The Rot at the Heart of the Movement

The last decade has proved to be one of the more remarkable in the history of animal sheltering in the U.S., right up there with the period following Henry Bergh’s incorporation of the ASPCA. In fact, the last decade saw the No Kill philosophy, its realization, and its spread, solidify; ensuring its future hegemony over the entire nation. And the first year of this new decade is no exception: with both No Kill ambitions and No Kill achievements here at home (such as in Kentucky, Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota), and across the globe, in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

We’ve learned we do not have an animal problem (too many for the too few homes), we have a people problem, but not all people. Specifically, people in shelters, best summarized by the last two paragraphs of my book, Redemption:

In the end, there may be an overpopulation problem in the United States, but it is not the one we traditionally define. What we are actually suffering from, what is actually killing a high number of animals, is an overpopulation of shelter directors mired in the failed philosophies of the past and complacent with the status quo. As a result, a culture of lifesaving is not possible without wholesale regime change in shelters and national animal protection groups. Consequently, the most important single act—and the crucial first step—in achieving a No Kill nation is firing the current leadership of shelters across the country.

In the final analysis, animals in shelters are not being killed because there are too many of them, because there are too few homes, or because the public is irresponsible. Animals in shelters are dying for primarily one reason—because people in shelters are killing them.

The killing is the fault of uncaring bureaucrats, lazy and inept shelter managers, and national organizations committed to ensuring that the killing paradigm is not upended. Right now, today, roughly 3,000 shelter directors, backed by their cronies at the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, and PETA, are holding back the will of the American people.  And no amount of spin, no amount of revisionist history, and no amount of trying to encourage through the “carrot” rather than the “stick” will change that unassailable fact. But there is no shortage of people trying. And, irrespective of whether their motivations are nefarious, benign, forgiving or strategic, they are not truthful. And the sooner we stop pretending otherwise, the sooner we can focus our efforts on overcoming what is really killing shelter animals. Two recent articles highlight this issue.

HSUS’ Legacy: Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward (and that is being generous)

Last week, while the Royal New Zealand SPCA announced it has formally embraced the No Kill Equation model of sheltering, as communities in New Zealand announced they have crossed the goal line, as communities in Wisconsin and Minnesota made formal announcements of achieving No Kill through the No Kill Equation model, as Duluth, MN announced it is very nearly there (88% rate of lifesaving and climbing), as several Canadian communities announced that they are aggressively moving in that direction (one community went from a 16% rate of lifesaving to 76% and climbing), as Australian communities have announced saving 100% of baby kittens, 93% of all dogs, and more, the Humane Society of the United States held its annual conference in Nashville, TN.

Aside from the main conference, which was largely business as usual, Maddie’s Fund held their second all-day workshop at Expo (though separate from the rest of the conference) on creating a No Kill community. They didn’t use that term, HSUS would not allow it (among other things), highly symbolic but perhaps a minor point. The workshop is a very welcome addition, as the people who attend Expo are the ones who need to hear the message the most. These are people who cheered and gave thunderous applause when HSUS’ resident expert on shelter killing announced—at Expo 2006—that shelters are “not killing” animals, that “they are ending their life, giving them a good death, humanely destroy—whatever” and then subsequently said since they are not killing, she “can’t stand the term No Kill shelter.”(Listen to the Orwellian rant—and the response to it—by clicking here.)

Progress? To be sure. To have Bonney Brown, Susanne Kogut, Mike Fry, and others provide living testaments to the ability to achieve No Kill and to do it overnight at HSUS Expo is a sign of the times. But to suggest, as the Richmond SPCA does, that groups like HSUS “have all embraced clearly articulated visions of adoption guarantee as the appropriate model for our nation’s communities and have committed to working for that outcome” and that Wayne Pacelle has “taken courageous steps to help push this issue as a part of a healthy national dialog and to make it safe for so many other organizations and communities to now embrace it” is simply indefensible. It is a lie. It is a lie to write that Ed Sayres and the ASPCA are doing this also. In killing Oreo and Max, in allowing young dogs to be killed, in trying to derail legislation that would create the infrastructure for a No Kill nation; he is actively fighting against it. Providing crumbs with one hand and taking them away with the other is hardly courage and it is hardly a “clearly articulated vision.” It is just that, crumbs. We’ll take them, but we shouldn’t celebrate the mediocrity, especially when we already hold the keys to ending the killing now and forever. And in many communities we have, despite Pacelle and Sayres, HSUS and ASPCA, denying that those communities even exist.

Neither Pacelle, nor Sayres, nor the respective organizations have ever articulated a vision in sheltering out of love of animals or a passion for saving lives. Any concessions—and that is what they are—have been the result of face saving necessity borne of public humiliation over their indefensible posturing in favor of killing. Pacelle has taken hits for supporting and lobbying for mass killing of dogs, of cats, for embracing the most notorious animal abuser of our time even while he lobbied to have the victims killed, and for stealing money from shelters and rescue groups through outright fraud in fundraising. He has no choice in the matter. No choice at all.

That Bonney Brown was able to present at a separate workshop held in conjunction with HSUS Expo that she turned her community right side up (in a community that the former director—a darling of HSUS and member of their national sheltering committee—said was impossible) is the very definition of poetic justice. That Mike Fry, who has two No Kill communities to his credit and who is an unapologetic champion of my work, was able to tell the truth at Expo is also a marvelous sign of the times. But “separate” is not equal, and more than that, not all of the workshop speakers were truthful.

In fact, one of the speakers at the workshop, the last of them, was Jane Hoffman of the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City animals. Besides admitting that even after six years and tens of millions of dollars, they are still failing by killing healthy animals, she told the assembled crowd they should not be made to feel guilty about killing healthy animals. Spit-take! Two steps forward, one giant step backward.

Even if a shelter manager or employee is going to ignore all evidence to the contrary in order to believe that pet overpopulation is real and insurmountable, even if they believe that no one will adopt animals, that they have no choice but to kill them, the very least they could do is feel bad about it. They are, after all, robbing an animal of his or her only life. All the animals have—their very lives—prematurely taken away. If they don’t feel guilty, they should not be working in a shelter, because to kill healthy animals without remorse, is to be cavalier and unfeeling. It is to be a butcher. But that is the message Hoffman was giving them. No remorse. No guilt. Self-medicating absolution for her efforts to undermine Oreo’s Law; to back the ASPCA even when they needlessly kill animals, allow animals to go hungry, allow puppies they are responsible for to be killed, abuse animals in their custody and then try to cover it up, and allow NYC shelters to kill healthy animals, because they write the checks to Hoffman’s group; and for her own failures to achieve No Kill despite tens of millions of dollars and a shelter system with some of the lowest per capita intake rates in the nation and the highest potential adopter base (8 million people).

In the end, the separate, day-long workshop was not the result of a clearly articulated vision of HSUS, courageous leadership on the part of Pacelle, or anything of the sort. It was forced upon Pacelle and HSUS, and while that is “progress,” it is a baby step when we could be at a full sprint; and even that step is undermined every time Pacelle backs killing, as he routinely does and did at the very same Expo. One of his experts and presenters in Nashville was from Multnomah County Animal Services. Under current leadership at MCAS, fewer animals are going home alive than before. The trend is to more killing, not less. And the trend is to greater punitive enforcement, rather than community-based programs intended to make it easy for people to do the right thing—exactly the opposite of what is needed to save lives. In other words, while Brown, Fry, and others were trying to build a bridge to the future, people like Hoffman and the leadership at MCAS dug trenches to the past. And it is costing animals their lives.

Ironically, I use MCAS as a case-study in my presentations on how shelters misuse temperament testing to justify killing healthy, friendly dogs and make it appear that they are doing a better job than they are. Here is just one example: A 35 pound puppy was evaluated by MCAS staff. According to their own reports, the puppy performed as a puppy should:

• Kennel Presentation: “Easy to leash from kennel doorway” “whole rear end wagging”
• Collar Put On: “Gets excited/playful”
• Entering Stranger: “Readily approaches everyone with [friendliness]”
• Handler: “Readily approaches everyone with [friendless]”
• Pet Back: “No guarding seen”
• Ears/Cheeks: “No guarding seen”
• Remove Bowl: “No guarding seen”
• Tail Stroke: “Mouthiness” “Whirl”
• Pick up Two Paws: “Mouthiness”
• Teeth Exam: “Allows exam”
• Hug: “Allows exam” “Interested in attention”

All those results are consistent with normal puppy behavior. This is a clearly a little fellow who loves people, is friendly and eager to please, and as Cyndi Lauper once sang, just wants to have fun. But the puppy was killed for being “vicious.” And it was not an isolated incident. Can you guess what breed the puppy was identified as? These are predetermined conclusions which have led to a rapidly expanding killing rate for these dogs, even while they tell the public the animals are “unadoptable.”

When these facts were brought to the attention of HSUS prior to Expo by Portland rescuers and No Kill advocates, HSUS threw the full weight of their support behind the shelter. John Snyder, a former kill shelter director himself who is now in charge of companion animal programs at HSUS, wrote them back saying that MCAS had HSUS’ unqualified endorsement. The American people and the animals deserve more from the nation’s largest, wealthiest, and arguably, most influential animal protection organization. But they are not getting it, despite the Richmond SPCA’s fantastical view to the contrary.

PETA’s Three Kinds of Lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

The Animal Rights movement deserves better, too. At its core, the movement for animal rights is based on the principal that animals have a right to live and that we give it expression through laws to promote and protect that right. But you wouldn’t know it by listening to PETA. The largest “animal rights” group believes that people have a right to kill animals. As such, they have more in common with the industry groups they claim to be fighting than they admit. And they certainly practice what they preach with a relish unmatched except by the slaughterhouse industry. Last year, they killed 97% of all animals they sought out, the year before it was 96%, and the year before that, 91%. In 2009, less than ½ of 1% of the animals at PETA were adopted. They kill healthy, adoptable animals. They advocate for the mass slaughter of dogs someone says looks like pit bulls. They advocate for the mass killing of free living unsocialized cats. They routinely defend some of the most abusive and draconian shelters in the nation. And they even support breed bans in communities that turn around and forcibly take family pets, and then sell them for animal research. They are, quite simply, the worst of the worst.

They lie to people saying all the animals they kill are irremediably suffering or hopelessly ill. They lie to people by saying that breed bans and rounding up and killing free roaming cats are both necessary and proper. And they claim the animals want to die—that killing them is a “gift.” And then they lie to people through manipulative use of statistics to claim that animals in pounds are being killed because there are too few homes for them.

Actually, by PETA’s own data, there are plenty of homes for shelter animals. In a newly released May 2010 report, PETA says that 8 million animals enter shelters and of these, half are already being saved through a combination of adoption and reclaim. That leaves, by their own admission, “3 to 4 million cats and dogs” being killed, many of them healthy. But the conclusion they reach that they are being killed “because there simply aren’t enough good homes for them” is a fabrication. Moreover, the reality is that the number is closer to, and even well below, the low end of 3 million.

If shelters did a better job returning lost animals home, they could, for example, increase the percentage of dog reclaims from an average of about 25% to 60%. If shelters ignored PETA’s anti-TNR policy, they could release these cats to their habitat, rather than kill them. If they had pet retention programs to help people overcome the behavior, medical, and environmental conditions which cause them to surrender animals, they could reduce by as much as 30% the number of animals coming in to the shelter. If they utilized foster care programs, they wouldn’t kill the underaged animals entering their facility. And if they had good customer service, employed basic marketing principles, and comprehensively implemented an adoption program, they’d have little trouble finding homes for the 2 to 3 million animals being killed in U.S. pounds and shelters who need adoption. That’s potentially 2 million dogs and cats competing for the 17 million people who are looking to bring a new dog or cat into their homes, have not decided where that animal will come from, and can be influenced to adopt from a shelter.

