Our History Through Cartoons

A history of the No Kill movement through political cartoons

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And when those pictures are political cartoons, they speak in volumes. Political cartoons endure precisely because they are razor sharp in their attention, telling us all we need to know for or against some proposition. From the earliest days of our Republic, the political cartoon has served to dramatize current events and put opposing views into stark contrast. And the No Kill movement has been no exception. Here are some cartoons which define key events in the history of the movement, and help to illuminate the fight for a No Kill nation. [Click on each picture for a larger view.]

Trivializing Compassion

Henry Bergh was the 19th Century animal advocate who launched the humane movement in North America. He gave the first speech on animal protection in the U.S., incorporated the nation’s first humane society (the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), and succeeded in getting the New York State legislature to pass the nation’s first anti-cruelty law.

After he succeeded in getting an anti-cruelty law, he put a copy in his pocket, and took to the streets that very night—and every single night thereafter for the remainder of his life—to patrol the streets of his native New York City looking for animals in need of protection. The annals of the ASPCA describe the first such encounter:

The driver of a cart laden with coal is whipping his horse. Passersby on the New York City street stop to gawk not so much at the weak, emaciated equine, but at the tall man, elegant in top hat and spats, who is explaining to the driver that it is now against the law to beat one’s animal.

Among many other achievements, he even invented the clay pigeon to put an end to cruel pigeon shoots.  If he were alive today, there is no doubt that Bergh would be the nation’s most vociferous No Kill advocate and a fierce critic of the ASPCA he founded.

Sadly, the political cartoons of Bergh’s day often mocked him. Here, two cartoons depicting Henry Bergh try to assassinate his character by claiming he cares about animals, but not people. In the cartoon above, Bergh is weeping at a bull fight but telling the poor of New York City to get off his property. In the cartoon below, Bergh is chastising Charles Darwin for insulting the crying gorilla by suggesting the gorilla is related to humans.

Of course, Bergh’s compassion was not limited to animals: Bergh also rescued abused children. In 1874, less than a decade after incorporating the ASPCA, he formed the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the first child protection organization in the nation, effectively launching the children’s rights movement in the United States.

The Death Camps

In contrast to the Pollyanna pieces done by comics such as Patrick McDonnell about shelters (Mutts), this piece actually captured the typical American animal control shelter. Animal control, supported historically by groups like the Humane Society of the United States, consider being a lost, stray or feral cat a death sentence. Animal Control officers are often empowered to round them up and kill them. And these organizations promote and embrace laws which give animal control officers even more power. In California, a proposed law in 1994 would have empowered officers to kill cats immediately upon capture on the street if they did not have proof of a rabies vaccination—which would have resulted in mass slaughter. This 1995 cartoon captured that reality.

While McDonnell’s work is guided by an obvious compassion for homeless animals and he donates proceeds from his book signings specifically to No Kill shelters, his depiction of shelter directors and staff as hard working, compassionate, lifesaving-driven animal lovers crumbles in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Approaches to Spay/Neuter

Rather than accuse people of being irresponsible, rather than rant about “pet overpopulation” and the “need” to kill, all of it of dubious value and truth, and rather than seek mandatory spay/neuter laws which empower animal control to impound and kill more animals, this piece summarized the shelter’s desire in five humorous words. Though not a political cartoon, per se, the Tompkins County ad of my tenure was as biting and dramatic as one (copy of the original from the San Francisco SPCA). Tompkins County became the first No Kill community in U.S. history on the back of strong community support, something “pet overpopulation” “mandatory spay/neuter” and “irresponsible” ranters have never, ever been able to achieve.

The Last Gasp of the Dinosaurs

In 2004, as the No Kill movement gained momentum following Tompkins County, NY’s success and with the founding of the No Kill Advocacy Center, the architects of the status quo met in Asilomar, California to take back their hegemony over the sheltering discourse. They identified the terms “No Kill” and “killing” as hurtful and divisive and demanded that they ceased being used. They argued that the decision to save lives through TNR, offsite adoptions, and other needed programs should not be forced on shelters but left to their own determination. They also argued that killing was not their fault. Despite this, they claimed they were committed to saving healthy and treatable animals, narrowly defined to exclude whole categories of animals including feral cats. Groups like HSUS pledged to enforce the “Asilomar Accords” and traveled the country telling groups they could not call themselves “No Kill” or use the term “killing” for animals killed in shelters. By the end of the decade, only two communities had embraced the Accords, however, and though it lives on for record keeping purposes among some groups, the Asilomar Accords were challenged by the U.S. No Kill Declaration, and found them essentially, “Dead on Arrival.”

This cartoon from the No Kill Advocacy Center shows the dinosaurs trying to cling to the status quo, as they are about to get wiped out of existence by a meteor which represents the No Kill movement. Pictured are some of the Asilomar Accords’ signatories: HSUS, the National Animal Control Association, Denver Dumb Friends League, and Ft. Wayne Animal Control, shelters and organizations with a long, dubious history of killing and/or fighting the No Kill movement’s lifesaving innovations.

TNR Takes the Movement by Storm

The Lumbering Giant says TNR is O.K. except when it is not O.K.

