Web of Self-Delusion

August 7, 2010 by Nathan J. Winograd

“Corruption” is the misuse of power for personal gain. By standing up to the bullies in the animal protection movement determined to ensure that the killing paradigm they’ve established is not upended, I’ve prevented my personal gain. You don’t go after those with all the resources in your field and expect to become enriched.

As to my books, when I complain to my wife about sales, she laughs: “Why should people buy them when you keep giving them away for free?” She’s right. I’ve given away 1,200 copies to the two No Kill Conferences, 800 copies to groups in Australia, 300 copies to Austin, on and on and on.

So exactly how am supposed to be corrupt?

Well, the anti-No Kill, pro-mandatory spay/neuter crowd in Los Angeles claim that groups they believe are corrupt are allegedly “major backers” of “Winograd’s No Kill agenda.” The groups include Responsible Pet Owners Alliance, the Center for Consumer Freedom, PETPAC, a woman named Diane Amble, and Brenda Barnette. Now “major backers” has a financial connotation. It implies, which is what they want to falsely convey, that I am getting the big bucks from these groups. But their own allegations don’t even make that claim for good reason: it isn’t true.

Responsible Pet Owner’s Alliance
According to Mancuso and company, Responsible Pet Owner’s Alliance “took credit for helping to pay for Nathan Winograd to visit Houston in March, 2009.” I offered to do an assessment of Houston BARC for $5,000 (HSUS charges $25,000 for a boilerplate report that says nothing). Houston refused to pay for it, so a rescuer put up a fund to bring me to Houston and asked people to donate to it. Who donated to that? I have no idea. I did not administer the fund and do not know who the donors to it were. To this day, I do not know who they are, except for one, an unaffiliated animal lover who offered me her frequent flier miles for the flight. In the end, the report speaks for itself.

Diane Amble
According to Mancuso and company, a woman named Diane Amble “convinced [me] to write a column in her radical newsletter ‘The Animal Herald.’” When I read this, I Googled “Animal Herald” And came across a PDF. It is dated July 2009, and though it says it is volume I, number 1, there do not appear to be any subsequent editions. I looked and lo! I do have a column in it, there was my byline, but I do not recall ever writing for the Animal Herald. As I started reading it, I realized I didn’t because it was nothing more than a reprint of a blog I wrote for my own website. Whenever anyone asks if they can reprint my blogs, I always say “Yes.” Did Amble ask? I don’t remember, but who cares, because I would have said “Yes.” So that’s the toxic web of corruption? A woman who obviously hates HSUS reprinted a blog I wrote condemning HSUS for calling for the killing of all dogs seized from a dog fighter?

Center for Consumer Freedom
According to Mancuso and company, “Mr. Winograd even went so far as to sit down and grant an interview with CCF in 2007.” Actually, I was already sitting down, because I was at my computer when I received an e-mail asking if I would answer a few questions about my book. I said “Yes” but on one condition: They are not allowed to change anything I write. If they edit in any way, I have the right to pre-publication review to see if it changes my meaning. If I believe it does, they can’t publish it. They agreed and e-mailed the four or so questions. I e-mailed my responses and they published them with no changes. Do I agree with the agenda of CCF? I do not.

Coincidentally, HSUS—another group whose agenda I disagree with because they support killing—also asked if they could e-mail me some questions. I said yes with the same condition: They are not allowed to change anything I write. If they edit in any way, I have the right to pre-publication review to see if it changes my meaning. If I believe it does, they can’t publish it. HSUS said “No” and so I declined the interview.

During the same period, I did an interview on Fox News. For those who know me, my politics are different than theirs. I voted for Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich in the last two presidential primaries, not exactly the candidates embraced by Fox News. But I did the interview, not because I am caught in a “web of corruption” with Fox News, but because I know that when it comes to saving dogs and cats from death in shelters, all those things that separate us as Americans don’t apply. Red states or blue, rich or poor, black or white, Democrats or Republicans, we all love animals.

PETPAC
According to Judie Mancuso & Company, “PETPAC heavily promoted Mr. Winograd’s book ‘Redemption’ as a solution to the ‘killing’ done in animal shelters. They urge members to purchase his book on their web site.” In addition, they ‘praise Mr. Winograd’s no-kill approach, arguing it is far cheaper to adopt animals than to kill them.’ Wow, devastating indictments. I wrote a book urging an end to the killing, showing how it is possible, and since then, communities across the world have successfully ended the killing by following its prescription. But because some group says the book is good, that makes me corrupt?

Now, they do say that PETPAC paid “for Mr. Winograd to speak to their members. According to the Pet Defense blog, PETPAC paid for Mr. Winograd to give a speech in Ventura, California during a major dog show.” Actually, that isn’t quite true. When Redemption was published, I sent out a mass e-mail and posted online if people wanted me to come speak, I’d go to any city and all I ask is reimbursement for air travel, one night in a hotel and that the presentation be free and open to anyone who wants to come. They offered me that and yes, I took it, inviting everyone in the Ventura community to come hear the presentation. But no, they did not pay me to speak. They reimbursed my flight (a Southwest coach fare) and one night in a hotel (I paid for the movie and potato chips from the mini-bar out of pocket). That was several years ago, I’ve not received a penny from them otherwise and have no affiliation with them of any kind.

Brenda Barnette
Finally, the web of corruption allegedly extends to L.A.’s new pound director, Brenda Barnette. According to Mancuso and Company: “Mr. Winograd fully backed Ms. Barnette’s appointment in Los Angeles.” Truth be told, I am not convinced Barnette is going to succeed. Not because she isn’t capable, she is. She worked at the San Francisco SPCA, ran a No Kill shelter called Pets In Need, worked as director for Tony LaRussa’s Animal Rescue Foundation, and then headed the Humane Society of Seattle-King County saving roughly nine out of 10 animals. That is why I supported her appointment.

She offers hope for animals in L.A.’s cruel and abusive pound, and when she was attacked by Mancuso and her ilk because she opposes mandatory spay/neuter (because governments don’t fund them fully, causing people to surrender their animals and then be killed), I wrote a letter in support of her candidacy. But does that mean I think she can succeed at a No Kill Los Angeles? Actually, I am not so sure.

I hope so. But I am not convinced she will have the support of the Mayor to do what I believe it takes to reform that agency and redirect it away from killing and towards lifesaving. There are many entrenched and regressive employees staffing L.A.’s shelters and with the backing of their union, they are a powerful and formidable opponent to No Kill in Los Angeles. Internal, not external, factors prevent more lifesaving.

I am not convinced that the City bureaucracy that does not value accountability and good government will allow her to reform the union. And so I wrote in my letter on behalf of the No Kill Advocacy Center asking the City Council to appoint her and give her a chance, but warning them that if she does not succeed, “it will be because of a failed bureaucracy that did not give her the latitude and tools to do the job humanely.”

So that’s it. That’s Mancuso and company’s proof of my “web of corruption”: A letter in support of a shelter director with a track record of success, an e-mail to a group answering four questions, reimbursement for a flight, and a reprint of my blog. I guess if you wrap mundane allegations in a lot of exaggerated and hyperbolic language, you might succeed in convincing yourself that it is worth the price of a domain name. But from the outside looking in, it reeks of desperation and just goes to underscore how much progress the No Kill movement has made.

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No Kill News from Around the Country

June 25, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

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Austin Texas Citizens Demand No Kill Equation

A unanimous decision of a citizens’ advisory committee in Austin, TX has demanded that the shelter stop killing animals despite empty cages, model itself after successful programs in places like Reno, NV, implement the programs and services of the No Kill Equation, and even consider privatizing the shelter.

Town Lake Animal Control’s director tried to derail the vote, but was outnumbered by animal lovers on the Committee. Even the ASPCA’s Karen Medicus, the spokesperson for the ASPCA’s convoluted Mission: Orange program, could not be typically obstructionist of animal advocates and finally sided with them by voting for the measure.

Though hailed as a Mission: Orange success story by Medicus and her boss, Ed Sayres, the real success in Austin belongs to Austin Pets Alive (APA), which is saving these animals, on a threat of a death sentence by the pound. While Sayres told the local newspaper, the Austin Statesman, that Mission: Orange has led to the save rate increase, this—like much of Ed’s rhetoric—is nothing more than bluster. Mission: Orange did nothing of the kind. Outside inspections found hundreds of empty cages, even while the killing continues. There would not have been any increase of significance but for APA taking animals on the pound’s kill list. Take away transfers to APA, and Year two of Mission: Orange, like Year One, would have been a failure. The pound’s regressive director, Dorinda Pulliam, knows this. Medicus knows this. And, of course, Ed Sayres knows this. But what do you expect from a guy who says that killing is the moral equivalent of not killing? Or, in his own twisted words: “There is no room for No Kill as morally superior.”

Despite an envious and generous (by comparative standards) per capita budget of $7.16, and hundreds of thousands of additional dollars being thrown at it by the ASPCA, the Austin pound continues to lag behind more progressive communities in terms of lifesaving. As a recent study and successful communities have shown, all the money in the world can’t save an animal unfortunate enough to find himself at a shelter with a director obstinate in her refusal to implement lifesaving alternatives to killing. The study concluded that communities which invest in progressive leadership—which Austin does not have—save the vast majority of lives on budgets a fraction of the one in Austin, TX.

According to the Advisory Committee report,

The City Manager should ensure that the Animal Services Department is fully onboard with the Council’s new directive to make Austin a No Kill City by saving 90% of impounded animals…. Any employee of the shelter who rejects the Council’s directive either through disagreement or lack of effort should be removed or reassigned.

I’m with Donald Trump on this one. They deserve two words: “You’re fired!” Remember, it is better to fire a bad staff member, than to kill a good animal.

Hey Austin politicians, you want to save money and save lives? Invest in progressive leadership!

To read the Austin report, click here.

To read the No Kill Advocacy Center’s leadership study, click here.

Your American Animal Shelter

While the Humane Society of the United States assures us that everyone in animal sheltering has “a passion for and are dedicated to the mutual goal of saving animals’ lives” and PETA says blaming shelters for killing is like blaming hospitals for sickness, animal advocates in Tulare County, CA know better. The shelter manager was recently indicted for needlessly killing animals in order to sell their bodies for dissection. He has not been fired, but has been put on paid administrative leave.

The Tulare County shelter has long lobbied against increased protections for sheltered animals in California, was one of the most vocal opponents of the 1998 Animal Shelter Law which gave rescue groups rights to save sheltered animals, and continues to blame the irresponsible public for its own failings and criminal activity.

This is YOUR American animal shelter. The one that blames YOU for the killing.

(Thanks to YesBiscuit! for breaking this story.)

Your American Animal Shelter, Part II

Collier County 170

Cats lie dead at Collier County Animal Services following a mass killing ordered by the shelter’s then-uncaring and incompetent director, despite a per capita budget that is the envy of shelters nationwide.

In order to save money, Collier County FL Commissioners are considering doing away with most adoptions at the local shelter, turning its shelter, Collier County Animal Services (CCAS) into a slaughterhouse, with no pretensions to being anything different. Collier County is one of the wealthiest communities in Florida, but its animal shelter has long been run by incompetent, uncaring and cruel managers, while Commissioners have turned a blind eye.

I did an assessment of the shelter in 2007. This is a sample of what I found:

Of 3,445 cats taken in during the previous twelve month period (October 1, 2006 to September 30, 2007), 2,727 lost their lives, the vast majority at the hands of CCAS staff.
Animals are dying in their cages, because there is no one to care for them.
Four staff members (three “customer service representatives” and one individual in uniform) were sitting behind the front desk socializing about their personal lives. I overheard one of them telling the other about the number of “margaritas” she had to drink the night before. Meanwhile, animals were standing in their own filth in their cages and kennels, none were asked to go into the kennels to provide care, and they were certainly not doing it on their own volition.

At the same time, shelter leadership took the position that it was doing a good job with what it has. For example, the director “excused” rates of shelter killing by relying on outdated and factually inaccurate clichés: “A good death is better than a bad life,” she told me in defense of their practices. At another time, she stated that “I’d rather kill cats with a full belly than have them die hungry under the wheels of a car.” This is rhetorical nonsense.

First, those are not the choices. A cat does not face either shelter killing on the one hand, and on the other, a life of deprivation and ultimately being run over with a car. In fact, a comprehensive eleven-year study of outdoor cats found that they had similar baselines for health to indoor cats and similar rates of disease in comparison. Furthermore, the study found that the vast majority of the cats were in good physical condition, with only four percent killed for health reasons. The director’s contention that we stop the cat from possibly suffering or possibly dying by killing the cat ourselves is an irreconcilable contradiction and a patently unethical one.

