Its time to consider targeted pit bull spay/neuter programs by Ed Boks

Ed Boks and Henry Kleinhans
Henry Kleinhans was mauled to death by his own pit bull. Picture: Solly Lottering

Over the course of my career I may have been responsible for safely placing more pit bulls into loving homes than any other person in the United States.

I have long been troubled by the fact that no dog in history encounters more misunderstanding and vilification than the pit bull; a canine category I define as the American pit bull terrier, the American Staffordshire terrier, the Staffordshire bull terrier, and any crosses of these three. I admire these animals for their tenacious athletic ability, loyalty, intelligence, and high-energy.

Word reached me this morning that Henry Kleynhans, 50, a retired police officer was fatally mauled on February 8, 2018, and his wife Rita was critically injured, by their own pit bull in their home at Belmont Park, Kraaifontein, South Africa. Continue reading “Its time to consider targeted pit bull spay/neuter programs by Ed Boks”

Beat the Heat by Ed Boks

Ed Boks and spay/neuterFebruary is National Spay/Neuter Awareness month. Awareness can sometimes be uncomfortable. For instance, are you aware that 2.7 million dogs and cats are killed in American animal shelters every year? Are you aware that many of these deaths are unnecessary? Are you aware that few societal problems are easier to solve than pet overpopulation?

It’s true. While most of us say we understand the importance of spay/neuter programs, too many of us still find excuses to not spay/neuter our own pets. This inaction often directly contributes to the 2.7 million deaths in American animal shelters every year.

Let me try to illustrate the scope of the problem. Imagine 7,776 beans in a jar. This is the number of offspring a single un-spayed dog can produce in five-years.

That’s right, one un-spayed dog and her offspring can produce over 7,776 puppies in just five years (calculating six female puppies per litter bred every 12 months).

This awareness helps us understand how easily pet overpopulation can get out of hand. The reason more than 2.7 million cats and dogs are euthanized in shelters each year is due to our reluctance to have our own pets spayed or neutered.

The Yavapai Humane Society (YHS) urges pet guardians to do the right thing – get your dog or cat fixed. To help encourage you to make this life-saving decision, let me help you overcome some of the reasons used for not making the life-affirming decision that directly helps solve the pet overpopulation problem in our community.

Are you aware of the many benefits a spayed or neutered pet enjoys? Spay/Neuter neutralizes the many bothersome behaviors of pets in heat, such as howling, spraying, fighting, and the urge to roam and the risk of getting lost.

Are you aware that spay/neuter surgery helps keep your pet healthier? A spayed or neutered pet is protected from certain cancers. Are you aware that, according to a USA Today report, a neutered dog lives 18 percent longer than an un-neutered dog? And a spayed dog lives 23 percent longer than an un-spayed dog. This reason alone makes spay/neuter a no-brainer.

Were you aware that having your pet spayed or neutered could result in so much good?

Another reason a pet guardian might choose to not have their pets spayed or neutered is the cost. But are you aware of the very low cost of spay/neuter at the YHS Spay/Neuter Clinic?

And when you schedule an appointment in National Spay/Neuter Awareness month you will receive an additional 20 percent off our already low cost to have your pet spayed or neutered.

Call the YHS Spay/Neuter & Wellness Clinic today to schedule an appointment in February. Low-cost spay/neuter surgery is offered by appointment Tuesdays through Thursdays all year round. When you call, ask if you might qualify for a free spay/neuter surgery through the YHS Big Fix program.

Ed Boks and Beat the HeatFebruary is our one chance each year to “beat the heat” and reduce the number of pets able to multiply the number of shelter pet deaths throughout the rest of the year.

There are few societal problems easier to fix than this one. All you have to do is pick up the phone to schedule your pet’s appointment, thereby helping to save lives and solve this problem. Beat the heat; call before the puppy and kitten season. Schedule an appointment in February and you not only save lives, you save 20 percent off our already low prices!

Spay/neuter donations reduce animal homelessness by Ed Boks

Ed Boks and the Big Fix
The YHS Spay/Neuter Clinic staff are ready to serve you and your pets!

The Yavapai Humane Society (YHS) Spay/Neuter & Wellness Clinic in Prescott, will celebrate its fourth anniversary on Sept. 17 – and this facility has given our entire community tremendous cause to celebrate.