In 2006, after decades of calling Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) programs for cats “inhumane,” “abhorrent,” and “subsidized abandonment,” after asking a prosecutor to arrest and jail feral cat caretakers for violation of state cruelty laws against abandonment, and after calling mass killing of feral cats in pounds and shelters “the only practical and humane solution,” the Humane Society of the United States indicated it was updating its feral cat position to reflect the emerging consensus of the animal control community, a community with a history of mass slaughter. They had no choice.

At the end of the 1990s, only a small handful of shelters embraced TNR as an alternative to killing of feral cats. But cat lovers across the country rallied on behalf of the cats, and with communities like San Francisco using TNR to reduce the feral cat death rate by over 80%, with Tompkins County becoming the first open admission shelter to zero out deaths of feral cats through TNR, and with the advocacy of TNR on a local, regional, and national scale by groups across the country, any question of the legitimacy and efficacy of TNR was erased. TNR took the movement by storm. And HSUS was forced to follow. Their March 2006 statement said “TNR was ok” but only in very limited circumstances, essentially writing in several exceptions that swallowed the rule including:

• TNR efforts must be limited if someone says that feral cats are a threat to wildlife;
• Feral cat caretakers must respect the “limitations” of other groups in the area, including those who may not share their views about feral cats; and,
• Killing of feral cats can continue for an undefined “interim period.”

Taken to their logical conclusion, these “limitations” were so severe they effectively nullified any ostensible support for TNR in the 2006 statement. There is no feral cat colony anywhere in the United States, for example, where some wildlife is not also present. HSUS was asking feral cat advocates to make the decision “about whether to maintain a particular colony” after a determination of “the potential negative impact on local wildlife.” To make this determination, HSUS further asked feral cat caretakers to “respect” the views of all interested parties—which potentially includes animal control and Invasion Biology proponents who do not support TNR.

The unspoken converse to deciding whether to maintain a particular colony is deciding whether to eradicate it. That is the choice presented, providing a powerful tool to the enemies of TNR. Essentially, it means that feral cats can be excluded from locations whenever someone says wildlife is impacted, which could potentially happen everywhere. In fact, these are exactly the types of claims being made all over the United States, and while HSUS says it no longer favors eradication, what is the alternative to TNR, other than doing nothing?

If, as HSUS claims, cats kill wildlife, are a rabies threat and an “invasive non-native species,” and cause neighborhood strife, does this mean that TNR is acceptable so long as the cats are kept away from neighborhoods, people, birds and other wildlife? Because these conditions exist nowhere, it would appear to mean that TNR is acceptable so long as the cats are not allowed outdoors—a logical absurdity.

In the No Kill Advocacy Center’s cartoon above, the lumbering, sleeping giant, HSUS, wants to tell the feral cat community all of this, but TNR proponents have moved on with the firm and unequivocal position that feral cats have a right to live, regardless of what HSUS, Audubon Society and its acolytes, and regressive animal control shelters have to say about it. In a short period of time, HSUS was forced to abandon the statement in favor of more open acceptance of TNR. But by then, was anyone listening?

Angels of Death

The realization that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a group which advocates against killing animals for food, sport, and otherwise, nonetheless opposes No Kill, champions mass slaughter of companion animals in shelters, calls for the ban—and therefore systematic extermination—of all dogs someone says look like “Pit Bulls,” says feral cats are better dead than fed, and kills roughly 2,000 animals every year they seek out, shocks and outrages the true animal lover.

While No Kill was coming into its own over the last decade and shelters across the country were saving better than 90% of all animals on a fraction of PETA’s budget, PETA continued to move sharply in the other direction. PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk spent the decade not only attacking No Kill, but actively seeking out animals to kill (roughly 90% of them). The total body count from 2000 – 2008 (2009 figures not yet available): 19,326. Once the 2009 figures are released, the number will skyrocket past 20,000: that’s roughly 2,000 animals a year that PETA has killed every year for the last decade; or over five animals killed by PETA every single day of the last ten years.

In this No Kill Advocacy Center cartoon above, a dog dresses like a chicken in hopes of getting PETA to care about him, too. Unfortunately, the previous cartoon turned out to be wrong. PETA also kills other animals, including chickens, as well, which it does at its Norfolk, VA facility. The cartoon below turned out to be more accurate, as the chicken in the shelter fears for his life as much as the dogs and cats do.

In 2006, PETA staff was arrested for killing animals they promised to find homes for, and then discarding their bodies into local supermarket dumpsters. Although they were acquitted of animal cruelty and other charges since it is not illegal for a “certified euthanasia technician” to kill animals if connected to an organization that has registered itself as a shelter, testimony during the court case showed that PETA went to shelters and private veterinarians to get animals, telling some they would find them homes, and killed the animals, often within minutes of departing in the back of a van. One veterinarian who gave PETA a healthy mother cat and her kittens testified that the animals were never at risk for being killed in his practice; he was simply looking for homes for them. He gave them to PETA because he thought they would have no trouble finding them homes. PETA staff killed them within minutes. Their bodies were found in a dumpster a short time thereafter.