Second, there are many programs which CCAS could implement, which would obviate the perceived “need” to kill. For example, the agency could have a non-lethal feral cat TNR program, which the director opposed. The agency could adopt more animals based on a more systematic and comprehensive media presence, but the director chose to intentionally operate under the radar to avoid public scrutiny. The agency could do daily offsite adoption programs, but chose not to. It can have more public friendly hours, it can hold staff accountable to results, it can start a foster care program, it can improve relations with the local humane society, and more—none of which it currently does or does well, despite a per capita budget of $8.46, almost three times the rate of Tompkins County which has saved at least 92% of the animals every year for the last seven years, and over four times the rate of Charlottesville’s animal control shelter, which is also saving 90%.

My recommendations were ignored, and now the Commissioners seem intent on actually killing even more animals. Once again, all the money in the world can’t save an animal unfortunate enough to find himself at a shelter with a director obstinate in her refusal to implement lifesaving alternatives to killing. Add a bunch of derelict Commissioners to the mix, and the end result is even worse.

Once again, this is YOUR American animal shelter. The one that blames YOU for the killing.

From the Archives & More

June 16, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

From the Redemption archives

petapostcard

I began packing away the material used to write my book, Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation & The No Kill Revolution in America. But as so often happens when you go through old items, you begin re-reading them. I came across a couple of items of note. Periodically, I’ll release some of the material for posterity.

In Redemption, I wrote about HSUS attempts to derail a TNR program in the Outer Banks of North Carolina:

…the cat lovers who made up the Outer Banks Spay/Neuter Fund met with officials of the Dare County Animal Control Advisory Board to ask for assistance. They were there to introduce themselves and demonstrate how the county could save money by investing in spay/neuter rather than continuing the local practice of impounding and killing the feral cats of the Outer Banks. The Board suggested they present their plan to the Outer Banks SPCA. The SPCA director, however, told them not to bother. The SPCA had already declared “its total opposition to the spay/neuter of feral [cats],” preferring instead to kill them.

Members of the Outer Banks Spay/Neuter Fund turned to the Humane Society of the United States for help. Since HSUS was the nation’s largest companion animal and humane advocacy group—and one with significant influence over local shelters—leadership of the Outer Banks Spay/Neuter Fund expected their assistance in the struggle to legitimize TNR to the local shelter. The co-chair of the Fund explained:

We had thought HSUS would write a letter on our behalf. We thought that HSUS would encourage the Outer Banks SPCA to stop killing these cats since there was a non-lethal alternative. We felt that feeding and caring for these cats was in keeping with the humane mission of the Humane Society of the United States.

Instead, HSUS wrote to the Outer Banks SPCA calling TNR “inhumane” and “abhorrent,” applauding the SPCA’s opposition to the practice and encouraging the director to contact HSUS for assistance.

HSUS would also go on to write the local prosecutor that the practice was illegal under the state abandonment statutes. The letter was written by HSUS attorney Roger Kindler, who remains on the HSUS executive team to this very day. Attached is only a small portion of some of the correspondence (including interviews). Click here to read.

I also came across a hand written postcard sent to me by the Butcher of Norfolk herself, Ingrid Newkirk, telling me that PETA does not believe in “right to life” for animals even though PETA is supposed to be an animal rights organization. As I’ve said numerous times, the right to life is universally acknowledged as a basic or fundamental right. It is basic or fundamental, because the enjoyment of the right to life is a necessary condition of the enjoyment of all other rights. An organization cannot be “rights” oriented as PETA claims to be and ignore the fundamental right to life. If an animal is dead, the animal’s rights become irrelevant. Not only does PETA not acknowledge the right to life, they have rejected it. And they demonstrate that by seeking out and killing 2,000 animals every year.

And not only is PETA not an animal rights group, it is not an animal welfare or even an animal control agency. They kill in the face of lifesaving alternatives, which undermines principles of animal welfare. And their record of killing puts them even outside the purview of an animal control orientation, except in the most regressive of agencies which do not even make any animals available for adoption. Indeed, there is no philosophical foundation for the belief that animals should be sought out and killed.

Read the postcard by clicking here. (My address is no longer valid.)

The number two bullet point where she writes: “There are always exceptions” refers to correspondence we were having relating to their support for the extermination of feral cats. I expressed disappointment that PETA believed all feral cats should be killed and while she acknowledged that they should be, she said there are exceptions to that.

Next up: Fund For Animals supports an ordinance that makes it illegal to feed feral cats, with some exceptions including to trap them “for proper disposal,” as if they are nothing more than yesterday’s trash. The ASPCA says the only reason No Kill was successful in San Francisco was because of a large “gay community.” HSUS calls No Kill shelters “glorified collectors.” The National Animal Control Association calls No Kill a “delusion.” While others call it a “cancer.”

Speaking of PETA

In a prior post, I wrote that AR-News, a listserve of animal rights supporters, kicked PETA out of its group by stating:

PETA claims to be an animal rights group. Why would any animal demand the right to be murdered by their supposed rescuer and advocates? Can you imagine Amnesty International or the United Nations demanding that a population of humans be killed because they don’t want to bother finding any food or shelter for them? PETA is not an animal rights group, in any meaningful sense of the term. It’s disgusting and perverse that PETA is working so hard to derail the no-kill movement… Who needs an ‘advocate’ like that?

Now, AR-News has permanently barred another person, who turned out to be a PETA employee, from posting on the website. The PETA employee had posted a defense of PETA’s killing policies to which AR-News responded that the PETA excuse,

perpetrates story fraud (making up and adding content). What’s worse is the commentary itself, which belittles and denigrates the animals who clearly suffered tremendously in these instances. This behavior is disrespectful towards other animals, and certainly not befitting of an animal advocacy news list.

AR-News goes on to call PETA’s promotion of its killing of these animals “deplorable and demented. It is not sarcasm. It is not dark humor. It is sickening and symptomatic of a disturbed mind.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Oh wait, I’ve also said that.

Read the Butcher of Norfolk by clicking here.

The Cost of Saving Lives

I’ve written about the study before, but its worth noting that the No Kill Advocacy Center released the results of its analysis comparing per capita animal control spending on save rates.

Read the report by clicking here.

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The Killing of Puppy 43063

June 11, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

Your Honor, on June 19, 2007, a 12-week-old brown and white puppy … entered the Loudoun County shelter and was given number 43063. He was never given a name… the puppy was killed by the shelter, never having been given a chance to live, never having been given a name. Why? Contrary to state law and contrary to local law, puppy number 43063 was never put up for adoption and was killed for one reason and one reason only: Puppy number 43063 was identified by the shelter as a pit bull mix. On the puppy’s pre-euthanasia report, the official reason for euthanasia is typed in as “breed.” Let me repeat that. The recorded reason for why puppy number 43063 was killed under current shelter policies was “breed.” That reason at some point was crossed out in ink and “behavioral observations” was written in its place. Behavioral observations. The shelter’s canine behavior assessment for puppy number 43063 notes that the puppy, “Approaches the front of the kennel seeking evaluator’s attention. Happily greets evaluator. Is sociable. Initiates gentle, physical contact. Wanted to be in evaluator’s lap. Moves closer for further attention. In evaluator’s lap playing. Wiggly. Leans against you. Bouncing around. Very lovey. –Counsel for Plaintiffs, Animal Rescue of Tidewater vs. Loudoun County, Virginia, May 5, 2009.

Pit Bull advocates across the country were closely following a recent trial in Virginia about whether Loudoun County’s ban on Pit Bull adoptions was legal, given a provision of state law and the Attorney General’s opinion to the contrary. According to Virginia State Law,

No canine shall be found to be a dangerous dog solely because it is a particular breed nor is the ownership of a particular breed prohibited.

According to the Attorney General’s interpretation of that law,

Publicly funded animal shelters may not euthanize dogs based solely upon breed.

The case, Animal Rescue of Tidewater vs. Loudoun County, Virginia ended in the County’s favor. The court held that banning the adoption of dogs deemed Pit Bull or Pit Bull-mixes did not violate the law.* As a result, dogs someone says “look” like “Pit Bulls” or “Pit Bull-mixes” will continue to be killed without ever being made available for adoption.

The County, in undisputed court testimony, conceded that point:

Q: Are Pit Bulls in Loudoun County allowed to be adopted?
A: No. The pit bulls and pit bull mixes are not allowed to be adopted.
Q: As to pit bulls, any citizen of Loudon County may not adopt a pit bull; isn’t that correct?
A: The Loudoun County Animal Shelter does not adopt out pit bulls, no.

To the Director’s credit, he did approach the Board of Supervisors to ask them to remove the adoption ban on Pit Bulls which they declined. But despite this, his staff—most notably his shelter manager—testified in defense of the shelter by misleading the court, with a series of Orwellian claims that deny the obvious and contradict one another.

The Loudoun County shelter manager claimed the shelter only killed one “adoptable” Pit Bull even with a blanket policy against putting any up for adoption. Of 122 dogs killed since a new policy was enacted—reaffirming the ban but allowing “adoptable” Pit Bulls to be transferred to rescue groups—she said all but one failed their temperament evaluation. One. That’s a pass rate of 0.01%. Compare that to 86% in Tompkins County. And 86.6% according to the American Temperament Test Results. Despite this, the shelter manager testified that the shelter is not biased against Pit Bulls, but in favor of Pit Bulls:

Q: And you stated that pit bulls are not treated differently at the shelter, is that correct?
A: No, sir, they are not…. We never make decisions based on breed, we make decisions based on space availability and based on appropriateness.
Q: [But pit bulls or pit bull-mixes] are never put on the adoption floor; isn’t that correct?
A: At this time they are not made available for adoption, that’s correct.
…
Q. Are you aware, personally aware, of any staff bias regarding pit bulls either pro or con?
A. Well, we do have some staff that are pit bull advocates, and so any bias we might have would be in favor.

Despite admitting the shelter bans the adoption of Pit Bulls, she claimed they are treated the same as other dogs and decisions about them are not based on breed. Despite the fact that she admitted a Pit Bull with behavior issues has never been given the rehabilitation that is given to other dogs, she says they are treated the same. She even went so far as to say that if there was Pit Bull bias at the shelter, “any bias we might have would be in favor.”

As noted above, counsel for Animal Rescue of Tidewater described one such “dangerous” Pit Bull at this shelter:

Approaches the front of the kennel seeking evaluator’s attention. Happily greets evaluator. Is sociable. Initiates gentle, physical contact. Wanted to be in evaluator’s lap. Moves closer for further attention. In evaluator’s lap playing. Wiggly. Leans against you. Bouncing around. Very lovey.

The puppy was killed. Sadly, this sort of behavior by individuals tasked with overseeing humane societies and animal control shelters is not surprising. Rather, it is endemic to the industry. And it is a lack of any accountability for their actions that gives shelter managers an aura of untouchability and allows them to make outrageous claims, even when contradicted by the evidence.

In fact, that is what is underlying the larger opposition to the No Kill movement. The No Kill movement is attempting to impose accountability on shelters which have not had any because groups like the ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States have not only given them a free ride, they defend them no matter how poorly they perform. And with uncritical support, encouragement, and even praise by killing apologists and enablers like the ASPCA and HSUS, it is little surprise that shelter managers would feel no compunction about making such claims even while testifying in court, under penalty of perjury.

One of these enablers is a hitman-for-hire by the name of Pat Miller, an anti-No Kill crusader who holds herself up as an “expert” on sheltering issues, and who testified for the County in the lawsuit. Miller testified that roughly 60% of all Pit Bulls in shelters are unadoptable based on a study she has seen. The study was conducted by the Massachusetts SPCA at a time when it was killing at an astonishing rate. Not surprisingly, it came up with the finding to justify its kill rate, the same way the Loudon County shelter manager justifies killing dogs she claims are Pit Bulls or Pit Bull-mixes by saying the only ones she kills are “unadoptable.” As I wrote in Redemption:

With assets at one time reaching nearly one hundred million dollars, the Massachusetts SPCA (MSPCA) is perhaps the richest animal shelter in the world, but roughly 60 percent of all dogs and cats who entered the MSPCA shelter system throughout the 1990s were killed.

Is it any wonder that the MSPCA study cited by Miller would conclude that 60% were “unadoptable”?

Even assuming this study is valid (it is not: Tompkins passed 86%, consistent with outside studies), Miller also admitted that dogs who may perform poorly in a shelter often blossom outside of the shelter:

Sometimes you’ll see a completely different dog outdoors. One who appears quite unsocial and stressed in the kennel may be quite friendly out of the kennel when it’s removed from that stressful environment…

She then turned around and stated that taking dogs outdoors is not and does not have to be part of the behavior assessment!

Q. And I guess you may have answered this, but is taking a dog outdoors to evaluate the dog an additional tool in the assessment?

