NYC DOH ACC Named a Dog “Ceiling Fan.” Then They Killed Him.
Saddling adoptees with nonsensical names is but one example of DOH/ACC malpractice.
The Scoop New York is a website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York State, 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.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s October 18, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop, Betsy Flanagan Day Edition.
This week, The Scoop New York launched a new section: NYC DOH ACC Malpractice, featuring the stories of individual cats and dogs targeted for abuse and, in most cases, extermination by the city health department and its minions at the kill pound most recently known as “Animal Care Centers of New York City.”
Like every animal ever exterminated by DOH’s ACC, malpractice victims were healthy and adoptable when they entered the city kill pound.
There was Cornflakes, killed though he had a home waiting because ACC “New Hope” adoption coordinator Isabella Lara couldn’t be troubled to make a phone call that would have secured him a long and happy life.
Bella and Popadoo were subjected to spay and neuter surgeries, respectively, before DOH and ACC exterminated them anyway. Because they could.
Bam Bam and Kelley each reportedly died during or shortly after botched DOH/ACC surgical procedures. “Reportedly” because DOH acting commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse and her ACC underlings refuse to reveal to New Yorkers what they do to defenseless cats and dogs behind locked doors, where people who wouldn’t take a government salary to torture animals are not allowed. And because City Council members like Lynn Schulman, whose job is to ensure Morse and company aren’t running ACC like a 19th century meat-packing plant, aren’t overseers as much as collaborators.
Dr. Michelle Morse and her ACC underlings refuse to reveal to New Yorkers what they do to defenseless cats and dogs behind locked doors, where people who wouldn’t take a government salary to torture animals are not allowed.
Then there’s senior Clever, teased with the prospect of continuing the life he knew until his person ultimately handed him over to Morse’s ACC knuckle-draggers, who, rather than find him a home where he would be wanted and loved for the rest of his natural life, exterminated Clever without ever offering him a chance at adoption. Because they could.
That’s a sampling of horror stories from the last couple months alone. Multiply by 30 years, if you can bear to imagine it, and you get an idea of what homeless and abandoned cats and dogs have suffered in New York City since the presumptive mayor-elect was presumably learning to tie his shoes.
If a private citizen treated companion animals the way DOH and ACC do, that citizen would be barred from having animals as a condition of his parole. But thanks to their aforementioned government paychecks, there’s nothing the lollygagging sadists at DOH and ACC can’t get away with.
Which brings us to “Ceiling Fan.”
Nope. Much as we might wish otherwise, we could not make this up:
We’ll call this little guy King, who had more integrity in one neglected toenail than every slobbering kill drone at DOH and ACC combined.
You don’t need John Munch to detect the contrast between the love and care afforded this dog by volunteers, in New York and elsewhere, and malevolent indifference on the part of those who are paid to help but choose to harm.
The suffering visited upon these dogs by DOH/ACC is the worst of it. It is not the whole of it. Every dog mentioned above was herded to DOH/ACC death chambers as New Yorkers frantically tried to save them by circulating adoption info and rounding up rescue pledges — none of which would be necessary if DOH ran ACC as a shelter rather than a “shelter.”
Of the volunteers and DOH/ACC staff, it’s the latter — the people entrusted to care for King — who exterminated him a whole entire 16 days after tagging him with that idiotic handle. King was vulnerable, scared and alone. Then they poisoned him to death. Because they could.
There’s little known data on adoption rates with animal names as the variable. But Nathan Winograd of the California-based No Kill Advocacy Center wrote not too long ago about his experience as a shelter manager, including a stint leading Tompkins County [NY] SPCA to no-kill status in the aughts.
In a 2022 dispatch, Winograd cited a then-recent study primarily concerned with adoption rates for dogs with names that were considered “racialized.” The findings also included dogs with names “perceived as nonhuman (e.g., Fluffy),” who according to the report tended to have longer shelter stays.
Said Winograd:
The dogs with the longest stay in the shelter did not have black or Hispanic names. Instead, they had unfamiliar names, like “Wigglystuff,” “Flufferton,” “Fruit Loops,” “Skittles,” and “Sir Pupper.” That, too, was my experience when I ran animal shelters.
