Breaking Ranks: The Evolution of Dr. Kate Hurley

And what it means for the future of animal sheltering

If the attitudes and beliefs of Dr. Kate Hurley, the director of the U.C. Davis Shelter Medicine Program, are any indication, the kill-oriented sheltering movement is in trouble. I just finished watching Hurley’s video “New Approaches to Community Cats” where she tells shelter directors to stop taking in and killing cats regardless of whether they are friendly or “feral,” where she tells them that as it relates to scared cats, there is simply no such thing as “humane euthanasia,” where she blasts the viewpoint that “open admission is better,” and where she says that killing is not a necessity; it is, first and foremost, a choice. As a long-time critic of the historically regressive and reactionary views championed by Dr. Hurley, I found myself applauding what appears to be—at least on the issue of cats—a complete turn-around in Dr. Hurley’s message and beliefs.

While she gets some things wrong (starting with the title that these approaches are “new” rather than something she ignored and fought against for well over a decade), the video was a breath of fresh air and an important contribution to the movement because of who she was and is, a key barometer of things to come, and one more nail in the coffin of the “catch and kill” paradigm of animal sheltering she used to epitomize.

To understand just how far Dr. Hurley has come and, more importantly, what it says about the future of animal sheltering, it is important to look at where she started: because this champion of No Kill cat sheltering, this shelter adviser who now speaks to shelter directors and tells them, in no uncertain terms, if you want to stop killing cats, all you have to do is stop killing cats, was once public enemy number four to the No Kill movement nationally, right behind Ingrid Newkirk, Wayne Pacelle and Ed Sayres. But not anymore. Dr. Hurley has broken ranks.

A Rehabilitated “Cereal” Killer

For the past decade and until very recently, Dr. Kate Hurley made a career out of two things: 1. Killing a lot of animals and 2. Encouraging others to kill a lot of animals. In 2008, Dr. Hurley went to Reno, Nevada to derail the No Kill initiative then in its infancy by telling government officials that killing was the right thing to do. She proposed changing the term killing “for space” to “community overpopulation index” in order to take the onus off of the shelter and its then-regressive policies and point the finger of blame elsewhere. That term went over big with the (thankfully now former) director at animal control who had a policy of keeping 75% of cages intentionally empty even while threatening to kill animals “for space.” To Hurley, the killing didn’t have anything to do with the fact that 75% of the cages sat empty; it was the public’s fault because of its “community overpopulation index.” Ignoring her advice, the shelter director was pressured into retirement, the community embraced the No Kill Equation and in 2012, had a 94% rate of lifesaving.

San Francisco did not fare as well. In 2009, Dr. Hurley successfully helped to derail a No Kill campaign in that city, testifying that its achievement wasn’t possible because of “pet overpopulation.” Hurley further claimed that No Kill “lead[s] to overcrowding, poor record-keeping, widespread disease and behavior problems.” As a result, Hurley concluded that a No Kill policy “virtually guarantees they will torture and kill thousands of animals.” To make her point, Dr. Hurley showed San Francisco Animal Welfare Commission members slides of messy cereal box aisles in a supermarket to “show” what happens when you put too many animals/cereal boxes on a shelf while arguing that, we have to “respect our animals just like we respect our cereal.” She also used the analogy to impart the apparent importance of limiting consumer choice. While showing shelves jammed with cereal boxes, she explained why offering people too many choices resulted in no sales at all (although I think Kellogg’s would take umbrage at her point). To Hurley, if you have too many animals/cereal boxes, you should just throw some of them away. Of course, Dr. Hurley’s presentation ignored that throwing away cereal is not the same as throwing away the lives of animals; one is alive, the other isn’t. You don’t have to kill cereal before doing so.

But suggesting that you throw out the animals based on a bizarre analogy is not only unethical, it was predicated on a factually incorrect and incoherent premise: the false belief in pet overpopulation in San Francisco. As Hurley was well aware, San Francisco animal control was impounding less than 6,000 dogs and cats annually. That’s 7.5 dogs and cats for every 1,000 human residents, about half the national average and ten times less than successful No Kill communities. By contrast, Reno was taking in 39 per 1,000—five times the rate of San Francisco. It also took in almost three times the actual total number: 16,000 per year without killing healthy or treatable animals. In fact, communities impounding over 70 animals per 1,000—ten times the rate of San Francisco—had save rates in excess of 90%. In other words, San Francisco could conceivably take in ten times the rate of animals it was impounding animals and still not resort to killing. Even the San Francisco SPCA (which ironically asked Dr. Hurley to testify) admitted this by their very actions. At the same time they claimed they could not save more animals because of pet overpopulation, they were also claiming that they had no choice but to import thousands of animals from outside the City every year to meet adoption demand because of a shortage of animals within San Francisco.

But arguing the necessity of killing despite readily available lifesaving alternatives is not the worst of Dr. Hurley’s past. Not only did she herself round up and kill animals, putting even healthy “feral” cats to death with no holding period of any kind when she was a was an animal control officer, she was also hired by HSUS to “clean up” an overcrowded Las Vegas shelter and to Hurley, that meant killing roughly 1,000 animals and encouraging the shelter to continue to kill them after a paltry 72 hours as a matter of policy, taking the lives of precious animals and turning them into a pile of ash.

In New Jersey, after hearing Kate Hurley speak, the former director of the Animal Welfare Association of New Jersey followed her advice by reducing the number of cages in the cat adoption room by half. When a new director abandoned the approach and began following the No Kill Equation model of sheltering, cat adoptions nearly doubled and the agency became the most successful adoption agency in the entire state of New Jersey.

Finally, Hurley and her team were responsible for an increase in the number of cats killed in Wisconsin’s Dane County Humane Society in 2007, after the shelter eviscerated the foster care program and made the decision to keep every other cat cage empty (thereby cutting capacity in half and resulting in the killing of cats already on the adoption floor)—all at Dr. Hurley’s suggestion. One by one, the cats occupying those cages were taken off the adoption floor and injected with an overdose of poison, their lifeless bodies thrown in the trash like Hurley’s cereal boxes.

Until her recent conversion, Dr. Hurley epitomized everything that is wrong with animal sheltering in America; which explains why shelter directors, national organizations which defended kill shelters, and killing apologists who worship at the altar of these organizations have historically loved Hurley. A darling of HSUS, she ignored alternatives to killing, she ignored data and experience, she betrayed the animals in deference to her killing colleagues, she likened those trying to end killing to those with a mental illness who torture animals, killing animals herself and causing countless others to lose their lives as well. In short, when animals lovers tried to reform their local shelters, Dr. Hurley was the draconian shelter director’s go-to “expert” and she obliged: going from community to community to defend the killing. She could not sink any lower.

But then out of the ashes rose a different Dr. Hurley.

The Phoenix Rises

Today, Dr. Hurley tells shelter directors that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. More diplomatically, Hurley asks shelter directors to look at their goals, see what they’re doing, and ask themselves, “How is that working out for you?” And the conclusion Hurley says is inescapable: It is not working out—most especially for the cats. In short, she is now telling shelter directors that everything she once told them to do was wrong.

Hurley now tells shelter directors that taking in (and killing) cats does not resolve citizen complaints, it does not reflect the community’s concerns or values, it does not help reunite lost cats with their families, it does not help cats find new homes, it does not end suffering (in fact, it perpetuates and intensifies it), it does not mitigate harm or reduce the number of cats, and it is not cost-effective, all the traditional excuses for why animal shelters do so.” The bottom line,” says Hurley, “[is that] traditional sheltering is not an effective tool to eliminate or protect community cat populations.”

Moreover, she says, “Using a tool [intake and killing at shelters] that’s mismatched to the job is hurting cats, shelters, and communities, and distracting us from finding real solutions.” In short, taking in cats to kill shelters is wrong. Killing cats is wrong. And moreover, it is a choice. According to Hurley, if you take killing off the table, you’ll be forced to find innovative and creative solutions to end the killing. If you want to stop killing, Hurley asks, “How about we just stop?”

Without waiting for an answer, she goes on to debunk the myth that “open admission” shelters are either necessary or better and says, as it relates to cats, the idea should be abandoned. If you cannot take in a cat without killing, she says, “just say no” to taking in the cat. Finally, she says that as it relates to cats who are unsocial to humans (cats we call “feral”), “humane euthanasia” does not exist. It is—she says—nothing less than “torture.”

Instead of killing, Hurley tells shelter directors that at the same time they are embracing offsite adoptions, reducing adoption fees, putting in place comprehensive adoption programs, neutering and releasing, and providing better medical and behavioral care for cats (in other words, the No Kill Equation), they should be leaving stray cats alone, regardless of whether they are friendly or “feral” because life on the streets is more humane than death in the shelter. In fact, Hurley says, the great outdoors is great. The likelihood of being reunited with their owners is greater for cats if they are allowed to remain where they are rather than being admitted to the shelter. In one study, explains Hurley, cats were 13 times more likely to be returned home by non-shelter means (such as returning home on their own) than by a call or visit to a shelter. And another study found that people are up to three times more likely to adopt cats as neighborhood strays versus adopting from a shelter. At the same time, the risk of death for street cats in communities has been found to extremely low, with outdoor cats living roughly the same lifespan as indoor pet cats. In other words, the risk of death is lower and the chance of adoption higher for cats on the streets than cats in the shelter. In a study of over 100,000 alley cats, less than one percent of those cats were suffering from debilitating conditions.

While the crowd to which Dr. Hurley made these statements was not large (there were only a handful or two of people in the room), they were the right people: shelter directors. These are the very people who hold the power over life and death; the people who can continue killing cats or choose to stop doing so.