So, once again, animals are being killed in shelters not because of pet overpopulation, but because people in shelters—and butchers like Newkirk—are killing them. But too many people and organizations such as Pacelle and Sayres, HSUS and the ASPCA, who should know better are still speaking PETA’s dead language of pet overpopulation, giving Newkirk and shelter directors across the country the excuse and political cover they need to kill. And they are using it today. They are telling people not to feel guilty about killing healthy animals. And they are writing 10 year plans for what should occur overnight, as it has in communities across the globe.

An Absence of National Leadership

Right now, neither HSUS or the ASPCA has taken a true and comprehensive leadership position on creating a No Kill nation. We best serve the animals by holding them accountable, not by whitewashing the truth in the hopes that they can be gradually influenced in a more life affirming direction through carrots. History proves the latter view wrong, as every gain in this movement, has been fiercely fought for and hard won. But even if people or organizations believe the carrot is better than the stick, it does not warrant misrepresentations of whom and what Ed Sayres and Wayne Pacelle, the ASPCA and HSUS, truly stand for. And what they stand for, pure and simple, is death. There is no courage in that. It is, in fact, the coward’s way, a refusal to stand up for what is right, because they don’t care enough about the animals to do what is in their power to do: demand an immediate end to the whole bloody mess.

It is the rot at the heart of the animal protection movement, and no amount of spin, sanitizer or perfume can eliminate the stink. It must be cut out and discarded. By calling them visionaries, we only embolden them. The end result is both a tragic embrace of incrementalism that needlessly increases the body count of dead animals; and cooption of the language of No Kill, which they then turn around and willfully use to undermine it.

We can end the killing and we can do it today. But that requires leadership, which neither is willing to provide. Their size, their wealth, their influence could be a game changer for the animals. But aside from a few crumbs, neither is offering it. In fact, what they offer with one hand, they take away with the other. Tell the animals needlessly ending up in landfills that these groups are courageous and visionary. And it will literally, very literally and tragically, fall on deaf—indeed, dead—ears.

Going Rogue

Wayne Pacelle’s rewriting of history adds another to his growing list of disturbing titles

Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, is many things: a dog killer such as when he lobbied the court to kill puppies and other dogs in Wilkes County, NC. He is an embracer of dog killers such as when he made the most notorious animal abuser of our generation a spokesman for HSUS, without asking for anything substantive in return such as the names and locations of other dog fighters. He is an apologist for killing who has referred to No Kill as hoarding in Newsweek, attacked No Kill on the pages of USA Today, and steadfastly defended shelters that kill against reformers trying to save lives, as he did in King County (WA). He is a thief, stealing the money that belongs to other groups by fundraising off of their work and success and trying to pass it off as his own as he recently did with the “Faye Fundraising Debacle.” Thanks to his latest blog, add “revisionist historian” to his growing list of disturbing titles. For those who prefer plain speaking, it means Wayne Pacelle is also a liar.

His recent blog post on the issue of No Kill is nothing less than a fanciful depiction of the World According to Pacelle (WAP), a work of fiction that is only rivaled in its sheer magnitude of truth avoidance by “Going Rogue,” Sarah Palin’s excursion into the absurd.

In the WAP, Wayne Pacelle says that the “trend [toward lifesaving] is moving in the right direction, with the pro-sterilization campaigns launched by The HSUS and others in the 1970s” being responsible for the drop in U.S. pound killing rates. In fact, the drop in killing is the result of the implementation of many programs—all of which HSUS opposed. They even opposed the “pro-sterilization campaigns” Pacelle cites as the primary reason for the decline.

As I document in my book, Redemption, the so-called “leaders” of the companion animal protection movement met in 1974 to discuss solutions to what they called the “surplus dog and cat problem,” a full three years after a local group in Los Angeles had launched the first municipally funded low cost spay/neuter clinic in the U.S. for the companion animals of low income households. At the 1974 meeting that included representatives from HSUS, ASPCA, the American Humane Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association, and the American Kennel Club, HSUS put out a statement opposing municipally funded and shelter run low cost spay/neuter clinics, siding with veterinarians who did not want any threat to their profits (ignoring that the clinics were being used by poor people who would not otherwise sterilize their animals).

Tragically, after the “leaders” met again in 1976, and despite the report from a representative of the Los Angeles clinics that they were having great success at reducing impounds and killing, HSUS once again sided with the AVMA and opposed low-cost spay/neuter programs.

Until 2006, HSUS also opposed feral cat Trap-Neuter-Release programs, arguing that it was tantamount to “subsidized abandonment,” and that caretakers should be arrested and prosecuted for violating anti-cruelty laws, they opposed offsite adoptions calling them “sidewalk giveaways,” and they opposed working with rescue groups, arguing in the 1990s that killing was preferable because animals get “stressed” when they are transferred to rescue groups.

In the WAP, Pacelle also says that when No Kill is achieved, “among the celebrants will be the leaders of shelters.” There are many problems with this fictional statement. First of all, we would be No Kill today, but for “the leaders of shelters” who find killing easier than doing what is necessary to stop it. Second, it makes it seem that No Kill will be achieved by others and then “the leaders of shelters” can just celebrate. In fact, to be a No Kill nation requires “the leaders of shelters” to stop killing, a power they now have if they implement the programs and services of the No Kill Equation, programs HSUS has historically opposed and which many of “the leaders of shelters” oppose to this very day. Third, to be a No Kill nation, “the leaders of shelters” will no longer be “the leaders of shelters” because they are the roadblocks to success and they will have been removed.

With all due respect to Robin Starr, his focus on the Richmond, VA experience, which is working toward No Kill but is not there yet, shows that Pacelle is also not willing to admit that No Kill has been achieved. Tompkins County (NY), under my leadership, was the first in 2002—it has saved at least 92% of all animals every year since. Charlottesville (VA) and other communities across the country have also since achieved No Kill success. But in WAP, it is like No Kill has not been achieved. It is like the keys to ending the killing have not been discovered. To this very day, Pacelle wants to intentionally mislead his readers into thinking that No Kill is something only for the future, rather than what it is: something any community can achieve today precisely because many community have already done so. Because if he tells the truth, the reality is that I have to be added to his list of No Kill “pioneers.”

This isn’t an exercise in self-indulgence, it is a reality. I was, after all, the first animal control director in history who ever achieved it. In 2002, despite animal control contracts that made Tompkins the proverbial open door shelter, we saved 93% of all Tompkins animals: 100% of all healthy animals (dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, hamsters, gerbils, mice, even chickens, horses and “exotic” animals) treatable animals, and healthy and treatable feral cats, the first community in the nation to do so.  [I might also mention that when the Richmond SPCA was transitioning from animal control to private shelter, I was their primary contact at the San Francisco SPCA and spent hours on the telephone with Robin Starr’s staff giving them the advice and information needed to successfully embrace the No Kill philosophy.]

But in WAP, Pacelle can’t give me any credit, or credit for causing him to write the blog in the first-place, because to do so would be to acknowledge me and my contributions to the movement, to admit he was and is wrong, and to tell his kill-oriented “leaders of shelters” that No Kill can be achieved and it can be achieved in open admission animal control shelters, but for their own untoward practices and intentional failure—none of which Pacelle has the constitution or integrity to do.

What his blog post shows he can do—and is so easily and quick to do—is to change facts and rewrite history so that he, his organization, and his colleagues are not held accountable. In other words, he is willing to lie. And the timing could not be more transparent: It comes on the heel of yet another major HSUS scandal, “The Faye Fundraising Debacle,” and the recent release of my new book, which calls HSUS to the carpet once again for their killing orientation despite lip service to the No Kill movement. And once again, Pacelle proves me right.

But despite these deficits, there is a silver lining. In 2004, Pacelle and others created the “Asilomar Accords,” a statement of principles and guidelines that he billed as the future of the movement: the ground rules in the WAP. In that future, the term “No Kill” is not allowed by any groups as “divisive.” In fact, HSUS’ Vice-President for Companion Animals traveled the country telling groups they could no longer use the term. How did that work out for Pacelle? As Jon Stewart from the Daily Show likes to say, “Not so much.”

Not only does his blog post show that the Asilomar Accords are officially acknowledged to be dead (they were actually D.O.A., showing that Pacelle has a hard time seeing the obvious), it shows that he is under tremendous pressure from the grassroots. It shows that despite the size, wealth, and media presence of HSUS, we have the power to bring Pacelle to his knees. It shows that the No Kill movement, despite his attempts, is making such tremendous progress he has no choice but to modify his language, again.

He doesn’t say that No Kill is warehousing as he did to Newsweek earlier this year. He doesn’t say that No Kill is succeeding because of HSUS’ disastrous legislative approach, as he did the last time he blogged about No Kill. And, for the first time ever, he doesn’t rely on the fiction of “pet overpopulation.” In fact, the term “pet overpopulation” doesn’t appear once in the blog.

But there is little reason to celebrate that HSUS is changing. We’ve heard this before, just last year, which was quickly followed by the embrace of killing in Tangipahoa Parish, LA, Wilkes County, NC, and elsewhere.  Recognizing that his language is changing is not even real progress. This is nothing more than an attempt at self-preservation.

When Wayne Pacelle took over as head of the Humane Society of the United States, he was given a trust that he has violated again and again and again and again. Try as he might to rewrite his own sordid history with one blog post, it is too little, too late, and too insincere. Right now, the head of the nation’s largest animal protection organization is a dog killer, an apologist for dog killers, an embracer of animal abusers, a thief, and a liar. Don’t we and the animals deserve better?

Wayne Pacelle must go.

“Hat tip,” to kcdogblog.com once again.

Betrayal & Deceit at the Humane Society of the United States

Photo courtesy of kcdogblog.com

The fundraising appeal from John Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States was ambitious. The goal was to raise one million dollars by month’s end for dogs like “Faye,” an abused fighting dog rescued in the largest bust of a dog fighting ring in U.S. history. According to Goodwin, “Faye” is now safe, in a loving home, recovering thanks to HSUS.

But none of it was true: the fundraising appeal was deliberately designed to mislead donors. HSUS was not involved in caring for “Faye.” HSUS, in fact, predicted and suggested that dogs like “Faye” should be killed. In further fact, they could not even get her name right. And while Fay was being cared for, and needed surgery, the costs and care were being provided by someone else.

Kcdogblog.com was the first to break the story:

Here’s the rub. They’re not caring for the vast majority (or any?) of the dogs that were rescued from the dog fighting ring bust from this summer…

It appears as if HSUS is trying to use the publicity from the Time Magazine article which referred to [one of the groups involved] as “the Humane Society” to raise money for dogs that aren’t even in their care. This would not be the first time HSUS has pulled shenanigans in such a regard. Just two years ago, HSUS asked for money to care for the dogs rescued from Mike Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels—when they as an organization were lobbying to have all the dogs killed.

Petconnection.com detailed the deceit even further:

The HSUS hasn’t given one thin dime to help Fay (not Faye), according to her foster mom, who noted in the comments yesterday:

I am rather sad that HSUS has chosen to use Fay (not Faye) in their fund drive. Fay has never received a dime from HSUS. How do I know? Because I am the one that is fostering Fay. Fay is currently going through expensive surgeries to recreate medically need lips so her teeth do not fall out, her jaw bone stops deteriorating, and she can live a normal life. HSUS never contacted us regarding Fay. In the video John states she is in a loving home…really…thanks for the compliment but Fay is looking for her forever home.

