{"id":44625,"date":"2025-07-07T00:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T00:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/44625\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T00:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T00:08:09","slug":"filthy-cramped-conditions-at-nyc-funded-animal-shelter-persist-a-year-after-post-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/44625\/","title":{"rendered":"Filthy, cramped conditions at NYC-funded animal shelter persist a year after Post investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many pooches are still lying in their own filth and crammed into too-small cages at a $75 million city-funded animal shelter in Queens roughly a year after The Post exposed horrific conditions<\/a> there.<\/p>\n

Individual kennels are supposed to be cleaned each time a dog is walked, according to a worker at the Animal Care Centers of New York site in Ridgewood. But none were cleaned during a recent visit from The Post after several dogs were walked for about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n

The dogs were simply returned to their reeking cages filled with piles of excrement.<\/p>\n

A dog at the city-run Queens animal shelter sits inside a kennel with multiple piles of feces. Nicole Rosenthal \/ NY Post<\/p>\n

An ACC rep told The Post in August that the agency had not yet finished hiring all the staff required to meet its needs. A source familiar with the matter said the shelter is still short-staffed nearly a year later, with nearly a dozen open positions ranging from vet techs to animal transporters to custodians.<\/p>\n

The insider said some of the animals only get their first walk of the day around 11 a.m. or noon after waiting upwards of 12 hours.<\/p>\n

The Queens ACC site is lodging double the number of dogs it was designed for, a rep said. Nicole Rosenthal \/ NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cACC has been very transparent\u00a0about the crisis facing our shelters due to extreme dog overpopulation \u2014 it is a nationwide problem,\u201d a rep for the shelter told The Post.<\/p>\n

The representative said the Queens site is sheltering double the number of dogs it was designed for.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a shelter has over 150 full kennels and is operating at double its intended capacity, there may be moments when a kennel is soiled, especially during walk or cleaning rotations,\u201d the rep said. \u201cWe address these situations as quickly as possible.\u00a0This\u00a0is not a sign of neglect or systemic failure but rather a direct result of the overwhelming number of animals in our care.\u201d<\/p>\n

A staffer named Nikolaz told The Post during a visit that many of the dogs also suffer from the highly contagious respiratory infection kennel cough \u2013 a common condition found in kennels, with symptoms including dry cough, lethargy, fever and vomiting.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of them deteriorate,\u201d Nikolaz said of the pooches. \u201cDogs are very different in the kennel than when out[side].<\/p>\n

A shelter dog in Queens sits in a cramped kennel filled with smeared feces. Nicole Rosenthal \/ NY Post<\/p>\n

An anonymous staffer said, \u201cI was shocked to find out that if the dog goes insane because of the cages \u2013 and they can go insane \u2013 they euthanize.\u201d<\/p>\n

The worker shared a harrowing case of a cat \u201cleft to bleed for three days\u201d after being neutered in ACC care and who died.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen animals died in the shelter system\u2019s care in April \u2014 three dogs, nine cats and two guinea pigs \u2014 not including the 129 animals it euthanized in the same month.<\/p>\n

While an ACC rep blamed at least part of the problem on a decline in adoptions across the nation because of economic uncertainty<\/a>, Nathan Winograd, executive director of the No Kill Advocacy Center, said low adoption numbers at ACC are exacerbated because of post-pandemic changes in shelter policy.<\/p>\n

Winograd said reduced adoption hours, appointment requirements, cumbersome visiting procedures and refusing to return phone calls from people interested in adopting have all cut into the shelter\u2019s adoption rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cACC can\u2019t have it both ways,\u201d he said. \u201cAs long as ACC can blame others for its own failures, New York City\u2019s elected and appointed officials will fail to hold the agency accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shelter dog San Andreas reportedly collapsed after being choked on a leash by a dog walker, according to a bystander video obtained by The Post. Kiara Roman<\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s recent visit comes days after a dog at the Queens shelter was allegedly choked so hard on a leash by a volunteer that he collapsed June 6, according to bystander video of the aftermath shared with a reporter.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither of these employees in the video bothered to make sure the dog was doing well after he collapsed, besides the young lady petting him after watching him choke out,\u201d the bystander told The Post.<\/p>\n

The pitbull mix, named San Andreas, has \u201cno apparently medical concerns\u201d from the incident, an ACC rep said \u2014 adding the event was related to \u201cintense jumping and leash biting, which may have been exacerbated by external factors, such as pedestrians and nearby distractions.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least some of the shelter\u2019s four-legged denizens have been abused, critics say. Nicole Rosenthal \/ NY Post<\/p>\n

The city-funded animal shelter had issues right out of the gate. James Messerschmidt<\/p>\n

Another staffer told The Post he has heard other employees \u201cscream\u201d at the dogs and routinely yank on their leashes too hard \u2014 and when workers returned to the kennel, they would be instructed by management to merely change the blankets in the pooches\u2019 without disinfecting the kennel if they didn\u2019t appear soiled.<\/p>\n

Last year, city Councilman Bob Holden called on the ACC to temporarily house animals in another building and ease crowding after The Post published its report. But it appears the shelter\u2019s capacity has only dwindled marginally, with about 10% fewer dogs and 3% fewer cats than August 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I saw online \u2013 the horrible pictures \u2013 I see how that could happen, when you have double the amount of animals that you have to house,\u201d Holden said at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many pooches are still lying in their own filth and crammed into too-small cages at a $75 million…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5858,21202,3425,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,4413,34621,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-44625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-animal-abuse","10":"tag-animal-shelters","11":"tag-animals","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-queens","20":"tag-ridgewood","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114809045257694173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}