A. It’s not – …

Q. And have you ever taken a dog outside after you have done an individual assessment?

A. Not — generally, not for information gathering purposes.

Why? If the information would help more accurately evaluate a dog’s “temperament,” why isn’t it a mandatory part of the evaluation process? The answer is simple: shelter staff is looking for a reason to kill dogs. As I indicated in Redemption:

As a result, in many—if not most—shelters across the country, dogs are being killed as unadoptable based on deeply flawed test results that are wrong more than they are right, where different shelter staff could easily get different results, and with very poor predictive validity in the home. Not only are the chances of a dog being saved in a shelter reduced by under-performing management or lack of effective policies, but often dogs must first “pass” this test of dubious value. Add to that the pressure to provide a publicly palatable reason for killing (“aggression”), and the obstacles to getting out alive are formidable.

Miller declined to admit the obvious, that passing only one out of 122 Pit Bulls showed “breed bias.” She also claimed to be unfamiliar with studies that showed Pit Bulls having pass rates that exceeded many other breeds, and were in the 80th percentiles even though these studies are, and have been, widely available. What kind of “expert” remains willfully ignorant on issues regarding which she claims to be an expert? What kind of “expert” ignores all evidence to the contrary? What kind of “expert” doesn’t express concerns about the fact that these bans threaten all dogs as shelter staff misidentify Pit Bulls and Pit Bull-mixes the vast majority of times? The answer is simple: Someone who will not be swayed from a predetermined agenda of killing. That is also why it was not surprising, though no less disturbing, that she claimed to have high regard for a Loudoun County shelter staff member, even when she was informed that this staff member “was suspended recently for euthanizing dogs that were not appropriately prepared for euthanasia.”

As I’ve written about Miller before:

In a misleading and deceitful article by Pat Miller in the January issue of the Whole Dog Journal, No Kill was once again equated with hoarding and called “a deceptive myth.” She also stated that people who donate to No Kill shelters are “misguided.” Miller is no stranger to spreading vicious attacks against No Kill. She led one in the mid-1990s after San Francisco ended the killing of healthy dogs and cats. As I indicated in my book Redemption:

Pat Miller, the president of the California Animal Control Director’s Association, and the director of operations for the Marin Humane Society, a wealthy bedroom community just north of San Francisco that was still killing savable animals, indicated the claims [in San Francisco] were “based on semantics, data distortion, and the prolonging rather than the relief of animal suffering.” Miller would go on to say that she, like others who shared her views, was “disturbed by the advocacy of No Kill philosophies.”

Richard Avanzino, then President of the San Francisco SPCA, summarized this opposition best:

For years, there has been what seems to me a concerted, aggressive, and sometimes mean-spirited campaign against No Kill in general, and against the [San Francisco SPCA] in particular. This campaign has included statements that in my eyes go far beyond the bounds of legitimate debate, and rely instead on falsehoods and misrepresentations that demean, diminish, and disparage…. Again and again, we find programs misrepresented, motives questioned, and results and achievements ignored.

In her latest salvo, Miller revisits her wrath at the movement to end shelter killing by arguing that No Kill shelters are derelict because they refuse to kill animals. Not surprisingly, her husband still works for a shelter that kills animals, despite taking in only 5,500 animals annually. Compare that to Reno (which takes in roughly 16,000) and [is saving 90% of all animals].

As to Puppy 43063, Loudoun County staff themselves evaluated him and found that he was “happy” and “sociable” and “gentle” and “wants to be in your lap” and “seeks attention” and “plays” and is “wiggly” and is “very lovely.” They then claimed he was aggressive. And they killed him. And they kill hundreds of others like him. With the blessing of national “expert” Pat Miller. With the blessing of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. With the blessing of the courts of Virginia. And under the oversight of a shelter manager who says that despite an adoption ban, they never make decisions based on breed, treat all dogs the same, and if they have a bias, it is in favor of Pit Bulls. You can’t get more Orwellian than that.

Loudoun County is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. Its animal shelter budget is one of the highest in Virginia and on the top end of shelters nationally: $10 per capita (in a recent study, the mean was found to be $3.95). It also takes in only 10 dogs and cats for every 1,000 human residents, less than the national average and almost four times less than Reno, NV which is saving 90% of dogs, including Pit Bulls. But all that wealth and all that money meant nothing to Puppy 43063 because someone said he was a Pit Bull-mix. And someone else in Loudoun County said that made him dangerous and unadoptable.

This is YOUR American animal shelter. The one that blames YOU for the killing.

——————————

* The legal ruling was based on narrow interpretations of state and local law. Briefly, the case largely turned on the fact that the prohibition on killing dogs based solely on breed in Virginia state law fell within the parameters of the state’s dangerous dog law, and the court narrowly interpreted its proscription only to dogs subject to dangerous dog hearings in court. Despite the Attorney General’s opinion that banning their adoption was illegal (which the Court deemed non-binding), the Court stated that since the shelter allows some of these dogs to be transferred to rescue groups, it did not violate the law or a local law that says citizens may adopt any dogs they want from the shelter. In the run-up to the trial, the shelter began transferring a rare few to rescue groups.

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In Bed with Monsters

May 25, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

Over the years, Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, has shown how little he appears to care for animals. Time and time again, he has taken positions that are the antithesis of what you would expect from the head of the nation’s largest animal protection organization. Time and time again, he has sided with regressive and even cruel animal shelter directors, championed the killing of dogs and cats, and worked to hinder the progress of the No Kill movement.

From Tangipahoa Parish, LA where he legitimized the unnecessary mass slaughter of shelter animals to Wilkes County, NC where he embraced the mass slaughter of dogs.

From San Francisco, CA where he fought shelter reform legislation which would have saved lives to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, where he claimed “Mission Accomplished” and left with tens of millions in HSUS bank accounts which belonged to the animals who continued to suffer.

From legitimizing a round up and kill campaign for cats in Randolph, IA to fear mongering over the bird flu by telling people not to help, feed, or touch stray cats but to call animal control when they see them, agencies with a history of mass slaughter, even as the World Health Organization was telling people cats posed no risk.

From New Orleans, LA after Hurricane Gustav where he fundraised off the largest evacuation of animals in U.S. history conducted by a rescue group by falsely claiming it was an HSUS effort, to Virginia where he demanded that the Vick dogs be killed only to fundraise off of them by telling donors that they were caring for them, when they were not.

Given a history of anti-animal positions he has taken, it would seem unlikely that Pacelle could choose to do anything that would still have the power to shock us. But I must admit that Pacelle stunned me with how truly low and vile he has sunk with his latest scandal: helping Michael Vick—the most notorious animal abuser of our time—reform his image.

On hearing the news of Pacelle’s embrace of Vick, Bad Rap, one of the groups who helped care for Vick’s victims, responded:

I just can’t get myself away from the swimming pool in Vick’s yard. I first learned about it while riding in the back seat of a federal agent’s car that sweltering Tuesday back in Sept 07. The agent was assigned with escorting us to the various Virginia shelters so we could evaluate “the evidence” otherwise known as 49 pit bulls – now known as cherished family pets: Hector, Uba, Jhumpa, Georgia, Sweet Jasmine and the rest. I’m not sure if sharing insider information with us was kosher, but you know how driving down long country roads can get you talking. I imagine she just needed to get some things off her chest. She said she was having trouble sleeping since the day they exhumed the bodies on the Moonlight Road property. She said that when she watched the investigators uncover the shallow graves, she was compelled to want to climb in and pick up the decomposing dogs and comfort and cradle them. She knew that was crazy talk, and she was grappling with trying to understand such a surprising impulse.

Her candor set the tone for this entire saga. Everyone we worked with was deeply affected by the case. The details that got to me then and stay with me today involve the swimming pool that was used to kill some of the dogs. Jumper cables were clipped onto the ears of underperforming dogs, then, just like with a car, the cables were connected to the terminals of car batteries before lifting and tossing the shamed dogs into the water. Most of Vick’s dogs were small – 40lbs or so – so tossing them in would’ve been fast and easy work for thick athlete arms. We don’t know how many suffered this premeditated murder, but the damage to the pool walls tells a story. It seems that while they were scrambling to escape, they scratched and clawed at the pool liner and bit at the dented aluminum sides like a hungry dog on a tin can.

I wear some pretty thick skin during our work with dogs, but I can’t shake my minds-eye image of a little black dog splashing frantically in bloody water … screaming in pain and terror … brown eyes saucer wide and tiny black white-toed feet clawing at anything, desperate to get a hold. This death did not come quickly. The rescuer in me keeps trying to think of a way to go back in time and somehow stop this torture and pull the little dog to safety. I think I’ll be looking for ways to pull that dog out for the rest of my life.

So that’s where I’m at. A second chance for Vick? An HSUS sponsored spokesman for ending torture? In my mind’s eye Vick is still in the shadows at the side of that pool. As many times as this scene plays out my head, he hasn’t yet moved towards that dog to pull him out. Not there yet.

Even PETA, a butcher of a different sort, finally got it right:

To clarify misleading stories regarding PETA and Michael Vick, PETA withdrew its offer to do a TV spot with Michael Vick last winter when a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on Vick’s dog fighting activities revealed that he enjoyed placing family pets in the ring with fighting pit bulls and that he laughed as dogs ripped each other apart. PETA believes that this revelation, along with other factors in the report, fit the established profile for anti-social personality disorder (APD), and we called on Vick to have a brain scan to help confirm this. People diagnosed with APD are commonly referred to as “psychopaths.” They are usually male, prone to lying and manipulation, often take pleasure in cruelty, and cannot feel genuine remorse, which frequently leads to recidivism. PETA had previously been in talks with Vick’s management, public relations, and legal teams about shooting a public service announcement to help combat dog fighting, upon Vick’s release from prison. In December, after consulting with psychiatrists, PETA withdrew the offer for the TV spot, and in January, we called on NFL Commissioner Goodell to require that Vick undergo a brain scan and full psychological evaluation before any decisions were made about the future of his football career.

Everything to Lose

When the Vick case occurred, the entire nation was horrified. The public’s outrage was unequivocal. This was the correct response, and a symbol of just how much people love dogs. But Pacelle, the leader of the nation’s largest animal protection group, is asking people to question that outrage and response. His actions threaten to paint a sympathetic portrait of Vick, despite Vick’s true one-dimensional nature as a sadist who takes pleasure in torturing and killing dogs.

Ultimately, the lesson this embrace of Vick imparts is that the brutal abuse, torture, and killing of dogs is forgivable. That they are only dogs. That the public’s response to the Vick horror was misplaced and overblown. In the end, Pacelle is helping Vick create a false image of himself as “reformed” so he can play in the National Football League again; to avoid the consequences of his actions by getting back the most important thing he cares about—even as he took away from many dogs the thing that mattered most to them: their very lives.

After the depths of Vick’s depravity were fully revealed, the punishment was swift and severe, as it should have been. He was banned from the NFL. He was convicted by the federal courts. He was sent to prison. He was bankrupted. He was despised by the American public. Now, Wayne Pacelle is asking us to sacrifice this precedent. After all, if the head of HSUS is willing to forgive, why shouldn’t the public and the NFL?

Are we really willing to lower the bar on how our society should react to such blatant animal cruelty in order to help a vicious animal killer? What could we possibly stand to gain that would be worth undoing that? Are we really that gullible that we believe Vick can actually influence people not to fight dogs? Are we really going to believe that a PSA or neighborhood talk is going to make people who enjoy watching dogs tear each other apart suddenly have a change of heart? Even if there were a small chance that this was so, without integrity, the “lesson” he is supposed to impart will fail. And it is no surprise that Pacelle can’t anticipate this because he himself appears to lack sincerity for the cause.

So we are left with the question of whether we are really going to accept a few meaningless PSAs and public appearances for an end to the permanent, righteous consequences that Vick must endure by remaining reviled as a monster; by never being reinstated in the NFL; by remaining bankrupt so he cannot afford to rebuild the “Bad Newz Kennels.”

Working to dissipate the righteous anger, working to remove the consequences of Vick’s actions, Pacelle is opening a new chapter to a story that already had the best of possible endings our movement could have hoped for: When Vick was caught torturing innocent animals for sadistic enjoyment, he received a permanent and lasting punishment. He lost his freedom, he lost his career, he lost his money, he lost his reputation, he lost virtually everything. That is exactly how the story should stay ended. And Pacelle’s actions threaten to undo it all.

Nothing to Gain

In the process, Pacelle is helping undermine that which we achieved—showing dog fighters the high cost of punishment; sending the message that dog fighting is unforgiveable and will be met with swift, complete, and permanent recrimination.

