Though the big story for most is Lastings Milledge making his big league debut against the Snakes, the duo of Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez have reminded us that this evening marks the New York Mets’ 2nd Annual Dog Day (night?) at Shea Stadium, with a portion of the proceeds to benefit the North Shore Animal League.

The following item appeared on CSTB last August 18.


(they don’t care where the money is going…though perhaps they should)

On the surface, the New York Mets’ announcement that tomorrow night (Saturday, 8/20) is “Dog Day In The Park” at Shea, seems like fun-fun-fun for everyone. Canine fans of Jose Offerman, Gerald Williams and Braden Looper, can accompany their human guardians to Shea’s Picnic Area, where free Snausages will be offered to the dogs (Looper, however, has to buy his own).

There’s just one catch, however. Some of the proceeds from this event are being given to Port Washington, NY’s North Shore Animal League, the venerable non-profit organization that touts themselves as “the world’s largest no-kill animal rescue and adoption center.”

CSTB has tried over the past several days to find out a little more about NSAL. Remarkably, very few persons in the tri-state area’s animal rescue and/or animal rights community were willing to speak on the record, one woman citing NSAL’s alleged “$50 million war chest against litigation”.

John Contino (above) of New York’s Mighty Mutts, however, did not mince words in his characterization of NSAL :

“If i didn’t pick up a thousand animals with a NSAL tag on it, I didn’t pick up one. They simply don’t care who they adopt to. “

They claim that they’ve placed over 33,000 animals a year in homes…that they refuse 3 out of every 10 applications.” Contino, by contrast, says he approves adoption requests by fewer than 10 percent of those wishing to take home a rescue dog.

Then again, Contino doesn’t have a massive fund-raising apparatus to maintain, nor could an individual animal lover have anything whatsoever to gain by bringing thousands upon thousands of stray puppies and kittens into the NYC area and leaving other rescue organizations to deal with the aftermath of unwanted, unspayed or unneutered pets who’ve been abandoned.

I adopted a cat from NSAL in 1985. The process was slightly less arduous than buying a pack of gum.

Said Contino earlier today, “…if they (NSAL) were put out of business, New York City would be a better place.”