County Pulls Animals Out of Pierce, Cancels Pact

Los Angeles County officials have canceled an animal care agreement with Pierce College after learning that students were using the animals to practice veterinary procedures, including the insertion of catheters and intravenous tubes.

Bruce P. Richards, assistant director of the county’s Department of Animal Care and Control, said Tuesday that 14 animals were taken from the Woodland Hills campus last week. He said they were removed after shelter officials decided that Pierce College had violated an informal agreement from 1982.

“We’re not saying the animals we removed were in pain or traumatized,” Richards said. “But we never agreed to let the students use them to learn how to insert catheters or intravenous tubes, or take X-rays or blood.”

Richards said the county’s agreement with Pierce, spelled out in a letter from the college, did not allow the practice of veterinary procedures. The county provided 24 animals annually, all of them dogs or cats from the county’s Agoura Hills shelter.

Treatment Explained

The letter, signed by Phil Des Marteau, director of the college’s animal health technology program, explained the treatment of animals the college had received from the Veterans Administration hospital in West Los Angeles. Richards said county officials inferred that cats and dogs from the shelter would be treated in a similar manner.

Animals from the VA were treated for any ailments they had, the letter said. Students “give them their vaccinations, and blanket them with loving attention.” In return, the letter said, students “learn how to give injections, how to restrain properly, and how to make critical evaluations of the animal’s health.”

The letter also said that “at no time are the animals experimented on or are they used for any research project.”

Des Marteau declined to comment Tuesday. Other college officials could not explain what authority the college had to practice veterinary procedures on the animals.

Liz White, an instructor in the health technology program, said the animals were always anesthetized before undergoing any procedures that could be painful.

“I can’t see what the problem is; we’ve been doing these procedures humanely for years,” she said.

Mick Sears, chairman of the college’s agriculture and natural resources department, said animals at Pierce have “always been well cared for. The inference that we are mistreating animals is patently false.”

White said removal of the animals could affect the school’s ability to train veterinary assistants unless another source of dogs and cats is found. The two-year animal health technology program, which is accredited by the American Veterinary Medical Assn., requires students to work with live animals in the school’s laboratories, she said.

The school has no other regular source for animals, she said.

But Richards said withdrawal of animals in the county’s care from the program is necessary to “continue to hold the public’s trust.”

Agoura Hills and Westlake Village, which contract with the Agoura Hills shelter for animal care and control services, have specific policies prohibiting medical experimentation on animals collected in their jurisdictions, he said.

“This is not medical experimentation but we have the public’s confidence to consider, in addition to the fact that they’re not doing what’s stated in the 1982 correspondence,” Richards said.

After living in Pierce College’s kennels for three weeks to three months, animals are returned to the Agoura Hills shelter, Richards said. Homes are then found for many, although some are destroyed if they are not adopted after a week or more.

White pointed out that one effect of the Pierce program is to extend the lives of animals that otherwise might be destroyed.

County officials said the problems at Pierce came to their attention through a newspaper classified ad last month seeking homes for “desperate dogs used in research at Pierce College.” It said they had “10 days to live.” The ad, placed by a person that county officials identified as Genora Hall, said that if people did not adopt the dogs, they “will be taken to the pound to die.”

Richards said that the ad was placed by someone unfamiliar with Pierce’s program and that it misstates what happens to the animals. Hall could not be reached for comment.

Although the ad was erroneous, it prompted the county to look into the program and uncover the problems, Richards said.