Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s September 26, 2026. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week, the Albany Times Union reported on a partnership between the paper’s local sheriff’s office and a prominent rescue that pairs traumatized dogs with residents of a homeless shelter operated by the county jail.
Established with financial assistance from the state government, the program looks to address shortcomings in rescue dog care that would be far less severe if Governor Kathy Hochul and Albany lawmakers took seriously their responsibility for New York’s endangered companion animals.
The centerpiece of the Law Enforcement Aiding Animals Shelter (LEASH) initiative is a new kennel on the Albany County jail campus, in Colonie, that will house up to 15 dogs at a time. The kennel population will be limited to dogs from Mohawk Hudson Humane Society who require shelter during the course of hoarding and abuse investigations.
The dogs will not be available for adoption during their time at the kennel. Rather, occupants of a residential unit located at the jail — unused cell space repurposed for people in need of housing — will be trained by MHHS to administer routine care, as well as behavior lessons and other enrichment, until the dogs are ready for adoption.
“It’s a job you look forward to going to,” program employee Chet DeLeo told the Times Union.
From the story:
The kennel … is funded by a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Agriculture and Markets, explained Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple at its grand opening Tuesday. The hope is to alleviate stress on shelters as law enforcement investigates seemingly more and more abuse and hoarding cases, he said.
“Every municipality around us has overcrowding issues,” he said.
Indeed, Mohawk Hudson Humane — a private non-profit that serves the area in the absence of public shelters — made news in 2022 when, due to capacity constraints, it canceled 16 of 21 sheltering contracts with municipalities that lacked facilities for housing homeless dogs, despite state law mandating that cities provide shelter for them. The requirement applies to dogs only, as the state has no such provision for the care of homeless cats.
MHHS subsequently caught heat from public officials whose cities lost their contracts. But such complaints are ultimately with electeds, from the local level to the state legislature and the governor’s office, who decade after decade have failed to fiscally prioritize the care of homeless companion animals, putting under-funded public shelters and private non-profits — which depend on the largesse of everyday New Yorkers — on the hook for their inaction.
The predicament faced by shelters and rescues alike was arguably made more tenuous by the adoption of the Companion Animal Care Standards Act.
Signed into law by Hochul in 2022, CACSA mandates that shelters and rescues comply with boilerplate sheltering guidelines to remain licensed. For many of those orgs, compliance necessitates pricey capital improvements.
Though facilities had three years to prepare, rather than assess individual shelter and rescue needs beforehand and allocate adequate funding accordingly, Albany requires facilities that can’t afford major upgrades to apply for state grants, such as the one the state agriculture department — which is responsible for CACSA enforcement — greenlit for the Albany County LEASH program. Those not fortunate enough to win the grant lottery, meanwhile, are apt to find themselves left in the lurch.
Even when presented with a relatively easy opportunity to help beleaguered rescues and shelters, Hochul and state lawmakers can’t be bothered to follow through. For years, both houses of the legislature — helmed by Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie — have declined to pass a measure to create an Animal Offense Assistance Fund. The fund would offer continual support to shelters and rescues for costs associated with housing and rehabilitating animals seized by law enforcement, i.e. the same services to be handled by LEASH.
Coincidentally — or not — the assistance fund bill was prompted at least in part by a hoarding case that cost Mohawk Hudson Humane hundreds of thousands of dollars. A 2023 television news story reported that victims of neglect and abuse accounted for more than 70 percent of the 300-plus animals housed by MHHS at the time.
The assistance fund as proposed would not impact the state budget, as the bill calls for a dedicated court fee surcharge to cover the cost. That lawmakers and Governor Hochul have thus far chosen not to act on what ought to be a legislative layup is another symptom of Albany’s longstanding casual indifference toward the state’s raging homeless animal crisis.
As always, then, it’s left to struggling shelters and rescues to sink or swim. For every feel-good stop-gap like the LEASH program, there are multiple stories of facilities fighting to survive, begging for New Yorkers’ help and hoping for a lifeline from Albany that might never come. Because Kathy Hochul and state legislators prefer it that way.
NYC DOH ACC Puppy/Kitten Death Row Show
On this week’s Death Row Show podcast: ACC's recent extermination of seven dogs in a single day, what it means to kill family pets for a living, lax ACC oversight on the part of the state agriculture department, and more.
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Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
You can love companion animals or you can love watching their adoptive families terrorized by the government, but not both.
“What we have right now in New York State is the ‘Wild West’ of animal care laws and that’s led to one terrible tragedy after another,” says Clifton Park state Senator Jim Tedisco. Hard agree.
The Mamdani administration believes itself above answering to the New York City Council, and by extension ~8,000,000 New Yorkers, concerning the potential destruction of public records by influencers City Hall may or may not be paying to promote the mayor’s agenda.
Bodega Cats of New York is accepting applications from NYC rescues that could use a website built at no charge.
Police in Clifton, in St. Lawrence County, are looking for help identifying the person or persons who abandoned two malnourished dogs on a city sidewalk earlier this month.
And Nassau County authorities are asking the public for info on a “neglected male canine … discovered in a crate, with no food or water … tethered to a fence by a rope around his neck.”
After pledging to “reinforce the application” of cruelty laws, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney filed misdemeanor charges against a Wheatley Heights man when the man’s dog was allegedly found confined to a basement cell riddled with fleas and without adequate food and water, according to News 12 and court records reviewed by TSNY.
In post-Kaporos news, from Humane Long Island: “Hero Dog Tanuki Seeks Forever Home After Saving Abandoned Chickens.”
Finally: What’s left of the CDC issued a warning to several states, including New York, about a marked increase in rabies cases.
From NYC ACC KILLS
Food recalls
FDA announced no pet food recalls this week.
Check here for more info on FDA-announced recalls, and here for details on prior FDA advisories and outbreaks.