Protesters want answers, justice for Rocky at Miami-Dade animal shelter

It shouldn’t take a dead dog to get someone to pay attention to the horrible conditions at the Miami-Dade animal shelter.
But that’s what happened.
A growing pack of protestors gathered again for the second Sunday in a row outside Miami-Dade Animal Services’ overflow facility to demand answers — and justice — for the animals allegedly suffering and dying under the county’s so-called care.
They came armed with signs, chants and fury. No political group, no formal organization, no paid advocacy. Just plain old human outrage — the kind that bubbles up when a terrier mix named Rocky dies of heatstroke in his kennel and nobody seems to be held responsible.
“These dogs can’t speak,” Nicolette Acosta, one of the protesters, told WSVN 7 News. “We’re here to do just that, to provide that voice for them, and I don’t care how long it takes.”
Ladra kinda loves her.
Even before Rocky died, actually since at least 2023, protesters had been decrying the conditions at animal services and the use of the overflow shelter that was the grossly “sick” building, the “house of horrors” for both the animals and staff, that had to be replaced pronto with the new $15 million building in Doral. It was too terrible to use for animals then, but it’s okay for the dogs now that they’ve run out of space at the new, shiny shelter.
Read related: Animal advocates protest shelter conditions, use of old ‘house of horrors’
Recent horror stories include a horrible outbreak of Streptococcus equi zooepidemicus, a bacterial infection that can cause hemorrhagic pneumonia in dogs and potentially affect immunocompromised people. Because the shelter was at double capacity, the disease spread faster. 
To address the situation, the shelter is urging the public to adopt or foster animals to reduce overcrowding and is temporarily suspending some services, like the on-site wellness clinic and stray animal pick-ups. But some people who have adopted or fostered dogs have had to bring them back after they infected their pets at home, one activist said.
There is no enrichment programming for the animals while they stay at Camp Death. In fact, sometimes they are barely walked. The county budgets for 280 employees at Animal Services, but they only have 255 currently working there. So, not enough dog walkers.
Acosta calls the situation at the shelter a “multi-system failure.” She calls out the county for its botched response to a deadly bacterial outbreak, its lack of transparency, and its absolutely bonkers dependence on community-donated fans to keep the animals cool.
Fans. In Miami. In July.
Ladra would laugh if it weren’t so freaking sad.
“We should not have to be scrambling as a community to donate fans,” Acosta said Sunday, demanding a full investigation into the conditions at the Medley facility — one with “actual measurable numbers and outcomes.”
You know, like a grown-up audit.
Miami-Dade County spends millions on animal services, a department that many activists and animal lovers say is broken and backwards. The budget is increasing to $45 million this year from $43 million last year. The county is in the process of developing a new $11.5 million animal shelter in South Dade to replace the current overflow shelter in Medley, which will become a residential development featuring at least 100 income-restricted apartments.
All with A/C, Ladra bets.
But that facility — which got a request for $1.5 million in state funds from Sen. Ileana Garcia — still needs final approvals and won’t be completed until the fall of 2027, at the earliest.
Update: Rita Schwartz, co-founder of the Pets’ Trust Initiate — a non-binding referendum passed by 65% of the voters in 2012 — said the money could be better spent.
“Right now, all the money is going towards the two overcrowded shelters and frustrated employees that can’t possibly take care of all these animals humanely,” Schwartz told Political Cortadito. “They are cramped in small cages and not nearly walked enough. They are not addressing the root of the problem so tax payers pay millions of dollars more each year for the same if not worse results. Warehousing the animals is not the solution.
“The Pets’ Trust plan would provide the much-needed services to get ahead of the overpopulation crisis. Right now, it’s impossible for the public to get an appointment to spay/neuter their pets and not enough resources for the following services.”
At Sunday’s protest, State Rep. Fabian Basabe said that more has to be done. “I didn’t come here as a politician. I came here as a neighbor, a father, an animal lover,” said Basabe, who this year c0-introduced Dexter’s Law, which would strengthen sentences for animal cruelty and create an online database of those found guilty of it.
Read related: Politicos pose with pets; insult our intelligence with photo ops
“What’s happening in this facility is heartbreaking and unacceptable,” Basabe told the protesters, though they know it. “Taxpayer funds are being mismanaged,” he said.
“Daniella Levine Cava has had years to fix this,” he said, adding that the Miami-Dade mayor has gotten tons of emails and phone calls about this. He likens it to the cruelty at the Miami Seaquarium, where she finally acted last year, after public outcry, to evict the operators who had been mistreating the animals.
“That’s not leadership. That’s crisis control,” Basabe said. “If she truly cared about animal welfare, these conditions would never have been allowed in the first place.”
He also told the protesters that he was going to request a review of the shelter by the Florida Department of Agriculture and an investigation into where the funding resources are going.
One of the points that protesters make is that the department is top heavy with bloated salaries. The Animal Services director makes more than $200,000 a year and there are four assistant directors.
No wonder there’s no money for fans.
The department issued a canned statement last week: “We understand the community’s concerns, and we share the same goal: to provide every animal with the best possible care and a chance at a loving home.”
Meanwhile, however, they may get sick. Or die from the heat.
This story has been updated to include a comment from Rita Schwartz, co-founder of the Pet’s Trust.
The post Protesters want answers, justice for Rocky at Miami-Dade animal shelter appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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