Petconnection.com went on to say that the deceit was deliberate:

The HSUS knew.  One figures they had a little pow-wow—lawyers, fund-raisers and accountants—and then did the math, figuring any howls of protest  would be more than offset by the sight of a dog with her lips cut off by a dogfighter, and the number of people who’d click on that link and give, give, give.

In response to the criticism—on blogs, on twitter, including calls for a criminal investigation of HSUS—and with the memory of an investigation for fraud by the Louisiana and Mississippi Attorneys General for Hurricane Katrina fundraising still fresh, HSUS announced that they were going to give $5,000 for Fay’s surgery, ½ of 1% of what they hoped and expected to raise from the appeal. The effort was designed to quell some of the controversy, and while the money was needed, kcdogblog.com correctly condemned it as too little in an open letter to HSUS:

It is not enough to break up dog fighting rings and then leave the rehabilitation of the dogs to other organizations. The dogs need your help long after the fighting ring is broken up. And it is certainly not acceptable for you to raise money from people by making them think the money is going to the help “Animal Survivors” (it is even called the “Animal Survivor’s Fund”) when you’re not caring for the animals—and when other organizations really need that money to help them.  It is not enough to give money to one dog from the fight bust when hundreds of others need help.

And certainly, the other 99.5% of the goal—the $995,000 they hope to raise off of “Faye”—should not go into HSUS coffers to pay for beachfront properties for HSUS executives, or any other historical HSUS spending patterns. But into the coffers of the nation’s richest humane organization and—according to Forbe’s Magazine—one of the nation’s wealthiest charities, it will go.

Following the multi-state dog fighting bust in which Fay was rescued, I called on HSUS to cover the costs of the rescue, take over subsequent rehabilitation and care of the dogs, and ensure their subsequent placement. I suggested HSUS put out the following statement:

The Humane Society of the United States wants to assure everyone concerned over the fate of these dogs that we are doing everything in our power to provide unconditional love and the best care possible for the victims of these crimes. Their welfare is our utmost concern, and every action we take on their behalf will be guided by compassion for their plight, respect for the lives, and an unwavering commitment to ensuring we find them a safe, loving environment, in which to spend the rest of their lives. We know that rescue groups often have stretched resources. We know that shelters, like the Humane Society of Missouri, also have to care for the daily influx of dogs and cats in their shelter. So as the nation’s largest, richest and most powerful animal protection organization, we are stepping up to the plate. If any rescue groups have the capacity to help, we’ll welcome it. But rest assured: we will not allow a single one of these dogs to lose their lives. However long it takes, however much it costs, we will save all the puppies. We will save all the dogs. And if any are aggressive, we will undertake a comprehensive rehabilitation. That is our pledge to them. And that is our pledge to you.

That is what we all should have been told. That is what the dogs deserved. They didn’t say this, of course. And they didn’t do it. But they should have, instead of walking away. Instead of Pacelle saying what he did in fact say: that it was pretty clear most of the dogs should be killed. They did not go so far as they have in other cases, such as the Vick dogs and the Wilkes County, North Carolina massacre, in which HSUS lobbied the court to kill savable dogs. But after the initial publicity subsided, and except for some token efforts disproportionate to the need, HSUS walked away and left local groups in the lurch. To then turn around and try to raise $1,000,000 off of their work through an intentionally misleading fundraising campaign that followed Time Magazine’s coverage of the issue is, in my opinion, tantamount to fraud.

The Michael Vick Dog Fundraising Scam

But the rabbit hole of deceit actually goes deeper, as kcdogblog reminded us over HSUS’ unconscionable fundraising by deceiving donors about the dogs abused by Michael Vick, even as Pacelle was lobbying the court to kill them all. Petconnection.com also suggested that HSUS knew this current incident would draw protests but could be mollified by a small payout to quell the unrest. This type of dubious cost-benefit analysis should come as no surprise to anyone. This is a part of Wayne Pacelle’s deliberate strategy to raise money for HSUS. And he has a long sordid history of high profile deceit of the public in order to separate them from their hard earned dollars.

As I reported in a blog, “Dubious Deals at the HSUS,” back in 2008:

There is perhaps no better example of this then the misleading tactics used by HSUS to fundraise off of the Michael Vick dog fighting case. Shortly after the case broke, HSUS contacted the U.S. Attorney prosecuting Vick and asked if they could be “involved” and see the dogs (then being held at six animal control shelters in Virginia). The U.S. Attorney agreed but only on condition that they take no photographs and not publicly talk about the dogs (citing fears of compromising the case, sensitivities involved in the prosecution, and issues surrounding rules of evidence). HSUS agreed and then promptly violated that agreement. HSUS staffers took photographs of the dogs with people wearing “HSUS” shirts to make it appear that HSUS was directly involved in the case and their care.

They then sent out an appeal for money containing a photograph of someone wearing an HSUS shirt with one of the dogs. In the appeal, HSUS asks for money “to help The Humane Society of the United States care for the dogs seized in the Michael Vick case” and promises to take the money and “put [it] to use right away to care for these dogs.” A caption underneath the photograph states: “This dog was one of 52 pit bulls seized from Michael Vick’s property—dogs now being cared for by The HSUS…”

Wayne Pacelle himself reiterated this in his July 18, 2007 blog in which he stated that HSUS was “working with federal authorities from the start, and assisting with the care of 52 dogs taken from Vick’s property.”

The only problem with the appeal is that it wasn’t really true. HSUS was not caring for the dogs as they claimed, they were not primarily looking for money to care for the dogs, and the money raised was not primarily going to be “put to use right away to care for these dogs.”

And while the Federal Mail Fraud Statute (the oldest federal consumer protection statute in the United States) defines fraud as a scheme which uses the U.S. mail to obtain money by means of false or fraudulent representations, HSUS was careful to avoid it. Beneath the photograph with the dog and a person wearing an HSUS shirt is the statement that the dogs were being cared for by HSUS “and other shelters.” In fact, it was “the other shelters” doing all the day-to-day caring.

The appeal also asked (twice) for money to help them care for the Vick dogs, but also “to support other… programs.” In fact, aside from a few thousand dollars given to the shelters caring for the dogs out of the large sum purportedly raised, the funds raised from this appeal went ostensibly to these “other” programs. The Vick dog photograph, the talk of the Vick dogs, the part about caring for the Vick dogs was all part of the elaborate distraction. In reality, it was the “other” programs part that was operative…

Taking people’s money under suspect pretenses is bad enough. Doing so at the expense of the dogs is simply unforgivable. Because HSUS violated the agreement with the U.S. Attorney, relations between the government agencies involved in the Vick prosecution and the humane movement were soured. According to humane participants in the case, HSUS’s actions made it more difficult to work with the federal agencies, which now had reason to distrust these organizations. The outcome could have been disastrous for the dogs had the government refused to work with all humane groups as a result.

No one—including Pacelle himself—would have likely lost any sleep over this because, in the end, HSUS itself lobbied the court to have all the dogs killed. According to Wayne Pacelle himself: “we have recommended to the [government], and believe, the [dogs] will be eventually put down.”

The Hurricane Gustav Fundraising Scam

As the “Faye” appeal, the Vick dog appeal was also not an isolated incident, but part of a recurring pattern designed to misrepresent the truth and raise money off of the work of others. In 2008, MuttShack Rescue completed a large-scale rescue of animals in New Orleans because of Hurricane Gustav. Instead of supporting the effort, HSUS claimed the rescue as their own. According to MuttShack:

[We] just completed the largest animal evacuation in the history of New Orleans. After its completion, HSUS drove their trucks up in front of the whole deal, shot some footage and has posted it [on their website] as their own rescue.

HSUS then sent out another deceitful fundraiser asking people to donate to them because of another organization’s rescue.

Keeping Donors in the Dark

Kcdogblog.com was insightful when suggesting that HSUS was trying to capitalize by raising $1,000,000 for a dog and dogs not even in their care after a Time Magazine article about the dogs hit newsstands, because the magazine referred to the local humane society simply as “the humane society.” In fact, that is exactly what HSUS does to divert money people intend to go to their local shelter to HSUS’ Washington D.C. coffers. (It is no coincidence that HSUS has chosen the name “humanesociety” rather than “HSUS” for their twitter name.) For a not insignificant fee, HSUS sells its donor list for one time use by shelters, but the list comes with caveats. In addition to others (such as not mailing it out until HSUS sent their appeal to those donors), the one primary stipulation is that:

In order to rent the list, you would need to submit the complete mail piece to the list owner for approval.

Over the years, the Nevada Humane Society has learned that people are often confused by fundraising appeals from HSUS. Local residents think they are donating to the local humane society when they give money to HSUS. In fact, NHS has been told by local residents that they have already donated to them, when in fact they gave to HSUS. This confusion goes beyond fundraising: NHS was publicly criticized for “embracing Michael Vick”—which they did not—because people thought HSUS (“the humane society”) was NHS. In order to clarify the confusion and to help raise funds for local programs, they tried to buy a list from HSUS to do so. And they submitted their proposed mailing for HSUS approval which included the statement that:

Nevada Humane Society is a nonprofit organization. We rely upon donations to make our lifesaving work possible. We do not receive funding from national groups or the government. Your contribution is tax-deductible. Please return this reply slip in the enclosed envelope to Nevada Humane Society. Thank you.

After doing so, HSUS denied the request, stating that unless NHS “remove[d] ‘national groups’ from this copy,” they could not use the list.

In other words, HSUS did not want NHS informing these individuals that when they give to groups like HSUS, they are not giving money to local lifesaving efforts. Put simply, HSUS was committed to keeping its supporters in the dark as to where their money was going. Surprised, the leadership at NHS sent the following message to the HSUS representative:

Is HSUS really… deterring us from clarifying for donors how funds are used?

Does HSUS really wish to use the sale of their mailing list to control the messages of smaller humane organizations—those that are doing the work on the ground and struggling under the public misperception that if they give to a large national group that they are helping animals locally?

The answer was “yes.” Notwithstanding the take it or leave it response, NHS decided to remove the offending message and resubmit the fundraising appeal. But that was not enough. It did not matter if it was just on the appeal being used with the HSUS list, HSUS was insistent that this factually clarifying language had to be removed from all NHS mailings, even to those not involving HSUS mailing lists. Furthermore, NHS was told they had to agree to refrain from using it in any future communications to anybody, something NHS would not agree to do:

Are you are asking us not to mail factual information that we are not funded by large national organizations to our own supporters?

Once again, the answer was “yes.” Conferring with HSUS officials, the HSUS list manager replied that it did not matter if the appeal involved HSUS lists or not, of if the appeals were “going to our names or otherwise—because you are mailing language that we do not approve, [HSUS] will not approve you.  For that reason, NVHS has been denied.”

The Truth about HSUS Doesn’t Sell

While HSUS raises the bulk of its donations on the backs of saving dogs and cats even though it does not operate shelters for dogs and cats or engage in rescue and placement of dogs and cats, it appears that it is willing to suggest to donors that it does and, as a condition for buying its mailing list, refuses to allow local organizations to clarify the misrepresentation. And they are not alone in suggesting this. The local humane society in Seattle cried foul when representatives of the ASPCA, a New York City-based organization, allegedly went door to door fundraising in their community with dogs wearing “adopt me” vests, designed to confuse people to think:  the dogs were available for adoption and the ASPCA was involved in finding homes for dogs locally.

