FLASHBACK: ASPCA Tales, Scales & Fur (1986-1989)

Perhaps the only thing more boring than listening to someone describe their dreams is hearing them talk about their day at work.  Or so I thought until the ASPCA hired me as a public affairs officer.  Suddenly, nearly everybody--including newspaper reporters and television assignment editors--wanted to hear my animal stories, some cuddly, some decidedly not.

America's "first humane society" rescued thousands of animals every year in New York.

Only a small percentage had adoption potential because people generally prefer puppies and kittens.

Grooming helped.

People often abandon pets when they're moving but it was rare to find a pair of purebred Scotties leashed to a fire hydrant on a Manhattan street--with their pedigree papers!  They had no trouble finding homes.

Junk yard dogs like this one, with mange, were almost always "euthanized" within hours of being removed from the streets.

Some pooches suffered even crueler fates.

A mobile van took dogs, cats and an occasional rabbit to local street fairs and greenmarkets, but ASPCA staff carefully screened potential adopters to ensure they would be responsible "stewards." People without screens on their windows, for example, weren't allowed to adopt.  As a result, adoptable animals were occasionally euthanized, a controversial policy that the Wall Street Journal exposed on its front page after I explained it to what I thought was a sympathetic reporter.  Very bad for fundraising, an area where the ASPCA already was on ethically shaky ground:  many of organization's national donors thought they were supporting local shelters, not just those in New York City.

During my tenure members of the ASPCA humane law enforcement division were the only city employees authorized to carry guns besides cops.  Madeline Bernstein headed the division which took carriage horse safety very seriously, especially on hot summer days.  If the temperature humidity index rose above a certain threshold, she ordered the horses back to their stables.

Cockfights and dogfights commanded much of the unit's attention.  When agents informed me that they had seized Hercules, a massive pit bull, in a raid the night before,  I hit the equivalent of a PR grand slam:  every TV station and newspaper, including the New York Times, covered the story. 

Fighing cock owners attached razor sharp implements to the bird's claws and plucked the feathers from the bottom half of their bodies so that audiences could see the birds draw blood.

Fortunately, not all my days were so gruesome and many offered photo opportunities for the ASPCA's in-house magazine.  Although New Yorkers are prohibited from keeping barnyard animals for any reason, that didn't stop residents of the Bronx and Brooklyn from trying.

The ASPCA also operated the Animalport, a way station for critters in transit.  This pygmy hippo, a zoo transfer, was flying from Tulsa to Saudi Arabia.

Who does the traveling circus call when a camel breaks its leg?  The ASPCA, of course.

The ASPCA also conducted a humane education program.  As part of it, staff introduced New York City public schoolchildren to shelter animals.

Mary Bloom, a noted animal photographer, and I became friends during my brief tenure.  For many years, she organized the blessing of the animals at St. John the Divine.  After the Exxon Valdez disaster, Mary flew to Alaska and spent many weeks taking pictures and trying to clean the oil from birds.

Once I discovered the Pines, I left the ASPCA because I HATED being on 24-hour call.  But no subsequent job was more memorable.

Are you familiar with The Naked City, an old TV show shot on location in New York City? Every show concluded with the narrator intoning "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

I wish only that I'd written more of them down when I was at the ASPCA.

Rooster on the Loose

One night I was walking my dog and came across the bodies of two plucked, headless chickens.  I assumed they were the remains of some kind of animal sacrifice, but not until I began working at the ASPCA did I discover that it had a name:  Santeria.  Haitians practiced it, and sure enough there were a number of Haitians living in my Upper West Side neighborhood.

Santeria, however, was the farthest thing from my mind one cold drizzly evening after a long day at the shelter.  I couldn't wait to get Smokey walked and back inside my warm apartment, far away from the pitiful whines that I had heard all day long.  People who'd worked at the ASPCA for years told me I'd eventually learn to tune out the crying of caged animals, but long after I'd grown accustomed to the smell, the sounds still haunted me.  My standard greeting to Smokey had become "Silly, you don't know lucky you are."

So when Smokey began nosing around a mass of white feathers huddled in a shallow cardboard box surrounded by cocoanut shells just inside the West 90th Street entrance to Central Park, I assumed she had found the remains of a sacrifice.  Then it moved.  I took a closer look.  It was a rooster, barely breathing.  "Great," I thought.  "What should I do?"