To embrace Pacelle’s position, we have to believe that Vick has become a repentant animal abuser who now wants to help dogs. To justify all that we stand to lose as a movement—all the dogs stand to lose—we have to believe that Vick holds the key to ending the scourge of dog fighting. It would be foolish and naïve to do so.

Vick could not care less about stopping or preventing dog fighting. Vick did not have a cathartic realization he was wrong. This isn’t some soul searching effort to make amends. He got caught, pure and simple. Even his guilty plea was not a sincere admission of guilt but a strategic decision (given the overwhelming evidence and a certain conviction) to avoid federal sentencing guidelines which would have locked him away for far longer if he did not plead guilty. And even while he was pleading guilty, he denied killing dogs. Had he not been caught, Vick would be torturing and killing dogs, and taking great amusement in it, to this very day. Our work is about protecting animals, not embracing their abusers. And because our movement stands to gain nothing by this association, Pacelle is asking us to sacrifice the former for the latter. And in so doing, he is undermining our movement. Tragically, it is not the first time.

Finding Our Voice

Through HSUS, Pacelle has:

Participated in the slaughter of some 150 dogs, including puppies, in Wilkes County;
Lobbied to stop No Kill legislation in San Francisco;
Lobbied to stop No Kill legislation in King County, WA;
Supported breed discriminatory legislation in Indianapolis, IN;
Told USA Today and Newsweek that killing in shelters is acceptable and that No Kill was warehousing;
Misled the public about an epidemic of dog bites to convey the view that trying to save Pit Bulls was irresponsible and put children at risk;
Told the court to kill Vick’s victims even as he was asking people to give HSUS money so he could “care” for them;
Left New Orleans with tens of millions given to HSUS for the victims of Hurricane Katrina even while those animals were still suffering;
Legitimized the slaughter of virtually every animal at Tangipahoa Parish animal control;
Told people not to adopt animals during the holidays, effectively accepting the deaths of 1,000,000 animals as the alternative;
Told the Randolph, IA community that he did not have a problem killing stray cats.

And now this. This unconscionable, abhorrent, and vile embrace of a sadist who takes pleasure in the torture and killing of dogs.

This movement has been too forgiving of Pacelle. Time and time again he has acted in a way that is the antithesis of what the leader of an animal protection movement is supposed to do. Still, activists in this movement fail to condemn him, even as he now asks us to embrace the most notorious animal abuser of our time. To be equally forgiving of that monster, as we have been of him.

Can anyone imagine the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence embracing wife killer O.J. Simpson as a spokesman? Can anyone imagine the National Organization to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children embracing pedophile John Geoghan as a spokesman? Can anyone imagine the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network embracing rapist Josef Fritzl as a spokesman? It is unthinkable. And yet we in the animal movement, under Pacelle’s direction, are threatening to do this very thing, to having our movement embrace our version of Simpson, Geoghan, and Fritzl as a spokesman. It is beyond obscene. It is unthinkable.

When someone tells and shows us over and over who they are and what they stand for, we should believe them. No one can doubt that Vick is a monster. But sadly, despite the heartfelt pain expressed so eloquently about the dogs drowning in Vick’s backyard while he sadistically enjoyed himself, even Bad Rap, who deserves nothing less than unbridled accolades over their role in saving some of those poor dogs, refuses to see and condemn Pacelle for who and what he is. That is our movement’s own myopia. Just because Pacelle claims to value animals and he works for an organization with “humane” in its name doesn’t mean either is true. His actions time and again belie both claims. Which is why Bad Rap’s conclusion about Pacelle’s decision to embrace Vick as a spokesman that they are “not there yet” is not enough. None of us should ever be there. Ever.

If the dogs Vick tortured and Pacelle lobbied to have killed by the court could speak on their own behalf, their condemnation would be unequivocal. As they cannot, it is our solemn duty to do it on their behalf. And it is a trust we must not betray in deference to the power and position of those in our movement who abuse that power and betray our cause. As with any social justice movement, progress requires us to courageously defend what is right, even when doing so places us at odds with those in positions of power. We must put our allegiances to our ideals above allegiance to personalities and institutions. And this compels us to expose, reject, and condemn those in our midst who masquerade as leaders, such as Wayne Pacelle, but who use that power to willfully undermine our goals.

It is time for Pacelle to resign. It is time for him to leave us, and the animals, alone.

♦

For further reading:

Rejecting the Consensus of Killing
Same as it Ever Was
Fear Mongering at HSUS
Saving Pit Bulls from HSUS, PETA, and Michael Vick
Will the Real Wayne Pacelle Please Stand Up?
The Real Wayne Pacelle Legacy
The Real Wayne Pacelle Legacy Part II
Desperately Seeking Wayne Pacelle
You’re Doin’ a Heckuva Job Wayney
Long Day’s Journey into Night
“Getting Away with Murder” at Tangipahoa
Dubious Deals at HSUS
HSUS Says No to Holiday Adoptions
The Death of Hope at HSUS
HSUS Defends Wilkes County Massacre
Wayne Pacelle Under Siege
Its Déjà vu All Over Again
Las Vegas, Round 3
HSUS Supports Breed Discriminatory Legislation in Indianapolis

All of them are available by clicking here. Read them as an indictment against Pacelle. And then decide for yourself. My verdict: Guilty, as charged. Pacelle must go.

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The Animals of Los Angeles Are Looking toward Sacramento

May 22, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

The animals of Los Angeles are looking toward state legislators in Sacramento, our state’s capitol, to help lead them out of a quagmire of systematic killing, neglect, and abuse. The California Legislature has taken the first step toward a bold and powerful statement that rejects the failed paradigm of shelter killing. Assembly Concurrent Resolution 74 states that:

That the Legislature encourages No Kill animal shelter policies and procedures as the foundation for animal sheltering; and be it further Resolved, That the Legislature urges all local animal services agencies, local animal shelters, agencies under contract to provide animal services, societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and humane societies to embrace the philosophy of the No Kill movement, and to immediately begin implementing programs and services to reject failed kill-oriented policies and end the mass killing of sheltered animals…

Sadly, the resolution is just that: a resolution, which does not have the same binding authority of a state mandate. Nor is it perfect. But it is start and worthy of support. And it could not come at a more appropriate time in California for three reasons: 1. The State’s largest shelter system (in the County of Los Angeles) continues policies that allow, indeed cause, mass killing. It also continues to neglect and abuse animals in its care; 2. The state’s largest city (the City of Los Angeles) is increasing the number of animals it kills thanks to legislation passed last year which gave them greater powers to do so; and 3. Los Angeles area activists who embrace death are seeking state legislation to give all shelters in California this power.

Channel 2 News in Los Angeles recently did a story about abuse of animals in the Los Angeles County shelters by staff members who are supposed to be the animal’s protectors. Undercover video shows officers throwing animals, kicking animals, and choking animals. See the expose by clicking here.

In addition, the No Kill Advocacy Center, which filed a lawsuit against the County shelter in 2007, is telling members of the Board of Supervisors that if they don’t take immediate steps to end inhumane conditions at County shelters, they’ll be headed back to court:

By way of introduction, our agency was one of the plaintiffs in the December 2007 lawsuit against Los Angeles County and its Department of Animal Care and Control (DACC) for illegal and inhumane treatment of animals at its six facilities. You are aware that a Stipulated Order was entered in settlement on this case on October 20, 2008.

Since the Order went into effect, we have investigated numerous complaints about continued illegal and inhumane treatment of animals. One of the complaints involved a two-year-old poodle mix. Despite showing symptoms of illness, she was never treated and found dead in her kennel on March 1, 2009, over two weeks after she was impounded. These facts are remarkably similar to those of the dog posthumously named “Zephyr” for which the Board of Supervisors held hearings in February, 2008. In that case, a ten-month-old puppy named Zephyr died while in the custody of DACC. A subsequent necropsy revealed the cause of death to be pneumonia, with marked emaciation (“starvation”). Administration of the antibiotics does not appear in the original Shelter Management Software records. Staff did not respond to her failure to eat. The dog died in her filthy kennel, without intervention by DACC staff, and without treatment or release from her suffering. The only difference between the prior case that occurred before the lawsuit was filed and the case of the above poodle-mix is that DACC does not have a rescuer to blame for their own failure, as the Department tried to do in the former case.

Another complaint involved five Persian cats. None of the cats were vaccinated, nor were they provided veterinary care on impound. Because of filthy conditions, one of the cats contracted Panleukopenia and died a week later, another died thereafter, and an additional cat died after adoption. The cats were finally given an examination and treatment, but not until a week after they were impounded.

A further complaint involved a litter of highly adoptable Pug puppies killed by DACC despite DACC’s awareness that there was a rescue group willing and able to save them, a clear violation of state law.

These do not appear to be isolated incidents. Complaints also include a stray dog not scanned for microchip on intake in violation of state law, only to be scanned when adopted and forced to be held an additional ten days, putting further pressure on available kennel space. We have a complaint involving a cat classified as “male” with “gastro” issues only to be found to be a female who was pregnant after she gave birth to a litter of kittens in the shelter. We have other cases of animals receiving no veterinary care, adequate food, or clean water; of dogs fighting in the shelter and left with torn ears and gouged eyes; of killing animals who were not irremediably suffering before the statutory holding period; and of keeping animals in filthy conditions.

We have subsequently demanded that DACC abate those conditions pursuant to the Stipulated Order. Because of DACC’s unsatisfactory responses, we have also sought mediation with DACC of some of those complaints. Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that conditions continue to fall short of legal minimums, the requirements of the Order, and the mandates of compassion and decency.

Despite our efforts to work with DACC, we are left with no choice but to conclude that DACC is not making substantial progress and/or good faith attempts to hold its staff accountable to either state law or the Stipulated Order.

We are, therefore, demanding that the Board of Supervisors take immediate steps to ensure that DACC ceases violating the law. Otherwise, you will leave us no choice but to ask the Court to hold the defendants in contempt of the Stipulated Order.

Tragically, animals in Los Angeles City shelters are fairing little better. Despite the Mayor’s promise that the City of Los Angeles would become the “most humane city in America,” his administration has done very little beyond empty rhetoric and photo ops to make it a reality. Indeed, the agency has been rocked by controversy during his administration involving mismanagement, poor care and unnecessary killing. And last year, it passed a punitive law that gave officers the power to impound and kill animals who are not sterilized. While other communities are seeing death rates plummet and lifesaving at all-time highs, during the past 12 months, 3,029 more cats were intentionally killed in Los Angeles city shelters compared to the year before, an increase of almost 33%. Dog killing has also increased significantly. And more animals are dying in their kennels than ever before.

Meanwhile, some Los Angeles activists don’t appear to care that they helped cause this killing and are intent on passing related state legislation. SB 250 is a reworded mandatory sterilization law under the guise of differential licensing. This comes after they failed last year to pass the original version. Sadly, this year—as occurred last year—they continue to refuse to add common-sense protections for animals. These would include, at a minimum,

A “no-impound/no-kill” provision, meaning an animal can never be impounded based on a violation of this law and if an animal is surrendered because a person received or was threatened with a citation, that animal cannot be killed;
An exemption for feral and free roaming strays, as they have no “owners”; and,
A provision for “free spay/neuter” in lieu of a citation based on a legislative approved income schedule. In other words, if someone falls below a threshold on income (e.g., is on any type of local, state, or federal welfare benefit or subsidy), they can demand free sterilization instead of a citation; or the citation cannot be written or the law enforced against them.

I’ve long argued that giving animal control the power to impound and kill more animals is no way to reduce shelter killing. Even the bean counters in the Senate seem to agree. SB 250 has been sent to the suspense file after a committee analysis found that,

costs could increase to the extent that irresponsible pet owners would surrender their animals to a shelter rather than pay for a surgical sterilization procedure, which would somewhat increase shelter populations and related costs.

As much as proponents try to paint all opposition as that of greedy breeders (I’ve never bred an animal in my life), this is the analysis of the Senate Appropriations Committee whose staff actually don’t seem very sympathetic to animals. They call people “irresponsible” without concern about the deaths of animals or how spay/neuter is out of reach financially for those in the bottom rungs of the economic latter. They conveniently ignore that roughly seven out of ten low income pet owners would sterilize their animals if it was free. And they ignore that the communities with the highest rates of lifesaving don’t have these kinds of laws. In fact, they ignore that shelters in communities which take in higher per capita rates of animals than Los Angeles are still saving nine out of ten because shelter leadership embraced the programs of ACR 74. Senate Appropriations staff seem concerned only about costs. But their concern is not speculative.

