Expanded Facilities at Humane Society

As an animal activist and 10-year volunteer at another private humane society, I was gratified at the news account in The Times (March 15) of Pasadena Humane Society’s expansion.

I hope the expansion extends the lives of animals in need of homes. During my recurring visits there I have seldom seen more than one dog to a run.

A policy so extravagant not to crowd must explain some of the 2,000 deaths reported by Executive Director Steven R. McNall. Two appropriately sized dogs to a run surely does not crowd and, further, provides each with company.

Also, I would like to believe that the renewal of the facilities provides only for the lost, the abandoned, the unwanted from within the cities Pasadena Humane Society serves. I have invariably been very dismayed, at each of my visits, to note the number of kennels reserved for and occupied by dogs being boarded.

I feel sure that a countable number of dogs in need of homes must have been euthanized to give over those spaces to paying boarding customers.

A last word of caution: not to mistake “upscale” decor as a means of attracting potential adopters with the thought that this means more responsible home providers than those who come to facilities more modest but which are as deeply committed to caring.

JOSEPHINE ISENBERG

Monterey Park