Smokey, of course, was no help at all.  She wanted to play with the pathetic creature.  A month earlier, when I had not yet begun working for America's first humane society, I might have walked away from the box, a little guiltily perhaps, and forgotten its contents ten minutes later.  I watched another man do just that, though he appeared more startled than concerned.  Now, as a result of my "raised consciousness," I had two alternatives:  call the ASPCA animal rescue truck, which could take hours to arrive, or rescue the rooster myself.

Though the role of savior hardly appealed to me at the time, I chose the latter course of action and walked quickly home to fetch a couple of plastic grocery bags in which to transport the rooster.  I hoped another Samaritan might have saved me the trouble by the time I returned on my bicycle, but no one had.  The bird hadn't moved and it didn't resist my gloved hand (I thought it might mistake me for a Haitian and muster the energy to peck at me--who knew what diseases it carried?) and fell awkwardly into the D'Agostino bags.

I pedalled to the shelter, more concerned with speed than safety.  The rooster dangled from my handlebar. An accident would have been interesting to explain.  Proudly, I walked to the front desk and announced what I had done.  Though the staff did recognize me, nobody seemed impressed. I handed the bag to a fellow who unceremoniously dumped the bird on the counter.  It lay on its side.

"They gonna put this bird down," he said. He gave me a receipt and told me I could call back the next day to determine the "disposition."  I rode back home in the rain knowing the bird would probably be dead before I reached the West Side.   

Boa in the Bathtub

Two cops were summoned to a building on West End Avenue by an hysterical superintendent who had discovered a seven-foot long boa constrictor in the apartment of a man who was vacationing in California. "I go to repair a leak in the bathroom and I find a boa in the bathtub," he told an Eyewitness News reporter.  The police brought the snake to the Manhattan shelter, which has an Exotics Ward, and the camera crew followed.

Rebecca, the president's assistant, burst into my office with the news that Channel 7 was downstairs.  I rushed to the front desk to offer my assistance, but Will Spens, the reporter already had all the details--he only needed some more footage of the snake.  It must have been a slow news day.

"You could film one of our kennel workers feeding it," I suggested.  We had gotten off on the wrong foot when I didn't immediately recognize him, so I was trying to be as helpful as possible.

I took him and the crew into Exotics, which formerly housed several horse stalls.  The snake lay in the bottom of a plastic cage.  Felix, an ASPCA employee who owned several large snakes himself, was happy to oblige any request that would result in television exposure, but when he lifted the snake out of the cage, it began to vomit a clear liquid.  

"We better get this snake to the hospital" I said.  "It's just upstairs.  Let me go ahead and alert them."

The camera crew filmed Felix carrying the boa, which continued to throw up, to the hospital where a veterinarian specializing in exotic animals, said it might be suffering from some sort of internal irritation.  "We need to take an X-Ray.  But first we have to bring down its body temperature so that it will curl up and we can get a picture of all seven feet.  Let's put it in the refrigator."

"Yea, this boa, he needs to chill out," agreed Felix.

En route to the treatment room, where several technicians had to rearrange their lunches in the refrigerator to make room on one of the shelves, we passed a young woman holding a tiny cage.  The boa looked at the cage with interest.

"What have you got in there?" asked Spens.

"My mouse.  I'm having it neutered," she responded in all seriousness.

The footage was getting better by the minute.  Unfortunately the snake did not cool quickly enough for the crew to film the actual x-ray procedure, but the favorable prognosis  was reported that night on the 6 p.m. news.  The owner never reclaimed his reptile.  He likely valued a rent-stabilized apartment more than scaly companionship.

Up Next:  Sparkle

The ASPCA strongly discourages giving animals as gifts, especially during the holiday season.  But when the "Today" Show calls and "requests" a cute dog for a segment called "The Twelve Days of Christmas," the opportunity for national exposure can make it tempting to ignore policy.  Nevertheless, I expressed my reservations to the producer who, much to my surprise, not only understood but offered an ASPCA spokesperson air time during the segment to express them.  