Why do they do this? In contrast to their own steadfast defense of killing and even while they work to undermine lifesaving efforts in local communities across the country, they know that these local groups are making a lifesaving difference for animals and that people love animals and would want to support it. And so they intentionally mislead the public into thinking that they are the ones saving these animals and, in the case of HSUS, they refuse to allow local shelters to clarify the misrepresentation. Because, in the end, if either Wayne Pacelle or Ed Sayres, the head of the ASPCA, had to rely on the truth: the needless killing of Oreo, the Wilkes County massacre, the embrace of the most notorious dog abuser of our generation, the opposition to No Kill in San Francisco, undermining reform activists in Austin, Texas, and other anti-animal practices, they would not be some of the wealthiest charities in the U.S.—the ASPCA also made the Forbe’s list—they would be destitute. And neither Pacelle nor Sayres is willing to be truthful at that cost.

While Rome Burns, Emperor Pacelle Strums His Lyre

As scandals involving abusive animal control officers and shelter workers erupt nationwide, HSUS calls for “National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week.”

Dedicated to abuse and neglect? HSUS demands that we appreciate the “dedicated” staff of shelters who cause this, and then turn around and fight efforts when animals lovers call for reform. At this shelter, state inspectors found: “severe fly and maggot infestation,” “overwhelming maladorous smell,” “large amount of blood was found splattered on the floor, walls, and viewing window,” sick and injured animals “not being treated.”

Last week was “National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week,” the Humane Society of the United States’ celebration of animal shelters and the “dedicated people” who work at them. According to the press release, HSUS is “the strongest advocate” for shelters.

At the same time as HSUS was proclaiming itself the Number 1 cheerleader for shelters in the country, there has been a significant amount of nationwide media coverage revealing widespread animal neglect and outright abuse at these very institutions. These exposes show a strikingly different reality than the fantastical and mythical description of shelters portrayed by the very agency that is supposed to be their watchdog. These stories include:

In Memphis, TN, shelter workers not only intentionally starve animals to death; they take animals who are still alive to the incinerator where they burn the bodies of the animals they kill.

Puppy when he entered the Memphis shelter.

Same puppy after being intentionally staved by shelter workers, before he died.

In King County, WA, an animal control officer turns whistleblower and not only confirms the neglect and abuse uncovered in three independent assessments (click here and here and here), but that things are worse than ever for the animals, despite the denials of the guild/union that blindly defends itself and its members.  The whistleblower describes “cats dying in their cage for lack of treatment, a dog so sick [he] nearly drowns in a stream of water in its kennel and animals of all types in need of veterinary attention, but not getting it.”

A sick cat in the infirmary goes without food, water, or litter during a holiday weekend. Take a photo tour of King County Animal Care & Control by clicking here.

In Lucas County, OH, the dog warden—an incompetent hack given the job out of nepotism—routinely allows dogs to get sick and then slaughters them despite readily available lifesaving alternatives.

In Los Angeles County, a news investigation team uncovered officers physically abusing animals. In Tulare County, CA, officers were convicted of criminal offenses. The list goes on and on and on and on.

These stories describe shelter workers and Animal Control Officers who kick, beat, baton, and kill puppies.

Blood splattered on kennel in this San Bernardino County shelter after an animal control officer beat a puppy with a baton. He was not fired.

Those who cause animals to suffer and die.

Those who cause animals to cannabalize other animals in their cages because they go unfed.

And the very animal control officers who cause this suffer no repercussions because they are “supervised” by their fellow union and bureaucracy-protected shirkers.

The Status Quo

All of these scandals beg the obvious question raised by HSUS’ “National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week”: What is it about animals shelters that we are supposed to appreciate?  As I argued in Redemption, underperformance, neglect, uncaring and even cruelty have long been epidemic and endemic to animal control shelters. And while the last several weeks have seen much abuse uncovered, it isn’t necessarily because such abuse is on the rise. More of it is making headlines these days because more people are now aware of the neglect, calling attention to it, and demanding change—even in the face of absolute entrenchment by the animal sheltering industry and their allies in the large national “animal protection” organizations. Organizations which continue to ignore the obvious and parrot tired and disproven clichés that these shelters are doing the best they can, the killing is inevitable, no one wants to kill,  and that we should regard the animal control officers and other shelter staff with respect and gratitude.

HSUS’ latest public relations gimmick is part of a larger attempt by the very animal control officers responsible for this neglect and abuse to reform their image from one of “dog catcher” to “humane law enforcement.” They are trying to change the image of their agencies from “pounds” to “shelters,” from “animal control” to “animal care and control,” even while they refuse to reform their regressive and abusive practices which—were they to  end—would naturally lead to the respect and gratitude they claim to be seeking.

True Accountability

The issue was brought into stark relief for me at a recent city council meeting I attended on a matter related to the local shelter. Before the issue I was there to discuss came up on the agenda, the fire chief spoke to the city council. He talked about the goals for his agency during the coming fiscal year. He spoke of his agency’s response times compared to the best performing departments in the country. He admitted that his Fire District lagged behind the very best. He spoke of how he was going to close the gap, by implementing a series of short, medium, and long term goals with measurable results. He was aspiring for his department to be the best, he admitted they fell short, and he had a plan to correct that. It was the mark of the true professional.

In sheltering, we have the exact opposite: animal control “professionals” denying reality, shunning accountability, aspiring to mediocrity and failure, all while betraying the animals (and the citizens) they are pledged to serve.

In Austin, Texas, for example, the director of the shelter defrays criticism for her appalling kill rates by telling the City Council that she is doing better than the worst shelters in Texas, by comparing herself to agencies where employees are convicted child molesters, have been witnessed abusing puppies, where kittens do not get fed, and puppies get flushed down trench drains. By that standard, everyone is doing a good job. But why does the animal control chief of a major city aspire to compare herself to the worst of the worst?

In the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, the director of the large humane society which performs animal control for the region defends her 42 percent killing rate for dogs by saying it is better than the national average. It is, in fact, actually worse than the national average, but the question is the same: why do she and her agency aspire to mediocrity?

In one of the largest cities in the United States, applicants who apply for a city job are placed in the animal control department if they score the lowest on the city aptitude test, proving that animal control in many communities has become a jobs program for those who are unemployable in either the private sector or any other government agency deemed more important, despite the fact that these under-achievers are given the power over life and death by being put in charge of the most vulnerable of victims. Why?

As I was listening to the fire chief, I was struck by the contrast between how staff in his department approached their responsibilities by being accountable to results, and how shelter staff continues to avoid accountability at all costs, even in the face of rampant neglect and abuse. It is this very attitude that is at the heart of why our nation’s sheltering system is so tragically broken: How can you fix a problem you refuse to admit exists? How can animal control officers reform their practices when they refuse to have standards and benchmarks that would hold them accountable to the best performing shelters in the nation? How can they be expected to be taken seriously, to be respected, when they refuse to acknowledge failures and refuse to correct even the worst of their deficiencies? How can an agency dare to demand respect when they not only refuse to keep pace with the dynamic and innovative changes in their field as a result of the No Kill movement, but actually fight those changes? And how can they do a good job when they are staffed by those who have no skills, training, or desire to do a good job even as they are entrusted to do so by an animal loving public which pays their salaries?

They can’t. Indeed, to be a firefighter often requires a degree in Fire Science, rigorous training, a competitive process, and a sound psychological profile. The same is true of police officers. Even librarians, public servants we rely on to deliver professional, high quality service to the community which funds them, require a bachelor’s degree in Library Science. But “animal control officers” require none of this. Many are not even certified. Others take a one week certificate course from the National Animal Control Association, a regressive organization whose members kill millions of animals every year. Then, they put on a tin badge and a store bought uniform, and give themselves titles like “Sergeant,” in an attempt to demand a legitimacy and stature they do not deserve, nor faithfully represent.

Cheerleaders Instead of Watchdogs

How did this happen? And why do the large national organizations continue to defend these regressive agencies, to be the “strongest advocate” for these agencies, but not the actual animals mistreated and abused by the animal control officers who staff them—even as animal activists in virtually every U.S. community deplore the state of their shelters and find them hostile to change?

As I write in my upcoming book, Irreconcilable Differences, the reason groups like HSUS support the status quo in animal shelters:

Is not based upon any coherent philosophy but arises from the simple fact that some of the leaders of these organizations worked at shelters that killed animals. In fact, many of them killed thousands of animals themselves. HSUS leadership often comes from animal control organizations that kill animals, and these individuals carry that mindset to HSUS, even though it claims a different mission. And so they denigrate the animals they are supposed to protect, and use HSUS to veil their reactionary animal control agendas under the cloak of “animal welfare.”

The result: unregulated, regressive shelters that are defended at all costs by HSUS and others with a series of excuses (pet overpopulation, public irresponsibility) to defray criticism from the public who would otherwise demand better.

They neither work hard to protect animals from abuse, nor do they care about saving their lives. In fact, too many offer only an extension of the abuse these animals faced before entering the shelter. And much more often, the first time animals entering shelters experience abuse and neglect are at the hands of these officers who are supposed to be their protectors.

Standing Up to Bullies

Thankfully, many animal activists and No Kill advocates are well past the point where they believe that just because these agencies come with the name “Humane Society” or “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” or “Animal Care & Control” that they are staffed with animal lovers. Activists also realize that given that many of these shelters are committed to remaining little more than assembly lines of death, animal lovers would not work there, and those that do are quickly driven out by the institutional inertia and uncaring that prevents them from reforming practices and saving more lives. They are also driven out under threats:

In Philadelphia, just a few short years ago, reformist-minded staff had the tires on their cars slashed, sugar poured in gas tanks, windows smashed, and were threatened with physical violence by union thugs who were aided by health department bureaucrats intent on protecting shirkers.

In Indianapolis, the reformist director had the window smashed and dog food smeared on his car before union thugs colluded with politicians and others to drive him out.

A reformist director is greeted by shelter thugs with smeared dog food, then a smashed windshield, and fimally threatening letters on his car.

In King County, WA, those who come forward to reform the abusive shelter are the subject of character assassination, aided by a corrupt county executive. The whistleblower—whose conscience apparently got the better of him/her—sought “whistleblower protection” because of fear for his/her job and safety.

In a rural Georgia pound, cats were found dead (a necropsy determined they had been poisoned by antifreeze and only staff had access to these animals), which outspoken volunteers who had convinced the county to investigate conditions at the shelter believe was retaliation for their going public.

While the recent exposes are less and less surprising to animal activists and No Kill advocates, they are helping to inform the larger animal-loving American public of this widespread abuse and neglect, which cuts through the fog of misinformation peddled by guilds/unions, bureaucrats, and the large national organizations that shelters are humane and that their staff are caring. As I write in Irreconcilable Differences:

Most people believe that animal shelters find homes for as many animals as they can, and gently “euthanize” the rest because there is no other choice. Many people believe that if there were alternatives, shelters would not kill because they are staffed with benevolent animal lovers, laboring against overwhelming odds and offering a humane death only when necessary. Because we could not do it, we assume they do it because they have no choice.

These shelters and their large national allies—the Humane Society of the United States, the ASPCA, and the National Animal Control Association—encourage this belief. Accordingly, they claim that leadership and staff at every one of these agencies “have a passion for and are dedicated to the mutual goal of saving animals’ lives.”

It is this portrayal that silences criticism of shelters, the vast majority of which have a paltry number of adoptions and staggeringly high rates of killing. The public is told, “We are all on the same side,” “We all want the same thing,” “We are all animal lovers,” and criticism of shelters and staff is unfair and callous because “No one wants to kill.”

