LOS Angeles city's chief animal-shelter veterinarian resigned last week, leaving only two vets on a staff that's funded for 12. Worse yet, the two remaining vets have virtually no experience running major, urban animal shelters. When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hired Ed Boks to run Los Angeles animal shelters, the problem was already at a crisis level, with only three vets on staff - a 75 percent vacancy rate that was worse than any other shelter in Southern California. Now, with the loss of Dr. Katie Rainey, the vacancy rate worsens to a cruel 84 percent.

Shelter visitors gravitate to dogs, cats and rabbits who are happy and friendly. But without proper veterinary care, easily treatable infections spread like wildfire in the close confines of shelter kennels. Moreover, when animals are sick, aggression grows and dog fights, injury and a pall of sadness are cast over the kennels.

And nothing turns off shelter visitors more than sick, untreated and fight-battered animals.

With more vets, L.A.'s shelter animals would be healthier, happier and less aggressive - the qualities that adopting families look for. This is why some people run to pet stores and breeders: The sadness of the shelters is too much to bear.

A lack of vets means a sick, sad shelter experience. And when fewer pets get adopted from shelters, more end up getting killed. Thousands of pets in L.A. shelters are killed each year, a problem Boks was hired to correct. The irony here is that the lack of vets exacerbates these conditions. Hire more vets and the animals are happier, healthier and show better. Fewer vets is the reason we have the current doomsday situation.

So why doesn't Boks simply hire the vets for which his department is already funded? There are two reasons.

First is that Boks has failed to bring salaries for shelter vets up to market levels. This, despite having a $22 million budget at his disposal.

Second is that because Boks' Los Angeles Animal Services has done such a poor job of placing pets into wanting homes, it's an unappealing work environment for people who, as a class, have dedicated their careers to helping animals. The result is a cycle of suffering: Vets don't want to come to LAAS because the animals there are so poorly cared for; and the animals are poorly cared for because there aren't enough veterinarians on hand.

Like a baseball free agent, Boks has to show these professionals the money and a plan to win. If he had such moxie, we'd have more vets.

But responsibility here lies, ultimately, with Villaraigosa, who hired Boks without doing proper due diligence, and who continues to hang onto him now. The problem for Villaraigosa is that firing Boks would mean admitting failure, which is hard to do when you're running for governor or even vice president.

The mayor can only make things better by accepting responsibility, and hiring a shelter GM who knows how to attract and keep the 12 vets LAAS is supposed to have instead of the mere two it has now.