During the decades before opening this clinic, our community rounded up nearly 6,000 lost and homeless animals annually – and then struggled to “re-home” them. We were often forced to euthanize nearly half just to make space for the constant flow of incoming animals.

In less than three years, the number of lost and homeless animals rescued annually in our community declined 45 percent (from 5,887 to 3,254), and the number of animals euthanized each year plummeted 92 percent, from 1,602 to 133.

The importance of the YHS Spay/Neuter Clinic may be better understood by drawing on the following analogy. Imagine a large broken water pipe flooding your basement. It would be silly to run down into the basement to start mopping up the mess without first turning off the water. However, that was precisely what our community did for decades prior to September 2009.

From the day the YHS Spay/Neuter Clinic opened its doors, it has been turning the water off and helping establish our community among the safest in the nation for pets.

The quality care provided by the YHS Spay/Neuter Clinic is second to none and was nationally recognized with the prestigious Humane Alliance Certification in February.

In celebration of its fourth anniversary, the YHS Spay/Neuter Clinic is making a commitment through its Big Fix program to deny no pet spay/neuter services just because the pet’s guardian can’t afford it.

The YHS Big Fix program provides free and low-cost spay/neuter services to pets belonging to owners who meet certain income criteria. In addition, pets belonging to active-duty military and all military veterans pre-qualify for free spay/neuter services.

This is an enormous commitment, and YHS will need your help to keep it. The good news is we are not alone. Petsmart Charities recently committed to help YHS by granting YHS enough funds to offset the cost of 1,200 spay/neuter surgeries. The grant is restricted to dogs residing in Prescott Valley, Dewey/Humboldt and Mayer, and dog owners must meet certain income eligibility criteria. Call the YHS Spay/Neuter & Wellness Clinic to see if you qualify.

If this program proves successful, Petsmart Charities may include cats in future grants.

What about all the pets residing in the many other regions of our community, including the City of Prescott? To meet this need, YHS is partnering with another foundation that wishes to remain anonymous. This foundation is challenging our community to match a $15,000 gift to the YHS Big Fix spay/neuter program.

This challenge gift means your tax-deductible donation will be twice as effective in helping YHS turn the supply of unwanted pets off once and for all. If we can meet this challenge, YHS will have $30,000 to help our community’s most at-risk pets’ access this life-saving service.

YHS envisions the day when every pet born has a good home and is well cared for all its life.

When you make a donation of any size to the YHS Big Fix program during this challenge, you can double your impact in making this future vision our reality today.

Big Fix donations can be made online or by mail.

New Hope for YHS pets by Ed Boks

Ed Boks and cat
YHS is featuring the colorful Felines of Fall. Trina is sweeter than honey; she is gorgeous, affectionate, quiet, and loves to be brushed. Her favorite pastime is lap-sitting and being adorable. All YHS cats are spayed or neutered, vaccinated and micro-chipped and are available for “Pick Your Price.”

This Thanksgiving the Yavapai Humane Society (YHS) is thankful to all our volunteers, supporters and partners. Every one of you plays a crucial role in solving our community’s pet overpopulation problems.

With a live release rate of 95 percent some might be fooled into thinking these problems are already solved. But they are not; and that is why I am also grateful to our New Hope partners.

The New Hope program is how YHS cooperates with and supports the efforts of partner animal rescue organizations in our shared vision to find homes for our community’s homeless pets.

YHS rescues around 3,500 homeless animals each year. When YHS is unable to find a loving home for one of our animals we call upon our New Hope partners for an assist. YHS partners with 58 New Hope organizations throughout the southwest in our effort to find every animal a loving home.

In the past twelve months ending in October, our New Hope partners saved the lives of 237 animals; that’s 6 percent of all the animals rescued by YHS. The top five New Hope organizations assisting YHS in its life-saving mission are Miss Kitty’s Cat House in Prescott (20), Second Chance Center in Flagstaff (17), Dewey Dog Rescue (16), Arizona Chihuahua Rescue in Phoenix (15), and Ark Cat Sanctuary in Flagstaff (14). YHS appreciates all our partners who help to place our local homeless animals into loving homes.

The New Hope program recently expanded exponentially thanks to Todd Underwood, a commercial pilot, who generously volunteers to airlift YHS animals to out of state partner shelters and sanctuaries.

Pet overpopulation is an expensive societal problem requiring a coordinated community response; and our local response is a tribute to our community.

