Pet of the day By Ed Boks

LA Animal Services was recently recognized for its “transparency” by the Maddie’s Foundation.

In Animal Services’ continuing efforts to demonstrate transparency and work with the community to save lives, we are making available a link to our Pet of the Day feature.

If you click on the link below you will find an instruction page with a sample and the script to cut/paste into your own site.http://www.laanimalservices.com/petoftheday.htm

Please feel free to share this information with every animal friendly person and organization in town. The feature shows pictures of our animals along with information on where to go to adopt. Please help Animal Services save lives by making this function available on your website and every possible website in LA.

Thank you!
Ed Boks

Comparing California Oranges to the Big Apple by Ed Boks

In the autumn of 2005 I did what few department directors voluntarily do. I asked for a top to bottom City audit to be conducted on my former agency, Animal Care & Control of New York City.

I hoped the audit would point out to New York City leaders the need for more resources to be invested in the operation. The City had conducted a scathing audit in 2002 that led to my being recruited to NYC to help turn the situation around. After two years and a 130% increase in adoptions, formation of over 150 New Hope partnerships, and a 30% decline in the euthanasia rate, I felt it was time to assess our progress with a full understanding of our shortcomings.

We still needed help, and we simply were not getting it from New York City.

Consider NYC Animal Care & Control has a $7.2 million budget to serve 8.2 million people. NYC has three animal shelters that the City had to condemn and take away from the ASPCA to give to a newly formed under budgeted and understaffed animal control program. NYC AC&C staff wages are 40% below the national average and the City does little to nothing to address this issue each year. Both NYC and LA handle roughly the same number of animals each year.

NYC’s three shelters serve 8.2 million residents. Queens, the fifth largest city in the United States has no shelter at all, neither does the Bronx. Staff are forced to transport animals over vast areas to the three full service, albeit, dilapidated shelters.

Compare this to LA with a $20.2 million budget serving 3.9 million residents with eight new state of the art animal care centers soon to be opened throughout the City. These facilities will rival the finest humane animal shelters anywhere in the country. While NYC’s Animal Care & Control’s budget never comes up in the NYC budget process, we were able to increase LA’s Animal Services budget by 11.6% this coming budget year, with an additional $3.3 million for one time tenant improvement monies, not to even mention the $150 million bond funding for constructing the new facilities and their campuses.

Clearly LA leaders and residents understand the importance of animal welfare in a community.

I requested the audit before I left New York City to highlight the lack of animal compassion in that community and to focus on three significant needs: 1) the need for more and better facilities, 2) the need for more and better trained and paid staff, and 3) the need for an adequate budget to fund humane, non-lethal programs. This audit does all of that and just in time for the current contract negotiations when this information is most needed.

This audit is now available and I believe it did exactly what I’d hoped it would do: It showed we were making progress despite the dearth of funding and support, but that there was much remaining to be done. You can read about the audit in the New York Daily News coverage via the link below, and view the audit itself via the other link.

Three important programs were inexplicably terminated shortly after my departure from NYC, the results of which are reflected in the audit. One was the termination of our PR program which helped keep the needs of the agency in the public eye every day. The second was a nationally recognized Shelter Dog Training Program that trained one hundred volunteers at a time to train shelter dogs making them more adoptable. The third was the elimination of the development department whose mission was to help offset the City’s inability to pay for these programs by conducting its own fund raising, a program recommended by the City Comptroller in the 2002 audit.

It is my hope this recent audit will be used by the current administration as it was intended, to make a compelling argument for more resources to save lives!

Soon after my arrival in LA, I met with LA Comptroller Laura Chick to discuss a similar audit of LAAS. We are working out the details and timing for that process. Audits, when used properly, are merely a compass. They tell you how far you’ve come, where you are, and how far you yet have to go. I’m hoping we can begin this process in LA Animal Services soon.

Dog-Gone Cat-tastrophe Averted! by Ed Boks

The Daily News ran a great article on East Valley’s Dog-Gone Cat-tastrophe Adoptathon! The event ran from Friday, May 19 through Monday, May 22. Last year LAAS adopted 42 animals on the third weekend in May. This year, thanks to this promotion, adoptions were up 159%. 109 dogs and cats found loving homes from our East Valley Animal Care Center in North Hollywood.