Riding on Michael Vick’s Bloodstained Coattails

Despite a series of pro-killing scandals that have marked his tenure, Wayne Pacelle, the beleaguered and uncaring CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, shocked even his supporters by embracing Michael Vick, the most notorious dog abuser of our time. Vick took pleasure in seeing dogs tear each other apart. He took pleasure in beating dogs to death. He took pleasure in hanging dogs by the neck. He took pleasure in electrocuting dogs. He took pleasure in shooting dogs. And he took pleasure in drowning dogs.

After being convicted on federal dog fighting related charges, Vick was banned from the NFL. But Vick sought to escape permanent punishment by doing the time-honored tradition of the scoundrel: hire a P.R. team to reform his image, issue a “mea culpa,” do some carefully orchestrated appearances with kids, and then get his old life back. Wayne Pacelle was eager to assist him to do that. With the help of Pacelle, Vick gets his life back, becoming a millionaire once more, while the dogs he killed are, well, still dead. Vick follows up by saying he wants dogs again: will HSUS help him with that also?

While Pacelle, through HSUS, testified that the dogs Vick abused should not be given a second chance and should all be killed, Pacelle said that their abuser should be. Vick became a spokesman for HSUS. Or was it the other way around? In the nokillblog.com’s cartoon, Pacelle rides Vick’s blood-stained coattails to his favorite destination—the front pages of the New York Times, 60 minutes, and other media.

Convenience Killing

As occurs all over the country, Tom Skeldon, the Lucas County, Ohio dog warden, killed animals, despite readily available lifesaving alternatives. Indeed, he killed dogs and puppies even when rescue groups and humane societies offered to save them. In this Toledo Blade cartoon, Skeldon is telling a dog to sit, which the dog does, demonstrating that he is a kind, friendly, and obedient dog, which should please the warden. It doesn’t. Skeldon wants the dog to sit in the electric chair, so he can be put to death. What made this cartoon so dramatic is that it resonated so strongly with the experience many rescuers have of their own dog wardens and pound directors. Skeldon may have been less polished than others, but he was hardly unique. Indeed, this comic could have been published in virtually any newspaper—Houston (TX), King County (WA), Los Angeles (CA), and hundreds of other cities—and it would have had the same meaningful impact. Thankfully, Skeldon was forced out, but others like him remain entrenched in shelters all across the country.

The Meaning of Oreo’s Law

In November of last year, the ASPCA killed an abused dog named Oreo, despite an offer by a No Kill shelter to save her life. In response, the New York State Legislature is now considering a law that would make it illegal for any shelter or pound to kill an animal if a legitimate rescue group is willing to save the animal’s life. But the ASPCA wants to kill the proposed law, the way it killed Oreo, for which the new law is named.

While the animal loving people of New York State flood the legislature with calls of support, while the most progressive voices in the companion animal movement have embraced and endorsed Oreo’s Law, and while rescuers anxiously await legislation that will empower them to save the lives of thousands of animals every year, the leader of the nation’s wealthiest SPCA stands alone in defiant opposition, thumbing his nose at them all.

This cartoon from YESonOreosLaw.com shows a shelter killing dogs and cats that rescue groups are there to save. Oreo’s Law would give them that power but Ed Sayres, the President of the ASPCA, is trampling Oreo’s Law and holding them back, which will cost animals their lives.

Regardless of whether animals and animal lovers win by passing Oreo’s Law in this session of the legislature, Ed Sayres and the hacks he recruits to oppose it (or to remain deafeningly silent) will lose. Indeed, Sayres is already paying a price. While he assured his staff that the anger over Oreo’s killing would subside in a few days, it still hasn’t three months later and the fight for Oreo’s Law is intensifying calls for his ouster. At the same time, the fight over Oreo’s Law has clearly shown rescuers and animal lovers which groups they can count on to champion the animals and which groups they can’t.

And this much is clear: if animal rescuers win, so do the animals. And if Oreo’s Law passes, animal rescuers will win big across the country. As one reformer stated, “Where New York goes, so goes the nation.” Indeed, the next phase of the quest for a No Kill nation will not center on adoption ads or social media—these will achieve widespread acceptance—the FIGHT will be in the halls of Albany, NY, Sacramento, CA, Austin, TX, and other state capitals. Because how do you achieve and sustain a No Kill nation if shelter directors keep the discretion they currently have to avoid doing what is in the best interests of animals and kill them needlessly? You can’t. Oreo’s Law is just the first wave of a national effort to shift the balance of power back to the animals—and their rescuers.

No Kill News From Around the Country

Tompkins County SPCA’s Seventh Year with a 90+% Save Rate

For the seventh straight year, the open admission Tompkins County SPCA achieved a better than 90% rate of lifesaving, finishing 2009 saving 92% of all animals. Executive Director Abigail Smith will participate in a panel discussion “The 90% Club” at No Kill Conference 2010.

Nevada Humane Society Doubles Adoptions

The Nevada Humane Society broke its own record of 8,635 just one year prior by finding loving homes for 9,184 animals in 2009, culminating in a 90% countywide rate of lifesaving. That is up 102% under Executive Director Bonney Brown. In 2006, the year before she took over, NHS adopted  4,539, less than half. Bonney will be leading a workshop on adoptions at No Kill Conference 2010.

