Photo couresty of Live Love.
In late April, Emily Haden, founder of Live Love Animal Rescue, was contacted by Animal Care Services (ACS) about a mother dog with eight puppies who was reportedly being unusually aggressive and could possibly be a danger to her puppies.
Haden located a foster ready to take both mother and babies. When she arrived at ACS, however, she was informed that one of the puppies had died, two more were unaccounted for, and spcaLA had already pulled the remaining five for fostering. The mother, named Melody, remained in the shelter.
Haden was angry and worried. Puppies, she said, should not be separated from their mother until they’re 8 weeks old, and these babies were less than 4 weeks old. She was also concerned about the possibility of Melody developing mastitis, a bacterial mammary-gland infection that breasts filled with unused milk could cause by clogging the glands. Furthermore, Melody could face euthanasia at ACS if a home wasn’t found for her. Haden added that spcaLA has enough resources to have been able to work out a way to take mother and babies.
“It’s a shame that an organization with so much community support and funding and resources won’t take on the most challenging cases in rescue,” Haden said. “spcaLA is constantly taking these highly ‘adoptable’ pets and leaving the rest to die. Any animal that has excessive medical issues, is shy and shut down, they pass on them. If they’re lucky, they get pulled or privately adopted [from ACS]. And the shelter isn’t empowered to change anything. There has to be a better situation for nursing mothers.”
According to Haden, this wasn’t the first time spcaLA has separated mothers and offspring, both cats and dogs, but Melody’s situation struck a chord and a nerve because it occurred close to Mother’s Day. “Puppies are highly adoptable—the parents aren’t,” she said. “People want a young dog.”
ACS and spcaLA: Not the Same Entity
Even after 15 years of dual occupancy at the P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village, the physical setup and adoption procedures of ACS and spcaLA still cause some confusion. spcaLA leases the land from the city for $120 a year. The organization made improvements to the facility such as detached cat cottages, indoor/outdoor dog kennels, an education center and bacteria-resistant flooring. As specified in a contract signed by both parties in 1998, to expire May 31, 2053. ACS pays spcaLA $60 a year to lease a portion of the building. Operating expenses are split 50/50.
The entrance shown leads to the admissions area for ACS, and there are other entrances for spcaLA. Photo courtesy of ACS.
ACS’s revenues reported in this year’s budget totaled $2,250,389; expenditures amounted to $4,653,556, with overage paid by the city’s general fund. Compared to the privately funded spcaLA’s yearly revenue of over $7,000,000 and management expenses of around $6.5 million, with net assets totaling over $26 million, there are differences in what services can be provided for pets.
Two ‘Sides’ to the Issue
Adoptable pets are housed at both ACS and spcaLA. As one of the conditions of the contract, spcaLA can medically and behaviorally evaluate available animals at ACS and bring them to their section of the Village for potential adoption. ACS Manager Ted Stevens said that any animals not pulled by spcaLA will still be held for adoption by ACS staff and will be featured on the shelter’s website, their smartphone app on their website, and social media. ACS has staff and community partners dedicated to finding homes for the pets housed in their kennels, but the reality is that there are space and time limitations and any of the animals may face euthanasia.
“Animals continue to come into the shelter on a daily basis,” Stevens said. “We hold adoptable animals as long as humanely possible, so it’s more a space issue and not necessarily a time issue. The time issue concerns are more about the health and well-being of the animal. Longer stays usually correlate with illness and behavior issues.”
spcaLA President Madeleine Bernstein said that there actually was nothing unusual about the organization’s decision to take the puppies. Selection, she said, is done on a case-by-case basis. The puppies were evaluated and judged to be ready to take to spcaLA’s kennels.
“Every decision we make is in the best interests of our residents,” Bernstein said. “We rely on the best medical advice and the best behavioral advice. In this case, it was better for both the mother and the puppies. Some wean at four weeks, some wean later. The point is, these puppies weaned.”
Members of the animal community didn’t agree. A number of them took spcaLA to task for the separation as well as for what some referred to as cherry picking younger pets and leaving behind the seniors and animals with medical issues. Since May 14, spcaLA’s Facebook reviews page has been filled with posts expressing anger and disappointment for “ choosing the most adoptable animals from the adjacent public shelter, leaving the rest to die or let small rescues scramble to save,” as one post read.
Claudia Hoffmann is the founder of Fix Long Beach, an all-volunteer-led effort to provide spay/neuter procedures to Long Beach residents who cannot otherwise afford them. She underscored the need for organizations with resources like spcaLA’s to step up their practices.