Another solution to pet overpopulation is adoption. When you adopt from YHS you directly save the life of a local homeless pet who is altered and will never contribute to this problem. Sadly, some local rescues prefer to import and adopt animals from other communities. YHS feels strongly that we owe it to our community’s homeless pets to fix the problem here before compounding it by bringing animals in from outside communities.

Of course, the easiest and most cost efficient fix is for every pet owner to have their pet(s) spayed or neutered. When pet owners demonstrate this level of responsibility we’ll be able to solve the pet overpopulation problem within two to three years. That’s why I will ask the City of Prescott, Prescott Valley and Yavapai County to allocate funds to the YHS Big Fix program next year. Big Fix provides spay/neuter to pets belonging to our community’s indigent population for just a $25 co-pay. Studies have found that for every tax dollar invested in spay/neuter programs $20 is saved in animal control costs over ten years.

Low-cost spay/neuter is especially important for our community (feral) cats. This year YHS rescued kittens every month instead of just in the typical spring “kitten season.” This suggests our community is experiencing a serious cat population explosion.

To make sure affordable spay/neuter services are available to every pet in our community, YHS operates the low cost Spay/Neuter and Wellness Clinic. You can schedule an appointment for your pet today and help end the killing of unwanted pets.

In closing, a special thank you to every pet owner who spayed or neutered their pet(s); every person and family who adopted a pet from YHS; and every New Hope partner who re-homed a YHS pet. Each of you is directly helping transform our community into a truly humane society.

The Big Fix by Ed Boks

Ed Boks and The Big FixOur motto at the Yavapai Humane Society is “Every Animal Counts.” We work hard to live up to that because we know that lost, homeless, abused and neglected animals count on YHS to intervene and reverse their plight.

Unfortunately, we can’t save them all – at least not without broad community support. Too often, and for too many animals, our limited resources become exhausted and we are forced to make the difficult decision to take the life of an animal before their time.

The good news is that euthanasia at YHS is down drastically! Following a recent change in YHS leadership and policy, the killing was reduced 42.23 percent when compared to the same period last year. Remarkably, this was accomplished despite a 3 percent increase in the number of animals taken in during this same period.

Some believe that killing shelter animals is the unavoidable by-product of providing efficient municipal services to residents. But these pragmatists might consider a state of Minnesota Legislative report, which found that for each dollar invested in spay/neuter programs, $20 in animal control costs could be saved over 10 years.

People who excuse euthanasia in shelters often say we have to be “realistic,” but such realism is best directed at the sources of the problem. Effective spay/neuter programs to assist pet owners who are poor, elderly on a fixed income, or living in remote or underserved areas is a far better use of public and private funding than catching and killing lost and homeless pets.

YHS is engaged in a quest to achieve “no-kill.” No-kill is defined as consistently applying the same criteria a loving pet owner or compassionate veterinarian would use to determine if or when to euthanize a shelter animal. That is, no healthy or treatable animal would be killed simply because of a lack of shelter space or resources.

To help orchestrate a more strategic no-kill effort, YHS is announcing a community-wide spay/neuter initiative called “The Big Fix.” The Big Fix is a program that will provide low- or no-cost spay/neuter services for pets of needy families as well as pets adopted from YHS shelters.

The Big Fix will be funded by donations and grants – and it desperately needs your help to get started. While the reduced killing over the past two months represents a good start in the right direction, we have a long way to go. Your check or online donation to YHS, with an annotation for “The Big Fix,” will help fix the problem of pet overpopulation so we can more quickly achieve No-Kill!

So where is YHS in achieving this goal today? The industry standard for calculating a community’s progress toward no-kill is determined by the number of pet deaths in local shelters annually per 1,000 human residents. The national kill rate in 2009 was 13.5. This is based on an estimated human population of 300,079,939 and 4,157,918 recorded animal deaths.

In the Southwest (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah), the kill rate was 15.2, based on an estimated human population of 19,048,000 and 289,530 recorded animal deaths.

Our quad-city region has an estimated human population of 110,000. With 1,892 shelter deaths in 2009, our kill rate was a staggering and unacceptable 17.25.

For years, the animal welfare community thought no-kill would be achieved when killing was reduced to 5 deaths per 1,000 residents, recognizing there will always be terminally ill and injured animals and dangerously aggressive dogs that require humane euthanasia.

