Leadership at LA Animal Services May Be Changing Again. The Public Deserves Clarity, and the System Deserves Support.

 

LAAS Website: https://www.laanimalservices.com

 

We understand volunteers were recently told that leadership at LA Animal Services may be changing again. If that is true, the broader public should also receive clear, direct communication about what is happening and what comes next.

As of April 8, 2026, official public-facing materials were still identifying Annette Ramirez as Interim General Manager, including a March 5, 2026, LAAS release and a City Clerk council file on her 2025 interim extension that still showed as pending in committee.

We talk a lot about transparency because it helps the public understand how to support the system, the staff, the volunteers, the rescue partners, and ultimately the animals.

It also helps push back on the lazy and harmful narrative that shelter workers simply do not care, when in reality, public sheltering is shaped by staffing, funding, policy, intake pressure, leadership, and the structure of the system itself.

LA Animal Services’ own public materials say the department is committed to open and honest communication and complete transparency.

 

Why leadership at LAAS matters so much

LA Animal Services is not a small department. According to LAAS, it was established in 1863, operates six shelters, serves approximately 60,000 animals annually, responds to more than 20,000 emergency calls each year, and has 66 Animal Control Officers covering 468.7 square miles. LAAS also describes itself as one of the largest municipal shelter systems in the United States. When a department operating at that scale enters another leadership transition, that is not a minor internal personnel matter. It affects public service, field response, shelter operations, rescue coordination, volunteer engagement, and public trust.

 

A short timeline of the current leadership picture

Mayor Karen Bass announced on June 1, 2023, that she had selected Staycee Dains as the new General Manager of LA Animal Services following a nationwide search, and the Mayor’s office said the appointment would then go to the committee and City Council for confirmation. On June 26, 2023, Mayor Bass publicly applauded the City Council’s unanimous vote confirming Dains as General Manager.

That leadership chapter did not last. The Los Angeles Times and NBC Los Angeles reported in December 2024 that Dains had been on paid leave since August 2024 and that she resigned effective November 30, 2024, with Annette Ramirez stepping back in as interim. That reporting matters because it helps explain why the public remains unclear about who is actually leading the department and whether the permanent appointment process has now been completed.

 

“LA shelters” is not one single system

One of the biggest public misunderstandings in this space is structural: people often say “LA shelters” as if all shelters in Los Angeles operate under one chain of command. They do not.

LA Animal Services = City of Los Angeles

LA Animal Services is the City of Los Angeles department. It operates the six City shelters:

• East Valley
• Harbor
• North Central
• Chesterfield Square / South LA
• West Los Angeles
• West Valley

LAAS also makes an important distinction that the public often misses: you can adopt from any LAAS shelter, but found-pet intake is routed by service area. LAAS says that if you can temporarily care for a found pet under its Shelter-at-Home program, you should notify the closest LAAS center, send photos, and have the animal scanned for a microchip within the first four hours. If you cannot keep the animal temporarily, LAAS says to bring the pet to the shelter nearest to where it was found. LAAS also directs people to call 888-452-7381 for dangerous or loose animals and animal cruelty complaints.

There is another wrinkle that makes this even more confusing: some LAAS service-area pages include communities adjacent to, or associated with, City service zones. For example, the West Los Angeles service-area page lists areas including Beverly Hills, Venice, and Westchester, while the Chesterfield Square / South LA page lists a long range of neighborhoods from Koreatown to West Adams to South Los Angeles. The safest public advice is simple: if you want to adopt, go to any LAAS shelter; if you found an animal, check the correct service area or call first.

Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control = a separate department

By contrast, the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control is a completely separate agency. County DACC says it provides animal care and control services for all unincorporated County areas, 45 of the 88 incorporated cities in Los Angeles County, and even the City of Thousand Oaks in Ventura County. It operates seven animal care centers:

• Agoura
• Baldwin Park
• Castaic
• Carson / Gardena
• Downey
• Lancaster
• Palmdale

County DACC is led by Marcia Mayeda, who the department says has served as director since July 2001. That means whatever happens with this LAAS General Manager transition, it applies to LA City Animal Services only, not County DACC.

