The Power of Rescue Five-O is the Power of YOU!
Yesterday’s announcement of Rescue Five-O resulted in over 1,000 Facebook followers in just a few hours. Clearly the time is ripe to harness the power of our democracy. The No Kill movement has always been a grassroots movement and it remains so today. We’ve had no leadership from any of the large, wealthy national organizations. The Humane Society of the United States is working against us. The ASPCA is working against us. The American Humane Association is working against us. The National Animal Control Association is working against us. Best Friends is working against us. And Maddie’s Fund has been asleep at the wheel.
Yet even in the absence of a large, wealthy organization working to advance the No Kill philosophy, we are winning. We now have No Kill communities nationwide, in California and New York; in Virginia and Michigan; in Minnesota and Kentucky; in Indiana and elsewhere. We have tremendous public support. There are countless websites and blogs dedicated to a No Kill nation and Facebook pages for No Kill from every state. And we are defining the debate. In Wake County, North Carolina, the county is specifically looking for a new municipal shelter director “to implement animal care and welfare programs and services to achieve and maintain No Kill status at the Wake County Animal Center.” And we have penetrated popular culture. In the hit movie, Hotel for Dogs, we were told kill shelters were bad and No Kill shelters were good. In a recent movie review in the San Francisco Chronicle, the reviewer described the movie as so good and touching, it made him want to go out and volunteer at a No Kill shelter. Not just any shelter, but specifically and exclusively, a shelter that does not needlessly kill animals.
Now we must harness that groundswell of support to make the changes we want to see. In the United States today, other than strays, most shelters can kill every single animal who comes through their door. It doesn’t matter if they are healthy or sick, young or old, friendly or scared, the choice is up to them. If the animal was surrendered by a family, he or she can be killed within minutes of arriving. No meager holding period. No chance at adoption. No food, water, or shelter. Just a trip from the front counter to the gas chamber or to be poisoned with an overdose from a bottle marked “Fatal-plus.” If the animal came in as a stray, he or she will be held from 48 hours to 10 days depending on the state, and then they too can be put to death with no opportunity or chance for adoption. Just a one-way ticket to the morgue. That is the status quo and that needs to change.
Although replacing regressive directors with progressive ones must remain one of our most strident goals, we need to transcend personalities. Because while things improve under good leaders, and that is important because it means lives saved immediately, when that director leaves the organization, the No Kill vision can quickly be doomed. That is why an organization can be progressive one day, and regressive, the next.
We have—and embrace—voting rights acts, environmental protection laws, and laws against discrimination based on gender, race, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, such laws are essential to ensure that fair and equal treatment is guaranteed, not subject to the discretion of those in power. We should demand that the killing end, now and forever, regardless of who is running the shelters. And we get that in only one way: by passing shelter reform legislation which removes the discretion of shelter directors to ignore what is in the best interests of animals and kill them.
Two states already make it illegal to kill animals if a rescue group is willing to save those animals. One of those states makes it illegal to kill animals if there are empty cages. This year, the states of Texas and Rhode Island have introduced shelter reform legislation, and New York will do so shortly. And two more states are lined up to do so soon as well. We want, and the animals deserve such legally mandated protections in every state. If we prescribe, through law, how shelters must operate by forcing them to adopt the programs and services of the No Kill Equation, then we take a huge step forward towards a No Kill nation and save millions of animals every year.
To do that, the No Kill Advocacy Center and the No Kill Nation have partnered to bring you Rescue Five-0, a campaign to pass shelter reform legislation, specifically, the Companion Animal Protection Act (CAPA) in each and every state. We are going to work with and empower animal lovers across this country to harness the power of our democracy.
First, we have softened the ground by sending 7,400 copies of my book Redemption, a cover letter explaining why CAPA is needed, a copy of CAPA, and a brochure to show how CAPA saves lives, saves money, protects public health and safety, and is popular with voters to each and every Assembly Member, each and every Senator, and each and every Governor in every single state house across the country. We also let them know that we have attorneys who are ready, willing, and able to assist.
In many states, it is too late to introduce legislation this year and our timing is by design. If the experience of Oreo’s Law taught us anything, it is that there is going to be tremendous opposition by the status quo, especially in the beginning. That will decline with time, as more states introduce and pass similar laws. But if you are a rescue group, advocacy organization, or No Kill shelter that is interested in getting CAPA introduced and passed in your state (or county), you will need to mobilize against this opposition over the legislative recess and line up support so you can hit the ground running next year.
The Rescue Five-O website has a guide on how to introduce and pass legislation and a guide for legislators on the importance of CAPA, including word versions of model shelter reform legislation. Also available is an 11-year analysis of the Hayden Law and how its rescue access provision has been an unqualified success, other studies in support of CAPA type laws, a video guide to political advocacy, and much more.
In addition, No Kill Nation has a network of over 100,000 animals lovers nationwide that can be mobilized to create groundswells of public support for these laws whenever and wherever they are introduced; while the No Kill Advocacy Center has recruited attorneys who can modify legislation and draft amendments. And over the next few months, we’ll be offering more resources including two more elements to this battle: A primer on how to remove regressive directors at the local level, and a guide on how to conduct effective political advocacy to influence city councils, boards of supervisors, and town commissioners.
The rest is up to you. Are you a rescue group, advocacy organization, or a No Kill shelter that is adept at getting media? Are you politically well-connected? Can you mobilize your members and supporters? If so, consider leading the charge to pass CAPA in your state. We need you to take this battle on so we can be everywhere, a decentralized, moving target that the opposition can’t anticipate and therefore can’t effectively oppose. While HSUS, ASPCA, Best Friends, and the others have the influence of money and a falsely earned reputation, we have the numbers and we have the truth, and with that, the hearts and minds of the American public. And that is how we will prevail. We’ve already neutered HSUS. They were once the main opponents of these types of laws, they now cower in their neutrality. The American Humane Association is so out of touch, they have no idea what we are talking about. To AHA, Oreo is a cookie.
But to the rest of them, especially to the ASPCA and Best Friends, if they are going to fight us, then they’ll have to do so on multiple battle fronts, and risk exposing to every rescue group, every No Kill shelter, and every animal lover, what they really are and who really speaks for the animals. That will leave them only two choices: Join us, or get out of our way. Because we will prevail. Together, we will win the long overdue protections the animals entering our nation’s shelters deserve, and no one is going to stop us.
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For further reading:
There Ought to be a Shelter Reform Law: A Guide to Passing Legislation