Several radio and tv stations and newspapers came by to report on the event. The Daily News article follows:

Adoption options  Looking to adopt a pet? You should have checked out the Dog-Gone Cat-tastrophe Adoptathon last weekend at the East Valley Animal Shelter in North Hollywood. 

Missed it? No worries. The Los Angeles Animal Services Department now keeps city shelters open on weekends. 

The schedule makes sense: Most would-be pet owners can’t make it to shelters during the week. They have jobs; their kids have school. Opening up the shelters on weekends helps facilitate adoptions, which is good for the animals, the owners and the city alike. It should also help to cut down on the number of animals euthanized at city shelters. 

For more information, check out LAAS’ Web site (http://www.laanimalservices.com/).

LAAS wants to thank the media, the public, and our wonderful partners for the overwhelming response to this pressing need! Thanks to the public’s response to LAAS’ needy animals LA’s euthanasia rate has been reduced over 30% compared to the same time period in 2005! All stats are on the LAAS website.

But the crisis is far from over. LAAS is still rescuing over 100 lost and homeless dogs and cats every day! Please help get the word out that there are many wonderful pets waiting to lavish unconditional love in return for a home. Please visit our website or any one of our six Animal Care Centers.

The best of times are before us By Ed Boks

The following are Ed Boks’ comments to the Public Safety Committee on Monday, April 17, 2006:

Good Morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee,

I could easily begin this address on the state of Animal Services in Los Angeles by paraphrasing Charles Dickens, who said we live in the best of times and the worst of times.

Beginning in July of this year the City plans to open one new state of the art Animal Care Center every month for six consecutive months. These new Animal Care Centers clearly demonstrate the City’s commitment to animal welfare in Los Angeles. They will forever end the “dog pound” image of yesteryear as they provide every section of Los Angeles with a pleasant, green, humane Community Animal Care Center where we will be able to educate residents of all ages on the intrinsic value and benefits of the human/animal bond through a variety of interactive programs. These Centers will also serve as “the” pet Adoption Centers of choice for all Angelinos as well as for residents in surrounding communities.

I want to thank both the Mayor’s Office and the CAO for working so closely with Animal Services to help ensure we have an adequate budget to operate our new Animal Care Centers and Spay/Neuter Clinics in a manner that will meet community expectations. The new Animal Care Centers will require the hiring over 161 new employees to handle the over 300% increase in workload.

This is an unprecedented, yet appropriate, rate of Departmental growth in response to our community’s growing service delivery expectations. Meeting this growing service demand will be difficult. We have two spay/neuter clinics that have been sitting idle for years; soon we will have seven clinics and eventually eight that we want to see fully functional. We are now working closely with the Mayor’s Office, the CAO, Personnel, the Unions and the community to help address this most critical challenge.

Consistent with our new Animal Care Centers and enhanced service delivery programs, Animal Services has renewed its commitment to our community’s expectation to end euthanasia as a means to control pet overpopulation. A goal that some may still think impossible, not unlike what many people must have thought about putting a man on the moon in the 1960s. As a result of renewing this goal, animal welfare communities across the United State are now watching what we do here in Los Angeles; and none more closely than our own.

Like the early space program Animal Services may experience some unfortunate situations, errors in judgement and some confusion over consistent implementation of new policies and programs in all our locations. Change is difficult. Some find change coming too fast, others find it coming too slow. Some may point to isolated situations as evidence that nothing is changing at all. I contend they are evidence of substantive changes and growing pains.

I will not minimize our shortcomings or mistakes. We readily admit them. Every allegation against Animal Services is thoroughly investigated, and with City Attorney approval, we hope to post the results of investigations on our website for all to see. We make no claim to be perfect. Far from it! It is my hope that as we freely identify our shortcomings and needs the community will respond with the same compassion they demand of us, and will choose to help us, not condemn us.

Achieving No-Kill is not an easy task. Animal Services is an organization learning to walk and chew gum at the same time. We are developing programs and policies that are both tactical and strategic, that deal with both animal care and animal control.

Our greatest needs are sometimes revealed by an unfortunate incident or a misunderstanding about an incident. We use these opportunities to review our systems and processes to discover how and why errors occur in an effort to ensure the same mistakes are not repeated. We attempt to correct the problems we encounter at their source; we want to address the causes, but we will not ignore the symptoms.