Room to Grow

There’s no question that Dr. Hurley has now become a great advocate for cats facing execution in shelters. Her journey from “catch and kill” defender to No Kill cat advocate is astonishing both in scope and breadth. But there’s still plenty of room for growth; the most important area being that Dr. Hurley has yet to recognize that a shelter can be open admission and No Kill. In other words, it isn’t a question, as Dr. Hurley implies, of a shelter closing its doors to cats or saving their lives by refusing to admit and then kill them (although if that were the choice, I agree with her). When it comes to friendly cats, we can keep the doors open and save their lives. As the head of the shelter medicine program at U.C. Davis, as a person who professes an expertise in sheltering and by her own admission was wrong about so much else, it is disappointing to hear her talk as though she is entirely unaware of the experiences of the now well over 130 open admission shelters posting save rates between 90 and 99% for cats. Their approach and the methodology they employ to achieve these results represent the cutting edge of her field, and there is a moral as well as professional obligation to be informed about their success and how it was achieved, especially since she is putting herself in the position as a professed expert to those looking to her for guidance.

Moreover, she continues to use the word “euthanasia,” the catch and kill crowd’s favorite misnomer and one that allows them to mask the ugly reality of feline genocide from the American public. Her use of the word cannot be logically reconciled with her own admission that it doesn’t exist and that, especially as it relates to “feral” cats, it is nothing less than—in her own word—“torture.” In fact, she acknowledges that, saying that the only reason she still uses the word is to extend respect for the “motivations” of those doing the killing. And it is at this point in the video that we realize that Dr. Hurley has yet to evolve into an understanding or acceptance of the truly tragic state of our national sheltering system, rife as it is with cruelty, neglect and uncaring. To make her point, she asks by a show of hands how many of those in attendance do not love cats. I found myself wincing. (I also found myself wincing when she made a joke of her old beliefs that cost so many animals their lives; the situation called for somber reflection, not levity.)

Of course, no one is going to raise their hand to such a question. Who would dare admit to being uncaring about cats in a room full of people whose job it is to care about cats? But while their lack of a show of hands may say one thing, the facts tell a different story. If you were to ask the same question to staff members at the pound in Davidson County, North Carolina—people who like to put cats and kittens in the gas chamber with raccoons in order to sadistically watch them fight before turning on the gas, laughing while they do it—they would not raise their hands, either. If you were to ask the same question to staff members at the pound in Memphis, Tennessee, where animals are intentionally starved to death and often abused, they would not raise their hands, either. And if you take Hurley’s realizations to their logical conclusion—killing is a choice, killing is not humane, killing is torture—then those who choose to do it cannot be said to love cats by definition as the two are mutually irreconcilable. Killing a cat is not an act of love; it is an act of violence.

Regardless of whether she ever realizes that fact by taking the obvious, irrefutable, and inevitable logical step that flows from her “new” approaches—that people who kill cats do not love cats because killing is a choice—she does not have to take that step in order to come to that same conclusion. The data, the experience, in other words, the truth, is already out there. Although the animal protection movement has long perpetuated the fiction that our nation’s shelters provide a humane and compassionate safety net of care for our nation’s homeless animals, the facts tell a very different, very tragic, story.

In truth, the first time many companion animals experience neglect or abuse is when they enter a shelter. As the movement to end shelter killing has grown in size and sophistication, the networking made possible through the internet and social media has allowed animal lovers to connect the dots between individual cases of animal cruelty and neglect in shelters nationwide. These incidents reveal a distinct pattern. Animal abuse at local shelters is not an isolated anomaly caused by “a few bad apples.” The stunning number and severity of these cases nationwide lead to one disturbing and inescapable conclusion: our shelters are in crisis.

Frequently overseen by ineffective and incompetent directors who fail to hold their staff accountable to the most basic standards of humane care, animal shelters in this country are not the safe havens they should and can be. Instead, they are often poorly managed houses of horror, places where animals are denied basic medical care, food, water, socialization and are then killed, sometimes cruelly.

And not only do people in shelters work at a place that commits this ultimate form of violence, they have, in fact, been hired to do exactly that. Can we really be surprised when they don’t clean thoroughly, don’t feed the animals, handle them too roughly, neglect and abuse them or simply ignore their cries for help while they slowly starve to death or die of dehydration? How does shoddy cleaning or rough handling or failing to feed the animals compare with putting an animal to death? Because shelter workers understand that they have the power to kill shelter animals, and will in fact kill many of them, every interaction they have with those animals is influenced by the reality that the animals do not matter, that their lives are cheap and expendable and that they are destined for the garbage heap. The killing itself leads to abuse, to neglect, and to more killing. Where there is no respect for life, there is no regard for welfare. And where there is neither respect for life nor a regard for welfare, there are no true animal lovers. Why?

Because truly caring people, people who actually do love animals, either do not apply to work at these agencies or if they do, they do not last. They quit when they realize that their efforts to improve conditions and outcomes are not rewarded, that their fellow employees are not held accountable, that neglect isn’t punished, and in fact, they will be for trying to improve things. And they quit because they don’t want to kill. By design, the traditional sheltering paradigm has made our shelters not only deadly and abusive to animals, but hostile and unwelcoming to people who do care, leaving animals at the mercy of those who don’t but who will always claim, as political expediency requires, that they do.

Will Dr. Hurley evolve to realize this truth as she has others? And having that realization, will she then also realize its corollary: that merely asking for change from shelter directors who do not care—something which the No Kill movement has been doing for years only to find our pleas falling on deaf, defiant ears—does not yield the same change as publicly fighting and legally mandating it do? Will she become as vocal a champion of her new, progressive views as she once was for her regressive ones? Will she speak out in favor of legislation requiring shelter directors to stop killing cats in the same way she once publicly spoke out against those very laws? Will she support the efforts of local No Kill activists who are trying to reform their shelters by publicly speaking out against uncaring shelter directors as she once so vocally spoke out in their defense, crisscrossing the nation to derail the brave and tenacious efforts of No Kill advocates? In the end, will she become as powerful a voice in defense of life as she once was in defense of death? Those of us in the No Kill movement will anxiously watch to see whether this video is a harbinger of even greater things to come, and whether the woman who was once one of our fiercest and most stalwart opponents becomes one of our greatest champions.

The Tide Is Turning

In addition to what the evolution of Dr. Kate Hurley says about Dr. Kate Hurley, it also speaks volumes about the animal protection movement as a whole and where it is now headed. As more and more communities reject killing and embrace No Kill alternatives, as the evidence mounts and the success increases, as the data and experience paint a clear and unambiguous picture that we can end the killing and we can do it today, those who champion killing will find themselves on the wrong side of history, joining the losing side that is already on the wrong side of truth, right, ethics, and the hearts and minds of the American people. How long can the others who have walked in lock-step with Dr. Hurley until her recent conversion continue to ignore the truth by clinging to defunct, regressive ideologies that do nothing but fail, and for the animals, that result in nothing but neglect, abuse, killing, and to borrow Dr. Hurley’s phrase, torture? If Dr. Hurley is any indication, and I believe that she is, the answer is, not much longer.

Are we yet close to the tipping point—that moment in the history of our movement when the traction and influence we have been gaining tip the balance of power and momentum in favor of No Kill, away from death and toward ever greater lifesaving? Will others follow Dr. Hurley’s lead and begin abandoning the sinking ship of shelter killing and the traditional excuses and rationalizations which have been used to justify it, leaving those who refuse to evolve in lonely and unsympathetic isolation? Absolutely.

Wayne Pacelle and Ingrid Newkirk, are you listening? Evolve.

Watch her presentation by clicking here.

Download her PowerPoint by clicking here.

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Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

Shelter Killing Benefits Puppy Mills

The myth of pet overpopulation is the lie at the heart of shelter killing in America. It is the excuse that every shelter director who kills animals uses to rationalize that killing as a necessity, in spite of the fact that it is unsupported by both the data and the experiences of those communities that have achieved what was once regarded as impossible: an end to their killing of animals. And yet as self-evident as this truth is to me today, there was a time when I, too, believed in pet overpopulation and would have been both stunned and confused to learn that I would someday argue against its existence. Indeed, it is not as though I woke up one day and thought “Hey, I think pet overpopulation is a myth!” Nor did I think that someday I would champion the notion that it was. I did not even set out to prove it. It unfolded as part of my journey in the humane movement and the facts began to compel further analysis. In fact, at one time, I too drank of the pet overpopulation Kool Aid. The dedication of my book, Redemption, says it all:

To my wife, Jennifer. Who believed long before I did.

Once, on a date before we were married, we debated the issue. I insisted that, “There were too many animals and not enough homes” and asked her, “What were shelters supposed to do with them?” She correctly argued that even if it were true, killing animals was still unethical and that as animal activists, it was our job to find alternatives, not to blindly accept that the killing was a fait accompli about which we could do nothing to change. She argued that if we took killing off the table, human ingenuity and human compassion would find a way to make it work. But, more importantly, she asked me how I knew it was true that pet overpopulation was real and that killing animals was therefore inevitable.

How did I know? Because I had heard it repeated a thousand times. Because I took the fact of killing in shelters and then rationalized the reason backward. But I was too embarrassed to admit so. Here I was: a Stanford Law student who wore my 4.0 department GPA, my highest honors in Political Science, my Phi Beta Kappa, and my Summa Cum Laude, as a badge of my smarts and I came face to face with my own sloppy logic and slipshod thinking about the issue. “It just is,” I said (lamely).

But therein began a journey that started in San Francisco, then Tompkins County (NY), then visiting hundreds of shelters across the country only to find animals being killed in the face of alternatives, only to find animals being killed despite empty cages, sometimes banks and banks of them. And so I began reviewing data. I reviewed statistics on animal intakes and studies on available homes. I studied the data reported by over 1,000 shelters nationwide. I reviewed the data from the states that mandate shelter reporting. And the conclusion became not just inescapable, but unassailable: pet overpopulation does not exist not only because the number of homes in America vastly exceed the number of shelter animals in need of a home; but also because my experience creating a No Kill community and now the hundreds of cities and towns which have also done so since prove it. In those communities which have ended the killing, they did so through adoptions and the vast majority did so in six months or less. In my case, it was literally overnight.

