Animal rescuers working in Los Angeles' Skid Row are raising the alarm over a practice they say has become a grim pattern. They allege that drug users expose dogs to narcotics, including fentanyl-laced substances, to test whether a supply is safe to consume.
The allegation, made on the record by frontline volunteers, forms part of a wider crisis of animal abuse in one of America's most densely populated homeless encampments. Pit bulls are confined in wire crates in 90-degree heat, pregnant dogs give birth without veterinary care, and animals are bred in bulk and sold for cash or traded for drugs.