Some in the community are amazed at the rate of change Animal Services has experienced in so short a time frame, others are unsatisfied and impatient. Some understand the difficulties we have to overcome, while others may have unrealistic expectations. Animal Services may never be able to please everyone all the time. But we are pleasing more and more people every day. We are focused on systemic changes that mitigate customer dissatisfaction and frustration while providing better treatment and conditions for our animals.

During the first 100 days of this year we developed a new mission, vision and set of organizational values. We are reviewing policies and protocols and developing and implementing new programs designed to reduce euthanasia and increase adoptions.

As we deal with each tactical “crisis” that comes our way we are determined to remain focused on our strategic No-Kill goal. As we progress, we will eventually transition out of the crisis management mode that has stymied this department for so many years and shift into more effectively addressing the root causes of pet overpopulation and irresponsible pet ownership. These combined problems are at the root of why we are unable to achieve No-Kill immediately.

Some will ask if No-Kill is an achievable goal. Well, the evidence suggests that Animal Services is at least moving in the right direction. During the first quarter of 2006 Dog and Cat Adoptions were up 9.36% compared to the first quarter of 2005. That represents 3,248 dogs and cats placed into loving homes in three months. That is the highest first quarter adoption rate ever recorded by Animal Services.

Dog and Cat Euthanasia was down 37% compared to the same quarter last year. That represents 2,091 euthanasias in three months. Too many to be sure, but it is still the lowest quarterly euthanasia rate ever recorded in Los Angeles.

Part of this success is due to the our aggressive spay/neuter programs including Animal Services’ spay/neuter voucher programs that pre-existed my tenure. We recently reorganized all our spay/neuter efforts under the program name The Big Fix, a name that recognizes that spay/neuter programs are the only way to truly and finally “fix” the vexing problems arising from pet overpopulation. The brand name “Big Fix” was coined by Best Friends Animal Society in Utah, and we use it with their kind permission.

As a result of our community’s combined spay/neuter efforts, Dog and Cat Intakes were down nearly 14% during the last quarter compared to the same quarter in 05! Animal Services has experienced a 24% decrease in intakes over the past five years.

This decrease is a direct result of the City’s Council commitment of $1 million annually to our spay/neuter programs. Money being well spent as Animal Services has seen a 35% increase in our voucher subsidized spay/neuter surgeries so far in Fiscal Year 06 compared to the same time period in Fiscal Year 05. We have also seen a 50% increase in Feral Cat surgeries during this same time frame.

Animal Services’ is also thankful for the incredible efforts of the Amanda Foundation, the Sam Simon Foundation, Best Friends’ Catnippers, The Feral Cat Coalition, the ABC Spay/Neuter Clinic, and so many more! The tens of thousands of surgeries occurring each year over the last several years by so many wonderful organizations have been instrumental in the declining intake and kill rates in the City of Los Angeles.

Another reason for the lower euthanasia rate this past quarter is a new program Animal Services implemented called Plus One/Minus One. This program compares the adoptions and euthanasia rates of dogs and cats on a day-to-day basis to last year; comparing the first Monday of March 05 to the first Monday of March 06, the first Tuesday of March 05 to the first Tuesday of March 06, etc.Plus One/Minus One is designed to encourage staff, volunteers, and partners to place more animals and kill fewer animals each day compared to the same day one year previous.

The Plus One/Minus One program is a motivational and productivity tool that works on a day to day level. Clearly, sustaining these results over time is the bigger challenge. That is why Animal Services is reaching out to partner with every animal welfare organization and other City Departments in an unprecedented way.

Another reason for our declining euthanasia rate is that Animal Services has one of the highest success rates in the country for returning lost pets to their frantic owners, a rate four times higher than other large cities. Animal Services returns over 4,500 lost dogs and cats to their grateful owners each year. This is due largely to our extensive microchip program, and to a lesser extent to our dog license program, which has a long way to go before it will achieve the market penetration required to make it a fully effective animal management tool.