And since that time, other studies have not only proved I was right, they show I was conservative. To be sure, millions of animals are being killed in our nation’s shelters every year, and that is nothing short of a national tragedy. But they are not being killed because of the reasons we have been historically given to blame. They are not dying because of a lack of homes. They are dying because of a lack of innovation, a failure to embrace of proven methods of lifesaving. As I state at the end of Redemption, animals are dying in shelters for primarily one reason: because the people in shelters choose to kill them in the face of readily-available lifesaving alternatives.

Yet simply because I say pet overpopulation is a myth, I’m continually accused by champions of shelter killing of having nefarious intent: of being in league with puppy mills and commercial breeders. But understanding that the facts do not support the notion of pet overpopulation and saying so publicly has nothing whatsoever to do with supporting breeding or being in league with puppy or kitten mills. In fact, advocacy for animals requires that we expose the lie that is the primary excuse shelters use to kill for the same reason we should oppose puppy and kitten mills: both harm animals. Puppy mills, like poorly performing shelters, provide minimal to no veterinary care, lack of adequate food and shelter, lack of human socialization, and cause neglect, abuse, and the killing of animals when they are no longer profitable.

And that is why my organization, the No Kill Advocacy Center, has held workshops on closing down puppy mills and has supported laws banning the sale of commercially bred animals in pet stores. And it is why I believe that regardless of why animals are being killed, they are being killed, and as long as they are, it is incumbent on everyone seeking to bring an animal into their life to either rescue or adopt from a shelter. Adoption and rescue are ethical imperatives. In short, one does not have to believe in or perpetuate the lie of pet overpopulation to want to close down puppy mills. Nor does recognizing that pet overpopulation is a myth somehow grant a license to commercially or purposely breed animals. Before I ever suggested that pet overpopulation did not exist, the puppy mill industry was alive and thriving. Given the lack of concern those who operate such mills show for animals, what does it matter to them if there is pet overpopulation or not? They couldn’t care less what happens to the animals they sell. But I do. In fact, I am opposed to the commodification of animals, of having the law regard them as property to produce, buy and sell. Animals are not property; they are autonomous individuals, individuals who should be given legal rights, chief among them the right to live.

Acknowledging the truth—that both the data and experience disprove the existence of pet overpopulation—does not mean a person therefore subscribes to a whole host of anti-animal positions. Quite the opposite. It means, simply and thankfully, that we do not have to kill the animals entering our shelters under the disproven notion that there are too few homes. There are not; in fact, there are plenty. To save rather than end the lives of half of all animals who currently enter shelters only to die, we do not have to reform the 310,000,000 Americans apologists for shelter killing consider “irresponsible” and to blame for that killing. We just have to reform those who are truly at fault: the 3,000 irresponsible shelter directors who kill when they don’t have to and the four individuals running the national organizations which defend and protect them: Ingrid Newkirk of PETA, Wayne Pacelle of HSUS, Matt Bershadker of the ASPCA and Robin Ganzert of the American Humane Association. U.S. shelters kill not only because killing is easier, but because, historically, they have enjoyed the political cover of pet overpopulation which allowed them to continue doing so, political cover that comes courtesy of the animal protection movement itself.

To save lives, shelters must begin doing a better job of competing for the market share of the abundantly available homes in America, and, just as important, they must begin keeping animals alive long enough for them to get into those homes. And when I realized this for the first time, rather than bury it, ignore it or downplay it, I did what anyone who truly loves animals would have done. I celebrated it. Why? Because it meant that we had the power to end the killing, today. And that is what I wanted to happen because I love animals.

And yet here’s the irony: the very supporters of the very groups who have made these spurious allegations against me are actually the ones who benefit puppy mills, not me. As my colleague Ryan Clinton recently wrote,

By fighting lifesaving shelter reform, PETA and other regressive animal organizations are effectively aiding and abetting the commercial breeding of animals. By arguing that all pit bulls in shelters should be killed, PETA and others are necessarily driving those who aim to adopt a pit bull to breeders who will gladly meet the demand. By killing nearly every animal that comes in its front door (and lobbying against No Kill reforms throughout the country), PETA is, in reality, aiding and abetting the continuation of the large-scale animal-production industry.

He’s right. But there’s actually more to it than that. By fighting shelter reform and both defending and promoting killing—which groups like HSUS, the ASPCA and PETA do—they discourage the adoption of shelter animals. By embracing draconian adoption policies, they drive good homes to breeders and pet stores. When they fight efforts to increase rescue partnerships, they lessen the supply of available shelter/rescue animals, again, driving people into the arms of breeders. Moreover, traditional kill shelters discourage adopters by the very fact that they kill.

Many people do not want to visit a shelter where they have to meet animals who face possible execution. This hit home for me one day when I answered the telephone at the shelter. The person who called asked me when our next offsite adoption was. After I gave her the information, I told her she should come down to the shelter because we had hundreds of animals, compared to the ten or so who would be at the offsite. Not knowing we were No Kill, she replied she could never do so and explained why: she couldn’t bear to see the hundreds of animals who might be killed if she didn’t choose them.

As No Kill advocates, we may not like the fact that people won’t face such a discomforting scenario to save a life, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is true. Kill shelters are disturbing, unsettling places to visit for those who care about animals, not to mention the fact that the more a shelter kills, the more dirty and neglectful it is likely to be, and the more hostile and poor its customer service—all driving the public away from shelters and into the arms of the commercial pet trade.

On the other hand, when we reform shelters, we not only make them safe for animal lovers to work at, but we make them safe for adopters, too. During the height of the San Francisco SPCA’s lifesaving success in the late-1990s, when we had seven offsite adoption venues every day throughout the city in addition to our main shelter, there was not a single store selling dogs left in the city. We had out-competed them and they all went out of the animal selling business. When I was running the Tompkins County SPCA, potential adopters in our community faced two main choices: they could buy a kitten at a pet store for $50 or they could adopt one from us (in the same mall) for $30.

Unlike the pet store, our adoptions included sterilization, vaccinations, a free bag of cat food, a free visit to the veterinarian of the adopter’s choice, a free identification tag, a discount at the local pet supply, free grooming, a free guide to caring for their new kitten, free behavior advice for life, a discount on their next cup of coffee, the satisfaction of knowing they saved a life, and, during Christmas, Santa would deliver the kitten to their door. The pet store eventually approached us about working together by having us do cat adoptions in their store. Instead of selling animals, they began helping us find homes for ours.

The same thing is beginning to happen in central Texas, where No Kill reform efforts in various shelters are reducing the demand for purposely bred animals, as Ryan Clinton further explains:

If more Americans adopt dogs and cats from shelters rather than acquiring them from alternative sources like pet stores and on-line sellers, demand for commercially bred animals will necessarily decline. In fact, we’ve seen this come true in Central Texas: at least one large-scale breeder gave up in the face of increased competition from progressive area animal shelters and turned over his keys to a shelter to find homes for his animals… By saving shelter pets’ lives, No Kill policies and programs eat into commercial breeders’ profits.

If we reform our shelters, this could also be the story of every American community. Widespread No Kill success in our nation’s shelters would not only save the lives of almost four million animals every year, it—combined with legislative efforts to regulate, reform, close down, and eliminate their markets—would drive a dagger to the heart of the puppy and kitten mill industries. And yet HSUS, the ASPCA and PETA fight our efforts to reform shelters.

Worse, groups like HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA act like puppy and kitten mills themselves. True animal lovers embrace the No Kill philosophy because they want to prevent harm to animals, such as their systematic slaughter in shelters. True animal lovers also want to shut down the commercial mill trade in animals because they want to prevent harm to these animals, such as their systematic abuse. That is ethically consistent. But PETA, HSUS, the ASPCA and their defenders ignore or fight reform efforts to stop shelter neglect, abuse, and killing which is the same type of harm that animals face in large-scale, commercial breeding operations for the pet store market.

PETA claims to want to stop puppy mill abuse but will defend the exact conduct if it occurs in a shelter. HSUS claims to want to stop puppy mill abuse but will give awards to shelters that sadistically abuse animals. The ASPCA not only fights shelter reform that would eliminate some of the worst abuses of the draconian shelter system we now have, but sends animals to be killed in those shelters. Neglect is neglect, abuse is abuse, killing is killing regardless of by whose hand that neglect, abuse, and killing is done. To look the other way at one because that neglect, abuse, and killing is done by “friends,” “colleagues,” or simply because the perpetrators call themselves a “humane society” is indefensible.

In the final analysis, it is HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA which benefit puppy and kitten mills and the commercial breeding of animals, not No Kill advocates who refuse to subscribe to the lie of pet overpopulation which enables systematic killing. It is HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA which benefit commercial breeding when they fight efforts to reform shelters and make them safe for animal lovers to both work at and adopt from. It is HSUS, the ASPCA, and PETA who act like puppy and kitten mills when they defend abuse and killing in shelters. And by extension, the people who defend these actions by HSUS, ASPCA, and PETA also benefit puppy and kitten mills, in spite of whatever disproven dogma—such as the myth of pet overpopulation—they may cling to in order to defend such a deadly and unethical position.

For further reading:

The Lie at the Heart of the Killing

The Enemy of Your Enemy

What’s In a Name?

Ethical Consistency for True Dog Lovers

Adopting Your Way Out of Killing

Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation & The No Kill Revolution in America

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The Company Man

When Ed Sayres resigned from his $550,000 a year job as CEO of the ASPCA, I wrote ASPCA Board Chair Tim Wray and urged him not to hire yet another in a long line of empty suits. Specifically, I wrote,

The outgoing President of the organization you oversee, the ASPCA, leaves in his wake a legacy of controversy and betrayal. His tenure is marked by his heartless killing of Oreo and other animals who rescuers offered to save, his defeat of rescue rights laws in New York while championing laws that eviscerated shelter holding periods, of releasing manuals which sought to educate shelter directors about how to fight No Kill reform efforts (efforts that were characterized as essentially acts of terrorism), of promoting sham shelter “reform” programs which exacerbated rather than lessened shelter killing, of an animal cruelty investigation division which failed to do its job thereby leaving abused and suffering New York City animals to die, of funding operations that raise animals to be slaughtered for food, and of defending the cruel and abusive New York city pound. In short, Ed Sayres lack of philosophical commitment to the cause which he was entrusted to represent is evident in his tragic legacy, and can best be summed up in the statement he made to the most widely read newspaper in America, USA Today. In 2007, he was quoted as having said, “There is no room for No Kill as morally superior,” equating the needless killing of four million animals a year as the ethical equivalent of a movement which actually saves their lives.