Since the City of Los Angeles passed its version of the mandatory spay/neuter law one year ago, impounds and deaths—and therefore associated costs—have skyrocketed. The law has led to the only increase in cat and dog impounds and killing at Los Angeles Animal Services in nearly a decade, and the reversal of a decade long trend of declines in both. While the Mayor claims he wants Los Angeles to be the most humane city in America, it appears he is seeking “number one” status of a different sort. The direction Los Angeles is going, he actually seems intent on catching up to Lake County, CA which has the dubious honor of being the pet killing capitol of California. In 2007, Lake County veterinarian Jeff Smith and the President of the California Veterinary Medical Association encouraged Los Angeles to pass its mandatory sterilization law saying he supported such legislation. “It’s worked in our county,” he said. Working? Lake County has the highest per capita rate of killing in California.

The death champions in L.A. conveniently ignore this. In fact, they perpetuate it. It is truly time for change.

Let’s hope the California Legislature agrees by killing SB 250 and passing ACR 74. And then while they’re at it, how about passing the Companion Animal Protection Act?

Read the text of ACR 74 by clicking here.

Read the Companion Animal Protection Act by clicking here.

Find out why some activists embrace death by clicking here.

Read a “New Hope for Los Angeles” by clicking here.

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Is More Killing On the Way to the Twin Cities?

May 17, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

Protests erupted in front of the Animal Humane Society (AHS) in Minneapolis and a petition by animal lovers is calling for the ouster of their director. This followed the mass killing of some 120 cats, despite pleas from rescuers and local shelters willing to help save them.

But this does not seem to have made an impact on the AHS Board of Directors. Not only did AHS sanction the action of AHS in a letter parroting staff arguments about the “need” to kill the cats, but according to a subsequent letter from Nic Pifer, Chair of the Board of Directors, the AHS is not only already doing a good job but has hired Dr. Kate Hurley and Dr. Sandra Newbury from the UC Davis Veterinary School to guide them into the future. “No doubt you are familiar with their work and reputation,” Mr. Pifer writes.

Yes, Mr. Pifer, I am “familiar with their work and reputation.” They are the ones who came into Las Vegas guns blazing and suggested that the shelter kill animals after a paltry 72 hours. They are the ones responsible for a 2007 increase in the number of cats killed in Dane County Humane Society by eviscerating the foster care program and recommending that the shelter keep every other cat cage empty (thereby cutting capacity in half and forcing the killing of cats already on the adoption floor). They are the ones who go into communities which are embracing No Kill to peddle the defunct “No Kill equals hoarding” argument designed to thwart those reform efforts by painting the lifesaving alternative to their 19th Century brand of catch and kill animal sheltering as even darker. They are the ones who equate No Kill with every known social evil, including “poor record keeping,” a laughable proposition if the outcome (the deaths of animals) weren’t the tragic result.

To make her point, Dr. Hurley even shows policy makers slides of messy cereal box aisles in a supermarket to “show” what happens when you put too many animals/cereal boxes on a shelf arguing that we have to “respect our animals just like we respect our cereal.” She also uses the feeble analogy to impart the apparent importance of limiting consumer choice. While showing shelves jammed with cereal boxes, she explained why offering people too many choices resulted in no sales at all, although I think Kellogg’s would take umbrage at her point.

According to a No Kill advocate, “I like my cereal, but I don’t respect it. I do, however, respect precious lives enough not to reduce them to merchandise.” But apparently, Dr. Hurley believes that if you have too many animals/cereal boxes, you should just throw them away. Only, you don’t have to kill cereal before doing so, and that is the crucial difference.

In one case, after seeing Kate Hurley speak, the former director of the Animal Welfare Association of New Jersey followed her advice by reducing the number of cages in the cat adoption room by half. She noted an increase in the number of cats adopted. Animal Sheltering, HSUS’ flagship magazine for the “catch and kill” establishment, promoted the success of this “less is more” approach. When a new director abandoned the approach and began following the No Kill Equation model of sheltering, cat adoptions nearly doubled and the agency became the most successful adoption agency in the entire state of New Jersey. Although the new director followed up with a letter to the editor, the subsequent and outstanding success was ignored.

And so you too will become familiar with their work and reputation, I am rerunning a December 2007 blog called “Can You Kill Your Way to No Kill?” about the team you claim so “eager to begin our work with…”

Once again, a Board of Directors abdicates its responsibility, a shelter director finds killing easier than doing what is necessary to stop it, Dr. Hurley will likely provide the legitimacy to do so, and animals will continue to needlessly lose their lives. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Can You Kill Your Way to No Kill?

Dr. Hurley, Dr. Newbury, Dr. Semmelweis, and Death at a Midwest Humane Society
In February 2007, the Lied Animal Shelter in Las Vegas was forcibly closed down due to filthy conditions and dreadful treatment of animals. According to reports, sick animals were left to die in their cages, disease was rampant, and dogs were starving because of lack of food. The animals were not vaccinated on intake, sick animals were not treated, healthy animals were subsequently made sick, there was no isolation for sick animals, and there was a complete breakdown of basic principles of animal care and husbandry. The Lied Animal Shelter is a story of incompetent leadership, uncaring staff, a board of directors which failed to meet its oversight mandate, and a system which refused to put in place the programs and services that save the lives of animals. What happened at Lied Animal Shelter is one side of the worst kinds of animal sheltering.

The other side of the same coin (uncaring, incompetent shelter directors who oversee an equally uncaring and incompetent staff) are shelters that recklessly kill the vast majority of animals in their care in the face of responsible, proven lifesaving alternatives which they refuse to implement—In other words, run-of-the-mill high kill shelters such as those that can be found in many cities and towns across America. While the mechanics are different—Lied didn’t kill but left the animals to suffer and die on their own, the others simply kill them out of expediency—the underlying dynamic is the same: both shelters are outdated relics that refuse to modernize and put into place progressive programs and services which allow sheltering to be done humanely, responsibly, while saving the vast majority of dogs and cats. That the Lied Animal Shelter claimed it was “No Kill” is irrelevant. In the final analysis, it had more in common with high kill shelters and the leadership and staff who run them.

The Lied Animal Shelter—comprised of starving dogs, rampant disease, filth, animals suffering with no care—is not what the No Kill movement represents. In fact, No Kill is the opposite of hoarding, filth, and lack of veterinary care. The philosophical underpinning of the No Kill movement is to put actions behind the words of every shelter’s mission statement: “All life is precious.” No Kill is about valuing animals, which not only means saving their lives, but means good quality care. It means vaccination on intake, nutritious food, daily socialization and exercise, fresh and clean water, medical care, and a system built to find them all loving, new homes as soon as possible.

No Kill does not mean business as usual (poor care, hostile and abusive treatment of animals, warehousing) minus the intentional killing. It means modernizing shelter operations so that animals are well cared for and keep moving through the system efficiently and effectively and into loving, new homes. At the open admission No Kill shelter I ran, the average length of stay for animals was eight days, we had a return rate of approximately 2%, we reduced the disease rate by nearly 90% from the prior administration, we reduced the intentional killing rate by 75%, no animal ever celebrated an anniversary in the facility, and we saved 93% of all impounded animals. In short, from 2001-2004, we brought sheltering into the 21st Century.

Personal Agendas
But there are those who have seized upon the Lied Animal Shelter fiasco to promote their own agenda of defending an antiquated model of sheltering developed in the 19th Century which is based on killing, sweeping animals under the rug (more accurately, into the back room to be killed), based on archaic notions of “adoptability,” turning volunteers away and other regressive and obsolete practices. They are using the Lied Animal Shelter to denounce the No Kill paradigm by intimating—sometimes directly, more often indirectly—that Lied is the natural outcome of trying to end the killing of savable dogs and cats in shelters today. And two of the leading voices of this point of view are Dr. Kate Hurley and Dr. Sandra Newbury, veterinarians for the University of California at Davis Shelter Medicine program.

This is a betrayal of the worst kind. Even the Humane Society of the United States called Lied “one of the worst its ever seen.” It was extreme even in the eyes of an agency which accepts staggering high levels of killing as the norm. Therefore, using such an extreme situation as an example of No Kill, of what the natural alternative to ending the killing today would be, is egregious.

By denigrating No Kill as akin to warehousing and ignoring the protocols of shelters which have truly achieved No Kill, Drs. Hurley and Newbury appear to be arguing for nothing more than a nation of shelters firmly grounded in killing—a defeatist mentality that is inherently unethical and antithetical to animal welfare. To imply that No Kill means warehousing, therefore, is a cynicism which has only one purpose: to defend those who are failing at saving lives from public criticism and public accountability by painting a picture of the alternative as even darker.

At the Las Vegas shelter, a wholly incompetent and uncaring shelter director refused to vaccinate animals on intake, failed to practice basic husbandry, refused to treat sick animals, failed to isolate sick from healthy animals, failed to clean and sanitize, allowed animals to languish with illnesses and injuries, and failed to put in place the programs and procedures which vastly increase adoptions and lifesaving. This is not No Kill. This is animal cruelty, but HSUS—with Drs. Hurley and Newbury in tow—came in with needles blazing and oversaw the killing of 1,000 animals. (The Lied Animal Shelter is now killing dogs and cats after only 72 hours and officials there claim they are doing so based on the recommendation of the HSUS team. This not only replaces one “evil” with another, it even violates HSUS’ own longstanding recommendation that shelters should hold animals for at least five days.)

But if the No Kill model should be rejected, what do they recommend? For Dr. Newbury, the answer is simple and can be found right in the shelter of her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin—at the Dane County Humane Society (where both she and Dr. Hurley used to work, a shelter she currently consults with, and where her own model of sheltering is currently being practiced). Let’s see what the Newbury model means for the cats of the Dane County Humane Society.

Life and Death at the Dane County Humane Society
This year, over a period of several weeks, one by one, seventy-three cats were taken off of the adoption floor of the Dane County Humane Society in Madison, WI, to a room outside of public view. One by one, each was injected with poison from a bottle marked “fatal-plus” (or similar barbiturate). One by one, their bodies went limp and slumped to the table. One by one, each was put to death. Why were these 73 cats killed?

They were killed, according to recent reports, because the shelter decided it was going to keep every other cage empty and curtail other lifesaving programs, reducing the number of cages on its adoption floor by half. But since cats occupied those cages or were under the “care” of those other programs, they needed to be slaughtered first. This was necessary in order to “save more cats.” That’s right. According to shelter bureaucrats, by killing cats, by cutting the capacity of the shelter in half, they were professing the Orwellian logic that more cats would be saved…

At this shelter, every other cage is intentionally kept empty despite the fact that disease can be reduced by fostering sick animals, by isolating sick animals, by reducing disease rates through vaccination, proper handling, good cleaning and sanitizing protocols, and by reducing animal stress through daily interaction and socialization by volunteers. At the same time that the number of cages was reduced by half, however, the shelter restricted adoption hours and eviscerated its foster care program.

In response to a public backlash, the architect of this mass carnage claimed: “I am not in any way advocating for more euthanasia,” which is more double-speak since this is exactly what is being advocated. What else is the option when the number of cages is reduced by half, while the shelter is scaling back other opportunities—like adoption days and foster care programs—to save them?

According to Dr. Newbury, by killing the cats and then intentionally cutting shelter capacity in half, more animals will be saved over the course of the year or the next. If your head is spinning from the lack of logic, you are not alone. This argument was also lost on a reporter who noted that in fact, by killing more cats and cutting shelter capacity in half, more cats are likely to die, a fact confirmed by the rising death toll for cats at Dane County Humane Society. Since Dr. Newbury started with the Dane County Humane Society in 2003, the death toll for cats has been steadily rising. In 2003, the year she began, the cat save rate was on a mult-year rise culminating at about 80%. It has been declining every year since. Even while the Society is getting richer (its revenue is growing by the millions), it is killing more cats than in recent history.

According to a recently published report, the Dane County Humane Society’s “[killing] rate for cats reached 40% in October of this year, up from 29% in October 2006,” and this, despite falling intake rates. Despite the promise of more lifesaving, in fact:

The [kill] rate has not gone down. The shelter still kills about one-third of the nearly 7,000 animals it receives annually. And the numbers for cats are the worst. The shelter is actually taking in fewer felines – 3,000 so far this year, compared to 3,800 in 2006 – but is killing more of them. In 2003, the Humane Society [killed] 600 cats a year. By 2006, it was killing more than 1,200. And it’s on track to kill an even higher number this year.

On top of this, the Dane County Humane Society’s new rules:

Decreed that old or sick cats–even those with treatable conditions–would be [killed]. Kittens that arrive needing to be bottle fed would also generally be killed, since the Humane Society limited the number of foster families available to care for them to just 10.

… As more progressive shelters have demonstrated, disease can be reduced by more adoptions (which is undermined when Dane County cuts back adoption hours), sending animals to foster care (which is undermined when Dane County emasculates the program), using volunteers to socialize the animals (which is undermined when volunteers are turned away or leave in frustration), and practicing good husbandry (vaccination on intake, careful handling, thorough sanitizing and cleaning protocols).