Animal Services recently developed a partnership with the Department of Water and Power to help identify households with aggressive, unlicensed dogs. DWP tracks this information to help protect their meter readers. Sharing this information with Animal Services makes good public safety sense. I want to thank my excellent Board of Animal Services Commissioners for this and so many other great ideas.

Animal Services is also coordinating with other City Departments and community organizations on a program that will effectively address our community’s most troubled neighborhoods, areas where dogs run at large and sometimes in packs. I will keep the Committee informed as the plans for this program are formalized.

Another reason for the reduced euthanasia rate during the past 100 days is that Animal Services doubled its off-site adoption and special event efforts resulting in 661 adoptions compared to 224 during the same time frame last year. We increased our off site adoption events from 15 to 29 and we are continually looking for new venues to increase our off site adoption efforts even further. We recently developed another powerful partnership with the Department of Recreation and Parksso that we will now be working more closely together on more pet adoption events in our City’s parks!

I also want to thank Councilman Herb Wesson for his Pet of the Month Program that highlights Animal Services’ animals at City Council Meetings. This program is another demonstration of the City Council’s support of Animal Services’ efforts to increase adoptions and reduce euthanasia. Every animal featured at a City Council meeting is now in a loving home! This program draws tremendous attention to the quality animals available at Animal Services as it challenges the community to save a life and adopt a pet.

As Animal Services continues to respond to the needs, concerns, complaints, and compliments of the community we serve, we are determined to keep our eye on the ball! Will Animal Services continue to be challenged with our own shortcomings? Yes, we see this nearly every day. People may be frustrated with what they perceive to be the slowness of our progress. But it took Los Angeles a long time to get into its current situation and it will take at least a little time to turn this situation around.

But we are turning it around. Over the past five years, under four different General Managers and despite well-publicized occasional friction between the department and its critics in the community, Animal Services reduced dog and cat euthanasia 46%. Animal Services significantly reduced dog and cat euthanasia every year since 2002 (18%); 2003 (10%); 2004 (17%); and 2005 (11%). And with a 37% decrease in the first quarter of 06, we are demonstrating that Animal Services is doing everything we can to step up the pace.

But it is important to understand that Animal Services cannot do this alone. We need the help of the entire community. Animal Services invites our community’s concerned residents to help make Los Angeles a No-Kill City by joining Animal Services’ Volunteer Program, Foster Care Program, or our Mobile Adoption Program.

I also invite all active animal rescue organizations to directly partner with Animal Services in our soon to be launched New Hope program, a program designed to make it as easy as possible to release animals to partnering organizations. The program is being officially unveiled at a public meeting in Studio City on April 25th.

Working together as a community we can make Los Angeles the safest city in the United States for our pets and our people. Animal Services is deeply committed to achieving the ultimate goal of ending institutional euthanasia as a method for controlling pet overpopulation! Many individuals and groups have already stepped up to help Animal Services and I look forward to working with all concerned members of the community toward that end. I especially want to thank this Committee for your continued support! Thank you.

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.

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!

New York Times profiles Edward Boks

PUBLIC LIVES; Saving Animals Is Ex-Pastor’s New Mission by Nora Krug Nov, 26, 2003

Ed Boks and Today Show
Edward Boks on the Today Show

A MILD allergy to cats does not keep Edward Boks from playing with kittens — or from working with hundreds of them as the new executive director of the nonprofit organization that handles most animal care and control for New York City.

In July, Mr. Boks (rhymes with ”cloaks”), a soft-spoken former pastor, came to New York from Maricopa County, Ariz., to take over the agency, New York City Animal Care and Control, which he says is in dire need of reform.

In June 2002, a scathing report by the city’s comptroller’s office concluded that agency, under a previous name, had failed to provide humane conditions for the animals in its shelters.

Mr. Boks’s plan to solve the problem centers on an ambitious agenda: to drastically cut the number of animals that are euthanized, and even turn the organization’s five shelters into ”no-kill communities” over the next five years. That does not mean, he is quick to point out, that no animals would be euthanized. Rather, it is a philosophical shift.

”The best definition of no-kill is to get to the place where we use the same criteria in deciding whether or not to euthanize a shelter animal as we use when deciding whether or not to euthanize our own pet — when it is a loving decision and not a pragmatic decision based on whether we have enough space,” he explains.

Continue reading “New York Times profiles Edward Boks”