Despite three years of improvements in its operations and a steady rise in the number of animals spared from euthanasia, PACCA has failed to control kennel cough among dogs in its Feltonville shelter - and that has serious consequences for both volunteer rescue groups and potential adopters.

"Every dog I have pulled out of there is sick," says Jodi Specter, president of the local American Bulldog Rescue, who stopped taking PACCA dogs home for foster care "because they made my dogs sick."

Another rescue person, the Northeast's Rosemary DiStefano, says a pit bull "had a 105 fever when I took him. I went directly to the emergency room and it cost me $1,000 to treat for pneumonia."

It got to the point that, each time DiStefano went to PACCA to rescue a dog, "I went with doxycycline" - a medicine for kennel cough - "and started treating them right away," she says.

A 2004 Daily News exposé revealed the PACCA operation then to be a "House of Horrors" for animals. Everything from staff indifference to animal cruelty was detailed, resulting in a City Council hearing, followed by a new board and new management. This four-part series is another deep look into PACCA, assessing its successes - and there have been some, since our 2004 report - and its failures.

As someone who has been immersed in animal issues for a decade, I know of no person, no organization, involved in animal welfare that won't be bad-mouthed by some other person who cares about animals. Sadly, animal welfare infighting makes Shia/Sunni warfare seem like a debutante party. (Because of bad blood between PACCA and the Pennsylvania SPCA, which I believe wants to regain the animal-control contract it surrendered in 2002, no one from PSPCA was interviewed for this series.)

Several rescuers suspect that PACCA puts up sick animals for adoption to stick someone else with the medical bills. Others believe animals are rushed out the door to avoid the "E-room," where lethal injections are given. Some critics - and supporters - say PACCA will do anything to keep up its "save" rate, which is at a historic high.

"Our commitment is to work toward saving the lives of all the animals who enter our facility," says PACCA Chief Executive Officer Tara Derby, 34. "We consider those lives to be precious."

PACCA takes in 30,000 animals a year, "the vast majority of whom have never seen a veterinarian before entering our facility," Derby says. The city facility can turn no animal away, not even sick ones.

Clearly, PACCA is saving more animal lives: Since 2005, the combined dog/cat "save" rate tripled from less than 20 percent to more than 60 percent today.

With that said, so many dogs in PACCA's shelter have kennel cough, an upper-respiratory infection or URI, that many rescuers call it the "PACCA flu."

Derby admits that close to half the shelter's dogs may have kennel cough when the shelter is not packed, a rate she says rises to 60 percent when the shelter is jammed and airborne transmission is difficult to stop.

A former PACCA manager estimates the average to be more like 80 to 85 percent.

DiStefano used to go to PACCA when called, usually to pick up "special needs" dogs, such as those sick or injured. She hasn't gone in more than six months.

Specter worked with PACCA since it opened in 2002, but rarely goes now. DiStefano and Specter agreed to be quoted. Other rescue people requested anonymity, fearing that they might be barred from the city-financed shelter at 111 West Hunting Park Ave.

The "PACCA flu" charges arise as the city's $2.9 million contract with the agency was to expire on June 30. Health Commissioner Dr. Donald F. Schwarz has offered a six-month extension, which PACCA is weighing. Meanwhile, Dana Spain-Smith, the combative president of PACCA's board of directors since December 2005, resigned in mid-April, replaced by Reed Smith attorney John Martini. Spain-Smith remains on the board.

All large-volume shelters have some kennel cough, but PACCA has too much - and no effective way to control it.

One reason: The design of the shelter, which was a warehouse before conversion. It remains too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.

"The issue is to control [kennel cough] through isolation, vaccinations, facility design, air flow," says John Snyder, vice president for companion animals of the Humane Society of the United States.

PACCA has no isolation room for dogs. It has no space for one - and it would require a separate ventilation system, because URI is airborne.

Having sick dogs in the kennel is a double whammy. First, URI can turn into pneumonia, which can be deadly and is costly to treat. Second, it's bad business to allow people to unknowingly adopt a sick animal and then find themselves saddled with unexpected vet bills.

"We had to hospitalize about four [PACCA dogs] in the last couple of months," said Lorraine Schreiber, director of the Burlington County Animal Alliance. (Her name had been given to me by PACCA as a friend of the shelter.) Despite the sick dogs, Schreiber gives PACCA and its staff good grades for trying hard and for cooperation.

Derby says that when PACCA knows an animal is sick, the adopter is given medicine. But symptoms don't always show at the shelter, and there is not always medicine on hand. PACCA does allow adopters to return animals at no charge, but that's a bad "after the fact" remedy.

"We're having a much harder time this year with upper-respiratory infections," admits Dr. Michael Moyer, PACCA vice president, who teaches shelter medicine at Penn's renowned vet school. There's no budget for "diagnostic surveillance," so dogs are only spot-checked as they arrive, he says.

Even if sick dogs are caught on arrival, it doesn't help. PACCA turns away no animal and since there's no isolation room, the sick dogs go into the kennel to spread whatever they have. As bad as kennel cough and pneumonia are, the shelter lives in fear of parvovirus, an infection so serious it can require a kennel population to be put down.

A new facility would help, or a revamp of the existing one, but the city is not ready to spring for it, Mayor Nutter told me.

While calling PACCA an "important" city service, Nutter won't budge before getting a report on "what the best practices are in the industry, what do other cities do," and what local vets, medical and internal policy staff recommend, he says.

When will he request such a report?

He declined to say, other than: "It's an important issue so I'm going to work on it with a sense of urgency."

Meanwhile, too many dogs suffer with the "PACCA flu." *

E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/byko.