However, in recent years, New York City and Los Angeles reduced their kill rates to 2 and 3.7, respectively, demonstrating we really don’t know how far we can go in this life-saving quest. And if you think things work differently in small towns or rural communities, consider the fact that Reno, Nevada, has reduced their kill rate to 5.4.

As a community, we can choose to pay the relatively modest cost to fund targeted spay/neuter programs designed to fix the problem on the front end, or we can continue to pay the ever-increasing costs of catching and killing animals on the back end. We prefer the more proactive front-end approach, and we hope you will agree by sending in a donation today for “The Big Fix,” so we can help low-income pet owners spay and neuter their pets. For more information contact me.

LA City Council approves Spay/Neuter Ordinance! by Ed Boks

The LA Times trumpeted the news in today’s edition, “The Los Angeles City Council voted 10 to 1 today to approve mandatory sterilization of most pets at the age of 4 months or older – a decision greeted by cheers and applause from the crowded room at the Van Nuys City Hall – where the council meets the first Friday of every month.

Los Angles is the largest city in the United States with such an ordinance.

On behalf of LA Animal Services, and the tens of thousands of lost and homeless animals we care for every year, I want to thank everyone who was able to attend Friday’s City Council meeting and anyone who played any role in helping to get the long awaited Spay/Neuter Ordinance passed.

This is a victory for the entire community, whether they were there or not, and whether they know it or not. Soon we’ll have an important tool with which we can make significant progress toward the goal we all aspire, ending euthanasia as a method of pet overpopulation control.

This is a monumental accomplishment and, on behalf of the Department, I congratulate and thank you all.

LA City’s Spay/Neuter Ordinance – A Life Saver! by Ed Boks

This past April, the Los Angeles City Council joined the Mayor in voting unanimously to support Assembly Bill 1634 – The California Healthy Pet Bill, – a bill designed to abate the incalculable suffering of unwanted lost and homeless dogs and cats in the State of California.

Yesterday, LA City’s Public Safety committee voted unanimously to support a spay/neuter ordinance designed to address the specific needs of the City of Los Angeles.

Many of us face the harsh realities of pet overpopulation every day as we take in, care for, and ultimately kill too many of the animals in our charge. If insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, then this ordinance gives us a tool to end the insanity and do something significantly different.

This Friday, February 1st, the entire LA City Council will vote on whether this ordinance should become law. If it is enacted, this ordinance will help end the cycle of frustration we all face and feel every day. This ordinance will allow us to eventually reallocate precious resources toward increasing adoption, educating the public on humane issues, and fight animal cruelty.

Several years ago, the City of Los Angeles became a national leader by committing itself to ending euthanasia as a methodology for controlling pet overpopulation. This commitment was demonstrated by an allocation of $160 million to build seven new animal care centers to manage the crushing number of lost and homeless animals rescued by LA Animal Services every year, over 50,000 animals.

This commitment was further demonstrated over the past six years by the City Council who, in concert with the Mayor, provided the support the department needed to staff the new facilities, increase our spay/neuter programs and move this city to the forefront of the nation’s drive to become truly animal-friendly.

This unflinching commitment to the health, safety and welfare of our community’s pets has taught us an important lesson: that addressing the pet overpopulation problem from the back end is expensive. Building bigger and better shelters is similar to trying to mop up a flooded basement without first fixing the broken pipe. Until we turn off the faucet that is pouring thousands of unwanted dogs and cats into our City shelters we will never gain control over the homeless animal explosion.

This new ordinance is a tool that can propel us toward a day when we can finally end the killing of animals because we lack the room in our shelters for the seemingly endless flow of 150 newcomers on average per day.

On behalf of the nearly 50,000 animals Animal Services rescues every year, and the over 400 employees, and the hundreds of volunteers and partners we have throughout Los Angeles who feel the brunt of pet overpopulation every day, I ask you to ask your City Council representative to support this important ordinance on Friday.

If you would like to voice your support in person, you are invited to attend the City Council Meeting scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on Friday, February 1st, at the Valley Municipal Building (Van Nuys City Hall) 14410 Sylvan Street, Van Nuys

If you can’t make it, please contact Councilmember Alarcon’s office via this e-mail: Councilmember.Alarcon@lacity.org or by phone (213.473.7007) or fax (213.847.0707) to express your support of the ordinance and to thank him for his leadership on this important issue.