This has not been lost on the cat loving public. According to volunteers, any respiratory infections at the shelter were not the result of having cats in all the cages, it was the result of shelter staff “ignoring basic protocols, like washing their hands in-between handling animals.” Moreover, the shelter’s director publicly admitted under a reporter’s questioning that they have never had an epidemic of a serious disease!

Rejecting the Status Quo
While Drs. Hurley and Newbury continue to dig trenches to the past, the rest of us are building bridges to our inevitable No Kill future—A future that promises more life, more compassion, more success, more programs to save the lives of animals. In doing so, we are rejecting the consensus of killing and rejecting the “model” of empty cages, lack of foster care, and killing because the animals do not meet draconian definitions of objective beauty or based on regressive and obsolete notions of “adoptability.”

For in the end, our movement is about more than seeking shelters which simply label themselves as “No Kill” and proceed with business as usual, as the Lied Animal Shelter did. Our movement is about action and results, not mere words and promises. What we seek is a modernization and transformation of our shelters, exchanging century-old obsolete forms of doing business which recklessly embrace killing as a morally ethical means to an end, with shelters that uphold the life and welfare of animals as paramount, and adjust their operations accordingly.

What we demand, and what the animals deserve, are shelter directors and shelter “experts” who value life, and keep pace with progress and innovation, and with the new and exciting methods of animal shelter protocols developed over the last decade to keep animals clean, healthy, and well cared for, while finding homes for all but hopelessly vicious dogs and irremediably suffering animals. These are the only models which veterinarians at one of the nation’s most prestigious veterinary college should be using to train the next generation of veterinarians and to guide the current generation of shelter directors forward.

As a university and as a training ground for new veterinarians, the U.C. Davis program should be at the forefront of progressive shelter practices and of the dynamic and exciting changes occurring in the field of animal sheltering as a result of the No Kill movement. Instead, Drs. Hurley and Newbury irresponsibly cling to the past by promoting methods of sheltering that are antiquated, inhumane, and lead to unnecessary killing. This would be the equivalent of a medical school continuing to teach its students that leeches, bloodletting and magical incantations are a valid treatment for pneumonia, in the face of proven alternatives like antibiotics, fluid therapy and rest. It is nothing short of bad medicine—and a textbook example of the “Semmelweis Reflex,” the reaction so-called “experts” often exhibit when the status quo, which they represent, is challenged.

The Semmelweis Reflex
Historians have coined the term the “Semmelweis Reflex” to describe “mob behavior in which a discovery of important scientific fact is punished rather than rewarded.” In the nineteenth century, Dr. Ignac Semmelweis observed a higher incidence of deaths due to puerperal fever in maternity wards associated with teaching hospitals than in births attended by midwives. In trying to figure out why puerperal fever was a hazard of giving birth in a hospital rather than at home, Semmelweis opined that students and doctors might be carrying the diseases from autopsies they performed, while midwives who did not perform such procedures were not. Semmelweis also found that rigorous instrument cleaning and hand washing could bring the fever rate down to zero. Had doctors known at the time that germs caused disease, this finding would have been unremarkable.

Unfortunately, Semmelweis’ discovery predated the germ theory of disease. At the time, no one knew that asepsis was important. According to Semmelweis’ critics, hand washing wasn’t needed when they could clearly see that their hands had nothing on them. And, tragically, they ignored his recommendations and continued with business as usual, with deadly results for their patients. Once germ theory became known and established, however, Semmelweis was vindicated for his foresight. Of course, sterility through instrument cleaning and hand washing has since become the norm.

The housing, socialization, adoption, foster care, cleaning and vaccination protocols, medical and behavior rehabilitation and other efforts pioneered in communities like San Francisco and copied elsewhere provide a life-affirming model of sheltering which provides high quality care, reduced disease rates, even while keeping cages and kennels full as necessary and in foster care, while finding the vast majority of shelter animals loving new homes. These models were developed by caring and compassionate individuals, professionals, and in conjunction with veterinary institutions like Cornell University.

Rather than attack Semmelweis, doctors should have simply washed their hands, since Semmelweis pointed out that this eliminated deaths, even though, at the time, no one could explain why. Similarly, rather than attack the methods of sheltering which allow the vast majority of animals to be saved, even while operating at capacity-plus fostering, shelter administrators likewise should copy its precepts because it has been shown to work in other communities. But the vast majority of shelter directors refuse to innovate in this way.

But something more nefarious was at work in Semmelweis’ time than a failure of understanding about germs, and it is the same “Reflex” which is at work in sheltering today. In fact, what occurred was that Semmelweis was fired because doctors felt he was criticizing the superiority of hospital births over home births, something that threatened their position in the social hierarchy. And therein lies the rub. The archaic voices of tradition in sheltering are acting the same way as the doctors who put their own positions above their patients. They refuse to innovate and modernize precisely because they are threatened by the growing hegemony of the No Kill movement and what this means for their own stature in this movement.

As a movement and as a nation, we have a choice. We can embrace the No Kill philosophy, and the programs and services which make it possible, and end the unnecessary killing of 4.5 of the five million dogs and cats slaughtered each year in our nation’s dog and cat pounds. Or we can adopt the model that will perpetuate it. The same model that caused 73 cats at the Dane County Humane Society to be killed for one reason and one reason only: They happened to enter a shelter, run by a director, who erroneously believed that sheltering “experts” like Dr. Hurley and Dr. Newbury actually had something to teach her.

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Sheltering News Around the Country

May 12, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

Four Paws for “Hotel for Dogs”

hotel-for-dogs-poster

Normally, I don’t do movie reviews. And the whole point of movie reviews is to review them when they are first released. But I have to make an exception on both counts. First, while my review may be a little late, I just saw the movie for the first time on DVD with my kids. Second, I’ve no choice but to mention it as the movie goes to the heart of the No Kill movement. The film is “Hotel for Dogs,” and it is too good, too on point, not to discuss.

It pits animal control—the “Central City Dog Pound”—against the rescue community. It paints a poignant picture of the sad reality of animal sheltering in too many American cities. But, in the end, it is a movie about the triumph of the underdog. A group (of kids) with limited resources but a deep and committed love for animals take on the establishment by showing there is an innovative, kinder, better way and win.
Like its all-too-common real counterparts across the country, the Central City dog pound of the movie is a place where:

Animals are killed after a paltry 72 hours and despite empty cages by hostile, uncaring animal control officers;
Animals are not treated as cherished beings worthy of compassion at the shelters which are supposed to be their protectors, but rather, they are viewed—as one of the officers in the movie described—as nothing more than “mangy strays” who should be rounded up and killed;
Staff socialize in the back and then getting excited about the overtime they will accrue, even when that overtime comes because they are going to kill dogs;
There is even the unnecessary and cruel misuse and abuse of the “catch pole.” Instead of handling dogs humanely and kindly, the pole is wrapped around their necks as they are taken to their death;
The dog rescuers in the movie spend their time trying to save the dogs from the shelter. Not surprisingly, the staff at the pound treats them as adversaries, rather than partners.

In the movie, the contrast between what the kids do and what the pound does is stark. The rescuers love the dogs and have a “can do” attitude. Some dogs have special needs. But the rescuers don’t classify them as “unadoptable” and kill them. Instead, the dogs are accommodated and helped to flourish because the information is used to better their life; to meet their needs as individuals. These issues are not seen as obstacles, but as challenges to be overcome. In one case, a dog who chews on everything is given, well, lots of things to chew. A collie with an ultra high energy level is given fake “sheep” to herd. A dog who does not like to be confined in dark places is given a picture window with a view of the city. Talk about refusing to accept the status quo.

At one point, pursued and undermined by an entrenched animal control establishment bent on killing, the children feel overwhelmed and one says to the group that “we are out-dogged,” to which the plucky inventor of the group reminds them that in the trenches, the task looks more pervasive and daunting than it really is. He tells them that if they bring to the task a commitment to the dogs, a passion for the goal, and a belief in themselves, they can succeed. Never give up, never give up, never give up.

Even the title of the movie speaks volumes to our cause. The animal control shelter is aptly named the “pound.” The No Kill alternative, run out of an abandoned hotel, is the “Hotel for Dogs.” It is what a shelter should be, a temporary way station where comfort and caring are the twin pillars, and where “guests” are pampered by people who care deeply about them. And it shows that what separates the pound from the No Kill Hotel for Dogs comes down simply to the attitudes of those who run them. It also doesn’t hurt that the tag line “no stray gets turned away” debunks the myth perpetuated by “catch and kill” defenders that an open admission shelter cannot be No Kill.

In the run-up to the final scene, animal control seizes the dogs, the kids turn around and break them out of the pound and race them to the county-line: “There’s a No Kill shelter outside the City,” says one. “If we get them over the county line, they’re free.” In the movie, like in our country, dogs are saved depending on their zip code. Depending on which side of an imaginary line drawn on a map they are found. Depending on whether the shelter on one side of that imaginary line has embraced a culture of lifesaving, or whether—like “Central City” in the movie—they have not.

In Tompkins County, New York, savable dogs are guaranteed a home. In Schuyler County, next door, they face an almost certain death. In the mid-1990s, in the city of San Francisco, dogs were being saved while just next door, in neighboring San Mateo County, dogs were—and continue to be—killed in appalling numbers. Today, dogs are being saved in Reno, NV, right next door to Carson City which is slaughtering them en masse. All depending on which side of the street they are found.

And in the end, like most movies for children, the underdog wins. Normally, I would dismiss this as typical Hollywood Pollyanna. But as art does imitate life, the grand finale was a foreshadowing of things to come. In the end, a city employee (in this case, a social worker) admonishes himself for having lost the will and determination to succeed that characterizes the actions of the rescuers determined to save the dogs. He explains how they refused to compromise, refused to accept defeat. They saw what needed to be done—to save the dogs from death—and they did it, overcoming challenges with imagination, compassion, and perseverance.

After a fog of deceit is lifted and the people of Central City could see the truth before them, they rise up and demand that the dogs be saved. The dog rescuers are vindicated. Animal control is seen for what they are in too many communities, simply because that is how they choose to be. And the dogs are saved. I felt like I was reading Redemption.

For that is what this movie is. It is our story—the story of the No Kill movement. The story of the underdog who wins the day through ingenuity and determination. The story of those who reject the status quo by standing up to those in power and by building an alternative to the antiquated, cruel paradigm based on killing. The story of believing in the community and trusting in the power of the public’s compassion. The story of believing in ourselves.

And so kudos to DreamWorks. Kids or not, you must see this movie.

A Mandatory Spay/Neuter Nightmare
Last year at this time, one of the nation’s strictest mandatory sterilization laws went into effect in Los Angeles. It passed to great fanfare. “This ordinance, which contains clear guidelines and enforceable penalties, creates a valuable tool to take this city another step closer toward eliminating the unnecessary euthanasia of animals,” said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a February news conference attended by animal rights supporter Bob Barker and Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

“This spay and neuter law will move Los Angeles towards being the most humane city in America by educating pet owners to be more responsible, making our streets safer, reducing the number of animals killed each year in our shelters, and allowing us to more effectively use our resources,” said Richard Alarcón, the city council member who introduced the ordinance.

They also promised it would be a national model. But you won’t find mention of the “success” of the Los Angeles law on Wayne Pacelle’s blog and you won’t find it on HSUS’ website. Bob Barker won’t be promoting it as an example of success. And while cities like Reno (NV) are saving record numbers of animals, Los Angeles’ claim that it wants to be “the most humane city in America” has been shown to be empty rhetoric. It isn’t even in the running. It is actually getting worse than it already is. And the answer as to why is not hard to figure out.

I have long argued that these types of laws merely increase the power of the animal control bureaucracy to divert resources to punitive enforcement, increase their power to impound and kill more animals, all the while doing precious little to actually promote and encourage spay/neuter or save lives. Giving shelters the power to impound and kill even more animals is no way to lower the death rate, as has been shown time and time again. I wish I was wrong. I want to be wrong. But tragically for the animals, I was not wrong.

Even the ASPCA which–like HSUS–has taken the role of defending poorly performing shelters, has come out against them:

“To the knowledge of the ASPCA, the only method of population control that has demonstrated long-term efficacy in significantly reducing the number of animals entering animal shelters is the voluntary sterilization of owned pets.”
“In contrast, the ASPCA is not aware of any credible evidence demonstrating a statistically significant enhancement in the reduction of shelter intake or [killing] as a result of the implementation of a mandatory spay/neuter law.”

Animal activists who supported the mandatory spay/neuter law in Los Angeles should be doing some deep soul searching for what they have wrought. What they have accomplished is the worst year for cat killing at Los Angeles Animal Services in nearly a decade, and the reversal of a decade long trend of declining impounds and killing. According to LA Animal Watch,

During the past 12 months, 3,029 more cats were killed compared to the year before, an increase of almost 33%.