The facts, of course, tell a tragically different story. But there is light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. HSUS knows it. NACA knows it. The guilds and unions know it. Even the abusive staff knows it. We—animal activists, and increasingly, the media and your average animal loving American—are on to them. We see through their tin badges, store brought uniforms, and their made-up titles. And together—whether they like it or not—we will bring these agencies kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

Then—and only then—will we have something authentic to appreciate during what is now, nothing more than a thinly-veiled sham.

What You Can Do:

Get informed: Click here.

Get organized (Samples): Click here and here and here.

Fight back: Click here.

Michael Vick’s new spokesman says ‘You are a monster too!’

Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and spokesman for the most notorious animal abuser of our time, is digging himself into a deeper hole. The head of the nation’s wealthiest animal “protection” group is now arguing in newspapers across the country, including San Francisco’s, that we should forgive Michael Vick because we are all “sinners when it comes to animals.” Is Pacelle really that desperate that he now says we are all monsters like Vick? Or perhaps, in a bit of Freudian repentance, he is talking about himself: about how he lobbied the court to kill Michael Vick’s canine victims even as he was fundraising off of them? The slaughter of the dogs and puppies at Wilkes County, NC? Or the mass killing in Tangipahoa LA? The round up and kill of cats in Randolph, IA? Or any of the innumerable places Pacelle and HSUS minions have chanted ‘kill, kill, kill’ in the face of proven, successful, reasonable No Kill alternatives?

As for me, I’ve never stomped, electrocuted, hung, shot, drowned, or strangled dogs, nor have I watched them tear each other to shreds and laughed. But Michael Vick did, and he’d still be doing it to this very day had he not been caught. [Read “Riding on Michael Vick’s Bloodstained Coattails” by clicking here.]

Kathleen McGarr of Fix San Francisco, a group which has been trying to reform the city’s kill-oriented animal control and SPCA, says that when she read Pacelle’s claim that she is a monster like Vick, “I nearly fell off my chair.” McGarr’s group has been fighting Pacelle who opposes their No Kill campaign in San Francisco. In short, Pacelle says that No Kill is warehousing, leads to animal suffering, and that San Francisco shelters should be allowed to continue killing. Who is the monster here Wayne?

The Op Ed piece by Pacelle comes on the eve of his planned visit to San Francisco where he will try to convince animal lovers that the most notorious animal abuser of our time should be embraced. Here’s my article about the visit from the examiner:

Wayne Pacelle is coming to town
From the examiner: http://bit.ly/3gBFK7
October 16, 2009

As the Humane Society of the United States embraces the most notorious animal abuser of our time and fights a proposal to save San Francisco’s neediest animals, the head of HSUS is coming to the City to raise money for his Washington D.C.-based group.

The controversial head of the nation’s largest and wealthiest animal protection organization in the United States is coming to San Francisco for an October 28 “Town Hall” meeting. Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, will discuss, among other things, his new spokesman: dog-killer Michael Vick, the most notorious animal abuser of our time.

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 Wayne Pacelle is asking animal lovers in San Francisco to embrace our movement’s version of Simpson, Geoghan, and Fritzl as a spokesman. It is beyond obscene. It is unthinkable.

Pacelle says he will answer questions from San Francisco animal lovers about this and other topics.

I have a number of other questions for Pacelle. Why did he, through HSUS:

1. Participate in the slaughter of some 150 dogs, including puppies, in Wilkes County, NC?
2. Lobby to stop No Kill legislation in King County, WA?
3. Support breed discriminatory legislation in Indianapolis, IN that would have led to the round up and killing of Pit Bulls?
4. Tell USA Today and Newsweek that killing in shelters is acceptable and that No Kill was warehousing?
5. Mislead 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?
6. Tell the court to kill Vick’s victims even as he was asking people to give HSUS money so he could “care” for them?
7. Leave New Orleans with tens of millions given to HSUS for the victims of Hurricane Katrina even while those animals were still suffering?
8. Legitimize the slaughter of virtually every animal at Tangipahoa Parish animal control?
9. Tell people not to adopt animals during the holidays, effectively accepting the deaths of 1,000,000 animals as the alternative?
10. Tell the Randolph, IA community that HSUS does not have a problem killing stray cats?
11. Claim that rescued dogs in Missouri should face a “pretty certain death”?

And especially important for San Francisco animal lovers, why is he opposing a No Kill San Francisco? Pacelle recently sent a letter to San Francisco’s Animal Control & Welfare Commission equating No Kill with hoarding and opposing shelter reform legislation that would save San Francisco’s neediest homeless animals.

Unfortunately, Pacelle has long been an apologist and enabler of shelter killing.

In the end, the real reason behind the “Town Hall meeting” might just have nothing to do with animals. This “town hall” format is often little more than a fundraising ploy which has been successfully used by other organizations to sap money from local donors and thus away from local rescue groups, and into the bank accounts of national organizations. And for HSUS, money doesn’t appear to be a means to the end of saving animals. It is the end in and of itself, the animals be damned.

HSUS: Abused Dogs Should Face “Pretty Certain” Death

In February, rescue groups throughout the country pleaded with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Wilkes County officials not to put over 150 dogs seized from a dog fighting raid, and their puppies, systematically to death. They even extended offers of assistance, support, and resources. But HSUS refused, arguing that all the dogs should be killed, including puppies who were born after the seizure and posed no threat to public safety. John Goodwin of HSUS also attacked the animal lovers for raising an unnecessary “fuss.” Across the country, animal advocates, No Kill shelters, and rescue groups, as well as everyday dog lovers condemned the killings and Goodwin’s callous retort about it.

The resulting outcry forced HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle, who had defended the slaughter and HSUS’ handling of the criticism, to back down. While stopping short of an apology or admitting they were wrong in having the dogs killed (including forcing a volunteer to return puppies to be killed), they agreed to re-evaluate their position and meet in Las Vegas to come up with a more humane policy.

The resulting April statement that came out of Las Vegas was hailed as a breakthrough. I was skeptical about it, and I wrote:

In reading the new joint statement, there is no right of evaluations. There is no stated commitment to save all the underaged puppies. There are no independent evaluations. Rescue groups do not have a right to save these animals, regardless of what the HSUS evaluation shows. And there is no commitment for HSUS to use its significant resources in order to expand the adoption opportunities of these dogs. Instead, we got, what reads to me, to be more HSUS equivocations: “recommending,” “should be,” “approved” rescue groups, “reasonable” time frame, and “future protocols.”

We got a policy that says, in essence, that these dogs should not automatically be killed, but that HSUS will recommend that they be given individual consideration and equal opportunity. But what does that mean? Does it change the outcome for the dogs? Does it mean they live instead of die? Are we really going to settle for an unenforceable promise of equal opportunity, which in too many communities means little more than an equal opportunity to be killed? Are we really going to trust that the same people who brought you HSUS’ defense of killing in Tangipahoa, LA and Wilkes County, NC are going to fully champion the dogs going forward, especially since they resisted a new written policy and began the process by defending their actions?

I am not blind. I realize what has resulted is better than the automatic kill policy, and that is certainly progress. But I also know that doing better is true by definition. You couldn’t do worse. It isn’t possible. If only one dog is saved going forward, that’s improvement over automatic destruction. And by an automatic destruction standpoint, 13 of 145 dogs in Oklahoma is significant. It certainly is better than the zero who made it out alive in Wilkes County. But it is not enough.

And but for the fact that HSUS simply refuses to give more, we don’t have more. There is simply no reason why we shouldn’t have gotten all those guarantees requested. Instead, we hold back comprehensive progress because Wayne Pacelle won’t allow for more, and we accept it for no rational, financial, or practical reasons other than Pacelle refuses. It doesn’t have to be this way. It is only this way because we let it be. The power he has is the power we give him.

And so, as to whether the new policy actually results in dogs being saved, rather than killed while Wayne Pacelle, John Goodwin, and the others are still in charge of implementation, I’ll say this in a moment of diplomatic self-restraint: I’ll believe it when I see it.

So what has changed since the Las Vegas meeting with Wayne Pacelle over the fate of dogs seized in dog fighting cases? From statements Wayne Pacelle recently made, the answer appears to be not much. HSUS claims it was involved in a major dog fighting bust of over 400 dogs, the vast majority in Missouri. Given the Las Vegas agreement, Pacelle’s statement about the fate of these dogs is ominous. According to Wayne Pacelle,

I think it’s pretty certain that a lot of those dogs will not pass a behavioral test.

Given everything we have been through with Pacelle:

• Given his unethical and dubiously legal misleading fundraising over the Michael Vick dogs asking the public to donate to help care for them when HSUS did not have custody of the dogs, and then turning around and telling a court to kill each and every one;
• Given his embrace of the Wilkes County massacre of dogs and even nursing puppies who posed no threat to anyone;
• Given his agency’s behind the scenes support of breed discriminatory legislation in Indianapolis;
• Given his embrace of Michael Vick, the most notorious animal abuser of our time;
• Given all this and more;

His statement is outrageous. The Humane Society of Missouri, which is housing these dogs, isn’t talking except to say that in a recent case, they killed half of all Pit Bull-type dogs they seized. Is that a bellwether of things to come? I would have feared so, but maybe not.

Randall Lockwood, who was part of the ASPCA team that evaluated and passed the vast majority of the Michael Vick victims, is on the scene in St. Louis. He is doing a preliminary evaluation of the dogs this week and will be designing an exercise and socialization regimen for them, as well. And that, at least for these dogs, gives us a small modicum of hope. But, at this time, that is all it is. One reason is that as a consultant, Lockwood can only recommend, not dictate. In addition, Lockwood himself made statements to the media about this case that the Vick outcome may not be “replicated.” He also made statements that we should not focus on our differing opinions about what to do with the dogs, but focus on blaming the dog fighters. No one questions the need to rescue these dogs from the abuse they faced. And kcdogblog’s aptly titled posting about the situation, Scumbags, conveys what we think about the perpetrators. But Lockwood is wrong. The case is in the hands of the U.S. Attorney. So there is nothing more to do on that score. The only choice now is whether, when granted custody of the dogs, the Humane Society of Missouri will kill them or whether the Humane Society of Missouri will not kill them. In fact, that is all we should focus on.

But at the very least, the outcome isn’t guaranteed as it would be if HSUS was involved. Because if Pacelle’s kill-oriented crew were involved, Pacelle’s premonition would be the most likely outcome. But the fact that Pacelle doesn’t have a role in their future doesn’t make his callous comment less obscene.

Once again, HSUS has taken on for itself the role of championing killing. Once again, Pacelle shows he is not fit to run the nation’s largest animal protection organization. Once again, Pacelle shows that his claims that “HSUS is changing” ring hollow. Once again, Pacelle replaces comprehensive, thoughtful, rigorous analysis, with an ignorant sound-bite that favors death.

If the Vick tragedy taught us anything, it is that our most basic assumptions about dogs, pit bull-type dogs, and dog aggression, were wrong. In short, it showed we can save virtually all the dogs, even when they were raised for dog fighting and horrifically abused.

As I stated in an earlier blog,

After the arrest of former national football league quarterback Michael Vick and the seizure of almost 60 pit bull-type dogs raised for fighting, many animal protection organizations called for the dogs to be killed, arguing that these dogs were vicious and beyond our ability to help them. None made this argument after evaluating the dogs, but based on assumptions about pit bull-type dogs, dog aggression, and dog fighting. After deceptively fundraising off of the dogs, for example, the Humane Society of the United States lobbied to have them killed. Because they believe all Pit Bulls who enter shelters should be slaughtered, it was no surprise that PETA also asked the court to put them to death.