IMPLEMENTING THE “NO-KILL EQUATION” IN LOS ANGELES – Part II: High Volume/Low-Cost Spay/Neuter

This is the second in a series of messages responding to the recommendations of the No-Kill Equation. The No-Kill is comprised of ten commonsense, long-standing practices embraced and implemented by LA Animal Services with remarkable results.

This analysis compares the “No-Kill Equation” to LA’s programs and practices. Today’s message focuses on the second recommendation of the “No-Kill Equation,” which is High Volume/Low-Cost Spay/Neuter.

The Ten “No-Kill Equation” Recommendations are:
1. Feral Cat TNR Program
2. High Volume/Low-Cost Spay/Neuter
3. Rescue Groups
4. Foster Care
5. Comprehensive Adoption Program
6. Pet Retention
7. Medical and Behavioral Rehabilitation
8. Public Relations/Community Involvement
9. Volunteers
10. A Compassionate Director

The No-Kill Equation will appear in this font.

The analysis of LA Animal Services’ efforts will follow in italics.

II. High-Volume, Low-Cost Spay/Neuter
Spay/neuter is the cornerstone of a successful lifesaving effort. Low cost, high volume spay/neuter will quickly lead to fewer animals entering the shelter system, allowing more resources to be allocated toward saving lives. In the 1970s, the City of Los Angeles was the first to provide municipally funded spaying and neutering for low-income pet owners in the United States. A city study found that for every dollar it was investing in the program, Los Angeles taxpayers were saving $10 in animal control costs due to reductions in animal intakes and fewer field calls. Indeed, Los Angeles shelters were taking in half the number of animals after just the first decade of the program and killing rates in the city dropped to the lowest third per capita in the United States. This result is consistent with results in San Francisco and elsewhere.

Research shows that investment in programs balancing animal “care” and “control” can provide not only immediate public health and public relations benefits but also long-term financial savings to a jurisdiction. According to the International City/County Management Association, “An effective animal control program not only saves cities and counties on present costs—by protecting citizens from dangerous dogs, for example—but also helps reduce the costs of animal control in the future. A city that impounds and euthanizes 4,000 animals in 2001… but does not promote spaying and neutering will probably still euthanize at least 4,000 animals a year in 2010. A city that… [institutes a subsidized spay/neuter program] will likely euthanize significantly fewer animals in 2010 and save on a host of other animal-related costs as well.

Ed’s Analysis:  It is fitting and appropriate that the No-Kill Equation cites the City of Los Angeles as a national model and leader for spay/neuter initiatives. After a number of years of reduced spay and neuter activities, the Board of Animal Services Commissioners in 1998 initiated a differential cost dog license ordinance to incentivize dog guardians to spay/neuter their pets. The City Council and Mayor adopted the ordinance into law in 1999 and LA Animal Services immediately committed to substantially expanding its subsidy of spay/neuter via discount vouchers and mobile clinics. Since then, those activities have grown impressively. During the same time period, impounds have declined more than 25% and euthanasia by more than 60%, contrary to recent false assertions that L.A.’s differential licensing law has failed.

Today, via the Department’s “Big Fix” program, approximately 45,000 subsidized spay/neuter surgeries are accomplished annually, including over 12,000 performed in fully-equipped and professionally-staffed mobile clinics operated by the nonprofit Amanda Foundation and the Sam Simon Foundation, primarily in underserved neighborhoods. The City of Los Angeles commits $1.2 million annually to the department’s spay/neuter programs. Additionally, long-dormant spay/neuter clinics in two of the City’s shelters re-opened in 2007 and five more high volume City spay/neuter clinics are scheduled to open by summer 2008. LA Animal Services has been responsible for approximately half a million total surgeries so far this decade and over 85,000 surgeries since January 2006 alone. This number does not include surgeries performed independently by private veterinarians for pet guardians in the City.

During 2006-2007, the Department spearheaded the development of statewide legislation mandating the expansion of spay/neuter (AB 1634) and is also helping with the development of similar legislation specifically for the City of Los Angeles. LA Animal Services advocates spay/neuter as the most effective tool available to reduce the flow of homeless animals into public shelters over time and enjoys the full support of all the City’s elected officials in that belief.

While not fully embraced by all, the decision to combine all the City’s disparate spay/neuter efforts into one identifiable program called “The Big Fix” in 2006 appears to have helped. Since the launch of “The Big Fix” the City’s annual spay/neuter rate, which had experienced only modest increases in previous years, rose over 60%.

