Is NYC DOH ACC About to Slaughter Dogs to Comply With State Regs?
ACC set a deadline for removing illegally-crated dogs. Mayor Mamdani and NYC Council bigs won't say what comes next.
The Scoop New York is a non-profit website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York, from BUF to BK. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
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Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s July 10, 2026. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s kill pound is threatening to execute the hostages.
Disclaimer: The info in today’s column, like much DOH/ACC coverage on The Scoop New York, is largely based on information from advocates on the front lines. This is because the advos and rescue networkers know the operation better than anyone. And because unless you as a journalist are satisfied by whatever pre-packaged happy talk statements New York City officials fling in your direction, those officials are not engaging you if they can help it, mealy-mouthed pants-soiling cowards that they are.
What we’re discussing today is a developing situation, which makes it even less likely those paid to answer to the public will actually do so. This is SOP for state officials as well, of course, as we will see.
Here is what we know.
On May 20, the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYSDAM) made what was apparently its first inspection of Animal Care Centers of New York City [sic] since new state animal shelter standards took effect last December.
As previously reported in this space, the new regs were approved by Albany in 2022 as the Companion Animal Care Standards Act. Shelters and rescues large and small were given three years to come into compliance. Yet the largest, wealthiest of them all — under begrudging semi-supervision by the city health department — still managed to get caught flat-footed.
The 19 of 50 areas in which inspectors found ACC “deficient” included the failure to produce protocols for more than a dozen categories, namely:
According to NYSDAM, though, by the time department inspectors returned on May 29, ACC had achieved complete compliance.
When, among other questions, The Scoop New York asked NYSDAM exactly how ACC had accomplished in nine days what it couldn’t pull off in three years — if not the preceding three decades — there was no reply.
Another deficiency noted on the May 20 report and ostensibly corrected in time for the follow-up was inadequate housing. “More animals than housing units,” the initial report said.
Under the new rules, portable crates do not count as housing. Yet earlier this week, advocates alerted on social media that ACC was holding dozens of dogs — 70 was the number we were told — in pop-ups. Caught flat-footed yet again, ACC is currently scrambling, reducing adoption fees and offering $1,000 stipends to rescues that take dogs off the city’s hands.
Ominously, according to networkers, ACC announced a July 15 deadline for dogs in crates to clear the system. Given 31 years of perpetual adoptable cat and dog killings, it is more than reasonable to interpret a deadline as a threat to slaughter those left behind.
DOH and ACC flacks may as well have acknowledged as much when they declined to answer The Scoop New York’s request to confirm or deny. If history offers any indication — and in ACC’s case, it hasn’t failed yet — Dr. Brennen’s death squad is licking its collective chops.
“Networkers think that once the 15th arrives, they will simply shuffle the dogs around to decide which ones get killed,” one source told TSNY.
Why July 15? Might the deadline originate from NYSDAM? We know NYSDAM is aware of the pop-ups, because I told them. A second email query to NYSDAM was ignored, same as the first one. As of publication time a phone message left with the ag department press office this afternoon was not returned. See what I mean?
Below is a list of dogs believed at this writing to be illegally housed in crates at Zohran Mamdani’s high-kill kill pound. Check NYC ACC KILLS social media feeds for images and intel, or NYC ACC to foster or adopt — though good luck with the latter.
In addition to NYSDAM and Mamdani, queries concerning the latest life-and-death DOH/ACC crisis were blown off by DOH, ACC, City Council Speaker Julie Menin, and council “animal welfare caucus” chair Harvey Epstein.
Cowards gonna cower.
CHIEF NYC ACC VETERINARIAN
Robin Brennen, DVM: Email 1, 2
OFFICIALS RESPONSIBLE FOR NYC ACC OVERSIGHT
NYS Ag Commissioner Richard Ball: 518-457-2771; Email
Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Contact form
City Council Speaker Julie Menin: 212-788-7210; Email
Council health chair Lynn Schulman: 212-788-6981; Email
Comptroller Mark Levine: 212-669-3916; Contact forms
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams: 212-669-7250; Email
City Council members: Lookup
Borough presidents: BX; BK; MN; SI; QS
NYC DOH Commissioner Alister Martin: 311; Contact form
NYC DOH ACC minder Corinne Schiff: 646-632-6496; Email
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.
Related: NYC is seeing record homelessness and rampant evictions as the almost comically shitheeled Trump administration again looks to make everything worse.
Related: Zohran Mamdani incidentally helped an unknown but likely significant number of companion animals by engineering a promised rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments. We’ll take that as a rare W.
Related: Mamdani and NYC Council Speaker Julie Menin devoted $1.5M of the city’s $125B budget to 1,700 spay-neuters (of an estimated 200K procedures needed annually) and a one-year pet food pantry pilot (all of which Menin could have funded personally without breaking a sweat).
A majority of New Yorkers want the city to finally shut down the deadly and abusive horse carriage trade …
… But Albany will make sure horses in New York continue to suffer and die for our amusement.
Richmond County DA Michael McMahon will cover fees for animals adopted from NYC ACC’s Staten Island hellhole tomorrow.
State Senator Christopher Ryan tossed some crumbs at Syracuse’s CNY SPCA and would you believe there’s a press release.
Renovation work is underway at Rochester Animal Services, where residents are hoping to attract an Emancipet low-cost vet cllinic.
“A Brooklyn pet store sold hundreds of commercially-bred dogs while trying to dodge a state puppy mill ban by falsely posing as a rescue center,” according to a suit filed by NYS Attorney General Letitia James.
Nassau County DA Anne Donnelly wants jail time for a Rockville Centre oxygen-waster who kicked a dog to death in 2020 and managed to have his cruelty conviction temporarily tossed.
Speaking of psychopaths, “The owner of a Dryden mobile home park has been arrested after investigators say he admitted to lacing dozens of cans of cat food with rat poison and said he would pay for ‘cat tails’.”
A police dog died in a hot police car in Schenectady County.
Finally: Sadly, it seems that, like way too many Americans, Taylor and Travis are blissfully unaware of the ASPCA long con.
Food recalls
FDA announced one recent pet food recall:
Pedigree Can High Protein Chopped Chicken & Duck Flavor Wet Dog Food [“potential presence of sharp metal and plastic foreign material”]
Check here for more info on FDA-announced recalls, and here for details on prior FDA advisories and outbreaks.