In 2008, the court thankfully said “No.” Only one dog was actually killed for aggression after evaluation, and the remaining dogs were placed in either sanctuaries or in loving new homes. Two of the dogs are now even therapy animals, providing comfort to cancer patients.

The results forced even dog lovers-but more importantly the humane movement-to question their most basic assumptions about dogs, pit bull-type dogs, and dog aggression. In short, it showed we can save virtually all dogs in shelters.

Secondly, it showed that there is a real, practical, and potentially widespread “third door” between adoption and killing-the network of foster homes, sanctuaries and long term care facilities to provide for animals who may not necessarily be immediate adoption candidates, but can enjoy a good quality of life which would make their killing neither merciful nor ethical.

As a result, we should no longer assume the dogs can’t be adopted or for the ones who are traumatized, rehabilitated first because the vast majority can. We should assume the opposite: they are savable unless a rigorous, fair, and comprehensive evaluation proves otherwise, which it might—but only for a small number of the dogs. And we should no longer assume there isn’t a sanctuary or even homes for these dogs, since HSUS (and Lockwood’s ASPCA) has the public relations power, financial wherewithal and global reach which easily prove otherwise.

Given this, we must stop talking about how these are “often broken dogs” or how there might be difficulty finding “available homes.” We need to stop speaking the language of defeatism, the language which frames the debate in a negative light, that condemns some of the dogs without all the facts, that assumes killing may be inevitable, and thus may actually help pave the way for their eventual slaughter.

In other words, we need to put aside unfounded biases and consider the victims of these cruelty cases the way we talk about the animals in other cruelty situations—with regret and condemnation for what they have suffered and with the expectation that whatever agency now has power over them will give these dogs what they deserve. We must assume—as the facts in the Michael Vick case proved—that condemning them as vicious simply because a dog fighter possessed them is guilt by association and unfair. That they were abused doesn’t make the dogs abusive. That they were subjected to violence doesn’t make them violent. That they were unloved doesn’t make them unloving.

In short, we must not echo Wayne Pacelle and the unfounded biases which plague our movement and have harmed animals for far too long, with no evidence to support such claims. Instead, we must adopt a language that is optimistic about the dogs and uncompromising in defense of their lives. We must put the ASPCA and the Humane Society of Missouri on notice that we expect them to save these dogs. Because anything short of that clears a path for those—like Wayne Pacelle—who appear bent on destroying them.

Instead, we must start demanding outcomes—outcomes that include rescuing, rehabilitating, and ultimately saving these dogs. A fair, rigorous evaluation will lead to lifesaving for the vast majority of these dogs and given HSUS wealth, media power, membership in the tens of millions, America’s dog loving culture, and the vast number of available homes, these are not barriers. Even the slide show of photographs from the law enforcement raid shows the rescuers handling the dogs with little restraint, fear, or concern for their own safety. Because, at the end of the day, even if they do get evaluations, it’s not progress from the dogs’ perspective, if the outcome is the same.

Thankfully, it appears Pacelle and his kill-oriented dog fighting team will have no say in that.

For Further Reading:

In Bed with Monsters

Las Vegas, Round 3

Wayne Pacelle Under Seige

In Bed with Monsters

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:

1. Rejecting the Consensus of Killing
2. Same as it Ever Was
3. Fear Mongering at HSUS
4. Saving Pit Bulls from HSUS, PETA, and Michael Vick
5. Will the Real Wayne Pacelle Please Stand Up?
6. The Real Wayne Pacelle Legacy
7. The Real Wayne Pacelle Legacy Part II
8. Desperately Seeking Wayne Pacelle
9. You’re Doin’ a Heckuva Job Wayney
10. Long Day’s Journey into Night
11. “Getting Away with Murder” at Tangipahoa
12. Dubious Deals at HSUS
13. HSUS Says No to Holiday Adoptions
14. The Death of Hope at HSUS
15. HSUS Defends Wilkes County Massacre
16. Wayne Pacelle Under Siege
17. Its Déjà vu All Over Again
18. Las Vegas, Round 3
19. 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.

It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again

In 1993, both the ASPCA and HSUS opposed a No Kill San Francisco. The ASPCA called it a “hoax” and the HSUS spent years trying to derail it through data distortion and a deliberate campaign of misinformation. Now, both the ASPCA and HSUS are trying to hinder success yet again. If ever agencies were blind to their own interests and bent on their own destruction, it is HSUS and the ASPCA.

The Animal Welfare Commission in San Francisco is considering the Companion Animal Protection Act (CAPA), shelter reform legislation designed to maximize lifesaving by mandating how shelters operate. Ultimately, the question facing San Francisco is not will it or won’t it pass such a law? The real question is, will it do it now or will it do it later? In the end, laws of this nature are inevitable: not just in San Francisco, but in every community; and not just for sheltering, but in every social justice movement. All movements seek to codify expected norms of behavior into law. That is why we have—and embrace—voting rights acts, environmental protection laws, and laws against discrimination based on gender, race, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, such laws are essential to ensure fair and equal treatment and to prevent abuses which can come when those in power are given too much discretion—a discretion which has been abused by shelter directors to unnecessarily kill almost four million animals every year.

As I reported earlier, I was asked to testify by the San Francisco Animal Welfare Commission as part of its “exploration of a policy that would ensure that no adoptable animal (including those that need medical and behavioral intervention but would be adoptable after that) is [killed] in San Francisco shelters.” The effort is directed at saving the last 10 percent of savable animals still being killed in San Francisco’s animal control shelter—Pit Bulls, feral cats, older animals, sick and injured but treatable animals—and it is an achievement easily in reach given that San Francisco has the lowest per capita intake rate of any municipality in the nation (five times less than that of Reno, NV, four times less than Los Angeles, and half the national average) because of a twenty-plus year history of high volume, low-cost spay/neuter. If it chooses, it can easily achieve this worthy goal, even while importing thousands of out of county young and small dogs and cats, as the San Francisco SPCA is currently doing.

Why do the ASPCA & HSUS Fear the Companion Animal Protection Act?
At the meeting, both the ASPCA and HSUS testified (the latter in a letter from Wayne Pacelle) against legislation of this kind. Why? There are several reasons.

First, the ASPCA and HSUS oppose any form of shelter regulation if a shelter director asks them to do so—regardless of what is right or what is wrong, what will help animals or won’t help animals, and despite public desire and clamoring for change. That is why the ASPCA supports the decision by Town Lake Animal Control (TLAC) in Austin, Texas to keep over 100 empty cages daily, even as it claims it has no choice but to kill “for space.” That is also why the ASPCA sided with TLAC when it decided to move the shelter from its currently central location conducive to adoptions to a more remote location in order to build more office space for managers and less kennel space to save animals. That is why HSUS supported the massacre of 145 dogs, including some 60 puppies, in Wilkes County, North Carolina last month even though rescue groups offered to help save them. That is why HSUS supported the shelter in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana when it decided to kill every single animal in its facility, including cats, when a few dogs came down with a mild corona virus (which is not fatal to dogs and which cats cannot get).

Moreover, the notion of a city passing legislation of this kind is very threatening to HSUS and the ASPCA. It would prescribe how shelters must operate, removing the discretion that allows shelter directors to ignore what is in the best interests of animals and needlessly kill them. And because it would codify the programs and services responsible for dramatic lifesaving success in communities which have already voluntarily implemented them, its success would prove exactly what is needed in order to create No Kill. For example, before killing an animal, the law would require the shelter to certify that:

(1) There are no empty cages, kennels, or other living environments in the shelter;
(2) The animal cannot share a cage or kennel with another animal;
(3) A foster home is not available;
(4) Rescue groups have been notified and are not willing to accept the animal;
(5) The animal is not a feral cat subject to sterilization and release; and,
(6) The director of the agency certifies he or she has no other alternative.

As such, this law provides a course of action so reasonable, so eminently fair, and so easily doable that there should be no controversy whatsoever. Not only because the public would be shocked to know that such basic and important steps are not commonplace for every animal in every shelter already, but that a law is needed to force shelters to take these simple, ethical steps. Moreover, because San Francisco’s SPCA and its Department of Animal Control assured the Commission that they are already doing everything they can to save lives, they should also support this legislation. If they claim to already be behaving in accordance with the law, why oppose it? If the claim is true, the law would not require them to do anything differently. The reason is that they are not doing everything they can as evidenced by the save rate, and thus fear being held accountable. The ASPCA and HSUS’ position defends and excuses this resistance—when as the nation’s largest animal protection organizations, they should be voices for progress, not champions of those resisting change.

Another reason they are opposed to CAPA is that it will show, in fact, that the killing is the fault of shelter policies and regressive directors—something HSUS and ASPCA will not allow to happen willingly. By changing the way shelters operate, thereby resulting in immediate lifesaving success, the legislation will prove that shelter policies were to blame all along—in opposition to their longstanding assertion that the public is to be blamed for the killing. In fact, it will expose Pacelle and Sayres for what they truly are—bureaucrats who do not care about saving animals, but see their role as protecting a special interest group: shelter directors who do not want to change. Because, in the end, neither Ed Sayres, the President of the ASPCA—who sabotaged No Kill in San Francisco when he was President of the San Francisco SPCA—nor Wayne Pacelle of HSUS could support CAPA because to do so would require them to stand up to their colleagues, something they have proved too cowardly to do in the past.

By contrast, the demands such a law makes on shelters are and would be judged by the public as so reasonable and so successful in achieving their intended aim that for HSUS and the ASPCA to oppose them elsewhere would be politically untenable in other communities that would inevitably follow. This would force Pacelle and Sayres to an even tighter corner than they have already placed themselves through their historically virulent opposition to No Kill—how can they stand before a city council and tell them not to pass a law which leads to No Kill success, in order to defend a kill oriented colleague?

Likewise, when a CAPA-type law passes, and works, it will eliminate any perceived need for the legislation that they, in fact, do promote. Every community will have a choice going forward: continue to pass their leash laws, feeding bans, pet limit laws, and mandatory sterilization laws which have failed in every community, or pass CAPA, and realize immediate life-saving results. It will shine a bright light on just how irrelevant and obsolete HSUS and the ASPCA have become as they cling to outdated, harmful philosophies which have been proven false, no longer make sense, and fail to define a way forward from the quagmire their organizations created.

In fact, during the hearing, when the ASPCA representative referred to No Kill as “radical” and was asked by a commissioner if she really believed that, she realized too late she could not defend her position nor create a smokescreen effective enough, and she was forced to back-pedal. She had not properly anticipated her audience or the issue at hand; namely, that the idea of not killing is no longer controversial in San Francisco and hasn’t been for over a decade. So her suggestion that No Kill is “radical” to a room full of people who live in the City that proved high rates of lifesaving are possible showed how completely tone deaf the ASPCA has become, especially since she followed a presentation that discussed the attainment of 90 percent save rates throughout the country. The world of animal sheltering is changing rapidly, and rather than learn, evolve, and positively contribute, they continue their attempts to force failed, worn out ideologies on a movement that has moved beyond them.

