Building The Porcupine!

 

Hi.    

If you are here then you must care about LA Cats & Dogs and the other animals in our city.   

Why do we need you here? 

Two weeks ago a budget was put forth to the LA City Council Financial Committee that recommended cutting $5million dollars from Animal Services.   This was a mindboggling cut to a department which already has a budget that is to the bone.   The cut would have meant closing three shelters which would have raised euthanasia 30% of our cats and dogs in LA.    

So bad was this threat that many cat and dog lovers showed up at two city council meetings and said, "Don't do it".  Their voices were successful because on Tuesday April 29, the budget committee agreed to put $5 million back in.    Great.   Unfortunately, that is not the end of our problems.   Because between May 1 and May 30 the committee will continue to hack through the budget and they will have several opportunities to go back to Animal Services budget and take out $50 k here or  take out $100 k there or even more.  Understand, that every dollar removed can mean the difference of buying a case of vaccines, medicine, anesthesia, or fuel for the trucks.... or not.   Remember the shelters' budget has no fat and any cut is a problem.   

You can go to this video to learn more about the threat facing us if they chip away at the budget between now and May 30th.  

So, what is the answer?    

We need you to call your councilmember and then we need you to get all of your friends to call their councilmember.    If you need to figure out your district and councilmember, go HERE.  

And why are we calling our city councilmember?  

When we call our city councilmember and tell them "Do not cut one dollar from Animal Services"   and when we get other people to call their city councilmember and they tell them the same thing.... we are building a political porcupine.    

When we become a political porcupine then we are something too difficult for them to swallow.   That's what we want.    Let's build the porcupine so they can't cut animal services' budget.  

What else can you do? 

Grab a friend and hang out in front of PetCo, or dog parks or cat and dog adoption fairs and tell people what is going on and get them to call their councilmember.   This is called canvassing which a lot of you may have done for political candidates.   This time it is more important.   It's for the animals of LA.  All you need to make a canvas kit is right here.  

It's fun and easy and you will feel so good at the end of this process knowing you did all you could for LA dogs and cats.