“The goal is to bring change about the cherry picking of the spcaLA,” Hoffmann said in a separate interview. “The rescues are always the ones to pick up the pieces that they leave behind. spcaLA has such a reputation of being low kill, but that’s easy when they pick the adoptable animals. If a group of ‘nobodies’ [Fix Long Beach] can help reduce impound and euthanasia rates by 60 percent, imagine what a large organization like the spcaLA could accomplish.”
“I understand that people react differently to different things and may tend to anthropomorphize animals,” Bernstein said. “Here, it was the best interests of the mother and puppies to let the mother rest and recover. The puppies are being socialized until they’re ready for adoption.”
Bernstein added that there’s no real “side” to the Village, because pets can be adopted from either section and spcaLA processes all the adoptions. They’re actually all at the Village, she said, and that Melody can be adopted right now at ACS.
Happily for Melody, Haden pulled her from the shelter on May 18 after the dog was spayed at ACS. Haden and her volunteers transported her, cone of shame and all, to her new foster home (watch her “freedom ride” here). Melody seems to have gotten over her protective rage and it seems that she’ll make someone a fine friend.
Melody seems to be out of the stress zone. Courtesy of Sam Ghosh.
But to Haden and other animal advocates. Melody’s situation is more representative of an indication of a need to further address understanding nursing mothers than it is a story with a happy ending.
Can There Be a Happier Tune for Future Melodys?
Stevens corroborated Bernstein’s description of Melody having been “stressed and agitated.” He said that the shelter had had a hard time at first determining the number of birthed puppies because Melody would throw herself against the kennel door every time she heard anyone outside. Even after her kennel was covered with a sheet, she’d go into a rage when the staff would come in to feed the other dogs.
“Ideally, we’d prefer that the mom would stay with her puppies or go into foster care,” Stevens said. “But in this situation, no. We’ve had protective mothers before, but not like this. Because of her behavior, I don’t know what the best thing would have been—she could have injured herself or the puppies. But I do know that her behavior is now much improved.”
Stevens said that the dead puppy was found on April 3, two days after the puppies were born, and at that time they could count five remaining out of the original eight. Dr. Peter Weinstein, Executive Director of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association (SCVMA), said that death of newborns can be attributed to fatal genetic situations, being rolled on or stepped on by the mother, a failure to nurse, or choking by the umbilical cord.
“There’s a true multitude of undetermined causes,” Weinstein said.
The two puppies’ disappearance remains a mystery. Stevens said that the medical team conducts daily walkthrough visual checks each day and the graveyard officer checks each morning. The puppies were removed for vaccines when the mother temporarily left the kennel area and the outside door was locked, and that’s when the staff noticed that two were missing.
“The problem with this specific case is that we didn’t want to overly stress her out by spending too much time near her kennel, as she would throw herself up against the kennel door to try and get at you, potentially causing injury to herself or her puppies,” Stevens said. “Due to this behavior, it was difficult to get an exact count of all the puppies during every check. We know there were eight on April 20, as Jill [Prout, ACS’s adoption coordinator] took pictures of them. They were taken out on April 24 to get their first round of vaccines, and that was when we noticed two were missing. Graveyard usually does a good job of counting every animal every morning, so likely they went missing on April 23 or 24.”
A VCA Animal Hospital article cited a “primeval protective instinct” in the mother dog that could cause her to eat her own puppies; Haden and Weinstein said that it’s been known to happen, but the cases are rare.
“I am sure it is rare, but we have to keep in mind that stressful kennel environments often cause animals to act differently than they normally would,” Stevens said. “Just consider the fact that she has normal good behavior now that she isn’t around her puppies, but when she was with her puppies, she showed one of the worst protective-aggression issues we have had to deal with.”
“We normally recommend that puppies nurse through 6 to 8 weeks of age and then slowly be transitioned from nursing to a puppy diet so that when they’re placed in a new home, they’re fully eating a puppy diet,” Dr. Weinstein said. “If they’re aggressive, it’s because they’re being protective of their puppies.” He suggested that a protective mother could be helped through the use of a weaning crate by which a mother dog could leave the puppies momentarily while still keeping an eye on them.
Weaning crates are designed to quickly attach to the whelping box and provide relaxed separation for a mother dog from her litter yet not obscure her view of her puppies. RoverPet.com.
The advocates for the animals hope that they’ll be able to bring about further changes for the benefit of pets at the Village, particularly at spcaLA. Hoffmann may agree that animals aren’t people, but she will readily tell you that they have feelings, and she has experience to back her up.
“They’re living beings—they deserve better than what they’re getting,” she said.
Rescues survive mainly by donations and fees. If you want to contribute to Melody’s foster and to Live Love Pet Care, follow this link. To adopt Melody, click the Meet and Greet button on this page.
“Saving just one dog won’t change the world,
but it surely will change the world for that one dog.”
~ Richard C. Call