I attended a Board of Supervisors meeting, this week and Michael (Fired volunteer who discovered the OCAC statistics were skewed - see article below) spoke to the Supervisors. There was so little interest by the Board, some could not even be bothered to raise their head to face the speakers and Foley actually said that the facts were not correct and the Shelter is open! How stupid is that! She needs to check her facts! These Supervisors represent us ( the tax payer) and are doing nothing and it is their responsibility!
I ask you to check out the facts for yourself, contact the shelter, see how easy it is to get an appointment. (You are only allowed to see 2 dogs) and not allowed to walk the building as the public used to. Can you think of any reason why this shelter should be different to all the others?
Please read these excerpts of This article was published by the OC Register on May 7. 2023, or find the article online..
More adult dogs dying at OC Animal Care, kennels largely off-limits
Column: Number-crunching volunteer fired after data analysis paints disturbing picture
By TERI SFORZA | tsforza@scng.com | Orange County Register
The kill rate for adult dogs at the state-of-the-art, $35 million Orange County Animal Care shelter has nearly doubled since 2018, and the amount of time they spend behind bars has jumped 60%, according to a jarring and granular data analysisby then-volunteer Michael Mavrovouniotis (think Zorro with a spreadsheet), presented to the Animal Care Community Outreach Committee on April 26.
Part of the deadly problem: While other shelters have resumed pre-pandemic policies — Please come in! Walk through the rows of kennels! Look into our sweet beasties’ eyes! Fall in love! — Orange County keeps kennels with adoption-ready dogs off-limits to mere mortals.
Would-be adopters are supposed to peruse the website, choose a couple of animals to meet in person, and then visit with them by appointment. But what of the scores of others who might actually be a better fit? What of serendipity, chance, fate if you will — the unexpected tail wag, the loving lick, the display of silliness that seizes the heart?
More than 20,000 people have signed a petition demanding that the shelter abandon this system and open up fully to the public — the pandemic emergency order has been lifted, like, everywhere — but shelter officials insist they’re protecting the public.
They’ve said they don’t want people fighting over the most desirable animals. They don’t want people sticking their fingers through cage bars and getting bitten. Instead, they want staff to provide “concierge” service, more expertly matching animals to adopters.
We’ll note that none of these are big enough concerns to bar the public from strolling the kennels at other animal shelters in the region — appointments seem fine, but full access to the adoptable beasts seems vital — and there’s doubt about whether the concierge thing is working. More adopted animals have been returned under this set-up than before the pandemic, according to Mavrovouniotis’ data.
“OCAC is now full and they are killing dogs, cats, kittens for space, some animals do not have any chance of being adopted as they are never seen by the public,” reads Margot Boyer’s petition, which has been signed by the equivalent of a small city.
“Three years ago I adopted a senior chihuahua from this shelter. The dog had two massive hernias, and if I had gone to the shelter under the current system … I never would have seen or adopted her because I would not have wanted to deal with the surgery and did not want an old dog. However, I just happened to walk by her cage, she trotted up, wagged her tail and tried to lick me, so that was that!”
That can’t really happen anymore.
The spike in kill rates and time behind bars for adult dogs is not the result of more incoming animals, Mavrovouniotis found. Adult dog intakes have actually decreased by 28% between 2019, the shelter’s first full year at its new location, and 2022.
It’s not simply that adopters can no longer view all available dogs in the kennels, or have to pre-select two per appointment from an online photo lineup. Playgroups for large dogs that helped socialize and exercise them in 2019 — things that are a staple in Los Angeles County shelters — have been suspended.
The result, animal advocates say, is a bunch of stressed dogs stuck in cages for way too long and branded as behavior problems, which too often seals their sorry fates.
And OCAC appears to be unaware of the decline in its critical metrics, Mavrovouniotis said. His analysis — drawn from deeply impressive public records requests for the shelter’s own data, along with his skill at programming and number crunching (Mavrovouniotis has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from MIT.
The return rate of dogs is slightly higher than in 2019, but much higher than in 2020 and 2021, and nearly double what it was in the old horror show of a shelter in Orange in 2016. Volunteers chalk this up to the lack of socialization and human interaction.
The number of dogs adopted is down tremendously, from 4,247 in 2016 to 2,291 in 2022. That’s an increase, however, from 2020 and 2021, when dog adoptions didn’t break 2,000.
Cat adoptions are also down from 2019, but up from 2016.
“The statistics on OCAC’s website show that, even with fewer intakes, the shelter has rising kill rates. On seeing that, any prudent manager’s reaction should be to analyze the data further, to find out why the performance has worsened. Did OCAC do that?”
OCAC receives fewer incoming animals than in the pre-pandemic period, yet is experiencing higher kill rates, higher return rates, longer stays and higher inventory — which leads to higher costs and declining level of care. “A thorough reassessment is in order,” Mavrovouniotis wrote. “We just analyzed the past. In early 2024, when we repeat this analysis, what are the 2023 annual data going to show?”
On Friday, as I prepared this story, Mavrovouniotis was fired as a volunteer for the shelter.
Entire article is
There is a follow up article which I will post another time.
Please share this petition, I need more signatures to make an impact and contact your local city, as they pay millions to the OCAC each year to look after animal control. What a poor job.. we need change!