Other shelters in the region are separate, too

Even beyond City and County, Los Angeles County’s own countywide directory lists other animal-control and shelter systems operating separately, including Pasadena Humane, SEAACA, Long Beach Animal Care Services, and Burbank Animal Shelter. This is why public confusion is so common. When people do not understand which agency covers which city, contract area, or jurisdiction, accountability gets muddied, and it becomes harder to know where to direct concern, advocacy, foster offers, volunteer energy, and rescue support.

 

A practical guide to who covers what

LA City Animal Services
Six shelters: East Valley, Harbor, North Central, Chesterfield Square / South LA, West Los Angeles, West Valley. Main line: 888-452-7381. Shelter locator and city shelter addresses are listed on the LAAS site.

LA County Animal Care and Control
Seven care centers: Agoura, Baldwin Park, Castaic, Carson/Gardena, Downey, Lancaster, Palmdale. South County Communication Center: 562-940-6898. North County Communication Center: 661-940-4191.

Pasadena Humane
361 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA 91105. 626-792-7151.

SEAACA
9777 Seaaca Street, Downey, CA 90241. 562-803-3301.

Long Beach Animal Care Services
7700 E. Spring St., Long Beach, CA 90815. 562-570-7387.

Burbank Animal Shelter
1150 N. Victory Pl., Burbank, CA 91502. 818-238-3340.

 

What this moment should mean

Former LAAS executive director Ed Boks has been publicly arguing that the problems at LAAS are not just about personalities. He has framed them as structural problems involving accountability, collaboration, and whether the department is truly willing to work with volunteers, donors, rescues, and outside expertise. In one piece focused specifically on LAAS, he explicitly called for stronger community collaboration and for accepting help from volunteers and animal welfare experts. That is commentary, not official City policy, but the broader point is worth taking seriously.

As a New Hope Partner, we want LA Animal Services to succeed. LAAS itself describes New Hope partners as private nonprofit rescue organizations that work with the department to save the lives of its most vulnerable animals. That is exactly why this moment should be handled with clarity and partnership, not rumor and confusion.

What we need from the City is useful communication. We need the public to know who is leading the department. We need staff and volunteers to know what direction the department is moving in. We need rescue partners to have a clear point of contact and a clear sense of whether collaboration is being expanded or narrowed. We need the public to understand that sheltering problems are systemic and operational, not a cartoon story about whether frontline workers care.

We also need to stop wasting the knowledge already inside the system. Volunteers, fosters, rescue partners, and the people who spend repeated time with individual dogs often hold valuable longitudinal information about behavior, stress, handling, social patterns, and adoptability. That kind of real-world observation should not be treated as disposable. It should be integrated more meaningfully into how the system communicates about animals and moves them toward safe outcomes.

If there is a new permanent General Manager for LA City Animal Services, the City should clearly say so, identify who was chosen, explain the process, and tell the public what comes next. This is how public institutions build trust and how communities learn to support them effectively.

Staff deserve clarity. Volunteers deserve clarity. Rescue partners deserve clarity. The public deserves clarity. And the animals certainly deserve the stability that should come with strong, transparent leadership.

Let's hope for the best for the animals and all of the people who care for and about them!

Sources:

LA Animal Services, “Read Our Story”, LA Animal Services, “Shelter Search”, LA Animal Services, “I’ve Found a Pet”, Mayor Karen Bass, June 1, 2023 appointment announcement for Staycee Dains and June 26, 2023 statement on City Council confirmation, City Clerk / Mayor transmittal on Annette Ramirez’s interim extension, Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, “Service Areas and Jurisdictions”, Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, “Leadership Team”, Los Angeles County, “Animal Control & Shelter Services” directory, Pasadena Humane contact page, SEAACA website / care center info, Long Beach Animal Care Services contact page, Burbank Animal Shelter official page, Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2024, Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2024, Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2025, Ed Boks, Animal Politics