Charlottesville SPCA Also Does it Again

Under Executive Director Susanne Kogut, the Charlottesville SPCA also finished 2009 with a 90% rate of lifesaving, an achievement it has matched for four years in a row. Susanne joins Bonney and Abigail at No Kill Conference 2010. She’ll discuss leadership strategies.

To celebrate Charlottesville’s success, actors Sissy Spacek and actor/singer Schuyler Fisk recorded a PSA and single with all proceeds benefitting the SPCA. To watch the PSA, click here. You can purchase the song, “Love Somebody,” on iTunes.

And the Good News Is…

What makes Tompkins, Reno’s, and Charlottesville’s achievements especially exciting is that they are no longer unique or even the most successful. No Kill communities now dot the American landscape. A new day dawns….

No Kill Conference 2010

Last year’s No Kill Conference was the sold out, must attend event of the year. In addition to No Kill leaders like Avanzino, Kogut, Brown and Smith, some new and exciting voices and topics are being added to this year’s event including:

1. Mike Fry on Technology: Technology is revolutionizing the No Kill movement, allowing shelters to increase adoptions, redemptions, revenue, and volunteers. It also has the potential to find missing pets. For a teaser, read “Saving Lives 2.0″ by clicking here.
2. Lucy Schlaffer & Paul Bonacci on Shelter Design: Shelter design can eliminate URI in cats, reducing length of stay and boosting your adoption rate. It can also help reduce and in many cases, eliminate barrier frustration in dogs. Innovative shelter architects ARQ who designed the groundbreaking San Francisco SPCA Pet Adoption Center and the nation’s first green-certified shelter at the Tompkins County SPCA will give a workshop on innovative, state-of-the-art shelter design.
3. Brent Toellner on Challenging BDL: Brent Toellner of Kansas City Dog Advocates will challenge breed identification and breed discriminatory legislation and give you the data you need to be successful fighting it in your community.
4. Ginny Mikita on Defending Dangerous Dogs: She has filed countless lawsuits in order to defend dogs scheduled to be killed after they have been arbitrarily declared dangerous. Former PETA and Animal Legal Defense Fund attorney and staunch No Kill advocate Ginny Mikita will lead a workshop on how to defend so-called “dangerous” dogs.
5. Bernice Clifford of Animal Farm Foundation and Aimee Sadler of the Longmont Humane Society combine to lead workshops on kennel enrichment strategies for long term, hard to place, and exuberant dogs, as well as exercise and socialization programs in a shelter to boost adoptability. These efforts saved 92% of all dogs at the open admission Longmont shelter.

Workshops will also include defending feral cats and their caregivers, enrichment strategies for shelter cats, questioning the notion that cats are “invasive” and do not belong outdoors, and more. Click here to see a list of speakers and click here to see a list of workshops.

More information/register by clicking here.

Of all attendees registered to date:

• 52% are affiliated with a shelter
• 32% are affiliated with rescue groups
• 16% are otherwise affiliated: policymakers, government officials not associated with a shelter, media, and animal rights advocates.

Please note: Last year’s conference sold out months in advance. If you are considering attending, do not delay. Once sold out, there are no waiting lists and no exceptions.

Building a No Kill Community

Join me for an inspirational multi-media presentation on Building a No Kill community seminar, followed by a book signing:

• Shelby County, KY. March 6, 2010. For details, click here.
• Melbourne, FL. April 3, 2010. Details coming soon!

In May, I’ll also be flying to New Zealand as part of the No Kill Equation’s quest for global domination! (Insert mad scientist laugh here!)

More dates and cities will be added soon.

Saving Lives 2.0

How Technology is Revolutionizing the No Kill Movement

By the spring of 2009, there were almost 600 million users of online social networks, like Facebook, MySpace, Bibo, Hi5 and Twitter—roughly 70% of the total Internet users worldwide. In spite of the massive market share already enjoyed by this growing media, all indications are that usage is rising fast, and, according to some, accelerating.

Some industry analysts predict that growth of social networks will not taper off significantly for better than a decade, at which time somewhere in the range of 80% of Internet users will be connecting through social networking sites. Others suggest that as these networks evolve to offer more functionality, their growth could expand beyond projections.

While users of social networking platforms do so for several reasons, including connecting with family and friends and re-connecting with old friends, their members want more: they want to actively share with family and friends. In fact, they want to create value through media. Why should animal shelters care? How can animal protection organizations leverage social networks to expand our cause? The answers are many, but more importantly, the possibilities are limitless.

Social networking will affect every aspect of the animal welfare field in ways we have only begun to think about. Imagine, for example, a shared lost and found pet recovery system implemented communitywide. Not only could people who have lost pets post photos and descriptions of their animals, the system itself could send this information via social networks to cell phones of followers of the system. In this scenario, someone could be out looking for their lost pet, hanging posters, or visiting impound centers, and receive an automated text message on their cell if the animal is found. This is not some fantasy scenario. A system like this has started operating in Minnesota.

Because of the ability of social networking to reach masses of people nearly instantaneously, social networking is changing the way emergency response or rapid response teams communicate, especially given the fact that these networks have both public and private sharing options. Teams of response personnel can enjoy confidential instant communication from anywhere, then share selected public information to followers of their efforts.

