission for permission to implement an exciting and innovative life saving program called “New Hope”.

In every community there are dozens, if not hundreds, of wonderful rescue organizations willing to rescue animals at risk of euthanasia. These organizations often rely on donations and grants to continue their great work and they are often staffed by the most dedicated and committed volunteers.

Because there are so many wanting to do so much with so little it is imperative that we all do all we can to maximize our limited resources. New Hope will help us do that!

A New Hope Committee was established by the LAAS Commission. The Committee is representative of the rescue community. Together the committee is developing a draft of its proposal to the Commission for the implementation of the New Hope Program. The LAAS New Hope progam is modeled after the successful New Hope Programs in Arizona and New York City. In those communities this program was, and continues to be, responsible for helping increase live releases dramatically. With the input of the local community, we are hopeful of similar, if not superior, results in LA!

Some of the features of the New Hope Program includes 24/7 accessto all New Hope partners to all LAAS shelters.

Each shelter has a designated New Hope Coordinator trained to provide the very best customer service to our New Hope partners.

Each New Hope partner will receive, upon request, a daily New Hope Alert by e-mail providing the pictures, descriptions, and other details and location of every animal in need of their help.

New Hope partners will be able to contact LAAS by special “hot lines”in each shelter to let the respective New Hope Coordinator know if they can help an animal. The New Hope Cooridator will immediately remove the animal(s) from the New Hope Alert and then work with the partner to place the animal as quickly as possible.

When necessary, and as resourses are available, LAAS may even transport the animal for the New Hope partner having difficulty making these arrangements for themselves. LAAS will take the lead in developing a grant proposal with our New Hope Partners for designated New Hope Vans to faciliate quick and humane transfer of animals.

As the New Hope Partnership comes together it is our hope we will be able to collaborate on many life saving grant proposals.

Every New Hope partner, upon request, will recieve a sophisticated, yet simple to use software package to help them manage the animals in their care. This software was developed by HLP Chameleon and is being generously donated to our New Hope partners. This software will provide the smallest to the largest rescue groups with the same level of animal management functionality used by over 350 of the largest shelters in the United States! I am deeply grateful for HLP’s continued and generous commitment to help shelters achieve no-kill.

Many more benefits are being discussed by the Committee in the hope that the LA New Hope Program will be as functional and as supportive as possible to our partners helping save lives. A fee schedule has not been determined, but New Hope Partners are not expected to pay any more than they currently do.

The purpose of the New Hope program is to eliminate all obstacles that prevent the rapid evacuation of the animals most at risk of euthanasia.

Of course, New Hope partners are not restricted to saving animals only from the New Hope Alert, but it is our hope they will focus at least some of their attention and resources to these animals first. These will be real rescues in the truest sense of the word!

Please stay tuned as this program is being developed. All our current partners will be notified when the program has been approved and these New Hope life saving tools are made available.

In closing I want to comment on a recent change in LAAS’ organizational structure. The most basic premise of management theory is to break large jobs down into managable junks. To help expedite the implementation of programs like New Hope, not to mention several other programs we are very excited about, I have created a new department called Shelter Operations. I have selected Nancy Moriarty to serve as our new Director of Shelter Operations. Please help me in thanking Nancy for taking on this responsibility by supporting her efforts to improve and enhance our shelter processes and protocols.

Nancy is now in charge of all LAAS shelters. David Dilberto will continue to manage Field Opeations, and Dr. Rainey is overseeing the Medical Program. This division of labor will help enhance LAAS’ ability to better respond to the concerns, suggestions, and offers to help from our community.

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No Kill by the numbers by Ed Boks

Well, if nothing else, perhaps my opening remarks to the LA animal welfare community will serve as a catalyst to bring to light some of the festering issues that may be preventing us from working together. One such issue it seems is the numbers reported by LAAS.