After setting out how the ASPCA could truly be a leader in areas ranging from companion animals to wild animals to animal raised for food, I closed with a plea,

The possibilities are breathtaking, so I urge you not to do what the ASPCA Board has always done when choosing the next President of the ASPCA: do not elevate form over function. Do not choose someone who represents the lowest common denominator, but rather embrace a person of commitment and integrity who will rally the nation with the highest of aspirations. Do not take this decision lightly, but give it a consideration that is equal to its vast potential to help those who are now not only so horribly abused, but so misrepresented by those who are supposed to speak on their behalf as well. By making the right choice, the Board of Directors could not only breathe new and authentic life into the ASPCA motto, “We Are Their Voice,” the ASPCA would be given power to transform our country. The tenure of the next President of the ASPCA could be historic, a before-and-after moment in the cause of animal protection.

 

Given the vast, untapped potential that exists to help animals through the ASPCA; given how much the ASPCA could positively affect American society on behalf of animals in truly profound and lasting ways; and given the gravity of what is potentially at stake, I urge you not to pick yet another, in a long line, of empty suits.

 

The animals deserve better.

They won’t get better. Yesterday, the ASPCA put out a press release saying,

The ASPCA … announced that it has named Matthew E. Bershadker President and CEO. Mr. Bershadker is a 12-year veteran of the ASPCA, serving most recently as Senior Vice President of the Anti-Cruelty Group (ACG). Mr. Bershadker will assume the position June 1, succeeding Edwin Sayres, President and CEO since 2003.

 

Under Mr. Bershadker’s leadership, the ASPCA has risen to new heights in its response to cruelty and natural disasters. The Anti-Cruelty Group evolved from a fledgling team of responders to a robust, national program that confronts animal cruelty and suffering on all levels across the country. Mr. Bershadker helped form the Field Investigations & Response team to provide skilled support to state and federal agencies during large-scale puppy mill busts, dog fighting raids, animal hoarding cases, and other instances of animal cruelty as well as natural disasters such as the Joplin, Mo. tornado and Superstorm Sandy. The team has investigated hundreds of cases around the country. Last year, the ASPCA played a leadership role in the removal of 50 dogs from a Bronx dog fighting ring. Most recently, the ASPCA assisted federal and state authorities in the removal of nearly 100 dogs from a multi-state dog fighting ring.

 

Prior to leading the Anti-Cruelty Group, Mr. Bershadker served as Vice President of the ASPCA’s Development department, where he was responsible for creating fundraising strategy and implementing tactics for major gifts, planned giving, special events, capital campaign, and corporate and foundation grants.

In short, they hired a company man. When animal lovers emailed about Sayre’s war on animal lovers throughout his tenure, Wray defended his then-CEO saying that Sayres helped increase fundraising during his leadership to nearly $150,000,000 a year. To Wray, a money manager himself, profits appeared to define success, irrespective of how many animals were sent to the pound to be killed, how many animals were left to starve in the city, how much the ASPCA sided with cruel and abusive shelters.

The new CEO “was responsible for creating fundraising strategy and implementing tactics for major gifts, planned giving, special events, capital campaign, and corporate and foundation grants,” according to Wray, and therefore, he is qualified, period.

The ASPCA Board, however, claims they really hired him for his “success” at overseeing the Anti-Cruelty Group. Of course, to paraphrase Bill Clinton’s famous line, “it all depends upon what your definition of ‘success’ is.” In this case, failure is the new success.

The ASPCA allowed dogs to starve to death all over New York City. According to a Channel 11 expose,

Dogs, cats and other animals are suffering and even dying needlessly all over New York City, and the culprit behind their hurt, according to PIX11 News sources, is the management of an organization that’s supposed to be helping animals.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reported receiving $122 million in donations last year in its cause to prevent animal cruelty, but some whistleblowers told PIX11 News that the ASPCA is preventing its own animal cruelty investigators from doing their jobs.

The incompetence has had fatal consequences:

An HLE case file obtained by PIX11 News features some very disturbing images. They are about a half dozen photographs that a responding HLE investigator was required to take of a pit bull mix that was so severely emaciated and badly neglected that it died. The case file clearly points out in its narrative, “This case is 2 weeks old,” too long after the ASPCA received an anonymous complaint about the starved dog for HLE officers to step in and save the dog’s life…

 

That case is by no means isolated. PIX11 also obtained other case reports in which dogs were dead by the time investigators were finally given the case files for the called-in complaints. In one case, the investigator wasn’t able to respond to the complaint until seven days after it was called in. In another, the complaint wasn’t followed up for two-and-a-half months.

The ASPCA Press Release announcing the promotion said it was Bershadker’s job “to help protect companion animals that are in danger of potential abuse or neglect.” In the case of animals in the ASPCA’s own backyard, they failed to do so. The anti-cruelty department has also been rocked with allegations of perjury. And when the ASPCA itself was accused in a federal lawsuit of abuse claiming an ASPCA employee, with an alleged history of abuse, kicked to death a man’s dog who was being treated at the ASPCA veterinary hospital, the ASPCA did not admit wrongdoing. ASPCA humane law enforcement agents did not swing into action. Instead, the ASPCA covered up the abuse. It is not clear whether he was in charge of that department at the time, but he was in management and there is little reason to believe the results would have been different. Bershadker’s team routinely looked the other way at horrific neglect and abuse at the New York City pound, continuing to send animals to be abused and killed there, while the ASPCA defended the pound to the animals’ detriment.

According to a lawsuit in federal court, the ASPCA abusively killed this man’s dog and then covered it up.

Finally, Wray lauds Bershadker for his oversight of ASPCA rescues around the country, including during Superstorm Sandy. But what happened to many of the animals “rescued” by Bershadker’s group? After the photo-ops and after the fundraising appeals went out, they were sent to kill shelters. Even if these shelters did not kill any of the ASPCA animals, a dubious proposition in itself, they likely killed local animals to make room. Either way, animals needlessly lost their lives because an agency with annual revenues of nearly 150 million dollars, its own shelter in New York City, and access to the single largest adoption market in the nation didn’t care what happened to the animals once the money people donated was safely deposited in the bank.

Of course, Bershadker promises to take the ASPCA to the “next level.” And animal lovers want to believe, want to be wrong about him, want to hold out hope that he was just biding his time until he could take control and lead the ASPCA in a new direction: just like they wanted to believe when another company man, long-time PR spinmaster and HSUS lobbyist Wayne Pacelle was promoted to CEO of that organization. When he took over HSUS after ten years there, Pacelle also promised a new, improved HSUS. Specifically, he stated that HSUS,

[W]ill honor the highest ethical standards in pursuing our mission, working within the system to advance our objectives. At the same time, we will strive to be nimble, hard-hitting, and aggressive, seizing opportunities as they arise and pushing ahead in a determined way with our proactive agenda. We exist to change the status quo and to change social norms. As such, confrontation and controversy are not to be feared; instead, they are logical consequences of meaningful and effective action.

Instead, they got more of the same: more killing, more support of killing, and a defense of neglect and abuse of animals, so long as the neglect and abuse occurred in shelters. In other words, like Pacelle before him, there is little reason to elevate hope above experience with Bershadker. When someone shows you who they are and what they represent over and over again, believe them. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Learn more:

The ASPCA Allows Dogs to Starve to Death

In the Arms of the Angel of Death

No More Empty Suits

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Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

Death, the Great Equalizer

For most of his life, my dog, Pickles, has been afraid of strangers. Although age and infirmity have mellowed this tendency, his reaction to the new or foreign has generally been one of suspicion and caution. When approached by a stranger, he lets out a low rumble, then a growl and finally a bark, complete with raised hackles. His message: keep away, the same message his mother repeatedly gave to those who worked at the shelter where she gave birth. Very few people could get near his mother at the shelter. She, too, did not like strangers.

I decided to adopt Pickles when he was seven weeks old and just back from foster care. That was 13 years ago. The shelter’s dog trainer was with me. Pickles and his brother, Top-Top, were the last two of a litter of five. As I sat on the ground, his brother came running toward me, climbed on top of me, wiggling his whole body in delight. Pickles stayed back, eyeing me suspiciously. It took a lot of coaxing to get him to come to me. The trainer recommended I adopt Top-Top. “That one,” she said pointing to Pickles, “will give you trouble.” I didn’t need to hear any more. I was sold, but not in the way she intended. He needed me. So I adopted Pickles (and Top-Top) on the spot. He did give us trouble, growling and snarling and barking at strangers. Pickles is, after all, his mother’s son.

To us, though, Pickles has always been an angel. When offered food, he opens his mouth slightly, careful to grab only with the slightest pressure, to avoid biting the hand that feeds him. He is affectionate, devoted, loving. We are his peeps. But we are not the only ones.

When Pickles was just a puppy, he came to work with me at the San Francisco SPCA every day. Besides my family, one person he grew up with was my friend and coworker, Mike Baus. He saw Mike and spent time with Mike five days a week. In fact, coworkers who Pickles finally accepted after months of eyeing them suspiciously and were allowed to enter the office considered it a high honor. Pickles was picky about the people he let into his circle, and it came to be regarded as an exclusive club. To be in Pickles’ good graces meant you were something special. And once you were in, you were in, forever.