Selecting a spokesperson without slighting any ASPCA egos was less trouble than choosing what ultimately became an extraordinarily lucky dog.  As usual the shelter was full of abandoned animals.  I looked in cage after cage knowing that the dog I selected would be adopted almost immediately.  Many of the others would be euthanized.  Some dogs looked directly at me, their ears perked and tails wagging; others cowered in corners or barked.  It was tough not to imagine they were begging me to save their lives.

After much deliberation, I finally chose a pair of big brown eyes buried in a tangle of matted fur.  The dog, a stray female terrier poodle mix, had been found wandering unlicensed in the streets of the South Bronx.  I asked Pam, the shelter's assistant director, to have her groomed and ready for the "Today" show by 6 a.m., when a limousine would arrive to pick up the dog and Ann, our vice president for education.

The dog obviously needed a name.  I decided on "Sparkle," which turned out to be an inspired choice even though it might have been more appropriate for a Fourth of July program.  In the meantime, Pam discovered that Sparkle was in heat.

"Will that make a difference?" I asked.

"Only if there's a male dog present in the studio," said Pam.

After seeing Sparkle groomed, we both agreed it would be worth taking the chance.  Who would believe that somebody could abandon such an adorable animal, which might, at one time, have been given as a gift?  The fact that Sparkle was in heat would enable Ann to make a point about the necessity to have your pet spayed or neutered.

The limousine from NBC picked up Ann and Sparkle right on schedule.  Upon arrival at Rockefeller Center, Sparkle, who was tremendously excited to be released from her cage, promptly defecated on the marble floor of the lobby.  Ann smiled wanly.  Without complaint, the driver used his hankerchief to wipe the area clean.

In the studio, a producer greeted her ASPCA guests but instead of showing them to the Green Room, where guests usually wait, she left them in a hallway.

"We have a pair of cats from Nieman Marcus also appearing in this segment.  The gentleman accompanying them says he doesn't think they like dogs," she explained by way of apology.

The cats were well known to Ann, whose department had received many phone calls complaining that cats were now being bred to match people's furniture.  They were featured in Nieman's Christmas catalog, and like much of the high-priced merchandise contained therein, they could be ordered in a variety of styles and colors.  

Sparkle enjoyed the freedom of the hallway and ignored the flashing red quiet sign, barking loudly at anyone who passed.  The producer finally returned to escort them to the set where the cats were already present atop a waist-high table.  Instantly it became clear that the man from Nieman's had been wise in insisting that the animals be kept separate.  The cats tried to bolt at the sight of Sparkle, who herself became nearly uncontrollable with excitement.

Still, in live television, the show must go on.  While I and millions of Americans watched a commercial, Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel took their places with three four-legged guests who had no intention of modifying their behavior for the viewing audience.  When the "Today" show returned, we heard a dog barking loudly and saw--in tight close-up--a cat maul a man who 

nevertheless insisted the $1500 animal would make a wonderful addition to any living room.

Once the cat was removed, Sparkle calmed down enough for Ann to deliver her 30-second spiel.  As soon as she finished, the ASPCA switchboard lit up with hundreds of calls from people who wanted to adopt Sparkle.   All of them were informed that they would have to come to the shelter and complete the standard adoption application.  Before noon, Sparkle had a new home on Sutton Place.

Uncomfortable Truth

A Valentine's Day adoption photo had been scheduled with the New York Post for 1 p.m.  I awaited the arrival of the photographer in the lobby with Yvonne Scherrer, a Jamaican restaurateur who had rescued a stray dog while shopping for her continental cuisine menu in Spanish Harlem.  It was her story--pitched as "two-star restaurant owner makes 400 pound Valentine's Day gift of four-star dog food"--that had enticed the Post photographer to make the long trip from South Street to the Upper East Side on a snowy day.  When Yvonne and the dog I had christened "Rin Din Din" were reunited, she decided to step outside the shelter to walk the friendly animal.  "Please keep an eye on my purse" she said as she walked away from the row of plastic chairs where we were seated.  

Almost as soon as she left a peculiar looking man in a royal blue pullover sweater sat down next to me.  "Do you know where I can find a Gordon setter?" he asked in a drawl that was thicker than his eyeglasses.  "I'm from Georgia and if I don't get one today, I'm going to kill myself," he declared.  I had avoided looking at him when I noticed that both of his eyes were severely bruised; now that he made this confessional threat, I couldn't wait for him to move away.  "The Adoptions staff would know better than I," I replied, relieved that I had an opportunity to pass the buck.

