Filthy, cramped conditions at NYC-funded animal shelter persist a year after Post investigation
Many pooches are still lying in their own filth and crammed into too-small cages at a $75 million city-funded animal shelter in Queens roughly a year after The Post exposed horrific conditions there.
Individual kennels are supposed to be cleaned each time a dog is walked, according to a worker at the Animal Care Centers of New York site in Ridgewood. But none were cleaned during a recent visit from The Post after several dogs were walked for about 5 minutes.
The dogs were simply returned to their reeking cages filled with piles of excrement.
An ACC rep told The Post in August that the agency had not yet finished hiring all the staff required to meet its needs. A source familiar with the matter said the shelter is still short-staffed nearly a year later, with nearly a dozen open positions ranging from vet techs to animal transporters to custodians.
The insider said some of the animals only get their first walk of the day around 11 a.m. or noon after waiting upwards of 12 hours.
“ACC has been very transparent about the crisis facing our shelters due to extreme dog overpopulation — it is a nationwide problem,” a rep for the shelter told The Post.
The representative said the Queens site is sheltering double the number of dogs it was designed for.
“When a shelter has over 150 full kennels and is operating at double its intended capacity, there may be moments when a kennel is soiled, especially during walk or cleaning rotations,” the rep said. “We address these situations as quickly as possible. This is not a sign of neglect or systemic failure but rather a direct result of the overwhelming number of animals in our care.”
A staffer named Nikolaz told The Post during a visit that many of the dogs also suffer from the highly contagious respiratory infection kennel cough – a common condition found in kennels, with symptoms including dry cough, lethargy, fever and vomiting.
“Some of them deteriorate,” Nikolaz said of the pooches. “Dogs are very different in the kennel than when out[side].
An anonymous staffer said, “I was shocked to find out that if the dog goes insane because of the cages – and they can go insane – they euthanize.”
The worker shared a harrowing case of a cat “left to bleed for three days” after being neutered in ACC care and who died.
More than a dozen animals died in the shelter system’s care in April — three dogs, nine cats and two guinea pigs — not including the 129 animals it euthanized in the same month.
While an ACC rep blamed at least part of the problem on a decline in adoptions across the nation because of economic uncertainty, Nathan Winograd, executive director of the No Kill Advocacy Center, said low adoption numbers at ACC are exacerbated because of post-pandemic changes in shelter policy.
Winograd said reduced adoption hours, appointment requirements, cumbersome visiting procedures and refusing to return phone calls from people interested in adopting have all cut into the shelter’s adoption rates.
“ACC can’t have it both ways,” he said. “As long as ACC can blame others for its own failures, New York City’s elected and appointed officials will fail to hold the agency accountable.”
The Post’s recent visit comes days after a dog at the Queens shelter was allegedly choked so hard on a leash by a volunteer that he collapsed June 6, according to bystander video of the aftermath shared with a reporter.
“Neither of these employees in the video bothered to make sure the dog was doing well after he collapsed, besides the young lady petting him after watching him choke out,” the bystander told The Post.
The pitbull mix, named San Andreas, has “no apparently medical concerns” from the incident, an ACC rep said — adding the event was related to “intense jumping and leash biting, which may have been exacerbated by external factors, such as pedestrians and nearby distractions.”
Another staffer told The Post he has heard other employees “scream” at the dogs and routinely yank on their leashes too hard — and when workers returned to the kennel, they would be instructed by management to merely change the blankets in the pooches’ without disinfecting the kennel if they didn’t appear soiled.
Last year, city Councilman Bob Holden called on the ACC to temporarily house animals in another building and ease crowding after The Post published its report. But it appears the shelter’s capacity has only dwindled marginally, with about 10% fewer dogs and 3% fewer cats than August 2024.
“From what I saw online – the horrible pictures – I see how that could happen, when you have double the amount of animals that you have to house,” Holden said at the time.