We moved from California to New York and Pickles did not see Mike for three years. When Mike came to visit us, Pickles was outside in the yard. As Mike pulled up in his rental car, Pickles let us know how he felt about this stranger in our midst. Weary, he let out his signature low rumble of discontent. As Mike exited the car, the rumble became a growl. On cue, the hackles came up, but then something else happened. He cocked his head slightly and a look of recognition came across his face. It was Mike! The hackles receded and Pickles celebrated, barking wildly, jumping on him, and licking his face in a way he never would with anyone but our family. To Pickles, Mike was family, the prodigal son who returned after a three year hiatus.

Dogs are not alone in celebrating family. In a workshop on extending the No Kill safety net to wildlife at last year’s No Kill Conference, Mike Fry, former Clinic Coordinator for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center at the University of Minnesota and the former Rehabilitation Manager for the HOWL Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Seattle, Washington, told the story of an injured crow.

This particular crow had become entangled in kite string high in an old Oak tree in the yard of a resident of St. Paul. Unwilling to watch the bird suffer, the home owner where the tree grew climbed the tree and cut the crow free. Unfortunately, the kite string had been wrapped tightly around the bird’s left wing for an extended period of time, resulting in loss of blood flow and significant tissue damage. The bird could not fly. Because of the extent of the damage, rehabilitation took many weeks. Eventually, the crow recovered and was released at the base of the Oak tree from which he had been rescued.

When his transport carrier was opened, he hesitated for a moment, then jumped out and quickly flew to the top of the tree. Immediately, he began jumping up and down, bobbing his head and cawing enthusiastically. It was a happy dance, celebrating his return home. Within seconds, crows from throughout the neighborhood flew to the tree, where they joined in the dance. Soon the tree was full of bobbing, bouncing and cawing crows, celebrating the return of their friend. Mike credits this incident with a renewed appreciation for the significance of his work as a wildlife rehabber: saving a wild animal doesn’t just help the sick or injured animal, but the friends and family members of that animal, too, who no doubt notice the loss of their companion or, in the case of animals who mate for life as many birds do, their life’s partner.

Animals are capable of great joy when it comes to those they know and love. So it should be no surprise that they also are capable of great sorrow. In the recent Time magazine article “The Mystery of Animal Grief,” the author writes,

A dead crow lying in the open will quickly attract two or three other crows. They dive and swoop and scold—emitting a very particular call that summons up to a hundred other members of the flock. With near ceremonial coordination, they land and surround the body, often in complete silence. Some may bring sticks or bits of grass and lay them next to—or even on top of—the remains.

He also explains how cats will cry at the loss of a mate, elephants will reverently caress the bones of a departed friend even years after their death and dogs and rabbits mourn, too: “[S]orrow following a death has been observed on the farm—among goats, pigs, ducks—and in the oceans…” Indeed, there is great evidence proving that, like humans, animals “honor, mourn and even hold wakes for their dead.”

Animals grieve, and grieving requires awareness of a before and an after, a difference between then and now, of possession, or for the purposes of this discussion, the presence of someone dear, and the subsequent loss of that someone and the pain and emptiness that their departure creates. Like us, animals suffer from death—not only do they flee harm that might cause it to themselves, but they feel pain from the death of other animals with whom they are bonded. “In humans,” the author writes, “mourning is mediated by the frontal cortex, the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala, a deeply seated structure that processes emotions. We share that basic anatomy with many other animals…”

Yet despite the research that shows that animals are aware of death and both fear and mourn it, groups like PETA state that killing animals is not unethical if it is done by lethal injection. According to PETA staff, ‘it is just like being put under anesthesia for spay/neuter, with the only difference being that the animal never wakes up.’ But whether an individual is aware they are about to be killed isn’t why it is wrong to take someone else’s life. In the horrifying 1978 thriller, Coma, a doctor intentionally put patients into a coma (and ultimately killed them) when they were admitted to a hospital for surgery and were under for anesthesia. The victims had no concept of their own death because they simply never woke up. By PETA’s logic, this sort of killing is perfectly acceptable, a viewpoint made all the more absurd by the growing body of evidence that proves PETA’s assertion that animals do not value their lives as we do is not true. Not only does their proven ability to mourn prove an awareness of death, but so does the behavior of animals forced to witness the killing of other animals.

A former Los Angeles and New York City pound director once stated that animals “do not have a conception of death,” a claim disproved not only by the science, but by the very practices in his own shelters. In fact, go to any regressive shelter, where animals are killed in front of each other because lining them up and killing them in a row is quicker and more efficient. In these shelters, kittens are killed in front of their mother, and mothers are killed in front of their puppies, and dogs and cats are killed in front of others. As employees go down the row, you will see concern, stress, fear, and even resistance on the part of the others. Brain studies of animals in situations involving death show what they show in humans: higher amygdala activation. They know death and they understand its threat to themselves and to others, just like we do.

Animals are only like us—or in Ingrid Newkirk’s famous pronouncement, “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy”—when PETA, HSUS, and others want others to treat animals a certain way, but not when it comes to the inhumane way they treat animals (as trash to be disposed of). In other words, when they are the ones harming animals, a dog is no longer a boy. Why?

It is easier for PETA to kill, for shelter directors to kill, and for groups like HSUS to defend killing, if they can downplay the gravity of what they are doing by continuing to maintain the fiction that animals are not like us when it doesn’t suit them. So long as animals are incapable of grief, so long as they cannot conceptualize death, killing them (if it done by lethal injection) doesn’t matter to these groups, effectively eviscerating not just the science, but the entire philosophical and ethical foundation of the animal protection movement. In both their practices and their defense of killing, they model to the American public the very notions they should be working hardest to overcome: the lie that animals have no value and that robbing them of their life is of no moral consequence.

But try as they might, once again, the truth will out. And the truth is simple: we can no longer conveniently deny that animals lack awareness, do not grieve, lack morality, and have no language. They do. In other words, they are just like us. But you do not need to be a scientist to make that connection. In fact, science is finally catching up to what every person who shares his/her life with an animal companion has known for decades.

When your dog dies, you will grieve. When you die, your dog will grieve. That alone should take killing off the table.

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Postscript: In one sense, it should not matter whether animals are like us or not. In other words, whether animals are capable of the same range of emotions or the same abilities as humans has nothing to do with whether they have a right to live and the right to be treated compassionately. However, groups like PETA claim animals do not have the “right to life” and maintain the fiction that they are promoting their “welfare” in killing animals by preventing potential future suffering. That this is a logical contradiction is not hard to see (harming animals now to prevent possible future harm), but given the science, killing an animal can no longer be rationalized by the false and convenient cover of “animal welfare.” Killing itself robs an animal of something they value, and that is incompatible not only with animal rights, but animal welfare, too, another reason why “animal welfare” without animal rights is impossible: where there is no respect for life, there is no regard for welfare.

Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

Help Stop PETA’s Killing

In the last 11 years, 29,426 animals have died at PETA’s hands including those they themselves described as “healthy,” “adorable,” and “perfect.” In some cases, this includes animals they promised to find homes for, only to put them to death within minutes in the back of a van—a donor-funded mobile death squad on wheels. It includes kittens and puppies. According to Ingrid Newkirk, PETA is “not in the home finding business.” Its mission is to put animals to death. PETA has no adoption hours, it does not keep animals alive long enough to find homes, and it does no adoption promotion. You can learn more in my Huffington Post expose by clicking here. How is this legal? PETA is registered in Virginia as an animal shelter.

Since employees of “animal shelters” are the only non-veterinarians authorized by Virginia law to kill animals, removing PETA’s designation as a shelter will put the brakes on PETA killing. Click here for the petition filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture (VDACS) on behalf of the No Kill Advocacy Center.

Help me end PETA’s mobile death vans. Help me end PETA’s ability to hire mindless “yes men” to kill animals at the whim and discretion of Ingrid Newkirk. Please take a moment to email VDACS Commissioner Matt Lohr and Animal Shelter Inspector Dr. Dan Kovich and POLITELY ask that they grant the NKAC petition to remove PETA’s designation as an animal shelter:

Commissioner Lohr: matt.lohr@vdacs.virginia.gov

Dr. Kovich: dan.kovich@vdacs.virginia.gov

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Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

A Man on a Mission

Todd Rumsey, his wife Patti, and their three rescued dogs. The little one was saved from being killed by a late-term spay. 

Todd Rumsey never set out to be a No Kill advocate. He never set out to be caught in PETA’s crosshairs. And he never set out to become embroiled in a controversy that challenged the County Mayor and his animal control director’s effort to silence animal lovers. But after the Williamson County, TN animal shelter needlessly put to death 11 puppies and cavalierly cost their mother her life, after PETA blindly attacked his character and the Mayor threatened to retaliate against him for exercising his constitutional rights, he became one.

Todd Rumsey is the President of No Kill Williamson County in Tennessee and he is a man on a mission. Six months ago, if you told him this is where he would end up, he wouldn’t have believed you. He would have told you he was just here to give back to his community and teach his kids the importance of volunteering by walking dogs at the local shelter.

I had a chance to speak to him about his journey from weekend dog walker to full-time No Kill advocate.

Nathan Winograd: You’ve written that you never started out to become a No Kill advocate. What did you start out to do?

Todd Rumsey: My wife and I searched for a way to give back to the No Kill rescue where we adopted our second dog. We were amazed by the sheer number of dogs that they saved and were astonished that so many dogs needed to be saved. We also encouraged our teenage daughter and sons to give back to their community by caring for animals in need. Soon walking dogs became a weekend family ritual, offering an opportunity to combine our love for dogs with an outlet for community service that we enjoyed together as a family. A year later a job change landed us in the Nashville area. We began volunteering at our county animal control.

NW: Was there a difference between walking dogs for a No Kill rescue group and animal control?

TR: The dedication and effort of the animal control volunteers was amazing. Their tireless work to socialize the animals, foster them, find rescues and forever homes astounded me. The more I worked alongside these volunteers, the more I realized how unrecognized their efforts were. I couldn’t reconcile the fact that it was their hard work that was propping up the success of the very same shelter management they were at odds with. How could these volunteers stand by and allow those who often blocked their efforts and held animals lives hostage take credit for their work? The answer was they had no choice. They put their self-interest and pride aside and endured whatever senseless decisions came their way keeping their eyes squarely focused on saving each and every animal they could.

