ANIMAL SHELTERS TO WARN OWNERS OF EUTHANASIA.

Byline: Amy Collins Daily News Staff Writer

Call it truth in euthanasia.

The Los Angeles Board of Animal Regulation Commissioners voted 3-2 Monday to place signs in shelters that warn people the pet they drop off could be put to death in an hour.

``People want to assume that those pets will be placed in wonderful homes or they will be taken care of at the shelter forever,'' said Fernando Negrette, who works with the city's mobile pet adoption program.

But the truth is that of the 80,263 animals that entered the city's six shelters last year, 57,868 were euthanized for want of a home, the Daily News reported in a series of articles in November.

Most animals have at least five days at the shelter before they can be euthanized, but if an owner turns in their own pet, the minimum wait drops to one hour. When the shelters are already full, that is all some animals get.

``I am amazed at how the public is so naive,'' Alexandria Sage, a shelter volunteer, told the commissioners at a meeting in Montecito Heights. She said the signs would go a long way toward educating the public.

But the department's veterinarian, Dena Mangiamele, said the signs would serve only to sour the shelters' image and emphasize their reputation as a place of death.

Even when people are told what will happen to their pets, they change their minds less than 5 percent of the time, she said.

But Commission President Steven Afriat said that since the department is supporting a separate campaign of graphic billboards of euthanized pets in barrels to promote a spay and neuter program, it ought to be straightforward with people coming into the shelters as well.

``I'm tired of glossing it over,'' he said.

The 50 billboards - which are being donated to the city for the spay and neuter campaign - are awaiting approval from the City Council and Mayor's Office.

Commissioners endorsed the billboards earlier this year in an attempt to educate people of the fatal consequences of not spaying or neutering their cats and dogs.

On the shelter sign proposal, Afriat and commissioners Kim L. Hunter and Mimi Robins voted in favor, while commissioners Gini Barrett and Al Avila dissented. The commission will take a final vote on the wording for the signs at its Jan. 5 meeting.

Also Monday, Councilman Mike Hernandez, commissioners and Bart, a neutered ex-shelter dog, helped cut the ribbon to open the city's new spay and neuter clinic at the North Central shelter in Montecito Heights. A similar low-cost center will open at the East Valley shelter in March and is expected to perform 70 surgeries a day.