The man refused to take the hint, so I got up myself. By this time, Yvonne, the adoption manager and Rin Din Din were drying off near the entrance to the shelter.  I joined them to discuss the merits of Eucanuba, the dog food of choice among the animal lovers who work at the ASPCA.  Secretly, I believed that Eucanuba would appeal to Smokey, my own dog, as little as their vegetarian diets appealed to me. Suddenly, Yvonne looked at me and asked "Where's my purse?"

I rushed back to the chair where she had left it.  Both it and the and man in the blue pullover were gone.  I found him much more quickly than the purse, however.  It was hard to miss him now that he had added a glittery copper-colored scarf to his outfit.  This lunatic headed my list of suspects and though he remained calm during the hubbub that ensued, I thought it was entirely possible that he had hidden the woman's purse just to get even with everyone for ignoring him.  

Shortly before the police and the Post photographer arrived, a shelter employee announced that she had held on to the purse for "safekeeping."  While Yvonne and Rin Din Din posed with a bag of Eucanuba the man in the blue pullover, who had been making free calls on the telephone adoption volunteers use to verify references, stood directly in front of me and asked "Where is Iowa?"  Without bothering to conceal my irritation, I answered "east of Georgia."  Pride forced me to correct myself seconds later.

As soon as I returned upstairs the man became a crucial element in a now humorous narration of the afternoon's events.  But when I left that evening, a volunteer who had remained on duty throughout the day informed me that there was more to the story.  She showed me the adoption application the man had completed.

I read through and discovered that the man had no permanent address but that in rural Georgia he carried the name of his father and grandfather before him.  When completing the question "Why do you want a pet?" he had responded "Companionship" in  surprisingly authoritative handwriting.  Now that he was safely out of the building, I could feel compassion.  He probably did need an animal more than most people, but it was obvious from the contemptuous look on the volunteer's face that he had been denied.

"Shortly after you went back upstairs," she began, "a woman came in with a box full of puppies.  She offered him one before the front desk had a chance to do the paperwork.  I watched him gather up his things and put a tiny puppy under his coat. `Stop that man!' I shouted when he started out the door.  Two of the police who had come to investigate the purse-snatching were still here and when they heard me shout, they chased after the guy.  They caught him right outside the shelter `Up against the wall, scuzzball,' yelled one cop.  Then they confiscated the puppy and told the guy to leave."  

Smiling, the volunteer took me back to see the "rescued" puppy. "Jeffrey," she asked me, "isn't there something you can do to let people know about helping homeless animals in this weather?"  Her question, forced me to confront an uncomfortable truth:  many people who work at the ASPCA have more sympathy for animals than people.

Enemy Territory

One Thursday late in January,  the vice president for law enforcement, walked into my office to report a "developing situation" at the National Outdoor Sportsman's Show.  Madeline, whose TV role model had been Perry Mason, was often the source of stories that the media loved and I could tell from the look on her face that she had a doozy.  She made my job easy. 

"My agents are awaiting the arrival of three alligators and a bear from Florida at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center," she began.  "They're scheduled to wrestle, and if I'm interpreting the New York State Agricultural Markets Law correctly, that may be a felony offense.  We're there to make sure that there's no contact."

"Who's wrestling whom," I asked.

"We don't know yet, but I've informed the people at Javits that they're just as responsible as the promoters of the show if they allow any animal fighting.  Right now, I'm more concerned about some ducks that are being stuffed into socks and thrown into a pool of water so that a dog trainer can show off the skills of her retrievers.  Our vet tells me that can be a very stressful for a duck."

Neither of us bothered to suppress the giggles that threatened to erupt into real laughter, a reaction that many people at the ASPCA would have found totally inappropriate.  Still, I couldn't resist asking Madeline if we had a potential "dead duck" situation on our hands.

"Not if they comply with the cease and desist order I plan to issue," she answered.  At that moment my phone rang.  The New York Post was calling to find out if the alligators and bear had arrived yet.  When media interest preceded my own awareness of a story, I knew the potential for coverage was great. I told the reporter about the duck, but he was after bigger game.  He even knew one of their names: "Sampson, the Wrestling Bear." 