Reading Between Wayne Pacelle’s Lines
Despite Pacelle’s unwillingness to compromise HSUS’ defense of killing, he has realized he must modify its language embracing it. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, it was HSUS that argued that shelters should not send animals to rescue groups rather than kill them because sending them to rescue would “stress” them in transport, even though the alternative was death. It was HSUS that argued that people who trap, sterilize, and re-release feral cats were violating state anti-cruelty laws against abandonment and should be jailed and prosecuted. It was HSUS that falsely inflated San Francisco’s dog and cat death rates in their magazine to downplay the success of the No Kill effort, and refused to print a retraction when the San Francisco SPCA pointed out the lie and demanded that they do so.

But the times are changing and so is Pacelle’s rhetoric.  Though Wayne Pacelle’s letter to the Committee was wrong in its conclusion that the City shouldn’t force the shelters to the goal line, he did acknowledge that the success in San Francisco is real and is due to the No Kill Equation. But he then wrote that a community should not put in place a plan to demand and achieve that success because doing so would take the City further away, not closer, to the goal of not killing—a hopelessly irreconcilable contradiction. Under Pacelle’s muddled thinking, we shouldn’t have voting rights legislation because that will lead to disenfranchisement. We shouldn’t mandate civil rights laws because that will lead to discrimination. We shouldn’t pass environmental laws because that will lead to more pollution. It not only makes no sense a priori, it makes no sense in light of the tremendous success communities which have achieved No Kill experienced by committing to the endeavor whole-heartedly as this law would dictate.

Because challenging No Kill outright is no longer politically possible for these agencies, both the ASPCA and HSUS now have to use a less obvious, more subtle ways to fight San Francisco making further progress. They have to make it sound like they were on board all along, while simultaneously pushing the same agenda of hindering lifesaving that they always did.

That is what makes Pacelle’s spin so cleverly crafted. Now that leadership has changed and those in charge do not want to save the remaining animals that are at risk in the City, Pacelle now supports the SPCA leadership. Were the situation different, were the San Francisco SPCA promoting this legislation over the objection of animal control, Pacelle’s letter would have challenged the SPCA’s lifesaving claims, just as HSUS always has.

In the end, however, while HSUS and the ASPCA have not changed, the movement has. And this change offers the San Francisco Animal Welfare Commission a chance for its own redemption.

A Second Chance to Do the Right Thing
In 1993, Richard Avanzino stood before the Commission and asked for its support in forcing animal control to allow the SPCA to save animals in the custody of San Francisco Animal Care & Control (ACC). Avanzino was offering to save every healthy and thousands of sick and injured but treatable animals from animal control’s death row by bringing them to the SPCA for adoption. ACC refused. Its leadership argued that they should be allowed to continue to kill animals because the threat of a death sentence is what kept people from surrendering animals to the shelter. Sadly, the Commission refused to act. Given the number of lives that have been saved by the SPCA since, and how obscene it was for the leadership of animal control to demand that killing continue, we look back in astonishment that there was ever any opposition at all, that ACC leadership felt confident enough to voice that position, and that the Commission actually bowed to it. How dare animal control say no. And how was it that the Commission failed to act in support of the animals? What was so controversial about mandating that Animal Control give the San Francisco SPCA animals it was planning to kill, but the SPCA wanted to save?

Likewise, were the City of San Francisco to pass legislation prescribing how shelters in the City must operate in order to maximize lifesaving, it wouldn’t be long after they were passed that their precepts would come to be regarded as sacrosanct. In the future, we will likewise look back with bewilderment as to what all the controversy and fuss was about.

Will the San Francisco Animal Welfare Commission take what may now seem to some like a bold leap, but which history will judge to be such an obvious necessity as to leave us astounded by the hesitancy? Will they set aside their hesitation—and in the case of the San Francisco SPCA and San Francisco Animal Control representatives on the Commission, their personal loyalties—and look at the issue for what it is: granting animals the protections they need and deserve, and by doing so, help the city of San Francisco once more attain its reputation as the crown jewel of the No Kill movement? Or will the Commission delay action while other communities continue to move confidently forward? Will they wait to act until public dissatisfaction at the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of animals every year in San Francisco grows even greater? Will they wait until the fight becomes more bitter and divisive as San Francisco animal lovers watch other cities throughout the nation continue to achieve and then supersede San Francisco’s lifesaving? Will they wait to act until San Francisco is no longer hailed as the progressive city where no healthy animals are killed, but lamented as a regressive city where they are still killing animals who can and should be saved?

If history is any guide, we may be in for a long fight.

Wayne Pacelle Under Siege

In response to public outcry over their support and participation in the Wilkes County Massacre, in which the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) first championed and then defended the mass slaughter of over 150 dogs and puppies, Wayne Pacelle of HSUS issued an interim new policy of favoring temperament testing of individual dogs seized in dog-fighting cases, and called for “a meeting of leading animal welfare organizations concerning dogs victimized by dog fighting.” That meeting has been called for April in Las Vegas. If history is any guide, there is little reason to celebrate as of yet.

To begin with, HSUS did not adopt a policy that all dogs will be temperament tested to determine if they are aggressive, only that they will recommend that they be, a policy which can be ignored. Second, there has been no discussion over what type of test will be used and how outcomes will be determined, a major flaw in the temperament testing process used by many shelters. Third, there is reason to believe that the outcome in Wilkes County would not have been any different even if this policy were already in place. Last year, Wayne Pacelle claimed that HSUS had tested all the Michael Vick dogs and determined—in his own words—that “they are some of the most aggressively trained pit bulls in the country,” a blatant falsehood. In overruling HSUS, the court agreed with non-HSUS reformers that most of the dogs were rehabilitatable, and two are now therapy dogs, bringing comfort to cancer patients. Does it matter if the dogs are killed with or without a temperament test if the test itself is as draconian as HSUS is?

There is also reason to doubt HSUS’ sincerity. Regardless of what HSUS says at the meeting or even publicly, they ultimately cannot be trusted to act in a manner consistent with their promises. After all, the support and participation in the Wilkes County massacre comes after HSUS publicly stated that shelter killing is needless and shelters are not doing enough to save lives. Their defense of it reverted to old patterns of blaming pet overpopulation and even suggesting that we cannot ask shelters to be more humane, because they’ll just do a worse job. According to HSUS, if you “impose” the “burdens” of being humane on these shelters, “they may decline to intervene in criminal fighting cases, allowing the dogfighters to continue to operate.” In other words, HSUS believes we can’t ask more of shelters because if we do, they’ll just decide to be even less humane.

In addition, their defense of the needless slaughter of almost every animal at the Tangipahoa Parish shelter last August which claimed the lives of over 170 dogs and cats came after they promised a “new dawn” of animal sheltering in that region.

And despite a “pro-TNR position paper” they published in 2006, HSUS officials said they “didn’t have a problem with humanely killing a stray cat” in April of 2008 after Randolph, Iowa officials announced a bounty on them, offering residents $5.00 for every cat they rounded up and brought to the shelter to be killed. (HSUS supported the plan to round up and kill the cats, but not the process suggesting that people might get bit by cats if the cats were not professionally trapped. They then backpedaled there, too, after a massive public outcry, suggesting it wasn’t a good idea either way. Sound familiar?)

In addition, even Pacelle’s announcement of the meeting suggests a diversionary tactic. The issue which needs to be addressed is not, as he misleadingly claims, a discussion concerning dogs “victimized by dog fighting.” We are all in agreement here. The scourge of dog fighting must be ended. We need to pursue and punish dog fighters with all the resources we can muster. The issue is what to do concerning dogs victimized by HSUS and shelters after they have been saved from dog fighters.

As I wrote in a prior blog,

The choice was not, as HSUS contends, a choice between continued suffering at the hands of dog fighters or death at the pound. This was not the option the dogs faced. Once they were taken into custody by HSUS and Wilkes County officials, more dog fighting was no longer an option. The option was whether HSUS and Wilkes County officials would kill them or whether HSUS and Wilkes County officials would not kill them. Their choice is now well known: they chose to systematically put all the dogs and puppies to death, a choice they defend still.

And finally, is such a meeting really necessary? If Pacelle was willing to stand up for what’s right, rather than to defend his clearly wrong colleagues, he would not need the symposium. He would know what HSUS policy needs to be and he would ensure that it is followed.

Instead, in response to criticism, HSUS—through dog killer apologist John Goodwin—chastised groups for making an unnecessary “fuss.” And when that callous retort sparked additional furor, they further inflamed public criticism by issuing a defense of the massacre. Everyone’s heard some variation of the joke that goes, “how many people does it take to screw in a light bulb?” In this case, the more apt question is: “How many humane groups does it take to figure out that an animal welfare organization should champion the saving, not the taking, of animal life?” The answer, of course, should be “one.” It is self-evident. You don’t need a meeting to figure it out. But the reality is that the answer is “two” if one of those groups is HSUS: HSUS to get the answer wrong. The other group to tell them what the right one is.

Ever since San Francisco’s 1994 seminal achievement when it became the first community in the nation to end the killing of healthy homeless animals in its shelters, HSUS has ignored that success and fought it—and other successes—every step of the way. They continue to regurgitate old clichés about pet overpopulation, continue to support regressive shelters, continue to fight progressive reformers in communities across the country, continue to falsely deny that No Kill has been achieved, and continue to support mass killings—as they have in Randolph, IA, in Tangipahoa Parish, LA, and in Wilkes County, NC. And ultimately, they don’t seem to want to learn from their mistakes.

The public condemnation over their call for killing of all the Michael Vick dogs should have pre-empted the current call for killing, but it didn’t. The support for cat killing in Randolph, IA should have been pre-empted by the outcry over their prior feral cat policy, which resulted in a policy switch two years before. It didn’t. And they should not have supported the Tangipahoa slaughter because every time they have supported other mass killings at shelters, they’ve been forced to back down by public outcry. These are not the actions of an agency whose leadership is truly interested in doing the right thing or learning from the past.

But that doesn’t mean the show mustn’t go on. The meeting has been called, and it should be attended. But we cannot confuse a move for political survival, which this meeting represents, with a sincere desire for change on the part of either Wayne Pacelle or his draconian organization. To do so, is to do so at our movement’s own peril.

This is classic social movement theory. Those vested in the status quo, as HSUS is, first ignore reform, as they did in the mid-1990s and lost. Then they fight reform, as they did in earnest in the first half of this decade, and continue to do so in various parts of the country, only to again find themselves on the losing side. The next stage is co-option. That is the stage we are currently in.

The fact is Pacelle and HSUS cannot ignore the will of No Kill advocates anymore and he is only asking for input because he has no choice in the matter. As Christie Keith noted in her Pet Connection blog,

if what HSUS needs is pressure from their donor base, the general public, pit bull advocates, bloggers, animal lovers or other animal welfare organizations to start doing the right thing for these much-maligned dogs … There seems to be an awful lot of it out there.

This is true. But caution should rule the day. In the past, No Kill advocates stopped the pressure on HSUS in similar campaigns and celebrated victory, only to have discovered they had been hoodwinked by carefully crafted statements and Pacelle’s penchance for meaningless pretty words. In 2004, some No Kill groups signed on to a statement of principles called the Asilomar Accords, which were championed by HSUS as a roadmap to “significantly reducing the euthanasia of healthy and treatable companion animals in the United States.” Unfortunately, the document allowed for the continuation of policies that resulted in killing, including breed discriminatory actions that culminate in mass slaughters like the one which has sparked the current outcry. In fact, the actions taken in Wilkes County were entirely consistent with the Asilomar Accords—an agreement many No Kill advocates initially supported.

Likewise, some feral cat advocates praised the 2006 HSUS statement on feral cats as a “vision for the future,” until it was shown that the statement was riddled with loopholes which allowed killing of feral cats to continue indefinitely—actions consistent with their support of the cat bounty debacle in Randolph, IA.

