ANIMAL WATCH

ANIMAL WATCH-Prior to "rescuing" animals becoming big business, Los Angeles Animal Services and other municipal sheltering agencies focused on rescuing strays from the streets, investigating  reports of cruelty, abandonment, or neglect;

ANIMAL POLITICS--While most of us are hoping and even expecting a happier New Year in 2021, it is certain to be a very unhappy and even tragic year for countless animals in Los Angeles, thanks to LAPD Chief Moore unilaterally disbanding the historic LAPD Animal Cruelty Task Force. 

ANIMAL WATCH-A Los Angeles Animal Services memo on December 21, 2020, to the LA County Health Department confirms it is investigating a dog attack at 19602 Citrus Ridge Drive, Tarzana CA -- the home of Rapper Chris Brown -- which occurred on December 12.

ANIMAL WATCH-A bloody year of Pit Bull attacks on children (and adults) ended with one less death, as an off-duty Boston police officer acted valiantly and instinctively to save the life of a helpless 11-year-old boy being mauled viciously in a backyard, illustrating another reason police departments across the U.S. should not be defunded. 

ANIMAL WATCH-A rescuer trying to "save" a dog named Maximus, whose behavior was so vicious he was described by Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette as a "danger to staff," suffered a savage bite while attempting to give him a pill to calm him down -- in other words, "drug him." 

ANIMAL WATCH-Steffan Baldwin, former Los Angeles Pit Bull advocate/rescuer and dangerous dog trainer, "flunks drug test, violates bond," according to an Ohio MJT headline on December 17, 2020. 

ANIMAL WATCH-On December 10, 2020, just two weeks before Christmas, LA City Attorney Mike Feuer announced --

ANIMAL WATCH-Steve Cooley, the popular Los Angeles County District Attorney who served from 2000 to 2012 and who created the DA's animal cruelty prosecution program, has been speaking out publicly and candidly expressing his serious concerns about the election of George Gascón to head the D.A.'s office. 

ANIMAL WATCH-While Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette boasts loudly and often about clearing the shelters of dogs and cats during the COVID-19 pandemic, she's been silent on the invasion by rats --

ANIMAL WATCH--Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette told the Board of Animal Services Commission this week that she wants the Los Angeles Police Department to pay any veterinarian bills accrued due to shooting a dog in the line of duty--a charge she understands is currently paid by L.A. Animal  Services. 

ANIMAL WATCH-At the same time Chief Michel Moore is forced to make painful cuts to specialized units within the Los Angeles Police Department --

ANIMAL WATCH-Los Angeles Animal Services GM Brenda Barnette issued a media release this week urging  adoption of a "senior" ( adult) shelter dog from Los Angeles city shelters -- most of which are Pit Bulls of unknown age and behavioral history because many are picked up as strays. 

ANIMAL WATCH-Dogs are the most widely lauded animal war heroes, risking their lives to save one soldier, or an entire platoon.

ANIMAL WATCH-On Monday, October 22, a police officer was killed by the razor-sharp spur attached to the leg of a rooster during a raid on an illegal cockfight in the Philippine central province of Northern Samar, Global News reported. 

ANIMAL WATCH-National Pit Bull Victim Awareness (NPBVA) Day marks its sixth anniversary on October 26, 2020. 

ANIMAL WATCH-Mayor Eric Garcetti’s cuts to the Los Angeles Animal Services’ budget for 2020-21 are being blamed by General Manager Brenda Barnette for the need to close the West Valley animal shelter, decrease Animal Control Officers’ hours, and reduce other vital safety services, but the costs in human and animal lives could be deadly, especially considering the city’s already high dog-attack statistics in it shelters and streets. 

ANIMAL WATCH-On October 8, Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager announced a “Big-Dog” Adoption Event. (“Big-Dogs” encompasses Pit Bulls, officially listed at LA shelters as ‘mixed-breed,” other Bully breeds -- and an occasional German Shepherd.)

ANIMAL WATCH-In a hostile and childish Facebook rant on September 26, Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette publicly attacked the integrity and insulted the competence of her own animal control officers,

ANIMAL WATCH-My beloved Boxer – Baxter -- is nearing the end of his life.

ANIMAL WATCH-As California wildfires rage near Los Angeles borders, reviving vivid memories of LA's 2017 "largest fire in history" declared by Mayor Eric Garcetti, does LA Animal Services GM Brenda Barnette have an emergency plan to reopen the two COVID-closed City animal shelters as temporary refuge for pets who are victims?

ANIMAL WATCH-On September 10, a lawsuit was filed in LA Superior Court by former Los Angeles Animal Services volunteer Kelly Kaneko, who was injured in a violent attack by a German Shepherd, named Jax, at the City's North Central Shelter on October 31, 2019. 

ANIMAL WATCH--General Manager Brenda Barnette has unveiled her latest plan for Los Angeles Animal Services on the official City site as a "Proud Pilot Shelter," which oddly features ONLY photos of adult Pit Bulls for adoption/foster. 

ANIMAL WATCH-Since August 16, 2011, shortly after Brenda Barnette was appointed GM at Los Angeles Animal Services, Best Friends Animal Society (NKLA) -- one of the nation's strongest proponents of Pit Bull ownership--has occupied the new Northeast Valley "Mission" Animal Shelter rent-free and as a "service provider."

ANIMAL WATCH-A Woodland Hills non-profit animal rescue, Ady Gil World Conservation, reports that it has filed a lawsuit demanding the two City animal shelters closed in April -- West Valley and North Central -- be reopened by Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette, because of the resultant overwhelming increase in stray animals, according to the Los Angeles Times.

ANIMAL WATCH-Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette is using bully tactics and her usual doublespeak to rush approval by City officials to reallocate/give away space at the West Valley Animal Shelter,

ANIMAL WATCH-On Monday, August 3, Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies raided a Chatsworth property in the San Fernando Valley to investigate alleged animal cruelty and possession of gamefowl for fighting purposes and found 2,000 to 3,000 roosters that were being bred for cockfighting.

ANIMAL WATCH- Pit Bull/Dangerous Dog Trainer Steffen Baldwin, 39, of “Save Them Dogs” and co-founder of Underdog Alliance, was taken into custody as a fugitive on July 24 by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and held without bail for arraignment on July 28 on 42 felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from alleged criminal activities in Ohio and California.

ANIMAL WATCH-Did GM Brenda Barnette dupe the Los Angeles Animal Services Commission into believing animal care and control services would be restored at the West Valley shelter post-COVID-19, while she and Mayor Eric Garcetti (and possibly Councilman Paul Koretz) were secretly conspiring to give the City's premier animal-sheltering facility to "rescue" groups? 

ANIMAL WATCH-LA GM Brenda Barnette's recent shelter statistics make us wonder where the thousands of homeless, unwanted and stray animals that have warranted her $314,000 salary and $48 million budget (including aggressive Pit Bulls and dangerous dogs that attacked 94 people inside the shelters and 74 US Postal Service carriers in 2019) have suddenly gone. 

ANIMAL WATCH-Los Angeles Animal Services' ACO Hugh Briefman, a veteran animal control officer with almost 30 years of experience, responded to an urgent call from LA Fire Department for assistance at a dog attack inside a house at 10:00 p.m. on May 19, 2020, where a male Pit Bull had seriously injured two members of a family after they adopted him that day.