"We ought to get over there in time for the first scheduled show," I suggested.  "If there's media, they'll certainly want to speak to an ASPCA official.  I've never been to the Javits Center anyway."

An agent drove us to the Center in a law enforcement car, which resembles a wimpy version of a police car, though it is topped by a cherry capable of flashing in an animal-related emergency.  En route we discussed the implications of the animal fighting prohibition which excludes "exhibitions of the kind commonly featured at rodeo."  I argued that bear and alligator wrestling didn't seem much different from the steer wrestling that I'd occasionally seen as a child growing up in Texas.  Madeline remained undecided.  Though we were the same age, she had attended a yeshiva in New York City where there were few bucking broncos.  "Maybe it's like pornography," she mused, "I'll know it when I see it." 

Once we were admitted to the cavernous building, it took us several minutes to find the agents who had kept Madeline briefed throughout the day.  In rows as long as four city blocks, we passed booth after booth, each staffed with a reasonable facsimile of the Marlboro man displaying every conceivable type of outdoor fun.  Their sales pitches included phrases such as "this buck lure is guaranteed to smell just like a doe in heat."

I listened as Madeline and her agents prepared their strategy.  "We'll ask the lady with the retrieving dogs to comply voluntarily with our request not to stuff the ducks into socks."

"What about the pheasant?" asked one of the agents.

"I'm not sure I can prevent her from tying up the pheasant's legs.  Our vet tells me that's probably for the pheasant's protection.  If it tries to run away, one of the dogs might accidentally break its neck."

"We think they may be hiding the bear and alligators in trucks out near the loading dock.  Should we check them?"

"No, we'd need a warrant to do that.  We'll just have to wait until showtime.  Maybe we can stop them by claiming that the presence of a bear and alligators endangers the public."

I was glad it wouldn't be my job to convince a mob of disappointed spectators that their lives were in jeopardy.  Though most of the men looked like stockbrokers in their business suits, I was sure all of them owned Chevy Blazers equipped with gun racks.  And there were lots more of them than us.

While the agents searched for the duck abuser, Madeline and I wandered into a smaller room where an archery demonstration was in progress.  Several people stood behind a rope, shooting suction tip arrows into life-size plastic animals of all varieties, from deer to bobcats to bighorn sheep.  Most of them, however, resembled mutant porcupines, so numerous were the arrows that jutted from their bodies.  At less than 20 yards, the animals were easy targets.  "Got him" was heard as often as the smack of rubber on plastic and though this was preferable to the sounds of animals in pain, it was still a sickening sight.

Quite suddenly I believed in what we were doing.

The agents had plenty to tell us when we returned.  They reported that the bear and alligators had been delayed by a snowstorm in South Carolina and that the woman who was exhibiting the skills of her retrieving dogs had agreed to use plastic decoys.  "She gave us a hard time though.  She insisted the dogs were gentle with the ducks--that that was the point--and said they don't like to go into the water unless they're going after the real thing."

Madeline and I took our seats in the bleachers to watch the show.  Sure enough, one Labrador retriever balked at leaping into the pool after the plastic decoy.  The beautiful dog barked and looked quizzically at the trainer before another command elicited a plunge.  As gently as the dog finally retrieved the decoy, I could understand why a duck might be stressed out by the situation.  The pheasant certainly didn't look too calm, trussed as it was.   

The bear and the alligators never made it to New York or at least that's what the promoters told us.  Madeline assigned two agents to patrol the Center for the duration of the Sportsman's Show to ensure that the dogs got wet for decoys, not ducks.

Do Goldfish Have Feelings? 

For two weeks every September, thousands of people crowd into the narrow streets of Little Italy for the San Gennaro Festival.  Food and games of chance are the major attractions.  For years the ASPCA had received complaints from "humaniacs" about the abuse of animals being used as prizes.  Though we sympathized with their concerns, there wasn't much we could do to protect the birds, fish and reptiles who ended up in the hands of people who wanted to win something more than they wanted a pet.