In the 2000s, for example, I found that dogs with names like Harry Potter would get adopted before dogs with names like Harry Truman, even though both — including the fictional Potter based on the movies — are white. Harry Potter was more familiar and relevant to adopters, especially those coming in with children. In fact, I once adopted a senior cat named Professor Dumbledore to a family with young kids who came in for a kitten. I doubt the outcome would have been the same had the cat been named after the Professor (Roy Hinkley) from Gilligan’s Island.
Indeed, one of those shelters was near Cornell University, where graduate students made up a significant portion of our volunteer base. These volunteers were fond of giving animals unfamiliar names based on their field of study, doing the animals no favor to the extent that “Molly” and “Ben” got adopted faster than “François-René de Chateaubriand,” “Edna Pontellier,” and “Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.” (I finally told the Cornell students they weren’t allowed to name the animals.)
Seeing as those who do most of the heavy lifting for DOH’s ACC don’t work for either agency, it is likely if not probable that it was volunteers who first took to calling King whatever adjective-noun combo happened to occur to them. Which obviously does not absolve Risa Weinstock, Ellen Curtis, Tara Mercado, Jessica Vaccaro, Dr. Robin Brennen, Dr. Biana Tamimi or any other member of ACC leadership from what they did to King. Namely: expending exactly as much effort finding him a home as they did selecting his name.
Like two to four of every 10 dogs who enter DOH’s ACC, King was a quota killing. Exterminated, not “euthanized.” Condemned to death because killing requires less physical and mental effort than rehoming.
That DOH/ACC staff didn’t bother giving King an actual name before giving him the needle further speaks to the depravity of everyone named above, and everyone pulling their strings. From Michelle Morse to Eric Adams to Andrea Stewart-Cousins to Carl Heastie to Kathy Hochul. Not to overlook Council Member Schulman and ACC board chair Patrick Nolan, also plenty wicked, if not more so, for aiding and abetting from their respective catbird seats.
To the extent they were ever aware, the depraved have long moved on from King and Cornflakes and Popadoo and Bella and Bam Bam and Kelley, and what they did to them. There are so many more cats and dogs to vaporize. So many New Yorkers to taunt and torment.
Those New Yorkers have not forgotten. The Scoop New York is here to help ensure they never do.
Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
Police in Fulton County are looking for Reese, a 2-year-old Rottweiler mix who was stolen from Johnstown Animal Shelter, where authorities failed to protect him despite his status as live evidence in an open cruelty case.
This is what to expect when seat-fillers like NYC Council Member Lynn Schulman are responsible for your city’s animal control operation.
Related: Gothamist did a story on NYers who must choose between feeding themselves and their pets, but, as in a recent piece on the same subject from The City, declined to hold those accountable accountable.
Welcome to Kathy Hochul’s New York, where “There’s never enough money, there’s never enough food, there’s never enough Cheese Whiz, there’s never enough peanut butter, and there’s never enough cat litter.”
Related: More than a dozen cats found abandoned in a local park were taken in by Animal Shelter of Schoharie Valley, which lacks resources to care for them.
Related: A woman inherited a rundown dog sanctuary in Boonville and is appealing to the public for help elected officials choose not to provide.
Related: Imagine a New York where animal shelters get “vital medical equipment” without politicians congratulating themselves for doing the bare minimum.
A landlord in Lakewood, in Chautauqua County, wants local lawmakers to restrict the number of pets residents can have — cats included — because of problems he claims to have with some of his tenants. It might work.
“NYC is dropping fish-scented rabies vaccine pouches for raccoons in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan”
And finally, another “Hell yeah!” for Strong Island Animal Rescue.
This week on social media
Food recalls
U.S. FDA has announced three recent pet food recalls:
Nature’s Own Pet Chews Bully Bites [listeria, salmonella]
Foodynamics Raw Dog Barkery, BellePepper Cats, and Kanu Pets Brand Freeze-Dried Pet Treats [salmonella]
Raw Bistro Pet Fare Frozen Beef Entrée [salmonella]
Check here for info on FDA-announced recalls, and here for details on prior FDA advisories and outbreaks.
I’d just like to add that advocates/volunteers from all over the country are networking & sharing NYCACC’s adoptable & death row dogs. Even some volunteers are overseas. People give their hearts & time to fight for the innocent dogs & cats only to get crushed when the pets are murdered. They all do the work NYCACC employees are paid to do.