Animal Care Centers of NYC - Queens — Local services in New York

Firstly, kudos that this organization, and others like this, exist. We humans have a responsibility to care for the pets we've domesticated.

That said, I got to say this building is a boondoggle of public and private money being spent on a completely overbuilt facility underutilizing a huge lot. I'm a huge supporter of animal shelters and I support tax money being spent on them, but this compound is crazily wasteful. The air rights alone have got to be worth tens of millions of dollars. What the hell were they thinking with this architecture? A short rise two story sprawl across on an entire city block, with a surface parking lot, in a rapidly gentrifying area where the property values are astronomical??? They spent so much more money than they needed to accomplish the mission. Think of how many more animals could be saved and cared for if they had been more frugal and modest with their facility. The goal here is supposed to be helping more animals and saving them from euthanasia.

As an institution it is run extremely... institutionally. The kennels are cold and sterile. They've designed the cat kennels so that one cannot even stick a finger in to pet the poor imprisoned kitties. God forbid one wants to take a cat out of a cage to get to know it before they adopt. The staff are clearly being trained to convey a detached, overly clinical, and "enforcer" attitude. They kennels have an unnecessarily awful stench -- animals don't have to be kept in such poor conditions -- and though there's young staff everywhere, most of these people are idle and socializing with each other.

The real kicker is that they maintain a very low functionality database on the animals in their care.

We went in looking specifically for an FIV positive carrier adult cat to match with an FIV positive carrier cat we have at home, and they informed us they have no way of searching their database by that criteria, and that there was no way that they could alert us when FIV carrier cats -- who often are the hardest to get adopted for obvious reasons -- come in. When we visited, they were able to immediately tell us which cats had FIV by reading the tags on their cages. They recommended we just continuously come in and look.

When we identified one cat that we were interested in adopting, they told us that cat had already been assigned to another shelter organization, which would be picking the cat up in a couple of days, and that they could not facilitate us communicating with that organization to adopt the cat -- it was in some kind of bureaucratic limbo that they had no interest in circumventing.

You would think for the kind of money that was spent on this facility, and the amount of people they have on payroll, that they could get their act together. Again, the goal here is supposed to be to help these animals and to get them into homes and not euthanized.

I know of many community animal foster organizations who do a far better, far more humane and loving and warm, job serving animals than this org does, and on infinitesimally smaller budgets and with non-existent paid staff.

What happens when the City or wealthy benefactors cut whatever funding sustains this...

A SAD, PERVERSE, COMEDY SKETCH OF A SHELTER

THE most bizarre and sad experience ever. It is what happens when a city agency runs something so personal as an adoption center. I just lost one of my two pups and was looking to adopt.

The staff were young and inexperienced, with the misplaced know-it-all arrogance of youth. I brought in my other dog so that we could see if the prospective new pup would get along with her. I was told this was not possible- except through a fence- because of "liability reasons." This is honestly the most bizarre and non-humane of reasons. This from the same shelter staff who also did not require any recommendations, told me to forget about filling out that part of the application. They clearly could care less about what happens to the animal once it leaves the shelter.

EVERY other normal adoption place, eg. Northshore Animal League, allows for canine siblings to meet each other and mingle AND verifies references. Obviously not here, further evidence of how bureaucracy stifles common sense and humanity.

I was ready to take home one of two puppies from this filled-to-capacity center, but decided against it as they were not allowed to play with their prospective sibling. As a result, an intelligent and exuberant adult dog was deprived of a good home. It was truly sad as there were so many dogs languishing in there.

Thank goodness for the Millsteins and their generous donation that funded this state of the art shelter, although it is staffed by preposterous, inexperienced folk and governed by rules straight out of a bad comedy sketch. I did donate 5000 dollars in honor of the Millstein spirit, because at least some of the animals hopefully will get adopted- DESPITE the staff and DESPITE the...

Today on 6/6/2025 at 5:35 ish I witnessed an Acc employee allow a dog she was walking choke out from her negligence to properly vet his rope leash and martingale collar. The dog was being walked with a martingale collar and another rope leash around his body. I witnessed the young lady continue to pull at the leash as the dog continued to choke. I could quickly see that the leashes were intertwined and tightly choking the dog.At one point I even witnessed the dog with only 2 back paws on the ground from how high she had pulled the leash. She claims the dog was attempting to bite her but I witnessed the dog hacking time after time and its eyes getting redder and redder as time passed. Which is what she might’ve confused for biting. Her sense of urgency to help this dog was no where to be found. It actually appeared as if she was afraid to even help loosen the dogs leashes to help. She only attempted to help the dog once it dropped to the ground and it eye were blood shot. In this video you can see the dogs food he was hacking throwing up after she pulled him across the street as he continued to choke. 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. Why are you only checking up on him once he collapsed !? She should’ve noticed his leashes were too tight around his body and neck along time ago. This dog didn’t deserve that. The woman petting him is the woman that was letting the dog choke out. The other employee to the right instead of helping the dog just stood there and watched. This dog...