Then in 1986, New York State passed a law prohibiting the use of most live animals as prizes.  Our law enforcement agents looked forward to the San Gennaro Festival with relish, knowing that it was unlikely the vendors would voluntarily comply with Section 358a of New York State's Agriculture and Markets Law.

As might be expected, the organizers of the festival were hardly thrilled when agents seized nearly 100 animals, including parakeets, cockatiels and snakes.  A large man with an Italian surname insisted no illegal activity was taking place and then issued a couple of death threats.  Though armed, our plainsclothes agents requested back-up from the New York City Police Department.  Three vendors were given summons for $250 and the animals were transported to the shelter.

I alerted the Associated Press to the story shortly after the incident which was reported on several radio stations the following morning.  At work the next day I received a phone call from a gravelly voiced New York Daily News reporter.  From his derisive tone it was clear he thought the ASPCA should have better things to do than disrupt a church-sanctioned festival.  Not surprisingly, he also had an Italian surname. 

Still, the reporter didn't have much of a story until I mentioned our less successful efforts to help goldfish.  One vendor operated a booth which offered goldfish to people who could pitch a ping pong ball into a bowl where a goldfish was, in fact, in residence.  The prize was awarded in a plastic bag which typically ended up being used as a water balloon.      

We could only issue a "cease and desist" order on animal cruelty charges to this particular vendor because goldfish, like livestock, were exempt from the new law.  The reporter pressed me for an explanation.

"I love my goldfish more than me wife, buddy," he said.  "I take it for a walk every night.  What makes tossing a ping pong ball into its bowl cruel?" he asked.

"Obviously, you're not as concerned with animal welfare as the ASPCA," I began "but put yourself in the place of the goldfish for a moment.  There you are, swimming around contentedly in a small bowl when suddenly a foreign object hits the surface of the water sending shock waves below.  Wouldn't you be traumatized?  Why do you think that fish swim away when you tap on an aquarium?"

"You're saying that they're TRAUMATIZED?" he demanded incredulously.  Then he began to laugh.  I knew then he had the story he had been fishing for but I never expected it to appear on the inside front page with the headline "Psycho Pfish."  Of course I was quoted and this prompted an interview request from a nationally syndicated TV program--which I declined--and a trauma testing contest for goldfish at a radio station in Rockefeller Center.

Extemporizing  

  

Fish played another important role in my development as a spokesperson.  Where else but the ASPCA would I ever have the opportunity to comment on the situation in the Persian Gulf?  Late one Friday afternoon, a reporter from the Atlanta Constitution called to inquire about our position on the U.S. military using dolphins to detect mines.

I tried to pass the question on to Ann, who also served as our science adviser, but she felt uncomfortable making a comment until she know exactly how the dolphins were being used.  When I asked the reporter for further "clarification" he said it was all top secret information.  

Nevertheless, because the reporter was on deadline and I didn't want to lose exposure for the ASPCA in a major newspaper, I took a stab at it myself.  This may not seem inappropriate, but my predecessor had very nearly lost his job when he told the New York Times what he supposed was the most humane way to boil a lobster.  Who knew how what I might say would appear in print?

I took the chance mostly because Atlanta was very far away from New York.

"If loss of animal life is involved," I began, knowing that a qualifier is always useful, "then this would seem" (good, let's not be too definite) "to be an unconscionable exploitation of the sensory capacities of animals who are essentially non-political" (wow, not bad for right off the top of my head).

 "Would you repeat that?" asked the reporter, whose relief at making his deadline was apparent.

Would I ever!  I was so proud of myself that I actually distributed the story--censure be damned!--when our clipping service picked it up. 

Criminals Like Animals, Too

While interviewing Patty about the Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital's new computerized record system, she suddenly pointed to a man at the front desk.  "Do you know who that is?" she asked.  I looked at the handsome young fellow, who looked familiar though I couldn't quite place him.  "It's Robert Chambers."  Robert Chambers, the notorious "Preppie Murderer" was about to stand trial for killing Jennifer Levin, a young woman he claimed had sexually injured him during a pre-dawn tryst in Central Park. 

Only ten minutes before, fashion designer Betsey Johnson had been posing for a publicity photograph in one of the hospital's examining rooms with her daughter Lulu and "Doopsie," the cat they had adopted from the ASPCA.  This wholesome bit of celebrity faded in comparison to the excitement generated by Chambers' presence.

