The NY Daily News, Thursday, September 26, 2002
[Photo of dog.] DOGS IN DANGER. Animals are being abandoned and killed at night, when shelters are closed, former executive charges.
Death to poochies
Closed shelters killing dogs, axed exec says
By RICHARD WEIR and LISA L. COIANGELO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
It shouldn't happen to a dog.
Stray pooches are dying because cops have no place to take them at night, the director of the city's animal shelters charged yesterday hours before losing her job.
Marilyn Haggerty-Blohm told the board of the Center for Animal Care and Control that some animals in police custody have died as a result of budget cuts that forced three 24-hour shelters to close for 12 hours a day. She refused to provide specifics.
But sources said one incident caused the death of a Rottweiler.
In August, three tranquilized Rottweilers were piled into a police car while officers tried in vain to find an open animal shelter, sources said.
A sympathetic shelter staffer agreed to open after hours, only to find one dog dead. It wasn't clear how it died, but sources said the dog's temperature was 109 degrees.
"There's no place for precincts to deliver the animals af ter hours," said one frustrated Emergency Service Unit officer who is called in to tranquilize dangerous dogs.
Police said they could not con firm the Rottweiler incident or any others.
"We have adequate resources to handle multiple incidents with animals, and we are working with CACC to ensure the humane, safe handling of animals that come into our possession," said Chief Michael Collins, an NYPD spokesman.
But sources insisted the short ened shelter hours have led to problems. People have left dogs chained to fences outside shelters or tied up at nearby gas stations, the sources said.
"The reality is people abandon their animals outside the shelter when the shelter is closed," said Regina Massaro, director of the Queens-based Spay Neuter Intervention Project. "A dog tied outside a closed shelter ... is fair game for almost anyone in that neighborhood to come around and torture it."
Night rovers
Three shelters -- in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island -- are generally open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with the Manhattan site open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
Center spokeswoman Carolyn Daly said, "A lot of dogs brought in by the NYPD are owned by drug dealers, and a lot of those busts go on at night. Feral dogs and stray dogs tend to roam at night."
The center's board of directors voted yesterday to conduct a nationwide search to replace Haggerty-Blohm. Board members gave no reason for their decision and said she can reapply for her job, which pays about $144,000 a year.
Haggerty-Blohm, who was hired during the Giuliani administration, declined to comment after the early morning meeting.
In June, city Controller William Thompson released a scathing audit that found the center was plagued by mismanagement. Over the summer, the entire board was replaced.
In July, Mayor Bloomberg signed a law requiring city shel ters to operate 12 hours a day in stead of 24. Haggerty-Blohm said the agency is running out of money and will not be able to keep even those hours without more funding.
"Cutting the hours by 50 percent doesn't change the animal population in the city at all," Daly said. "Animal care and control in this city is a 24-hour, seven day-a-week responsibility."