NW: Is that when you spoke out?

TR: No. I spent my Saturday mornings walking dogs and told myself that I was there to help one dog at a time. I would not get caught up in internal politics and drama. I resisted the urge to explore areas of the facility marked as ‘no entrance allowed’ and refused to ask as dogs disappeared from one week to the next.

NW: What finally changed things?

TR: About a year into our animal control experience, my wife and I got a call from a fellow volunteer. She was frantic because she had been told by shelter management that they were over capacity and faced killing dogs to make space. We were confused because we had been told repeatedly by shelter management that they never kill for space. We volunteered to foster a beautiful King Charles Spaniel mix and she was adopted by close family friends after a weekend in our home. We were proud that our first foster experience was a success, but our suspicion that other dogs had not fared so well weighed heavy on our minds.

Shortly thereafter, my wife and I agreed to meet with a small group of fellow volunteers who were interested in starting a local No Kill advocacy group. The material that they presented from the No Kill Advocacy Center was an eye opener and as we left the meeting, we were handed a copy of ‘Irreconcilable Differences’. We were urged to read it and consider taking an active role in moving this cause forward in our community.

NW: So you learned that the shelter claiming it did not “kill for space” wasn’t true. Did you approach the shelter and offer to help make Williamson County No Kill?

TR: Yes, the newly formed Board of Directors of No Kill Williamson County TN met with Williamson County Animal Control management. We presented our by-laws, code of conduct, goals and objectives emphasizing that we were more than a loose fit collection of well-meaning animal lovers, we were a well-organized, professional group. We presented the shelter kill rate statistics and the corresponding volunteer programs that would improve save rates and move the shelter toward No Kill status and offered to help make it happen.

NW: What did he say?

TR: The Director’s response was that the shelter would never be No Kill. So we took our concerns and offer to help to our elected officials.

NW: What did you expect? And what actually happened?

TR: Six months ago I was an unassuming Saturday morning dog walking volunteer at the local shelter. The workings of local government were the furthest thing from my mind. I didn’t know who my county elected officials were, and frankly didn’t care. I was apolitical, but sure that our elected officials worked hard for the best interest of our community and would engage if I were to reach out to them. Discovering this not to be the case has been a sad realization. Their dismissal of emails, phone calls, letters, newspaper articles, radio talk show appearances and headlining on a major regional TV newscast lead to one conclusion. They simply don’t care.

Our Mayor and County Commissioners turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to us and what we thought would be such a straightforward, relatively easy cause to champion within an affluent animal loving community was about to turn into a nationally recognized animal advocacy fight over our constitutional rights. We never imagined being deliberately blocked from saving animals lives and having our integrity attacked by PETA.

NW: How did PETA get involved?

TR: Prior to our association with No Kill, we fostered a pregnant dog and cared for her and her 10 newborn puppies. After stating our No Kill affiliation, our attempts to foster a late-term pregnant dog and allow her to give birth and wean her puppies were blocked by the shelter director and the county mayor. And when a shelter employee pointed out a pregnant lab-mix and stated ‘that one there is ready to pop, she’s full of pups,’ they spayed her and killed her 11 puppies even though we were willing to foster her. Because they were full-term, they had to remove each one and give them a lethal injection. It was a very risky procedure and the mother died a few weeks later from what I believe are complications related to the late-term spay. Given that the shelter and elected officials didn’t care, we went public, to the media. That’s when PETA got involved. They wrote a letter to the Mayor thanking him for killing those puppies, urging him to kill all Pit Bulls, and attacking us.

NW: Were you aware that PETA’s mission is to fight lifesaving reform in shelters and encourage them to kill more animals?

TR: No. Prior to this incident, we knew very little about PETA. What we have learned is that PETA is an organization quick to personally attack local shelter volunteers and rescues who they know nothing about. The author of this letter has never been to our county shelter, or to our county for that matter. She knows nothing about us personally, nor does she know of the countless hours that we devote to our county shelter. But, what is even harder to accept, is our County Mayor circulating this letter as a form of praise for the good works of shelter management under his supervision.

NW: It must have felt like a punch in the stomach to have a group that claims to support ethical treatment of animals attacking those who are offering to save animals and praising those intent on killing them.

TR: Yes. All I did was give up my Saturday mornings to care for animals in my local county shelter. All I did was take in dogs from that shelter and care for them in my house on my dime so they would have a chance at a better life. All I did was encourage my teenage daughter and sons to give back to their community by caring for animals in need. All I did was ask my shelter not to kill a litter of viable puppies and put the mother in harm’s way. What do I get in return? A letter from a person at PETA who has never stepped foot in my county or our shelter or my home and has never met me or my family or my group of tireless volunteer friends. I get a letter to my community calling us “a self-professed,” and evidently misguided, “rescue” group” accusing us of intending to take custody of badly injured animals so we can use their photos for fundraising schemes. For me, for my friends and for the animals we serve this is not some philosophical abstract debate. Simply put, PETA has insulted me and blindly attacked my character. And in doing that, they have converted a Saturday morning shelter volunteer who just wanted to quietly give back to his community into a No Kill advocate on a mission.

NW: At least you know who and what you are dealing with and what you have to do to end the killing.

TR: Our resolve is unflappable and we intend to win—for the animals. And if there is a silver lining, it is that the animal control Director, the county mayor and PETA gave my wife and I the opportunity to show our children that their parents have the courage to stand up for what is right.

Learn more:

No Kill Williamson County, TN

 

Puppies Aborted, Killed at Williamson County Shelter

 

Williamson County Animal Shelter Adopts New Volunteer Policy

 

PETA Encourages Mayor to Kill More Animals

 

No Kill Advocacy Centers Tells Mayor to Stop Illegal Retribution

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Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

No Kill Conference 2013

One morning after Tompkins County, NY became a No Kill community, a woman brought in a stray cat she had found. She explained to me how this was the first time she had ever brought an animal to the shelter. In the past, whenever she found an animal in need, she took the animal home. She explained how she often felt overwhelmed by the amount of animals she had to care for, but she didn’t have a choice because the shelter would have killed any cats she found and brought in, something she would never allow them to happen. She then expressed relief and gratitude that Tompkins County was now No Kill, and had a shelter she could turn to for help.

How would you like to live in that kind of community? How would you like your bathroom to be your bathroom again, instead of a kennel for injured animals you’ve found? How would you like to wake up and drink a cup of coffee, rather than first spending an hour medicating sick animals you have found? Of course you can always still do those things, but it doesn’t have to all fall on you. Join me and dozens of other speakers at No Kill Conference 2013 as we show you how to build a No Kill community.

Workshops for everyone: shelter staff, Board members, rescuers, lawyers, activists, and other animal lovers.

For a list of workshops, click here.

 

For a list of speakers, click here.

TODAY is the last day to get an early registration discount. If you are with a shelter or rescue group or are a student, there are additional discounts. If you are a municipal shelter director, you can get in free. But only if you register today. (Professional education certificate and continuing legal education credits are available).

No Kill Conference 2013
Washington, D.C.
July 13-14, 2013
www.nokillconference.org

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Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

Wayne Pacelle: PETA’s Puppet

It is one of the most common questions I get whenever I post about PETA’s killing and their efforts to undermine shelter reform efforts nationwide: How are they allowed to get away with it? The answer is two-fold. First, although killing healthy animals is morally reprehensible, killing healthy animals is not illegal. Whenever animal advocates attempt to introduce laws such as the Companion Animal Protection Act that would eliminate the ability of people to kill animals in the face of readily-available lifesaving alternatives, PETA works to defeat them, by manipulating not only the public’s false perception and therefore misplaced trust in PETA, but by harnessing their equally naïve membership to write legislators in opposition. Second, in the absence of laws prohibiting such behavior, the other force that should be working to stop PETA’s killing—the animal protection movement—has instead chosen to willfully ignore it and even embrace PETA, in spite of their actions which harm animals.

 

HSUS has not only historically walked in lock step with PETA’s anti-No Kill crusade—allowing PETA to equate the movement to stop shelter killing with hoarding and animal abuse at HSUS’ own animal sheltering conference—but they are the “voice of authority” on sheltering that PETA uses to legitimize their reactionary, pro-killing views to legislators, the media and the public. If you oppose PETA’s campaign of extermination and their efforts to derail shelter reform, you should oppose the groups that give PETA their blessing and a helping hand to do so, as well.

 

Following is my letter to Wayne Pacelle, President of HSUS, exposing how PETA’s nationwide effort to harass and vilify No Kill reformers and their systematic program to defend and even perpetuate an antiquated and cruel sheltering model based on killing, are a reflection of many of the regressive and cruel policies likewise promoted by HSUS itself.

By Nathan & Jennifer Winograd

April 10, 2013

Wayne Pacelle
Humane Society of the United States
2100 L Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20037

Dear Wayne,

It is time for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to stop legitimizing the deadly actions of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Over the last two decades, PETA has willfully and systematically worked to undermine the welfare and rights of our nation’s companion animals. In addition to seeking out thousands of animals every year to poison with an overdose of barbiturates, PETA is one of the most vocal opponents of efforts to end the neglect, abuse and killing occurring at animal shelters across the country.

PETA undermines the efforts of animal lovers to reform their local shelters, even when those local shelters horrifically abuse animals. They campaign to expand killing, urging shelters not to work with rescue groups, not to foster animals in need, to ban the adoption of many animals, and to round up and kill community cats. They defeat desperately needed shelter reform laws which have been introduced in states across the nation—laws that have been proven to save hundreds of thousands of lives in those states which have passed them. And by continually perpetuating the myth that No Kill animal control shelters do not and cannot exist, PETA is one of the greatest barriers to building a kinder, gentler America for our nation’s companion animals.