"What's he doing here?" I asked.  

"Having his cats declawed," answered Patty.  

This information proved more intiguing still.  Chambers, when arrested shortly after the murder, insisted that the scratches on his face had been inflicted by his cat.  I rushed upstairs to the third floor to relay the news.  The women were particularly interested to learn that Chambers was accompanied by a young blond woman.   En masse, they rushed downstairs and crowded into the hospital waiting room.

Ten minutes later, Elinor, the ASPCA's general counsel, huffed into my office.  Elinor's sensitivity to animal rights issues was exquisite, practically eye-rolling.   

"Is it true we've declawed Robert Chambers' cat?" she demanded indignantly.  "I thought our policy was only to declaw cats as a last resort if their owners were going to euthanize them because of destructive habits?"  Although I knew that a hospital veterinarian had just instructed Betsey Johnson about what arrangements were necessary to have "Doopsie" declawed, I was unwilling to get involved in one of the policy disputes that seem to occur daily at the ASPCA.

No sooner had I told Elinor to take the matter up with the hospital's director, than did Madeline poke her head in the door.  A former assistant district attorney in the Bronx, she asked "Aren't we destroying evidence by declawing Chambers' cat?  You'll recall that he initially used his cat as an alibi."  

"How do we know it's the same cat?" I countered.  While Madeline rushed off to put in a call to the Manhattan D.A.'s office, I went down to Adoptions and discovered that Chamber's had adopted the cat from the ASPCA after he was arrested.  "What a headline!" I thought:  ASPCA CAT FINDS HOME WITH KILLER.  We've always been proud of our efforts to screen out unsuitable homes for pets, but unfortunately our adoption application does not ask the question "Have you ever been accused of murder?"

About a month later, I learned that the police had brought a black rabbit to the Manhattan shelter.  It belonged to  Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum, who were arrested for the abuse and murder of Nussbaum's six-year-old daughter Lisa.  The case had been making headlines for weeks and several people at the ASPCA thought we could get some publicity with the rabbit.

Their idea was not so exploitive as it might first seem.  Two years after Henry Bergh founded the ASPCA in 1866, he established America's first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.  The ASPCA president, a former Jesuit priest, never missed an opportunity to point out that people who abuse animals typically abuse people, too.  Although the Steinberg rabbit appeared to be in good physical condition, the situation still offered an opportunity to make a fascinating connection.

But then what?

Pass The Buck 

  

One Saturday morning in January I got a call notifying me that the shelter staff was in a panic.  

Four dogs had been brought in by the police the night before from the apartment of a man who had died of AIDS.  Apparently he'd been dead for several days and the dogs had been feeding on his body.  

Staff in direct contact with the animals here were afraid that they might catch the disease if they were bitten by the dogs or cleaned up their waste.  ASPCA veterinary staff, which advised putting the dogs to sleep immediately, assured them that they had nothing to worry about but that didn't stop the assistant director of the shelter from calling the New York City AIDS hotline.  The hotline conferred with our vets and asked how the animals would be disposed of which raised another question, and one that nearly a month later continued to be a problem.  

The 60,000 animals the ASPCA "euthanized" annually at the time were picked up by a private sanitation contractor and delivered to a factory in New Jersey.   There, the bodies were rendered into animal fat, then used to manufacture soap and cosmetic products, including lipstick.  Can you imagine what would happen if word got out that potentially infected animals had been disposed of in this manner?  Not only would it create a serious public relations problem, but there would probably be a panic of some sort, at least in the tabloid press.  The public was already woefully ignorant about the transmission of the disease.  

Still, the guy in charge of the shelter decided he would try to sneak these dogs in with the other animals.  He might have gotten away with it if some of the employees hadn't already mentioned this grisly story to the drivers of the sanitation truck who absolutely refused to touch the dogs.  That left incineration as the only alternative; unfortunately the crematoriums weren't too eager to help solve the shelter's problem either.  

Finally a Board member suggested that we ship them to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.  Who knows if they ever got there? (I didn't want to know!)  But the macabre incident again reminded me how nearly every social issue somehow finds its way to the animal shelter.