No Kill advocates in Pueblo, Colorado, (who organize together at a Facebook Page called Reform Pueblo Animal Services) believed their years-long struggle for their municipal animal shelter to become No Kill was almost over when, on Monday, February 26, 2018, Pueblo City Council passed the Pueblo Animal Protection Act (PAPA). The law has been successfully implemented under slightly different names in other communities. It will require the shelter to maintain a Live Release Rat

Monday, February 26, 2018 is a day animal advocates in Pueblo, Colorado will remember for a long time. During a City Council meeting that ran late into the evening, the Council voted to approve the Pueblo Animal Protection Act (PAPA) in a 4 to 3 vote, concluding a months-long campaign run by Reform Pueblo Animal Services (RPAS) to get the ordinance passed. PAPA was a proposed law that was based on similar laws enacted elsewhere, known as the Companion Animal Protection Act (C

Photo: Screen Capture of Pueblo Animal Services web site shows only 4 dogs available for adoption, even as they claim their relatively high kill rate is because of "pet overpopulation." As 2017 comes to a close there is a lot of exciting news going on in the world of animal sheltering. No Kill Learning did a nice recap, so we will not repeat all of that. One thing they mentioned, however, deserves some detailed attention, because doing so proves not only that overpopulation i

We recently reported that the Humane Society of Pikes Peak Region (HSPPR), which runs Pueblo Animal Services (PAS) under a contract they have with the City of Pueblo, Colorado, appears to have been using PAS resources in order to lobby citizens in what seems to be an overt conflict of interest, to continue killing and avoid oversight. The basic issue is that a proposed new ordinance, the Pueblo Animal Protection Act (PAPA), would require the Pueblo animal shelter to do more t

Image: The top portion of a letter mailed to members and donors to Pueblo Animal Services (PAS), and signed by the CEO of the Humane Society of Pikes Peak Region, attacking a proposed life-saving ordinance that would regulate the agency she over-sees, under a contract with the City of Pueblo, represents an overt conflict of interests that the City should address. Most people have heard the term "conflicts of interest," but a lot of people don't fully understand what it means,

Since we last reported on the Pueblo Animal Protection Act (PAPA), support for this proposed ordinance, introduced by City Council member, Chris Nicoll, has been getting much support, and from some influential sources. Particularly interesting is the fact that Randy Thurston, former Pueblo City Council President and highly respected Pueblo resident, published an op-ed in the local paper, the "Chieftain," in which he officially endorsed the proposal. He also systematically, us

At one time, the San Francisco SPCA (SFSPCA) was considered one of the top-performing shelters in the nation. Under the direction of Richard Avanzino in the mid 1990's that agency led that city to within an inch of being the first No Kill community in the USA. That community was saving every healthy pet from every shelter in the City. Additionally, they were saving most - but not all - treatable or manageable pets as well. And, if that agency had stayed on the path they were