Popadoo, Bam Bam and Kelley Lost to NYC DOH ACC Malpractice, Cruelty

As with virtually all NYC cat and dog victims, ACC and DOH are hiding details about their deaths.

Oct 11, 2025

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.

Bam Bam, Kelley and Popadoo (left to right) died during or shortly after DOH/ACC surgical procedures. DOH and ACC ignored queries concerning their deaths. Photo illustration: The Scoop New York

Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn

It’s October 11, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop, Anita Hill Day Edition.

This week, the backbenchers who populate the veterinary staff at the New York City health department kill pound were, as usual, busy cutting and killing. Also as usual, the dullards nominally in charge of the non-profit contractor currently known as Animal Care Centers of New York City conspired with their overlords at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene [sic] to keep New Yorkers in the dark as to atrocities committed on their dime and in their name.

Year-old puppy Popadoo was surrendered to ACC in June due to his owner’s health. Described as “friendly” and “outgoing” upon intake, Popadoo suffered from a bacterial skin infection that he possibly if not likely picked up at ACC, which is known for shoddy medical protocols that have been making cats and dogs sick at the “shelter” throughout the system’s 30-year history.

Three months after he was admitted, ACC had Popadoo neutered. By that time, DOH/ACC was giving him trazodone and clonidine, human-grade sedatives that DOH/ACC quacks administer like Cheez-Its. At one point, ACC “indefinitely” increased Popadoo’s dosage of both drugs when he was deemed unresponsive — that is, when he behaved like a terrified dog confined to a cage in a chaotic, hostile, filthy and unfamiliar environment.

Not quite four weeks after having him neutered, and not quite four months after admitting him — a “super sweet” and “playful” puppy, his life wide open with possibility — DOH and ACC exterminated Popadoo for “behavior,” making him one of the agencies’ 2025 spay-neuter-kill victims.

Here is the dog DOH and ACC considered so irredeemably vicious he had to die:

Bam Bam was found in the Bronx on September 28 and admitted to ACC as a stray. His people were located, and reportedly planned to reclaim him after ACC had him neutered.

Bam Bam and his people never saw each other again. According to one veteran ACC watcher, poor Bam Bam “died in his kennel” after the operation.

It is unknown how DOH and ACC killed Kelley. Admitted as a stray on September 24, he had reportedly escaped a quota killing and was being prepped for placement when he died during surgery. Kelley was 5 years old.

Based on available evidence, it is presumed Kelley died while being neutered. Presumed but not known, because Dr. Michelle Morse, the acting health department commissioner, has like her predecessors decreed that whatever horrors befall cats and dogs at the city’s publicly-funded kill pound is none of the public’s business. Multiple queries to ACC and DOH concerning what happened to Bam Bam and Kelley went unanswered. Except …

Around lunchtime Friday, when for the fourth time The Scoop New York asked the DOH and ACC press shops for info on Bam Bam and Kelley, we looped in Sebastian Bolanos, the not-DVM who earlier in the week, as it happens, worked his last day as ACC director of animal health:

Though proud vet tech Bolanos held the ACC animal health director position for six years, after two years as senior manager of ACC veterinary operations, DOH/ACC apparently made no public statement to announce his departure, or who would succeed him. Why would they?

ACC has posted one press release since 2023. Such slackitude is characteristic of DOH/ACC contempt for New Yorkers, with extra hate sauce for New Yorkers who insist on calling out the agencies’ collective bullshit. DOH/ACC abuse of constituents is not only endorsed but encouraged by City Hall and the City Council. So far this election cycle, there is every indication the status quo will remain so once New York’s first fake vegan mayor finally, mercifully gets TFO.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Except …

The next NYC mayor will helm the first new administration since the launch of a news outlet devoted solely to the health and happiness of companion animals and the New Yorkers who love them. Maybe that makes a difference. Stranger things, etc. (If that sounds absurd, ask me about Times Square.)

Also, though DOH and ACC arrogantly, shamelessly, corruptly try to hide ACC contact info — including that of public relations staff — from the New Yorkers who pay them, TSNY recently found an ACC org chart, with email addresses and internal phone numbers for most everyone on the payroll.

So while we may not, for now, be able to identify individual personnel who applied the needle to, say, Popadoo, Bam Bam, Kelley, Clever, Bella, Cornflakes, Ashland, Baby, Chilton, Corvin, Echo, Prince, Remy, Robert, Saint, Tapco, Zoey, Pizza Roll or Mr. Worldwide, we have ACC veterinary staff names, titles, email addresses and office phone extensions.

Drs. Brennen and Tamimi: Hello again. Sorry to have missed you the fourth time TSNY asked about Bam Bam and Kelley.

Please don’t sweat it. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.

Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:

Alan Rosenberg, tireless champion of homeless and abandoned cats and dogs in New Jersey and elsewhere, has died. Wish we could’ve worked together, Mr. Rosenberg. Thank you for the inspiration.
You can love companion animals or you can love watching their adoptive families terrorized by the government, but not both.
The federal government shutdown is not helping New Yorkers already struggling to feed themselves and their pets.
Mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani, Curtis Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo are scheduled to debate on October 16 and 22, to try to win over voters in NYC’s only competitive citywide race.
Transport Workers Union is worried people who are not TWU members might make money off New York City tourists while not killing horses in the process.
Related: Under pressure from TWU, Mamdani is already backing off his campaign’s sole companion animal-friendly talking point.
Why is a private kill pound lobbying group involved in distributing state grants to New York animal shelters?
Fulton County Regional SPCA has revived a task force charged with investigating and prosecuting animal abuse and neglect.
Susquehanna SPCA bought a Middlefield farm that the org will repurpose as an animal sanctuary.
Your periodic reminder that big bad New York City is home to some of the most aggressively compassionate folk to ever live.
“I bring my dog to this dog park pretty often — I’ve never heard of a pig being here, but honestly, this is Bushwick, so it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.” [Headline of the week! — Ed.]
Attention NYT: The ethical journalistic thing woulda been to put a reporter on the case to name and shame this shitty “shelter.”
Not to yuck anyone’s yum, but could it be tegu lizards would rather not be domesticated in New York State?
Finally: Godspeed, Sunflower and Tiki.