Publication/Event date: 2013-01-29
Publication name: Examiner.com
URL for more info: http://www.examiner.com/article/national-animal-protection-group-decries-live-squirrel-shooting-contest
Summary:
The Companion Animal Protection Society is launching a national alert campaign to prevent an annual squirrel killing contest in Holley, N.Y.. The “7th Annual Hazzard County Squirrel Slam” is scheduled for Saturday, February 16. The contest, which awards cash prizes for the largest squirrel killed that day, will feature a “weigh in” and a gun drawing with several different types of fire arms, one of which is a AR/22 Semi.

The event is sponsored by the Holley Fire Department and is inviting children under the age of fourteen to shoot and kill squirrels.

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Los Angeles - The Companion Animal Protection Society has launched an investigation of the San Bernardino department of animal control after a video of an injured dog impounded at the shelter went viral on social media. The animal protection group, a national non-profit that  primarily investigates pet factory cruelty, was alerted to the injured dog by dozens of complaints to their L.A. office.

Publication/Event date: 2013-01-14
Publication name: Examiner.com
URL for more info: http://www.examiner.com/article/caps-launches-investigation-of-san-bernardino-shelter
Summary:
The Companion Animal Protection Society has launched an investigation of the San Bernardino department of animal control after a video of an injured dog impounded at the shelter went viral on social media. The animal protection group, a national non-profit that primarily investigates pet factory cruelty, was alerted to the injured dog by dozens of complaints to their L.A. office.

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Publication/Event date: 2012-01-03
Publication name: Cindy Lu's Muse
URL for more info: http://cindylusmuse.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-cause-to-celebrate-la-barkworks-closes.html#.UOcLU4njlZ9
Summary:
Something has me stumped. A major event occurred recently in Los Angeles, California. One with significance for all who care about the welfare of pets. And yet…the L.A. media didn’t run the story – or anyone else. It sits quietly, like a well-guarded secret. Let’s blow the lid off this thing, and then rip open the treat bags and celebrate… Barkworks in L.A. has closed following pressure from protesters! Barkworks has been documented as one of the many pet shops that sells dogs from puppy mills.

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For Immediate Release

Barkworks Pet Store Folds Under Pressure From Anti- Pet Shop/Puppy Mill Nonprofit

Following a protracted anti-puppy mill campaign by The Companion Animal Protection Society, the Barkworks pet store in Los Angeles’ Westside Pavilion will be closing.

LOS ANGELES – The Westside Pavilion location of Barkworks, the largest pet shop chain in the Los Angeles area, is closing for good on Monday. Barkworks has been the target of investigations and campaign outreach by the Companion Animal Protection Society (CAPS), a national nonprofit whose primary focus is the pet shop and puppy mill industry.

After YEARS of CAPS investigating and protesting inside the Westside Pavilion, BARKWORKS, a puppy mill front, is CLOSING! Thank you to ALL the activists who joined us for the massive protests!

Publication/Event date: 2012-12-18
Publication name: Huffington Post Los Angeles
URL for more info: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/18/no-kill-december-la-animal-shelters_n_2326253.html
Summary:
Things don’t look good for Folie, a 4-year-old tan Chihuahua in a cage in the small dogs room at the South Los Angeles animal shelter. She presses her nose to the bars attempting to get closer to Matthew Spease, the shelter’s animal care technician supervisor, as he unlocks the latch to her stainless steel home. She is excited to get some attention from him, but her squeals of anticipation sound raspy. She’s picked up a respiratory infection, commonly known as “kennel cough,” in the month she’s spent at the shelter.

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Comment posted by CAPS West Coast Director Carole Raphaelle Davis in response to article:

"No Kill December" is a publicity stunt designed to obfuscate the fact that our shelter system is in shambles. The shelter system is a well-oiled killing machine and everyone in the animal protection movement knows it. This is a LAAS co-branding campaign with Best Friends Animal Society, which collects more than $40 million per year in donations.

Small, financially strapped rescue orgs are scrambling to save lives. They could use some of that money being siphoned off from them in order to pay for salaries, marketing, publicists and parties. Small rescue orgs struggle to provide med care for sick, injured and fear-biting animals who would have been killed during "No Kill December." The heavy lifting is being done by very small organizations, many with fewer than a dozen volunteers, spending their hard-earned money to save lives while Barnette and Best Friends Animal Society take the credit.

We receive complaints daily that Barnette is not enforcing our spay/neuter law or illegal sales. How can they brag of "improvement" if it is concocted while we outsource animals to private shelters in order to make a fantasy appear real? Animals will be killed in January, in February, on and on until people understand that breeding, selling or buying animals is uncontionable while we kill tens of thousands of animals per year.

How is LAAS “No Kill” if animals are outsourced and rescuers picked up the slack and pay medical bills for animals who would have been killed? Isn’t that more like “No Responsibility?”  