What they have wrought is a dog kill rate that is also up for the first time in a decade, and up rather significantly.

Not content to causing a needless slaughter in their own hometown, they are also trying once again to mandate it across the state, which promises equally appalling outcomes.

Why? I’ll answer that in an upcoming blog.

Where was HSUS?
No Kill Conference 2009 has come and gone, but the revolution continues. If you were not able to attend, you can still read the keynote presentation, listen to the archived live broadcast from Animal Wise radio featuring interviews with speakers and attendees, see photographs, and watch a montage set to music at nokilladvocacycenter.org by clicking on “What’s New.”

Ironically, the No Kill Conference was held about three blocks from HSUS headquarters in Washington D.C. Of all the national groups, HSUS is the one that had the most to learn. It is the one which keeps getting it wrong. Sadly, while American Humane Association sent a representative, none of the staff at HSUS could see fit to leave their luxurious offices to learn how to end the killing of animals in U.S. shelters. For an agency which is primarily responsible for the paradigm of killing we live with today, and for an agency which continues to advocate for mass killing in the face of alternatives, their absence is simply inexcusable.

I must admit, in a moment inspired by the success of the conference and the excitement of being around hundreds of committed animal lovers, I had to resist the “Martin Luther-esqe” urge to nail a copy of the U.S. No Kill Declaration to the door of HSUS headquarters. But alas, the moment passed and I continued on my journey.

Building a No Kill Michigan
Join me for a free three-hour seminar on Building a No Kill Community. The event is sponsored by Friends of Animals.

Saturday June 6th from 6 pm – 9 pm in Greenville, Michigan.

For more information, click here.

Another Award for Redemption
Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation & The No Kill Revolution in America has already won several national book awards, including USA Book News Best Book, Silver Medal from the Independent Publishers Association, a Muse Medallion from the Cat Writers Association of America, and a Certificate of Excellence from the Dog Writers Association of America. It has just picked up another.

Redemption has been named the First Runner-Up for the Eric Hoffer award for excellence in publishing. As a Hoffer Award Finalist, Redemption reached the upper 10% of entrees for the 2009 award year. It came in second to the overall winner.

In late May, Redemption goes into a second edition printing, which includes a new foreword, an expanded discussion of the No Kill Equation, and a new Appendix III on the need to legislate No Kill through shelter reform legislation. The foreword covers changes in the movement since Redemption was first released in 2007, responds to critics of the book, and talks about the further successes in the No Kill revolution.

The No Kill Advocacy Center is already giving out personally signed advanced copies with a gift of $25 or more. Go to www.nokilladvocacycenter.org.

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More News from Around the Country

April 13, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

Here We Go Again
Well that sure didn’t take long, even for HSUS. The ink isn’t even dry on the “new” HSUS Pit Bull policy and HSUS is already working with anti-Pit Bull groups on breed discriminatory legislation in Indianapolis, which local rescue groups fear will lead to an increased killing in shelters.

HSUS staff has been involved in Indianapolis working on an ordinance labeling all “Pit Bull-type dogs” as “potentially dangerous dogs” requiring registration and a permit, mandatory sterilization, a million dollar insurance policy, signage posted at each door in the home saying that a “potentially dangerous dog” lives on the premises, and other restrictions. But because of initial opposition, there is talk of dropping some of the more inflammatory language about Pit Bulls by changing the name “potentially dangerous dogs” to “at risk dogs,” as if that would make a difference to whether they live or die, and dropping the insurance requirement. The bulk of the proposed law, however, remains on track.

When challenged, HSUS denied it is supporting it claiming they are just offering “input” on the legislation, but the ordinance’s author has been referring critics to HSUS in an effort to win their support. And HSUS has been citing a similar Little Rock, AR ordinance as a successful model. In fact, Little Rock officials have also been offering input into the Indianapolis law, and suggested that this could be considered a first step toward an outright ban.

In Little Rock, animal control officers have been going door-to-door confiscating Pit Bulls who aren’t registered and, according to KC Dog Blog, media reports show many smiling, tail wagging dogs (which are now “potentially dangerous dogs” under the law) being taken away, perhaps to their death. In response, HSUS commended enforcement officials in Little Rock for doing so, calling their efforts “meaningful.”

I have an idea, let’s have a meeting in Las Vegas and discuss this with HSUS and come up with a vague new policy. And we can do this again the next time HSUS tries to kill dogs, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time…

[While you read this, crank up the volume on your Abba CD: “the history books on the shelves, are always repeating themselves…”]

…and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and the next time.

Dr. Hurley Tries to Derail No Kill Again
Dr. Kate Hurley, the anti-No Kill zealot from UC Davis, continues to take her anti-No Kill show on the road, trying to derail No Kill initiatives in places which are close to achieving it, such as Reno, NV and now San Francisco, CA.

In Reno, she proposed changing the term killing “for space” to “community overpopulation index” in order to take the onus off of the shelter and its then-regressive policies and point the finger of blame elsewhere. That term went over big with the (thankfully now former) director at animal control who had a policy of keeping 75% of cages intentionally empty even while threatening to kill animals “for space.” Apparently the killing doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that 75% of the cages are empty, it’s the public’s fault because of its “community overpopulation index.” (There’s a new director and a new policy and lo and behold: the community overpopulation index doesn’t exist!)

Last week, Dr. Hurley also tried to derail a No Kill campaign in San Francisco, where she testified that its achievement wasn’t possible because of “pet overpopulation.” But the numbers tell a very different story.

Thanks to Richard Avanzino’s implementation of the No Kill Equation when he was President of the San Francisco SPCA, San Francisco animal control impounds less than 6,000 dogs and cats annually. That’s 7.5 dogs and cats for every 1,000 human residents. Meanwhile, the national average is 15 dogs and cats for every 1,000 human residents. So San Francisco takes in half the national average. By contrast, Tompkins County takes in 26 per 1,000 and is saving over 90% and has been for seven years. Charlottesville also takes in 26 per 1,000 and is saving a greater percentage of animals than San Francisco. Washoe County, Nevada takes in 39 per 1,000—that’s five times the rate of San Francisco. It also takes in almost three times the actual total number: 16,000 per year. Yet they are saving 90% of dogs and 83% of cats and expect 90% save rates for both this year despite an 11% unemployment and a foreclosure crisis.

San Francisco is at the bottom rate of intakes nationally. It could take in five times the rate of animals it does now and should still be able to save a higher percentage of animals than it is. Even the San Francisco SPCA (which ironically asked Dr. Hurley to testify) admits this. They claim that they have no choice but to import thousands of animals from outside the City every year to meet adoption demand because of a shortage of animals. And therefore there can be only one conclusion: There is no overpopulation in San Francisco.

Apparently facts don’t really mean much to Dr. Hurley, who has made her career proselytizing a 19th Century sheltering philosophy grounded in killing. Not to limit herself to defending draconian shelter practices, Dr. Hurley has also consistently equated No Kill with hoarding. Hurley claims that No Kill “lead[s] to overcrowding, poor record-keeping, widespread disease and behavior problems.” As a result, Hurley concludes that a No Kill policy “virtually guarantees they will torture and kill thousands of animals.”

By denigrating No Kill as akin to warehousing and ignoring the protocols of shelters which have truly achieved No Kill, Dr. Hurley appears to be arguing for nothing more than a nation of shelters firmly grounded in killing—a defeatist mentality that is inherently unethical and antithetical to animal welfare. To imply that No Kill means warehousing is a cynicism which has only one purpose: to defend those who are failing at saving lives from public criticism and public accountability by painting a picture of the alternative as even darker. As to Hurley’s bizarre and absurd argument that No Kill leads to “poor record keeping,” I think that speaks for itself.

To make her point, Dr. Hurley showed San Francisco Animal Welfare Commission members slides of messy cereal box aisles in a supermarket to “show” what happens when you put too many animals/cereal boxes on a shelf arguing that, we have to “respect our animals just like we respect our cereal.” She also used the feeble analogy to impart the apparent importance of limiting consumer choice. While showing shelves jammed with cereal boxes, she explained why offering people too many choices resulted in no sales at all, although I think Kellogg’s would take umbrage at her point.

According to a member of Fix San Francisco, “I like my cereal, but I don’t respect it. I do, however, respect precious lives enough not to reduce them to merchandise.” But apparently, Dr. Hurley believes that if you have too many animals/cereal boxes, you should just throw them away. Only, you don’t have to kill cereal before doing so, and that is the crucial difference.

How does this prepare her UC Davis students for sheltering in the 21st Century? As I’ve said before,

As a university and as a training ground for new veterinarians, the U.C. Davis program should be at the forefront of progressive shelter practices and of the dynamic and exciting changes occurring in the field of animal sheltering as a result of the No Kill movement. Instead, Dr. Hurley irresponsibly clings to the past by promoting methods of sheltering that are antiquated, inhumane, and lead to unnecessary killing. This would be the equivalent of a medical school continuing to teach its students that bloodletting and magical incantations are a valid treatment for pneumonia, in the face of proven alternatives like antibiotics, fluid therapy and rest. It is nothing short of bad medicine.

And what happened to the veterinary oath to “do no harm”?

Do No Harm
Speaking about veterinary oaths, I’ve posted this before but it was only up for one day because of the brooha over the Las Vegas HSUS Pit Bull meeting and it is well worth the read. Should veterinarians kill healthy animals in shelters? One veterinarian says “No,” because it violates the oath to “do no harm.” Are you listening Dr. Hurley?

Read the article by clicking here.

What’s in a Name?
PETA once again made headlines when it sent a letter—and a press release—asking the 1980s pop band, the Pet Shop Boys, to change their name to “Rescue Shelter Boys” to educate the public about puppy mills.

I propose that in return, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals change its name to “People for the Extermination of Terrific Animals” to bring awareness to the fact that PETA has sought out and killed over 20,000 animals in the last decade and continues to promote policies to kill animals in shelters including a nationwide ban on Pit Bulls and a lurid, deceitful campaign to undermine the No Kill revolution.

In a recent article, PETA argued that all No Kill shelters are nothing more than warehouses, where diseases and fighting are rampant; while all open kill shelters are compassionate places. According to PETA,

Open-admission shelters are committed to keeping animals safe and off the streets and do not have the option of turning their backs on the victims of the overpopulation crisis as “no-kill” shelters do. No one despises the ugly reality of euthanizing animals more than the people who hold the syringe, but euthanasia is often the most compassionate and dignified way for unwanted animals to leave the world.

Really? Is that why many of these shelters turn rescue groups away? Turn volunteers away? Won’t work with feral cat caregivers? Fail to investigate cruelty cases in a timely manner? Allow animals to sit in their own waste, while staff socialize? Refuse to do offsite adoptions? Have poor customer service? Pass punitive laws to impound and kill more animals? Fail to treat sick and injured animals?

Here’s just one example of one of these “compassionate and dignified” places: Click here.

In fact, PETA can probably find more of the same in, say, one of these states:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming…

…and the dumpster in front of the supermarket where PETA staff disposed of the bodies of the animals they killed in the back of a van, including healthy, adoptable cats and kittens who were not in danger of being killed and who they promised a veterinarian they would find homes for.

Giving Away the Store
I’ve already sent out hundreds of free copies of Redemption to animal control directors and city council members all over the U.S. I will make the same offer to leaders of animal rights organizations. Send a letter on your official stationary by April 30 and you’ll get a free copy of Redemption. Learn more about the No Kill movement, stop promoting laws that are aimed at punishing the public but only end up hurting the animals, join the quest to save four million animals needlessly killed every year, and stop supporting PETA until Ingrid Newkirk is ousted and the death squads are disbanded.

Click here for more information.

My Letters with Wayne
I have been accused of not willing to work with others and only criticizing. I find this quite ironic since I’ve worked with a number of organizations, including many originally high kill rate animal control shelters which now have some of the highest save rates in the nation. I’ve worked with county commissions, county councils, city councils, and mayors. I’ve worked with feral cat groups, advocacy organizations, and private humane societies. And I’ve even tried to work with Wayne Pacelle, to encourage HSUS to get out of this vicious cycle they are in which I previously described as follows :

1.    There is a scandal in a shelter involving unnecessary killing (such as Tangipahoa Parish, LA or Wilkes County, NC) or animal lovers go public in their effort to reform their shelter (Fix Austin, Fix San Francisco, Coalition for a No Kill King County);
2.    HSUS defends or legitimizes the regressive shelter, undermining the efforts of animal lovers in that community;
3.    No Kill advocates publicly condemn HSUS;
4.    HSUS defends its actions, asks for a meeting which fails to result in comprehensive, substantive, and permanent reforms, or issues a vague statement only to violate its dictates at the next available opportunity;
5.    The whole process starts again.