Recognition for volunteers, published memorials and honoraria for special people and pets, and calls to action on social issues are just a few areas where social media is already having an impact on animal welfare issues. During the current legislative session, for example, we will be using Facebook and Twitter in our efforts to pass legislation to ensure enforcement of existing animal cruelty laws in Minnesota at puppy mills. Even though there is widespread public support for proposed legislation, some very large and powerful national special interest groups, including the American Kennel Club and the National Rifle Association, have joined in opposition.

The challenge associated in going head-to-head with large, national special interests can seem daunting. That challenge is made more difficult given the idiosyncrasies of the legislature. For example, prior to a committee hearing on a bill, there is generally very short notice. During that time, supporters like Animal Ark must arrange for expert testimony, rally supporters to contact committee members asking them to support the bill, and encourage people to attend the hearing. Social networking provides the ideal solution to this challenge.

From nearly anywhere, using a cell phone, we will be able to send a simple text message or “tweet” that will alert all of our friends and followers on multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts. Additionally this one, simple “tweet” can simultaneously update web pages that are not directly within those networks. Thousands of recipients of these calls to action will receive them any way they choose, via text message, email, or message notification in their favorite social networking sites.

Unlike broadcast email blasts, which are often perceived as spam even when the messages carry important, friendly content, messages distributed via social networks are generally received in a more open way. This is because the recipients of the messages are, by the very nature of these networks, receiving the message from someone they have said is a “friend.” They are also, therefore, more likely to send the messages on to their other friends.

These technologies level the playing field, allowing shelters and small grassroots organizations to challenge the status quo in other ways as well. The Humane Society of the United States, for example, is arguably the richest and most powerful animal protection organization in the country. Forbes listed it as one of the top 200 charities in the nation overall and certainly the wealthiest animal welfare organization. It has tremendous media reach and media power as a result of this enormous wealth. But it is vulnerable to social marketing. In February of last year, it lobbied a court to kill all the dogs and puppies seized from a dog fighter in North Carolina based on its outdated and regressive policy that all dogs associated with dog fighters should be killed as a matter of policy. This included friendly dogs and nursing puppies born in the shelter after the seizure. The court deferred to HSUS “experts” and all the dogs and puppies were put to death.

In the past, some local dog lovers might have complained but their concerns would not have been heard very far and wide. But in the age of social networks, condemnation of HSUS went viral, spreading around the world. It brought the largest and most powerful organization to its knees, and within weeks, HSUS rescinded the policy because of the bad “press.” All because of social marketing.

Although implementing some of these efforts can require technical expertise, most are incredibly simple. But simple does not mean less powerful. In fact, some of the easiest to implement could have the greatest impact in terms of lives saved. Adding a “share” button to every pet page on a shelter’s website for example is very easy to do. But its reach is enormous: it quickly connects animals available for adoption to a network of millions of users. (Not all “share” buttons are created equally. To learn how to implement this feature on your site, click here.)

Animal Ark, Minnesota’s largest No Kill animal welfare organization implemented a share button last month. Immediately, Animal Ark pets began popping up on social networks. Here is a portion of a Twitter feed as an example:

On Facebook, discussions on specific animals have resulted in dozens of comments on various networks. But more importantly, since this feature has been implemented, the total number of unique daily visitors to the animal pages on Animal Ark’s website has increased significantly. Each of these visitors is, on average, looking at several pets, resulting in thousands of increased “hits” daily to the pages of animals available for adoption on our website. This surge in web traffic has coincided with more visitors to the shelter, quicker adoptions, and even online sponsorships of animals, generating revenue.

How does this work? The average Facebook user, for example, has roughly 130 friends on the network. When a shelter allows for the sharing of a pet’s link, and asks their friends and followers to share the pet with their friends and followers, the animals’ pictures and profiles spread across the social networks rapidly. The acceleration of the spread can be exponential, especially if followers and friends are actively encouraged to continue spreading the word (i.e., sharing the animals).

The sharing of adoptable animals via social networking sites is viral marketing in its truest, purest and best form. It costs virtually nothing to get started, and the payoffs are tremendous: more and quicker adoptions, donations, and other support. Furthermore, it is just one of countless uses of social media that animal welfare advocates will be able to leverage to save the lives of homeless animals.

Animal Ark, for example, has gone one step further by integrating our shelter management software with Twitter and Facebook. When an animal is adopted at the shelter, an automated message is sent to these networks announcing the adoption. Other automated “tweets” have been built into Animal Ark computer systems, resulting in what is, in effect, an automated, real-time news feed from the Animal Ark shelter. This feed is then featured and updated in real-time on our various web pages.

All of these examples are just the beginning. There are unlimited uses of technology and social networking in the animal welfare field. Given the built-in capabilities of many of these networks to deliver text messages to users’ cell phones, and given the fact that people who have lost their pets are often away from home posting lost pet postersand looking for their pets, the functional utility of these networks clearly has an enormous reach. They will touch every component of our work, from volunteer recruitment and recognition to capital campaigning. And millions of animals can be saved in the process.

