Since the days of Noah some people have been particularly drawn to owning exotic animals. While Noah was ordered to amass his collection to save animals from a flood, these days people obtain unusual pets for different reasons. Some are attracted to the animals’ appearances, others to the novelty and...

Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” There is no better way to ensure the humane treatment of animals than enacting comprehensive, sensible laws to codify and enforce society’s expectations of how they...

Animal sheltering has changed dramatically in the past ten years. What was once a mainly reactive approach to lost and unwanted animals has turned into a proactive model where intervention strategies strive to prevent the separation of pets from their families in the first place. This has had tremendous...

In November I received a delightful letter from a seven year old girl from the Santa Clarita Valley named Madeline, requesting our permission for her to keep a unicorn in her backyard if she could find one. I happily agreed to allow her to keep a unicorn, with conditions. These included compliance with...

One of the most defining aspects of working in animal welfare is that you never know what situations may come your way, especially in a county the size of Los Angeles. These surprises and challenges must be responded to and resolved, while also maintaining our ongoing operational effectiveness and planning...

Like most people who work in animal welfare, there have been animals I have come across in my career who have left lasting impressions on me. I still think about them decades later, sometimes with happiness and sometimes with regret. One animal I still recall vividly was a beautiful black and white tuxedo...

By Marcia Mayeda L.A. County Animal Control Director Recent media reports about overcrowding and lack of exercise for dogs at some other Los Angeles area animal shelters has prompted discussions about animal shelter population management. This is a key operational issue for animal shelters and deserving...

Some dogs and cats have lived remarkably long lives. In March, Guinness World Records named Chihuahua “TobyKeith” the oldest living dog at 21 years, 66 days old. The oldest dog ever recorded was an Australian Cattle Dog that passed in 1939 at the age of 29 years, five months. The world’s oldest...

Got Kittens? My first cat was a beautiful black and white cat named Murphy. Murphy was born at the home of the “cat lady” who lived down the block and fed dozens of cats, with no sterilization plan in place to reduce their population growth. Murphy was first taken in as a kitten by our neighbors,...

In my early 20s I worked on a sheep farm in southern Illinois. The farm had about 1,000 sheep and two Great Pyrenees dogs to protect them. Great Pyrenees dogs are a type of dog known as a livestock guardian dog; they do not herd the sheep like border collies but are there instead to protect the sheep...