Publication/Event date: 2012-11-12
Publication name: Care2
URL for more info: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/los-angeles-ordinance-bans-retail-animal-sales.html
Summary:
They don’t call it the City of Angels for nothing. We’re not being sarcastic — Los Angeles has a serious soft spot for little furry critters. Last month, on Halloween, the L.A. City Council pulled off an impressive trick: formalizing its approval of an ordinance that bans the retail sale of dogs, cats, and rabbits, becoming the largest American city to do so.

You heard right. In the future, the dogs, cats, and rabbits seen in Los Angeles pet stores will be from shelters or rescue groups. Products of puppy and kitten mills will simply not be available for sale in L.A. Animal advocates around the country are cheering this as a giant leap toward the Golden State becoming the largest no-kill community in the country. Way to go, Los Angeles

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LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Oct. 31, 2012) -- LA's City Council voted to ban commercially bred pets in the city's pet shops.

A landmark ordinance, spearheaded by the Companion Animal Protection Society (CAPS), officially passed on Wednesday. The ban was the result of years of pressure from non-profit organizations like CAPS to curb the influx of puppy mill dogs into big cities. In February of last year, CAPS provided the Los Angeles City Council with the results of its two year investigation into LA's retail pet stores and the commercial breeding facilities – mostly from the Midwest and rural California – that supplied them.

The undercover investigation included video and photographic evidence of puppy mill operators who routinely violated federal law – Animal Welfare Act (AWA) – as well as state laws protecting animals. CAPS uncovered evidence that many of LA's pet retailers still purchased and supported commercial breeders. Most of these puppy mills were neglectful and abusive to their animals, repeatedly violated USDA minimum standard of care, and often bred sickly or subpar dogs. CAPS also discovered that LA's pet stores were misleading unsuspecting consumers by selling them sick and dying animals.

In addition to the undercover investigations, CAPS organized hundreds of protests in Los Angeles pet stores that also put pressure on local officials to act against puppy mills. CAPS led a landmark protest in 2009 inside the Westside Pavilion Mall in Los Angeles against one of seven Barkworks stores, which set the stage for a long campaign in the Southern California. CAPS broke new ground in the California animal protection movement by invoking the more expansive California Constitution to legally protest inside a mall, which is a de facto public forum under California case law.

CAPS continued its Barkworks campaign by holding several more protests at three malls, often with more than 100 participants. One of our unique protests included more than 70 inner city public high school students who got involved after learning about the puppy mill-pet shop-shelter connection from CAPS. CAPS' campaigns in the Los Angeles area also pushed several retailers into switching to a humane business model, on which part of the LA ordinance is based. In an eight-month period, four stores stopped selling puppy mill dogs and began offering animals from shelters and rescue organizations.

“After eight years of investigations and protests, we are satisfied and optimistic about breaking the blood money contracts between puppy mill owners who abuse animals and L.A. pet retailers. This ordinance will relieve mill animals and help save the lives of animals who are killed at Los Angeles Animal Services. The 2011-2012 body count is unacceptable, with 9,056 dogs and 12,061 cats killed in our shelters. We are relieved that finally, the cries of L.A.’s shelter animals have been heard. Puppy mills and cruel pet factories will fade into history at last," said Companion Animal Protection Society West Coast Director Carole Raphaelle Davis.

The legislation is particularly important because it makes LA the largest city in the US and Canada to ban pet stores from selling dogs, cats and rabbits from commercial breeders. CAPS has consistently supplied reliable evidence to cities determined to stop puppy mills from selling dogs to their communities. Our West Hollywood, California ordinance banning the sale of pet shop puppies and kittens received worldwide media coverage and was the genesis for the now growing ordinance movement in both this country and Canada.

There are ordinances banning the sale of pet shop puppies and kittens in California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas and Canada. We assisted with the by-law in Richmond, British Columbia, which was the inspiration for the recently passed by-law in Toronto. CAPS also worked with Legislator Jon Cooper in Suffolk County before he withdrew his proposed ordinance due to state preemption, which CAPS is now trying to get removed from the state lemon law.

The West Hollywood ordinance, which passed in February of 2010, was possible because of the relentless work of the CAPS West Cost team, which submitted CAPS undercover investigation of the local pet shop and the atrocious Wensmann puppy mill in Minnesota that supplied this pet shop. CAPS was subsequently involved with getting pet shop ordinances passed in Glendale and Irvine, Calif. CAPS was recently involved in getting the first pet shop ordinance passed in Illinois and is working on other municipalities in the Chicago area. Sarasota County, which has three pet shops, is also on the agenda.

The LA ban was introduced by Councilman Paul Koretz, a West Hollywood Council member from 2000 to 2006 and a longtime supporter of animal rights. The measure will give a much needed boost to the overburdened municipal shelter system, which currently has thousands of pets ready for adoption.

“Finally, an end to rabbits bred in cruel pet factories who are then trucked to unscrupulous retail animal dealers here in L.A., only to live out their sad lives in a cage. We have high hopes that consumers will now gladly turn to the shelters to adopt homeless and sterilized rabbits,” said President of Bunny World Foundation Lejla Hadzimuratovic.