Guest blog by Mike Fry.

Mike Fry is the Executive Director of Animal Ark, Minnesota’s largest no kill animal welfare organization. He is also one of the hosts of Animal Wise Radio, a weekly, syndicated radio show dedicated to animals. Fry is the former Director of Internet Computing for Pentair and former VP of Internet Technologies for Worthington Software. He is credited with assisting in the development of commercial Internet technologies that are now in use worldwide.

Join Mike’s online community where technology-savvy animal welfare advocates can share ideas about using technology to advance animal welfare causes by clicking here.

Mike will give a workshop on using technology to save animals at No Kill Conference 2010. To learn more and/or register, click here.

The Decade That Changed Everything

On December 30, I did a month by month review of 2009. Yesterday, I posted my predictions for 2010. Today, I review the last ten years, and what is in store for the next decade.

Part III: The Best Decade Ever*

Most pundits have said “good riddance” to the last decade, proclaiming it one of the worst in recent history. From the standpoint of the No Kill movement, however, the last ten years were unparalleled in terms of success. The first decade of the 21st Century not only saw No Kill go from the theoretical to the real, it saw its meteoric rise. Largely ignored and ridiculed in the 1990s and early part of the decade by the large national organizations like HSUS, ASPCA, the American Humane Association, the National Animal Control Association and the Society for Animal Welfare Administrators, No Kill proved itself the paradigm of the future. In 2004, threatened by its success, these organizations unsuccessfully tried to hijack the movement through the “Asilomar Accords,” but fell victim to the U.S. No Kill Declaration, the success of No Kill communities, the 2007 release of Redemption, and the will of a companion animal loving nation.

Winner: Tompkins County’s No Kill Achievement

No Kill comes into its own as Tompkins County, NY becomes the first No Kill community in U.S. history in 2001/2002. The success of the open admission shelter in Tompkins County dispelled the falsehood that an open admission shelter could not be No Kill and ignited the movement. By the end of the decade, No Kill communities could be found in all parts of the country, and in the process, all the programs of the No Kill Equation—from offsite adoptions to Trap-Neuter-Release—become mainstream.

Winner: Trap-Neuter-Release

At the end of the 1990s, only a small handful of shelters embraced TNR as an alternative to killing of feral cats. With HSUS urging prosecutors to arrest feral cat caretakers for “abandonment,” and calling TNR “abhorrent” and “inhumane,” and Invasion Biologists calling for the round up and killing of feral cats, the prospects for widespread acceptance of TNR in the humane movement seemed doubtful.

But cat lovers across the country rallied on behalf of the cats, and with communities like San Francisco using TNR to reduce the feral cat death rate by over 80%, with Tompkins County becoming the first open admission shelter to zero out deaths of feral cats through TNR, and with the advocacy of TNR on a local, regional, and national scale by groups across the country, any question of the legitimacy and efficacy of TNR was erased. TNR took the movement by storm.

Winner: A Pet Loving Nation

The economy collapsed but spending on companion animals continued to increase as giving to animal related causes became the fastest growing segment in American philanthropy. But the most dramatic example epitomizing just how much Americans love companion animals was the overwhelming response to the animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina. People gave hundreds of millions of dollars to charities that promised to save the animals, and thousands of rescuers from all across the country descended on New Orleans and surrounding communities to save animals forcibly left behind by mass evacuations of people. In the end, they also succeeded in changing federal policy about rescuing pets.

Winner: Redemption & The No Kill Equation

Behind every revolutionary movement is an intellectual tradition. The American Revolution had Common Sense. The environmental movement had Silent Spring. The abolitionist movement had Uncle Tom’s Cabin. And the women’s rights movement had The Feminine Mystique. In 2007, the No Kill movement got “Redemption.” Released to rave reviews, winning five national book awards, hitting the top 300 at Barnes & Noble, and becoming the number 1 selling animal rights book on Amazon, Redemption redefined the debate about shelter killing nationwide, and in the process helped to spearhead No Kill communities in the U.S. and abroad.

Coining the phrase “The No Kill Equation” to describe the collective programs and services which make No Kill possible, the No Kill Equation model of sheltering quickly became the gold standard, helping communities like Reno, NV and others achieve No Kill success virtually overnight.

Loser: The San Francisco SPCA

While the No Kill movement saw tremendous growth, success, and national acceptance, the agency that sparked it goes in the other direction. The fall of the San Francisco SPCA emerges as one of the worst events of the decade, as the former crown jewel of the No Kill movement—under the disastrous leadership of Ed Sayres and his hand-picked acolytes—abandoned its No Kill mission and rejected the movement it helped spark.

Loser: Asilomar Accords

In 2004, as the No Kill movement gained momentum following Tompkins County, NY’s success and with the founding of the No Kill Advocacy Center, the architects of the status quo met in Asilomar, California to take back their hegemony over the sheltering discourse. They identified the terms “No Kill” and “killing” as hurtful and divisive and demanded that they ceased being used. They argued that the decision to save lives through TNR, offsite adoptions, and other needed programs should not be forced on shelters but left to their own determination. They also argued that killing was not their fault. Despite this, they claimed they were committed to saving healthy and treatable animals, narrowly defined to exclude whole categories of animals including feral cats. Groups like HSUS pledged to enforce the Accords and traveled the country telling groups they could not call themselves “No Kill” or use the term “killing” for animals killed in shelters. By the end of the decade, only two communities had embraced the Accords, and though it lives on for record keeping purposes among some groups, the Asilomar Accords were challenged by the U.S. No Kill Declaration, and found themselves essentially, “Dead On Arrival.”