Although over 80% of Americans believe that shelters should not round up and kill community cats and even your organization was forced to recant your long held position in favor of mass killing, PETA calls on local governments to reject TNR in favor of trapping and killing such animals. While many Americans share their homes with “Pit Bull” dogs whom they consider cherished members of their family and while activists are working to reform the unfair stereotypes that lead to the mass killing of dogs classified as “Pit Bulls,” once again forcing HSUS to no longer seek their mass killing, PETA remains defiant, calling for a ban on their “adoption/release,” irrespective of their temperament.

When animal lovers have criticized their local shelters for killing full-term pregnant animals (even animals in active labor), rather than sending those animals into foster care or transferring them to rescue groups to give birth, PETA has written public officials encouraging them to continue this practice. When animal lovers have complained of sadistic abuse and systematic neglect of animals in shelters, PETA has written public officials encouraging them to ignore reformers and maintain the status quo.

In several instances when PETA has written in opposition to greater lifesaving in shelters, to promote more killing, and to defend abusive staff, PETA staff attributes their reactionary views to your organization. In February of 2012, for example, PETA wrote the Mayor of Norfolk, Virginia, to oppose shelter reform, stating:

The dangerous, unrealistic policies and procedures pushed on the council by this small but fanatical constituency is part of a national movement to target, harass, and vilify open admission shelters and their staff in an effort to mislead the public into believing that ‘no kill’ is as easy as simply not euthanizing animals… [Quoting HSUS:] ‘There are no municipal shelters in the country that operate as ‘no-kill.’ A few have tried, but have quickly turned back due to overcrowding, inability to manage services, and staff outcry. It is the municipality’s job to accept all animals and conduct responsible adoptions. The reality is there are not enough homes for all animals…’ The goals of reducing overpopulation and euthanasia do not get accomplished by limiting yourself to the category of ‘no-kill.’ It is an unattainable goal that will set you up for failure.

There are many factual inaccuracies in the statement that PETA attributes to your organization, chief among them is that when the original statement by HSUS was made and as you are no doubt aware, Tompkins County, New York was in its fourth No Kill year. By the time PETA released the letter, there were dozens of communities across the nation that had achieved the same level of No Kill success using the Tompkins model, which was also being proposed for Norfolk. And though over a decade has passed since the seminal achievement of the nation’s first No Kill community, neither your organization nor PETA has publicly acknowledged that this success occurred, nor that it has been replicated in economically, geographically and demographically diverse communities across the nation. And to this day, PETA is using inaccurate information released by your organization to willfully mislead government entities on the viability of No Kill alternatives.

In 2001, Tompkins County, NY became the first No Kill community, a fact which neither HSUS nor PETA has acknowledged so that they can continue lying to public officials that it is impossible. 

To defend the killing, PETA further quotes your organization as having stated that “The reality is that there are not enough homes for all animals,” a fact not only contradicted by the then-success of Tompkins County and the success of numerous communities which have since follow its lead, but by your own study that proves that the demand for animals in the United States outstrips the supply in shelters by over eight-fold. By your own calculations, when shelters compete for the market share of adopters and when they keep animals alive long enough to find those homes, animals live instead of die.

Spayed while in the process of giving birth by the Williamson County, TN, pound, her 11 puppies were individually poisoned. She died a few days later as a result of complications from the surgery. A rescue group offered to save her and her puppies. The shelter refused and all 12 of them are now dead. PETA applauded the move.

In March of this year, PETA also wrote a letter to the Mayor of Williamson County, Tennessee, to advocate for greater killing after the shelter killed puppies by spaying a dog in active labor. The puppies, full term and viable, were each individually killed through an overdose of barbiturates during her spay. Although the procedure was risky given the late term of the dog’s pregnancy, the shelter director ordered her to be operated on regardless, causing the mother to also die as a result of complications. Prior to the surgery, rescuers and volunteers had offered to save this dog and her puppies only to be refused the ability to do so. Understandably upset, they were further sickened by their needless deaths and went public with concerns. The shelter director retaliated by instituting a “Volunteer Code of Conduct” that threatens to fire volunteers for exercising their First Amendment rights.

In response, the No Kill Advocacy Center sent a letter to the Mayor informing him that this policy violates the constitutional rights of volunteers, citing both laws protecting the right to free speech and the precedent of similar cases settled in favor of shelter volunteers. PETA, on the other hand, wrote a letter to the Mayor praising the pound director’s decision, thanking him for refusing the volunteer’s request to save the mother and her puppies, and arguing in favor of a shelter policy mandating the continued killing of these animals: “We … urge you to maintain the county’s policy of spaying pregnant animals before release.”  To substantiate their call for more killing, PETA, once again, quoted your agency, stating:

Thankfully, national animal control and sheltering experts have proposed guidelines for handling these issues…The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has these uncompromising recommendations for choosing animals for foster/transfer programs: ‘Don’t place pregnant animals in foster care unless special circumstances demand it… Spay the animal and abort the litter, if you can’ [emphasis added].

Whether it is ethical to spay a pregnant dog is not an “abstract” discussion. It has life and death consequences. If the kittens or puppies are viable, they must be individually killed, usually through an injection of sodium pentobarbital. Even when they are not, when a mother is spayed, the kittens or puppies die from anoxia (oxygen deprivation) due to lack of blood supply from the uterus once the vessels are clamped. They suffocate. That is not consistent with the welfare and rights of animals. Nor is this an “either-or” proposition: either unborn puppies and kittens must die or those already born must. Such an argument condones the atrocity committed against animals who are thrown away as if they are nothing more than garbage. Moreover, your own study proves that both groups can be saved.

Aborted puppies are individually killed and then thrown in the trash, a course of conduct both PETA and HSUS encourage.

PETA, unfortunately, did not stop there. Even though the mother in this case was a Lab-mix, they also recommended a ban on the adoption of all dogs who look like “Pit Bulls,” a policy that will lead to the killing of animals based solely on the way they look. Studies confirm that shelters misidentify breed over 70% of the time, and that, in fact, “Pit Bull” is no longer even a recognizable breed of dog. It is, instead what a national advocacy organization correctly called,

A catch-all term used to describe a continually expanding incoherent group of dogs, including pure-bred dogs and mixed-breed dogs. A ‘Pit Bull’ is any dog an animal control officer, shelter worker, dog trainer, politician, dog owner, police officer, newspaper reporter or anyone else says is a ‘Pit Bull.’

So not only are shelters mislabeling dogs, they are killing them as a result, with the full blessing and encouragement of PETA. To PETA, young puppies and friendly dogs should be systematically put to death as long as someone claims they are a “Pit Bull.”

PETA has called on animal shelters to ban the “adoption/release” of “Pit Bulls,” and to put them to death instead.

Once again, PETA did not stop there. It also urged the shelter not to transfer sick or injured animals to rescue groups or foster homes, either, but to kill them instead. PETA writes:

HSUS is clear in its recommendations regarding sick and injured animals: ‘Animals needing extensive care should not be fostered because their medical needs can drain limited resources and because few foster parents are trained to provide intensive nursing. Also, avoid placing an animal with a contagious disease in a foster home that already has pets.’

PETA cites HSUS for the proposition that animals with medical needs should be killed, not fostered.

To the extent that the County embraces PETA/HSUS positions, animals will continue losing their lives needlessly. If the County carries out its threats of retribution, the animals will also lose their most ardent champions. As the volunteers who were threatened wrote,

Prior to this incident, we knew very little about PETA. What we have learned is that PETA is an organization quick to personally attack local shelter volunteers and rescues who they know nothing about. The author of this letter has never been to our county shelter, or to our county for that matter. She knows nothing about us personally, nor does she know of the countless hours that we devote to our county shelter. But, what is even harder to accept, is our County Mayor circulating this letter as a form of praise for the good works of shelter management under his supervision.

Rather that work alongside animal lovers ready, willing and able to help their local shelter save more lives and who want their tax dollars used in a manner that reflects, rather than hinders, their values, PETA fights them, providing regressive shelter directors political cover and encouraging them to kill even more than they already do.

Puppies killed by PETA in the back of a van, a donor-funded mobile slaughterhouse stocked with syringes and lethal drugs.

Tragically, they also practice what they preach. PETA consistently kills over 90% of the animals that are entrusted to their care. State inspection reports detail that the facilities PETA has to house the approximately 2,000 animals they take in annually are inadequate for the volume of intake and were designed merely to house animals for no more than 24 hours before killing them, precluding the effective adoption efforts for these animals even if PETA wanted to find them homes, which, by both PETA’s own admission and the individuals who have entrusted healthy animals to their care only to find out that those animals were killed reveal, they are not interested in doing. PETA has no adoption hours, does no adoption promotion, has no adoption floor, and doesn’t keep animals alive long enough to be adopted. Ingrid Newkirk herself has admitted that they are “not in the home finding business,” but in the killing one: “Our service is to provide a peaceful and painless death…”

Garbage bags containing the bodies of animals killed by PETA, animals they themselves called “adorable” and “perfect,” and many who they promised they would find homes for.

As anyone who has witnessed shelter killing can attest, it is often not peaceful and not painless and it is no less violent even if it was, especially when it is inflicted on animals who PETA has admitted were “healthy,” “adoptable,” “adorable,” and “perfect.” Indeed, in 2005, PETA employees were the subject of an undercover investigation by the police department in Ahoskie, North Carolina after many garbage bags full of dead bodies were discovered in a supermarket dumpster. The sting operation resulted in the arrest of PETA employees who admitted to having killed the animals. Among the dead were many young, healthy animals, including several puppies, as well as a mother cat and her kittens who had been given to PETA by a local veterinarian after PETA employees promised to find those animals homes, only to kill them immediately in the back of a PETA van—a mobile slaughterhouse on wheels stocked with a tackle box full of syringes and poison. Since this incident, PETA’s killing has continued unabated, with PETA reporting an annual death toll of roughly 90% or greater for the past 11 years, 29,426 animals in all.

