(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.”
I know this post is nearly 4 years old, but come on now…NSAL a “dubious” organization? That’s like saying apple pie is “Un-American”. whoever wrote this post is simply pandering to Mr. Contion, who seems a bit peeved about NSAL’s rigorous adoption process. My family and I have adopted a dog and a cat from them, after they were so gracious taking in 9 puppies a previous dog had some 30 years ago. They carefully screened their applicants then and are tougher now. They even made an unannounced home visit about 6 months later – for which I was grateful for! My only complaint was they would not take in three kittens my wife and I rescued last year, due to over population at the time. They are a great organization. As such, a few people, I’m sure, occasionally get brushed the wrong way from time to time – myself included.
Kevin,
I’m the person who wrote the post. I have no interest in making Mr. Contion look good. But my own personal experience with NSAL revealed a company that was anything but rigorous in the adoption process.
I am pleased to hear they attempted to screen you. That’s hardly a universal experience. If NSAL is suffering under the weight of animal overpopulation, that might have something to do with their efforts to bring an insane number of animals into the NYC area from other regions.
If apple pie could be accused of bringing thousands of dogs per year into Port Washington, NY — when the NY area already has no shortage of orphaned pets — I’d organize an apple pie boycott. I truly wish more persons had been willing to speak on the record concerning NSAL, but that fund-raising apparatus can apparently silence the critics, too.
I adopted a puppy at the Dog Day at Shea mentioned above. I’d bought NSAL’s PR for years so I didn’t think they were a dubious organization. They said my pup was 8 weeks old. She was at most 7 weeks old, against NY adoption laws. I asked them where she came from. They said those records were in the office and not on the bus and I could find out on Monday. It took 10 phone calls before someone told me the letter “T” in her adoption # meant she came from a kill-facility in Tennessee. To date I have been unable to find out which facility so I could try to find some history of how a 4-5 week old pup ended up at NSAL. They made a big deal of collecting references. The woman disappeared into the bus for 25 minutes acting like she was calling to check on me. When she emerged she said I was all set. She called no one and not one of my references were ever contacted. They said she was healthy so I thought I was adopting a calm pup. I am not an inexperienced dog person. She was anything but healthy. She had every intestinal worm possible. Within days she developed a skin rash she still suffers from that vets can’t pinpoint the cause of. They performed pediatric spaying on her two days before they put her in the bus and took her to Shea which my vets claim didn’t allow her to develop much of an immune system. When she was a year old she needed serious dentistry. A friend who had been married to a Long Island vet told me if he knew I was thinking about adopting from NSAL he would have tried to talk me out of it. His x-wife saw countless pets that had been adopted from NSAL who claimed they were healthy that were far from it. The more loudly I’ve screamed about NSAL the more horror stories I’ve heard. They only called me once to see how it was going and I told them that I brought home a pup who pooped blood, etc…I, on the other hand called and e-mailed them repeatedly to complain. I lived too far away to bring her to them for free treatments. They knew that from day one. I brought Shea back to Dog Day at Shea the following year complete with her skin rash, red gums, grey teeth and breath you could smell from 25 feet away. Plus she’s still skin, bones and fur no matter what and how much I feed her. I stood outside the NSAL bus with Shea and told people to never adopt from these scumbags. I followed their workers around so Shea could breath on them. When I got rid of all her worms I discovered I had adopted anything but a calm puppy. She’s hyper, suffers from seperation anxiety, has to be in a crate when I can’t watch her and is an escape artist. She’s a collie mix all right but collie mixed with whippet and/or beagle. The only victory I had with NSAL is that after 4 1/2 years of complaining and showing up when their bus comes to Connecticut they relented and gave me back my $200 adoption fee after I spent over a $1000 the first few months that I had her.
I would be more than happy to come forward with my name to tell people how awful NSAL is.
Country Maron
PO Box 131
Bethany, CT 06524-0131
203-393-1586