Loser: Humane Society of the United States

As a companion animal loving nation committed itself to doing whatever it took to save the animals of Hurricane Katrina, HSUS squandered their compassion and donations. Wayne Pacelle announced “mission: accomplished” in New Orleans, abandoning the victims in the face of tremendous suffering and departing with tens of millions of dollars raised for Hurricane Katrina victims still unspent. Pacelle could have leveraged the goodwill and money he was given to lead animal lovers toward a No Kill nation. Instead, his actions sparked fraud investigations by both the Louisiana and Mississippi Attorneys General, and showed that the HSUS CEO and HSUS as an organization are both uncaring and incapable of true leadership.

Loser: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

But one agency topped (bottomed?) them all as the worst of the last decade. While No Kill was coming into its own and shelters across the country were saving better than 90% of all animals on a fraction of their budget, PETA continued to move sharply in the other direction. PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk spent the decade not only attacking No Kill, but actively sought out animals to kill (roughly 90% of them). The total body count from 2000 – 2008 (2009 figures not yet available): 19,326. Once the 2009 figures are released, the number will skyrocket past 20,000: that’s roughly 2,000 animals a year that PETA has killed every year for the last decade; or over five animals killed by PETA every single day of the last ten years.

The Decade to Come

We ended this past decade with a hope that did not exist at the close of the prior one—in which not a single No Kill community existed. Now, as this decade closes, No Kill communities dot the American landscape, and activists throughout the nation are working to replicate that success in their own hometowns. It is a time of great hope and promise.

As the decade opened ten years ago, the humane movement was (erroneously) united in its perception of who was to blame for the killing and the hopelessness that it would ever end. But the truth came out, and splintered the movement—dividing us into two opposing camps: those who embrace the No Kill philosophy, its achievability, and the great promise held out by the American public’s great love for companion animals; and those who cling to the old paradigm of killing and blaming, on which their hold on power is based. Today, the heads of the three largest animal protection organizations—HSUS, ASPCA, and PETA—tragically remain No Kill’s most vociferous enemies as they continue to uphold the tradition of killing, continue to defend draconian shelter directors, continue to fight reform efforts, and continue to advance deadly shelter policies. We have learned that our fight is not with the many (the public) but with the few.

Loser: The Dinosaurs and Winner: No Kill

As the new decade opens, we stand at a cross roads. There are some in the No Kill movement who want to celebrate every half-hearted and self-serving gesture by HSUS or the ASPCA as proof that they are changing, proof that they can be trusted again, proof that they are on our side after all. Many in this movement seem so anxious to declare victory—to provide praise for miserly and hard won changes begrudgingly given as evidence of a sea change. And this is a mistake.

Now is not the time to seek appeasement. Now is not the time to declare peace. There will come a day when No Kill is fully established, when we can gently agree to disagree on issues because, truly, we will all be on the same page—and the big question relating to whether animals should live or die will be put to bed once and for all, and the systematic killing of four million animals a year will be viewed as the cruel practice it always was; a national shame that is inconceivable to us as a people.

When that day comes, as it invariably will, and the voices of killing are finally silenced, when the practices they condone are unequivocally rejected, when killing innocent animals is unthinkable, and when those who staff our nation’s humane societies, SPCAs, animal shelters, and large, national groups are truly committed to the best interests of animals; then we can shake hands across the aisles over our disagreements, because the stakes will be much lower—and no animal will be killed as a result of someone’s “differing” point of view.

But to behave now as though our goals are the same—when all evidence is to the contrary—and the change we get is nowhere near approaching the vast changes that are truly needed, is to sacrifice the animals for political expediency, for the desire to be the first to “blog” about success, to raise money by falsely telling supporters of “great” victories that are, in reality, merely superficial. Right now, the “changes” some are quick to celebrate are insincere token gestures, paid out of mere self-preservation. They are parsed out begrudgingly, in a miserly fashion with the hope they will quell criticism, not because they are what justice and ethics demand. By praising these minimal actions, when it is within their power to end the killing now if they so chose, we embolden them to continue on this course, and allow animals to be killed as a result.

Today, the will of 100 million Americans is being thwarted by only 3,000 or so shelter directors and a small handful of regressive national “leaders”: Wayne Pacelle, Ed Sayres, Ingrid Newkirk, and a few others. If we had the will and desire, we could—by refusing to accept anything less—impose our vision immediately and without restraint. Indeed, our power is already being felt: Sayres is besieged, Newkirk is increasingly seen for the Butcher that she is, and Pacelle’s recent temper tantrum over No Kill shows just how vulnerable he is.