A tackle box filled with syringes and poison in the back of the PETA death van confiscated by police during a sting operation.

In interviews and articles that she has written, PETA’s founder Ingrid Newkirk has expressed views on the killing of companion animals that are not only the antithesis of those one would expect from an organization claiming to be dedicated to promoting the rights of animals, but views that are perversely outside the norm of how most animal-loving Americans feel about animals as well. While three out of four Americans believe shelters should not be allowed to kill healthy or treatable animals (and most of the remainder falsely believe shelters have no choice because of PETA and HSUS propaganda to that effect), PETA argues that these animals want to die and killing them is a “gift.” PETA has also argued that the movement to save their lives is nothing more than “slow-kill hoarding” and “fanatical,” views they once expressed at your invitation to sheltering officials across the country at Expo, HSUS’ annual sheltering conference.

HSUS has given PETA a forum to equate No Kill with mental illness to animal control officers and shelter staff from across the nation, urging those officers/staff to maintain a policy of killing.

Unfortunately, using the common public perception of PETA as an organization dedicated to the “ethical treatment” of animals and trumpeting the statements of your organization, Newkirk and her acolytes veil their reactionary views under a cloak of legitimacy to ensure the continued killing of companion animals in shelters across the nation. Disguised as an animal rights organization but perpetuating an agenda that seeks death and defends the continued neglect and abuse of animals in American shelters, PETA is a powerful force for harm working to subvert animal protection in the United States.

As an equally powerful and influential organization that claims to be dedicated to animals and one that is being used by PETA to perpetuate their deadly agenda, you have a moral obligation to speak out against them. Will you? Will you continue to stand idly by while PETA kills thousands of animals a year, undermines the work of animal lovers, defends cruel and abusive shelters, bullies animal lovers and promotes harmful and deadly sheltering protocols using HSUS as a weapon and shield? Or will you do what so many animal lovers across the nation have done: stand up and speak out against them?

Wayne, I call on you to publicly condemn PETA for their continued killing and embrace of killing in the face of readily available lifesaving alternatives. I call on you to publicly condemn PETA for using HSUS to perpetuate neglect, abuse and killing in shelters. I call on you to publicly reject the policies PETA attributes to HSUS in defense of killing. And I call on you to issue an unequivocal public guarantee that you will never again give PETA a forum to share such views at your animal sheltering conference or in any of your publications.

And should you do none of these things, but choose to continue looking the other way while your organization is used as a tool to kill animals, am I to assume that you agree with PETA and support their campaign of extermination?

Very truly yours,

Nathan J. Winograd

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Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

 

Why I Fight PETA

I just did a radio interview on PETA’s campaign of companion animal extermination, based on my Huffington Post expose. Toward the end of the interview, the host asked me about killing rats for medical research and when I tried to speak out against that, too, I was cut off. I want to be clear: I do not oppose PETA because of what they are supposed to be. I oppose PETA because they are not what they are supposed to be.

Over the last two decades, PETA has willfully and systematically worked to undermine the welfare and rights of our nation’s companion animals. In addition to seeking out thousands of animals every year to poison with an overdose of barbiturates, PETA is one of the most vocal opponents of efforts to end the neglect, abuse and killing occurring at shelters across the country. PETA undermines the efforts of animal lovers to reform their local shelters, even when those local shelters horrifically abuse animals. They campaign to expand killing, urging shelters not to work with rescue groups, not to foster animals in need, to ban the adoption of many animals, and to round up and kill community cats. They defeat desperately needed shelter reform laws which have been introduced in states across the nation—laws that have been proven to save hundreds of thousands of lives in those states which have passed them. And by continually perpetuating the myth that No Kill animal control shelters do not and cannot exist, PETA is one of the greatest barriers to building a kinder, gentler America for our nation’s companion animals.

Although over 80% of Americans believe that shelters should not round up and kill community cats, PETA calls on local governments to reject TNR in favor of trapping and killing these cats. While many Americans share their homes with “Pit Bull” dogs whom they consider cherished members of their family and while activists are working to reform the unfair stereotypes that lead to the mass killing of dogs classified as “Pit Bulls,” PETA has called for a ban on their “adoption/release,” irrespective of their temperament.

When animal lovers have criticized their local shelters for killing full-term pregnant animals (even animals in active labor), rather than sending those animals into foster care or transferring them to rescue groups to give birth, PETA has written public officials encouraging them to continue this practice. When animal lovers have complained of sadistic abuse and systematic neglect of animals in shelters, PETA has written public officials encouraging them to ignore reformers and maintain the status quo.

That is why I fight PETA.

But if they did none of these things; if they actually worked to solve problems rather than exploit animals for shock value, fundraising and media coverage while engaging in a systematic effort to exterminate them; if they actually loved animals; if they tried to save them; if they believed in the right to life, rather than the right of people to kill them; and if the Butcher of Norfolk and her acolytes were not associated with the organization; I would be a supporter because I believe all animals deserve the right to live and all the other rights that naturally flow from that.

I hold this truth to be self-evident: that all human and non-human animals are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. And because I hold that truth to be self-evident, I fight.

Learn more:

PETA’s Secret Slaughter of Kittens, Puppies

whyPETAkills.org

U.S. No Kill Declaration

All American Vegan

A Man with an Agenda

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Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

Have a comment? Join the discussion by clicking here.

A Man With An Agenda

In response to my article exposing PETA’s killing, PETA claims I am a “man with an agenda.” My only agenda is to stop their killing.

My Huffington Post expose about PETA’s systematic slaughter of animals has received 160,000 “likes” and has been shared over 50,000 times. In a response issued by PETA yesterday, they do not discuss why they call for the killing of all pit bulls. They do not mention why they call for the round up and killing of healthy feral cats. They fail to address the puppies and kittens they put to death and encourage others to put to death. They do not discuss why Ingrid Newkirk claims they do not support the right to life, her admission that PETA kills “healthy” animals, her staff admitting that the puppies and kittens they killed were “adorable” and “perfect,” nor her belief that animals want to die and that killing them is “a gift.” They do not address their defense of some of the most abusive shelters in the country. They do not address the fact that their “shelter” is too small for the volume of animals they seek out, nor that 90% of those animals are killed within 24 hours, nor the fact they have no adoption hours and do not promote animals for adoption. They do not address the fact that rescue groups have given them healthy animals after PETA promised to find them homes, only to have PETA employees put the animals to death.

And, of course, there is no mention as to why PETA employees walked into a veterinary office, lied to the people working there about promising to find a healthy mother cat and her kittens a home and instead took those animals into the back of a van where they perhaps heard them purr, perhaps watched the kittens play, and then grabbed each one, restrained them, injected them with a fatal dose of poison, put their dead bodies in a garbage bag and then threw them in a dumpster. Without guilt, without remorse, without shame or anguish, they simply moved on to the next lie and the next victims. All told, PETA killed roughly 2,000 animals a year every year for the last 11 years, including those they labeled “healthy,” “adoptable,” “adoprable,” and “perfect”: 29,426 animals in all.

Rather than respond substantively to all the photographs I posted, PETA is doing what they always do: create a diversion by shooting the messenger. According to PETA, I am a “man with an agenda.” They claim I am a front for Agri-business, particularly the Center for Consumer Freedom, when in truth, my only agenda is to stop the killing and give animals what they deserve: the right to live. 

I have worked in the animal rights movement for over 20 years. I am a graduate of Stanford Law School, an attorney and former criminal prosecutor, and have held a variety of leadership positions including director of operations for the San Francisco SPCA and executive director of the Tompkins County SPCA, two of the most successful shelters in the nation. Under my leadership, Tompkins County, New York, became the first No Kill community in the U.S. I have also spoken nationally and internationally on animal sheltering issues, have written animal protection legislation at the state and national level, have created successful No Kill programs in both urban and rural communities, and have consulted with a wide range of animal protection groups, including some of the largest and best known in the nation. I am the author of four books, Redemption, Irreconcilable Differences, All American Vegan, and Friendly Fire (the latter two co-written with my wife, Jennifer). Redemption won five national book awards and redefined the animal protection movement in the United States. I am also the director of the No Kill Advocacy Center. I have been an ethical vegan for over 20 years. I write a vegan blog. I’ve written a vegan cookbook. I’m raising two vegan kids. And I am a former PETA volunteer, until I learned the truth. (Click here to read about my efforts to end shelter killing, promote veganism, stop vivisection, and more).

I am also not alone in coming forward to expose PETA. Others have, too: A veterinarian who gave PETA healthy kittens after they promised to find them homes only to kill them immediately in the back of a van; a former member of PETA’s inner circle who found a healthy dog but would not give the dog to PETA because experience had taught her that they would have killed him; a former staff member who was fired for openly disagreeing about the killing of healthy animals; another employee who quit because of PETA’s killing; and a former intern who also quit in disgust after he saw healthy puppies and kittens in the PETA “kill room.” I am also joined by countless animals lovers, animal rights activists, and vegans who will not accept the hypocrisy that it is wrong to kill chickens and cows (it is!) but ok to kill dogs and cats (it is not!).

Furthermore, I am not affiliated in any way with the Center for Consumer Freedom, nor have I ever received money from individuals or groups who exploit animals, including the Center for Consumer Freedom. The root of this lie is that, in 2007, they posted answers to questions about the causes of shelter killing in America. You can read the questions and answers in their entirety here. Sadly, the fact I truthfully answered questions about how better to save animals in shelters has been used to misrepresent who I am. That does not mean they support me (they do not) and it does not mean I support them (I do not). In fact, PETA is the one that benefits from the Center for Consumer Freedom by using them as a shield to deflect any criticism.

Moreover, for speaking the truth about PETA’s systematic slaughter of thousands of animals every year, PETA’s defenders and others have called me a “piece of shit,” wrote an article called “Nathan Winograd Should be Beheaded” and have threatened to kill my dog.

Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902

And this is my vision: http://vimeo.com/48445902

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