On December 15, 2008, I sent the following olive branch to Pacelle, asking to meet with him in the hopes that we could work together:

Dear Wayne,

Your recent language in a Maddie’s Fund written adoption campaign announcement [embracing No Kill] is like nothing that has ever come out of HSUS on the companion animal issue. It is my most fervent hope that it will signal a permanent shift away from HSUS’ historical statements and positions on sheltering. In order to increase the likelihood of an HSUS firmly committed to and supportive of the No Kill philosophy, my hope is that HSUS and I can cooperatively work together and create a mechanism that allows the HSUS to speak positively with—as opposed to against—reform minded activists seeking to modernize their community shelters. Specifically, my hope is that before HSUS or I respond to the many sheltering hotspots around the country—at the next Tangipahoa, LA or Eugene, OR or King County, WA—we can develop a procedure/mechanism to work together and speak for reforms in as united a voice as possible. Because I do not have the resources of HSUS, what I propose is that you and I meet in the San Francisco area in a neutral location (a hotel meeting room?) with a third party that we both trust as a mediator or facilitator to begin a process of dialog/mediation…

And after a couple of e-mails back and forth—and after the Wilkes County massacre which followed a few months after his recent language should have prevented it—Pacelle told me to basically shut up and let HSUS continue to promote killing if I wanted to get along. He wrote:

I indicated I’d agree to meet, after receiving your letter. But I’ve reconsidered now in light of your actions last week…

So what were my actions? I responded to Pacelle as follows:

In referring to “my actions last week,” I assume you are referring to the hearing in San Francisco over our shelter reform legislation, which is a chief aim of the No Kill Advocacy Center. As you may know, I have long been involved in San Francisco and it was you who interfered in the effort to save lives there. Since you attempted to derail that effort, I had no choice but to respond to your allegations. If anything, it is I who should be complaining to you since you intentionally inserted yourself in my effort to bring the No Kill goal back to San Francisco. But I did not use that as an excuse not to meet, because that is the whole purpose of the meeting. We are far apart. This movement is crying out for reform and I have long stated that I would be the first to line up behind HSUS if it embraced, rather than undermined, the No Kill movement. Why not pursue that? Why not work toward an agreement so that HSUS would not consistently undermine lifesaving efforts by supporting actions that attempt to stall progress towards No Kill policies, such as Tangipahoa, Wilkes County, San Francisco, and other places.

Saying I will not work with people is also ironic because that is what my overture to Pacelle was—an attempt to work together—only to be rebuffed. In fact, that was not the first time I had written to Pacelle. I have been writing to Pacelle for fifteen years—starting when I was a law student and the Fund For Animals, his organization, was supporting legislation to kill feral cats—in the hopes that he would change policies he was advocating which favored killing.

Until the above e-mail communication, I have never once had the courtesy of a reply. What am I to do but to conclude that he isn’t interested in change? What choice has he ever left me but to challenge him publicly? It is not and never has been me that has refused to engage in constructive dialog. And still I reached out to him again.

I contacted Pacelle again the morning of the Las Vegas meeting giving him our hopes for a sustainable and comprehensive Pit Bull policy that was fair to the dogs, maximized lifesaving, while being cognizant of public safety. And once again, there was no reply.

Increasing Redemption Rates
Washoe County (Reno) NV takes in five times the number of animals per capita than San Francisco, three times the number of animals per capita than Los Angeles, and over twice the national average. So if this is an indication that people are irresponsible as some shelters claim, then one would expect them to have stray animal redemption rates that are lower than the national average.

Yet, while many shelters only reclaim 1-2% of cats, and roughly 20-25% of dogs, Washoe County reclaimed 60% of stray dogs and 7% of cats. Kat Albrecht of Missing Pet Partnership (MPP) wants to show you how they did it, and promises that shelters can do even better.

Imagine it this way: Say your shelter takes in 10,000 stray dogs every year. If that shelter reclaims the high end of the average, roughly 2,500 will be redeemed, and another 700 will not be savable (hopelessly ill or injured or vicious with a poor prognosis for rehabilitation). That leaves 6,800 stray dogs the shelter would have to find homes for (above and beyond dogs who are relinquished by their families).

If that shelter had Washoe County rates, 6,000 will be redeemed (and another 700 will not be savable). That means only 3,300 stray dogs will be looking for new homes – less than half. That’s a world of difference. And this is just a start. MPP says more can be accomplished, with even higher rates of return.

Join Missing Pet Partnership for weeklong training sessions for shelters and rescue groups:

May 4-8, 2009 – Washington D.C.
June 5-10, 2009 – Seattle, WA
August 7-12, 2009 – Seattle, WA
October 23-28, 2009 – Seattle, WA

For more information about the workshops or to register, click here.

For more information on the MPP approach, click here.

Off to Reno
Speaking of Reno, I am heading up there this week to help them reduce their “community overpopulation index.” Oh wait, that’s right, they are saving 90% of all animals. I guess I’ll help them with their No Kill initiative instead.

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Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (and Other Sheltering News)

April 5, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

That Damnable Wayne Pacelle

As others have reported, the transcripts of HSUS’ testimony in Wilkes County, NC over the fate of some 150 dogs and puppies have been released. And they show a continuing pattern of anti-animal vitriol that cost the dogs their lives.

When news of the HSUS-inspired Wilkes County massacre first broke, Wayne Pacelle of HSUS—through John Goodwin, his dog killing apologist—responded to the furor over the massacre by accusing dog lovers of wanting to steal the media from HSUS. Then, he claimed that these dogs were more vicious than the Vick dogs, which were proven to be rehabilitatable. Of course, this is contrary to what he stated when he tried to get the court to kill the Vick dogs because he claimed they were some of the most vicious dogs HSUS had ever seen. (Several are now in loving homes, and at least two are providing animal assisted therapy for cancer patients.) Then he stated that there was no choice but to kill the Wilkes County dogs by virtue of state law, which turned out not to be true. And, finally, he distanced himself from the cruel slaughter by stating that the court ordered the dogs killed, not HSUS.

Once again, facts have a strange way of exposing Wayne Pacelle for the two-faced opportunist that he is. The transcripts reveal that the court was struggling with what to do with the dogs and at one point asked HSUS why killing them, as HSUS was recommending, was humane? Not only did HSUS representatives mislead the court about the Vick dogs (falsely claiming none were rehabilitated), the cost to rehabilitate the Vick dogs (falsely claiming it cost $190,000 for each dog!), and about Best Friends offer of help (they offered to evaluate and then help get the dogs into rescue which was not conveyed to the court), they also lied to the court saying all the dogs posed a danger. To say that nursing puppies are a threat to public safety is very close to perjury in my view, and one that cost the little puppies their very lives. In fact, in a moment of Orwellian duplicity, HSUS stated that the killing was “for the dogs” own good.

Pacelle seems committed to having HSUS vilify the animals they are pledged to protect, and urging their slaughter in the face of reasonable lifesaving alternatives. Last year, he legitimized the slaughter of virtually all the animals in the Hammond, LA shelter (including cats for a mild virus that causes diarrhea only in dogs) and now we find out he asked the Wilkes County court to order the slaughter of all the dogs including the puppies claiming it was for their own good.

So how do you know if Pacelle is lying? Apparently, it is when there are words coming out of his mouth.

For further reading:

Transcript of Proceedings
The Death of Hope at HSUS
HSUS Defends Wilkes County Massacre
Wayne Pacelle Under Siege

PETA Defends Slaughter

Speaking of liars, PETA defended its 2008 animal slaughter by posting photographs of irremediably suffering animals and saying that all the animals they kill are suffering. Don’t believe it for a second. As I noted in my post, The Butcher of Norfolk:

PETA has argued that all of the animals it kills are “unadoptable.” … But this claim is a lie. It is a lie because the numbers historically come from the State of Virginia’s reporting form which only asks for data for animals taken into custody “for the purpose of adoption.” It is a lie because PETA refuses to provide its criteria for making that determination. It is a lie because rescue groups and individuals have come forward stating that the animals they gave PETA were healthy and adoptable. It is a lie because testimony under oath in court from a veterinarian showed that PETA was given healthy and adoptable animals who were later found dead by PETA’s hands, their bodies unceremoniously thrown away in a supermarket dumpster. And it is a lie because Newkirk herself admitted as much.

In a December 2, 2008 interview with George Stroumboulopoulos of the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Stroumboulopoulos asks Newkirk: “Do you euthanize those pets, the adoptable ones, if you get them?” To which Newkirk responds: “If we get them, if we cannot find a home, absolutely.” In short, Newkirk admits that PETA “absolutely” kills savable animals. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

In 2008, PETA found homes for only seven out of 2,216 dogs and cats, killing 96%.

For further reading:

The Butcher of Norfolk

American Dog Magazine Honors Tompkins County

Tompkins County has saved at least 92% of animals for the last seven years, even though it is an open admission animal control shelter. This is just one of the achievements highlighted in the latest issue of American Dog magazine. It also cites that the agency built the first “green” animal shelter in the U.S. back in 2003, earning the coveted LEED certification. But the most exciting part of the article comes from the TC SPCA itself: “[T]he truth is that every community can come together and end the needless [killing] of healthy animals” Yes, it is.

A Recap of Houston

I just returned from a trip to Houston, TX where I gave an all day No Kill seminar. Several hundred people showed up, including health department and animal control directors from half a dozen Texas communities.

After the eight hours I spent going through how to comprehensively implement the programs and services of the No Kill Equation, I was getting coffee when I overheard the group of health department directors and animal control directors talking amongst themselves. What did I hear? “We can do this.” “This will work.” The revolution marches on…

Speaking of which, Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation & Care recently hired the shelter manager from Montgomery County (TX) animal control who was responsible for the massive decline in killing there (in February, they saved 98% of the animals). That is bad news for Montgomery County but potentially good news for the animals of Houston.

Spreading the Gospel

What do Gaston County, NC, Beaufort, SC, Red Bluff, CA, Sharpsburg, GA, Independence, OH, DeLand, FL, Mesilla, NM, and hundreds of other counties have in common? They’ve taken advantage of my free offer to give a free copy of Redemption to any animal control director, city council person or other elected official in order to get them to see beyond the “adopt a few, kill the rest” philosophy being peddled by the large national organizations. The offer is good through April 30.

For more information, click here.

Charlottesville in Difficult Renegotiation Over A/C Contract

How much have county taxpayers in Charlottesville VA paid for the implementation of the No Kill Equation, which has given them 90% level save rates for the last three years?

These achievements have not cost taxpayers a penny. All of the costs have been borne by private donations. The SPCA is not asking for taxpayer dollars to support its No Kill mission. The SPCA simply seeks compensation for pound services at the same rate paid to pounds that are still [killing] animals. As a nonprofit organization, the SPCA should not be subsidizing the legal obligations of our local government.

The SPCA, which runs animal control, is trying to renegotiate the paltry $1.60 per capita it receives in animal control funding, because that amount is well below the $5 per capita other communities are paying for killing programs and does not cover the legal mandates the County is imposing.

Even HSUS has supported the idea of kill-oriented shelters leaving animal control work when, “humane organizations end up in tenuous financial positions that threaten their standards of operation” because of insufficient government funding. HSUS suggests that shelters should “never want to get to the point where [their] private programs or [their] real mission is undermined by the public health needs [which are the responsible of local government, not private humane societies.].”

HSUS says that municipalities should pay $5-7 per capita for killing programs, and the Chartlottesville SPCA is offering No Kill animal control for less than that. Ironically, once they stop contracting, many municipalities end up taking over the function themselves only to find that they have to pay two or more times more than the modest contract amount requested by humane societies.

While I’ve long argued that philosophically, private SPCAs should not be in the killing business, I realize the transition needs to be worked out over time. In an imperfect world, choices have to be made based on what scenario is likely to save the most animals in a particular community given imperfect circumstances. As a result, the calculus isn’t cut and dry.

And the answer to the question as to whether a private humane society should administer animal control in any given community is not absolute at this time in history. The ideal, which should be our ultimate goal, is for private SPCAs to do truly humane work, and for local government to humanely administer public health and safety programs so as not to interfere with that work, and for the two to work in concert to save all the lives at risk.

For further reading:

Rethinking Animal Control Contracts

Gina, the cat

gina

And last, but definitely not least, thank you to all the well wishers about Gina, our cat. She spent the weekend in the emergency room. She is home now, and up to her old mischief. She made it through thanks to the efforts of our veterinarian and the emergency clinic. Her prognosis is still poor, but at 19 with cancer, we already knew that. And we are grateful for whatever time we still have with her.

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