I was forwarded an e-mail from a person offended by my February 9th speech who also took issue with LAAS’ numbers. Here is what this person had to say, (in italics), and my response will follow:

“Those of you who’ve taken a few moments away from being dysfunctional (I’m being sarcastic for you sensitive types) in saving the lives ofanimals and been able to review Mr. Boks’ blog may have run across this crushing example from the speech he made…

‘Right here in Los Angeles we live with a Katrina like disaster everyday. But because our disaster has so blended into the backdrop of most people’s everyday lives no one outside of this room seems to notice. And we’re so busy fighting among ourselves that no one is likely to notice any time soon. Let me give you just one example of how our collective dysfunction is affecting the animals in LA. The number of animals rescued from LAAS by our rescue partners in January 06 compared to January 05 is down 24%.’

http://www.lacity.org/ANI/Statistics.htm

Now I have to admit, there’s little credibility to the statistics published on the LAAS website but it’s interesting to see the difference in what Mr. Boks is saying and what is being reported. (The following statistics are from the LAAS website.) 

New Hope Adoption Totals (rescue partners)
Jan 05 = 517 Jan 06 = 749
Up by 44.9%

Adoptions (other rescues? and shelter adoptions)
Jan 05 = 1085 Jan 06 = 1243
Up by 14.6%

Euthanasia 
Jan 05 = 1092 Jan 06 = 981
Down by 10.2%” End Quote

First, let me apologize to anyone offended by any of my comments on February 9th. But I do hope we are all agreed that the number of animals dying in LA is a local disaster. My only point is, and has been, that it is a disaster we can better address by working together.

I can understand the confusion of the author of the e-mail above. LAAS recently implemented a new program called Plus One/Minus One. This program compares the adoptions, New Hopes and euthanasia rates of dogs and cats only on a day to day basis to last year. This means the reporting period for January 05 is actually 1.2.2005 through 2.1.2005 to accomodate the shift in days between the two years.

Plus One/Minus One is an internal program designed to encourage staff, volunteers, and partners to place more animals and kill fewer animals every day compared to the same day (not date) as last year. These statistics more accurately compare apples to apples, whereas the monthly stats refered to above compare calendar months, but not in any direct analytical way. In addition, the stats referred to above include rabbits, and all wild and exotic animals and pocket pets. The Plus One/Minus One numbers I quoted in my speech refer only to dogs and cats.

LAAS is in the process of improving the ways we compile and report our statistics to make them more useful and meaningful for both staff and the public. Since we just started this process in January we will be refining our processes over the next few months.

The numbers for dogs and cats I referred to in my speech came from the following report:

New Hope Adoptions
Jan 05 = 396 Jan 06 = 301
Down 23.99%

Adoptions
Jan 05 = 1064 Jan 06 = 1101
Up 3.48%

Euthanasia
Jan 05 = 997 Jan 06 = 744
Down 25.38%

A more thorough breakdown comparing dogs and cats separately can be found on our website.

However, the New Hope number I referred to in my speech is not accurate. Because our query asked for all the New Hope Adoptions it only pulled up those placements resulting in an adoption transaction. LAAS often waives fees to partners in the interest of getting animals at risk into a safe haven as quickly as possible. This means that sometimes there is no transaction fee. New Hope placements without a transaction fee were not reflected in the original query. So we changed the query to include all New Hope Placements with adoptions fees and otherwise. When we re-ran the report to include all New Hope Placements the results are as follows:

New Hope Placements
Jan 05 = 431 Jan 06 = 380
Down 11.8%

Certainly not as bad as I reported in my speech, and I apologize for this mistake, but regardless of which report you refer to, my only point was, imagine what we could do to improve these numbers if we were only working more closely together.

Nobody at LAAS claims to be perfect. We are doing the best we can. Do we need help? Yes, of course we do. I trust the numbers we are reporting. However, I would like to invite the author of the e-mail above, along with anyone else interested in finding out more about how we collect and report our data, to schedule an appointment to visit with me and our IT team to talk about your concerns. Just contact my office and ask that your name be added to the list and we will schedule you for a visit with us.

I know we all agree that having numbers we can all trust is an essential step to achieving no-kill and we will do our best to restore that trust. All we ask is that the community work with us.
Thanks!