Time and time again, Pacelle and HSUS have proved they cannot be trusted. Nonetheless, some groups are optimistic. Best Friends welcomed the recent announcement and stated,

There had been more than enough airing of feelings and outrage that the [Wilkes County] dogs were not evaluated prior to being summarily [killed]. It was time to hit the reset button on this in order to move things forward in a constructive way. Mr. Pacelle was open and receptive to what we had to say and we are looking forward to our meetings in April.

As I’ve stated, I believe the meeting should take place, and I hope their faith is not misplaced. I welcome the involvement of Best Friends in helping set HSUS policy and have very high regard for Best Friends employees working in this field. So much so, in fact, that Best Friends speakers will be giving presentations on this topic at the No Kill Conference this year. There is no falling out with Best Friends. But I do take issue with the notion that it is time to move on from airing outrage or that it is time “to hit the reset button.” One does not necessarily follow the other.

It was mass public pressure from a large number of groups and a wide array of voices which forced HSUS to the table, not a response to a single group’s call for change, however large and influential. Admittedly, Best Friends was a major player and took an important and vocal leadership position on this issue; but any appearance of cooperation they get from HSUS is the result of widespread and loud dissent rising up from grassroots activists and rescuers nationwide. It is that clamor which is the only thing that has ever forced HSUS to the bargaining table—and it should not be discouraged.

Moreover, leadership in this movement must reflect the tremendous discontent of those in the grassroots, not seek to prematurely quell it and the vast potential for reform its expression offers. There is no “reset” button for the more than 150 dogs and puppies killed in North Carolina—they are gone forever and we cannot bring them back. It is, therefore, premature to suggest that we move on—not only because HSUS has neither apologized for their actions nor owned up to the obscenity of them, but because the North Carolina incident is a typical example of how HSUS routinely operates, and therefore offers us a cautionary tale as to what we can expect from an HSUS that is anything short of what it is our duty to force it to be: unequivocal in its embrace of No Kill.

And force it we will because the power is now ours. We are in a position to dictate the direction of this movement and we must not settle for any compromises. At the meeting in Las Vegas, demands must be made that include, for example, a condemnation of the Wilkes County massacre. To prevent other shelters from citing HSUS’ actions and its very public defense of it for their own policies which favor killing, HSUS must publicly reject them in total. The demands must also include:

• The right of individual evaluation and consideration for each dog, not merely a recommendation.
• It must include a guarantee of clemency for any puppies.
• It must give rescue groups and No Kill shelters the right of access to save the animals, and the right to conduct independent evaluations rather than rely on the flawed results of HSUS or the shelter’s own potentially predetermined ones which favor killing.
• It must include an unqualified statement in favor of saving animals that rejects the excuses of the past.
• It must include support of legislation that will give all of these principles the force of law. It should be illegal for a shelter to kill a dog if a rescue group is willing to save him (as it is in California).
• And dogs should not be deemed dangerous without an evaluation and hearing, subject to appeal by any shelter or rescue group.

That is just a start. There are thousands of us and only a few of them. We have found our voice, and recognize the potential its fullest expression can create. No more compromises. No more killing.

HSUS Defends Wilkes County Massacre

Earlier this week, rescue groups throughout the country pleaded with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Wilkes County officials not to put nearly 150 dogs and puppies seized from a dog fighting raid systematically to death. Instead, they asked that the dogs be individually assessed and even extended offers of assistance, support, and resources. But HSUS refused, arguing that all the dogs should be killed, including puppies who were born after the seizure and posed no threat to public safety. Not content to simply embrace the killing, HSUS then one went step further. John Goodwin of HSUS attacked the animal lovers, claiming that they were “clamoring for media attention” and expressing annoyance that, in his view, no one is raising a “fuss” over the other 3,000 dogs this particular community unnecessarily kills each year.

Across the country, animal advocates, No Kill shelters, and rescue groups, as well as everyday dog lovers condemned the killings and Goodwin’s callous retort about it. Even those outside the humane movement were moved enough to share their overwhelming sadness and anger at the decision. Websites and blogs devoted to photography and other non-animal pursuits interrupted their focus to share their grief over the fate of all those dogs and puppies.

In my own condemnation of the HSUS position, I wrote that Goodwin willfully ignored that many of the groups seeking clemency for the Wilkes County dogs—and the No Kill movement, more generally—have been raising a fuss over killing in U.S. shelters—a fuss opposed by HSUS which has often sided with these shelters. I also wrote that,

Every time HSUS defends killing, their antiquated, regressive viewpoints are not only harmful to animals, they make HSUS more and more irrelevant to animal sheltering and more and more despised by those who truly love animals. And they become more out of touch with public sentiment.

Finally, I argued that,

Goodwin’s offensive claim that the advocates calling for clemency in Wilkes County were motivated by a “clamoring for media attention” is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. HSUS can only see this as a clamor for media attention rather than a clamor to save lives because that is how HSUS appears to operate. For HSUS, animals do not seem to matter unless they result in a headline and therefore donations for HSUS. For the rest of us, it’s the animals that count.

Unable to ignore the loud and wide cross section of critics, HSUS has now issued a defense of the killing. Not surprisingly, HSUS takes no responsibility and offers little in the way of thoughtful analysis. The dogs and puppies whose lives were taken be damned, HSUS chooses to present itself as the wounded innocent in the whole affair—the real victims in it’s twisted view—by blaming the judge for the “order to [kill] the dogs,” even though it was HSUS which testified in court that the animals should be killed, and then defended the decision by attacking rescue groups and No Kill shelters for daring to question the mass slaughter.

Hoping we’ll all forget about the puppies killed, HSUS also writes that, “No organization has done more to attack and harm the dogfighting industry than The HSUS.” Despite the “We’re Number 1” bravado, HSUS’ logic in support of the killing comes down to little more than this: According to HSUS, they had to call for the death of puppies who were born after the seizure, who have never known aggression, and who, in some cases, were raised by loving foster parents because some of the other dogs in the same seizure were aggressive.

In making such a ludicrous argument, HSUS ignores the whole point of the criticism: it wasn’t a question of whether a dangerous dog should be put up for adoption no matter how hard HSUS pretends that is what this is about. It was a question of whether the decision that any of the dogs were truly dangerous was made after the dogs were individually and fairly assessed. It ignores that there were puppies killed who posed no threat to public safety, that there were rescue groups willing to provide needed support, and that HSUS has the enormous resources to intervene in a life affirming way, choosing instead to champion the dogs’ death. It ignores that the experience with the dogs in the case of Michael Vick undermined everything HSUS thought it knew about the nature of dog aggression. Like in this one, it was HSUS which led the call for mass killing of those dogs after Wayne Pacelle falsely claimed that “Officials from our organization have examined some of these dogs and, generally speaking, they are some of the most aggressively trained pit bulls in the country.” In fact, following their actual assessment, only one dog was deemed too vicious to save. In overruling HSUS, the court concurred that most of the dogs were rehabilitatable, and two are now therapy dogs, bringing comfort to cancer patients.

But that is not what takes HSUS’ defense of the Wilkes County massacre to its extreme of obscenity. That is reserved for two of the most offensive claims ever to come out of HSUS. First, HSUS claims that we should not ask shelters to do a better job, because they will likely respond by doing a worse one. According to HSUS, if you “impose” the “burdens” of being humane on these shelters, “they may decline to intervene in criminal fighting cases, allowing the dogfighters to continue to operate.” In other words, HSUS believes we can’t ask more of shelters because if we do, they’ll just decide to be even less humane. If we accept this point of view, we can never expect shelters to be effective. We can never demand more from our government agencies. We can never suggest that shelters reflect, rather than undermine, our values. We have to accept that they’ll be killing indefinitely. And we have to keep quiet about it or they will be worse than they are now—a wholly unethical and self-defeatist mentality that is grounded in failure. A failure that HSUS seems to believe is permanent and unchangeable.

Second, while HSUS claims to be a leader in stopping dog fighting, they champion the same attitude towards dogs that allows for such abuse—indeed, that perpetuates it: the idea that dogs do not matter; that their lives are of little value and are expendable. Their advocacy that the dogs should be killed undermines the entire principle which should be motivating their anti-dog fighting campaign. Dog fighting is horrible not only because of the pain and suffering of dogs, but because it kills dogs. And killing dogs is the ultimate betrayal—the worst thing we can do to them. To “rescue” them from the worst thing that could happen to them when they are being abused and then to turn around and advocate for that very thing to be done to the dogs makes no sense whatsoever.

In its response to critics, HSUS is essentially saying that the killing of these dogs should continue because there are fates worse than death. And, sadly, too many people who should know better have adopted this point of view, even though it is patently false on its face; and is more so because it incorrectly assumes there are only two choices available: killing at the pound or killing at the hands of dog fighters. Working hard to end the scourge of dog fighting—and to punish the abusers—is not mutually exclusive with saving the lives of the innocent victims. In fact, the moral imperative to do one goes hand in hand with the other.

I am not naïve. I understand that method of killing is important, and if we lived in a two dimensional world of shadows—if we lived in Plato’s cave—where the choice was nothing more than to be killed inhumanely or to be killed in a less brutal way, we would pick the latter each and every time. Although I have called repeatedly for the end of shelter killing, I have also supported efforts to abolish cruel methods of killing, as in the case of the draconian gas chamber—which shelters in North Carolina, the sight of the current killing, have refused to do. But that is not the choice presented, no matter how hard HSUS tries to pretend it is; nor how many times it repeats it in its statement of apologia.

But even if it were true (it is not), while cruelty is abhorrent, while cruelty is painful, while cruelty should be condemned and rooted out, there is nothing worse than death, because death is final. A dog subjected to pain and suffering can be rescued. A dog subjected to savage cruelty can even become a therapy dog, as the Vick case showed. There is still hope. Whereas death is its total antithesis. It is the eclipse of hope. It is forever. Because they never wake up, ever. The worst of the worst—a fact each and every one of us would recognize if it was us facing death.

That basic understanding is, in fact, the very underpinning of our criminal justice system in the U.S. where generally only one offense carries the death penalty because it is an offense not just in difference of degree, but of a difference in kind to every other crime. It is in a class by itself. Only the taking of a life is punishable by death.

But in this case, even this argument by HSUS is a red herring. The choice was not, as HSUS contends, a choice between continued suffering at the hands of dog fighters or death at the pound. This was not the option the dogs faced. Once they were taken into custody by HSUS and Wilkes County officials, more dog fighting was no longer an option. The option was whether HSUS and Wilkes County officials would kill them or whether HSUS and Wilkes County officials would not kill them. Their choice is now well known: they chose to systematically put all the dogs and puppies to death, a choice they defend still.

And so we come back to the first and primary principle of the humane movement: Animal shelters are supposed to be the safety net for animals, not an extension of the neglect and abuse they face elsewhere. Just as there are other service agencies which also deal with human irresponsibility, shelters—like the other agencies—should not use that as an excuse to negate their own responsibility for failing to put in place necessary programs and services to respond humanely, and therefore, appropriately. Imagine if Child Protective Services took in abused, abandoned and unwanted children, and then killed them. We should no more tolerate it for animals.

Because ultimately it comes down to this: it doesn’t matter to the dog one whiff who is ultimately robbing them of their life—be it a dog fighting thug, a thug in a suit testifying in court that defenseless puppies should be killed, or a thug cloaked in the mantel of “animal control.” Killing is killing, and the tragic end remains the same, regardless of who is pulling the trigger.

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