Sweet good boi Gordon was one of thousands of dogs who were killed in 2025 at Chicago Animal Care and Control (CACC), which has become a slaughter house for the lost and discarded animals of Chicago trapped inside its four walls. Among them, over the course of three weeks, two female dogs nearly died from botched spay surgeries, on one dog and negligence on the part of staff at Chicago ACC with the other dog.
The animals in-house endure unhealthy and filthy conditions, without adequate water, food and medicine, getting dangerously ill from pneumonia, some being reduced to skin and bones, going out two days a week for 15 minutes, with no stimulation or proper ventilation.
The volunteers offer the only interaction, kindness and love the animals experience while they wait to die unless they're adopted or rescued within a month's time. In 2023 and 2024 combined, CACC killed over 6,000 animals without warning, that’s 200-300 dogs a month, one out of three dogs who entered its doors, sometimes one out of two at its peak. So far in 2025, close to 3,000 animals have lost their second chance, abruptly and secretly.
Life and death are equally cruel for the lost and discarded animals of Chicago outside the brick walls of CACC, for whom we have a head count from Streets and Sanitation, citing approximately 3,000 animals found dead in the streets, mostly cats. Stray animals, who are roaming aimlessly in the city streets, starving, getting run over by cars, dying from painful wounds and diseases and facing danger at every corner are clearly vulnerable. Vicious dogs pose a danger to the community, cats and dogs on the streets, they breed unchecked, adding to the problem of overpopulation. The Animal Control Officers (ACOs) on the field take days to answer citizens’ calls for stray animal sightings, dangerous dogs running loose, animal cruelty cases, or never answer them at all.
In January, Chicago Animal Control posted an announcement saying the ACOs would not be providing their services because of frigid weather. These policies have been enacted since the ACTING executive director took that position in 2022, not recently, as she declared on October 16, 2024. The only difference is that the number of animals killed by CACC increased dramatically and CACC has confused the public regarding the intake numbers. Why? By lowering their intake numbers, they raise live outcomes. Even if their live outcomes increase, the truth is that there are empty cages and All these cuts placed burdens on the Chicago Police Department (CPD), hurt the animals and destabilized the community. We consider this to pose a public health crisis.