More on Safe Sex For Animals by Ed Boks

An organization called the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs (ACC&D) has funded a study for a promising non-surgical sterilant. Work on the product is still in the early phases, and this grant will make it possible to take the next step in determining the potential for its use in female dogs and cats.

A non-surgical sterilant is the “Holy Grail” of the animal welfare/no-kill movement. If this is a topic that intersts you consider attending ACC&D’s Third International Symposium in November to learn more about progress in the field and about how you can help reach our shared goals.

The greatest obstacle to the development of these tools over the past several decades has been a lack of focus and a lack of funding. ACC&D is the only organization solely dedicated to getting these new tools developed and brought to market where they can start saving lives. But they can’t do it alone! Please consider making a donation to ACC&D today. Your tax- deductible contribution makes it possible to advance development of these life saving tools.

ACC&D Gives First Grant
Excerpt from the article:
…ACC&D hopes the grant will help accelerate development of an affordable, non-surgical form of sterilization. “In the long run, we believe this technology could have a profound impact on controlling dog and cat overpopulation around the world and provide a safe alternative to surgical sterilizations,” says Briggs. “Overpopulation results in the death of more dogs and cats than any other disease. We want to help ‘man’s best friends’ by identifying and supporting studies that can help end this suffering.”…

Honoring Dr. W. Marvin Mackie, D.V.M. by Ed Boks

Ed Boks and Dr. Mackey
Dr. W. Marvin Mackie, DVM.

This past Friday morning, June 9th, the Los Angeles City Council honored a true animal welfare hero, Dr. W. Marvin Mackie, DVM. What follows are the comments I made at this prestigious event:

“Mr. President, members of the Council, I have been involved in animal welfare for nearly 25 years, and for as long as I can remember, every time the name “Dr. Mackie” was ever mentioned, no matter the setting or the audience, it always evoked a sense of reverence and respect.

Every meaningful movement in history has been led by transformational leaders, leaders like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Caesar Chavez. Inspirational leaders have always challenged us to not only change the way we view ourselves as a society but to change how we behave as a civilized community.

We in the animal welfare arena have such transformational leaders too; they are our own heroes, people like Henry Bergh, Albert Schweitzer, and Gretchen Wyler. Today we are honoring another such hero: Dr. W. Marvin Mackie. Dr. Mackie was, and continues to be, an instrumental force in transforming not just our local LA community, but the entire nation and other parts of the world from out dated catch-and-kill animal control methodologies to humane, non-lethal, no-kill animal care strategies and programs.

While a few self-described “revolutionaries” and so-called “activists” do little more than rattle off hate-filled emails from the comfort of their living rooms and occasionally get off the couch to harass and terrorize public servants under cover of night and ski masks, this giant, Dr. Mackie has openly and courageously transformed an entire generation by being the change he wanted to see in the world. Dr. Mackie is responsible for surgically altering hundreds of thousands of animals in the LA area; he has taught hundreds of veterinarians how to perform high volume and prepubescent surgery safely and humanely in communities around the world, and he taught many hardheaded animal control directors like my self that there is a better way.

We in Los Angeles have perhaps benefited most from the fact that Dr. Mackie is an Angelino, hailing from San Pedro. As a result of his inspirational leadership, over the course of his career, the number of animals needing to be rescued annually from the streets of LA by Animal Services has declined by 40,000. More significantly the number of animals killed in our local shelters has fallen from 60,000 per year to 19,000 and continues to decline significantly every year.

Consider this, 40% of the animals euthanized this past month were orphaned neonate puppies and kittens. What fact better demonstrates the tremendous need that we as a community must continue Dr. Mackie’s legacy until there are no more unwanted pets being born only to die?

The no-kill initiative that has taken hold in LA is beginning to take root in communities all across the United States thanks to Dr. Mackie and others. Imagine how far we have come in Los Angeles in the three decades since Dr. Mackie began to live his dream. Today his dream is embraced by the Mayor of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles City Council, the Los Angeles Animal Services Commission and the Los Angeles General Manager and staff. Los Angeles has risen up together to accept the fact that Dr. Mackie’s no-kill vision is an achievable goal! No small accomplishment for one man.

When you consider what this one man has accomplished imagine what we could do if we all worked together! Thank you Dr. Mackie for being such an inspiration to all of us!