ANIMAL WATCH

ANIMAL WATCH--It should not have been a surprise to anyone that Major, the three-year-old adopted German Shepherd brought to the White House by Joe and Jill Biden, bit a security guard. 

ANIMAL WATCH-On March 12, LA Animal Services GM Brenda Barnette callously and boastfully announced that Los Angeles has reached the Best Friends Animal Society “No Kill” goal for the city’s animal shelters due to efforts of “the city, LA Animal Services, a coalition of animal welfare organizations, compassionate leaders and a dedicated community.”    

ANIMAL WATCH-During a brief lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in May 2020, a San Diego man took his Pit Bull to a San Diego-area park, where an aggressive coyote jumped a six-foot fence to attack the dog. 

ANIMAL WATCH-On February 18, 2021, Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette (photo above) submitted a brief two-page letter to Councilman Paul Koretz and the City Council, abruptly revising her recent reconstitution proposal,

ANIMAL WATCH-Since 2010 the seminal obligation of Los Angeles Animal Services to maintain animal-law enforcement and protection has been intentionally destabilized by General Manager Brenda Barnette in her mania to achieve the Best Friends Animal Society mythical "No Kill" goal. 

ANIMAL WATCH-Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Brenda Barnette is determined that she will not open the West Valley Animal Shelter for the intake of strays and lost pets -- this shelter has one of the highest intake rates in the City.

ANIMAL WATCH-On January 27, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Bloodsport Team seized 70 roosters in an investigation of a possible cockfighting operation in LLanos, California, an unincorporated area southeast of Palmdale in Los Angeles County. 

ANIMAL WATCH-When Los Angeles General Manager Brenda Barnette received approval by the Los Angeles City Council for an estimated $60M Citywide Feral Cat-TNR Program in November 2020,

ANIMAL WATCH-On January 18, 2021, CityWatch broke the news that Los Angeles Animal Services is investigating a dog attack which occurred in the home of popular singer-rapper Chris Brown at 19602 Citrus Ridge Drive, Tarzana, CA, on December 12, 2020. 

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.