And so I predict this: As the next decade comes to a close, it will do so without the Wayne Pacelles, Ed Sayres, Ingrid Newkirks and other agents of killing still holding the power. The reign of the dinosaurs will come to an end. As will the allegiance of the agencies they hold hostage to their kill-oriented colleagues, to their antiquated philosophies, and to their failed models, which hold us all back from the success that their organizations and this movement can achieve the moment they decide to embrace it. Those who replace them will truly champion No Kill both in word and in deeds. And we will see, if not the achievement of a No Kill nation, a nation on the cusp of that seminal and revolutionary achievement.

No more compromises, no more excuses, no more killing. That is the challenge for the decade. A No Kill nation is within our reach.

——————————

*Since there was no year zero, technically, the new decade starts in 2011. But that defies our common experience and natural usage. Because of that, I am ignoring the technically accuracy for the sake of a clean comparison between what we commonly refer to as the decades of the 1990s, the 2000s, and the upcoming ten year period of the 2010s.

Looking to 2010

Yesterday, I did a month by month review of 2009. Today, I post my predictions for 2010.

Part II: A Pivotal Year for No Kill

Back in January of 2009, I predicated success in Reno, NV and Indianapolis, IN. I was right on the first, and half right on the second, as Indianapolis came out swinging—beating BSL, ending the systematic killing of “Pit Bulls,” having a record breaking day (153) on adoptions, and seeing declines in killing under new leadership. Sadly, it was short lived. The union fought back, and with the help of a corrupt government bureaucracy and the Humane Society of Indianapolis, conspired to fire the progressive director toward the end of 2009.

As to the final prediction, I declared a coin toss:

HSUS started the year championing killing but ended it proclaiming the moral superiority of and easy attainability of No Kill. Which Wayne Pacelle will emerge in 2009?

We now know the answer to that one: His actions in 2009 showed that the head of the nation’s largest animal protection organization is a dog killer, an apologist for dog killers, an embracer of animal abusers, a thief, and a liar.

As for 2010 predictions: two winners, two losers, and two which remain a toss-up.

Winner: King County, WA

A cat goes without food, water or litter during the holiday weekend due to union protected shirkers, inept management, and a then-indifferent county executive.

It ain’t over till it’s over and the union which protects neglectful and abusive employees has fired back with a lawsuit against the county. But the writing is on the wall: King County announced it will close its cruel shelter. If a progressive organization takes over animal control services, lifesaving success will surely follow.

Winner: Animal Rescuers

Oreo’s Law would end the killing of puppies and kittens, healthy and treatable animals, and feral cats, among others when rescue groups are able to save their lives, even in shelters with draconian and uncaring shelter directors. But only if the ASPCA and its hacks don’t succeed in killing it—and therefore the animals.

If animal rescuers win, so do the animals. And if Oreo’s Law—a new law introduced in New York State named after a dog killed by the ASPCA—passes, animal rescuers will win big—and thousands of animals across the state will be saved. As one reformer stated, “Where New York goes, so goes the nation.” Will rescuers finally take the power they should have always had?

Loser: Ed Sayres

Ed Sayres told USA Today that killing is the moral equivalent of not killing: “There is no room for No Kill as morally superior.”

Every time Ed Sayres of the ASPCA opens his mouth, he sticks his foot in it. He claims he supports No Kill, but his actions time and time again belie the claim. From saying killing was the moral equivalent of not killing, to opposing No Kill in San Francisco, to backing a killing oriented animal control director in Austin, TX (and then taking credit for the work of No Kill advocates there), calling dog killer Michael Vick’s reinstatement into the NFL “thoughtful,” to needlessly killing Oreo, Sayres may “talk the talk” on occasion, but he rarely “walks the walk.” A new chairman of the ASPCA board, however, is an animal lover and if she gets the information she needs, Sayres may finally be held accountable. Regardless of what happens between the two, look for the ASPCA’s No Kill-in-name-only Mission: Orange to continue its fade into oblivion.

Loser: Wayne Pacelle

The head of the nation’s largest animal protection organization is a dog killer, an apologist for dog killers, an embracer of animal abusers, a thief, and a liar.

He gave us plenty to criticize:

• The Death of Hope at HSUS
• HSUS Defends Wilkes County Massacre
• Wayne Pacelle Under Seige
• It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again
• In Bed with Monsters
• HSUS: Abused Dogs Should Face Death
• Riding on Vick’s Bloodstained Coattails
• And the Monster Went Free
• HSUS: You are a Monster Too!
• While Rome Burns, Emperor Pacelle Strums His Lyre
• Betrayal & Deceit at HSUS
• Going Rogue
• Rejecting the Consensus of Killing
• Same as it Ever Was
• Saving Pit Bulls from HSUS, PETA, and Michael Vick
• Will the Real Wayne Pacelle Please Stand Up?
• The Real Wayne Pacelle Legacy
• The Real Wayne Pacelle Legacy Part II
• Desperately Seeking Wayne Pacelle
• You’re Doin’ a Heckuva Job Wayney
• Long Day’s Journey into Night
• “Getting Away with Murder” at Tangipahoa
• Dubious Deals at HSUS
• HSUS Says No to Holiday Adoptions

Need I say more?

Coin Toss: Austin, TX

They were ignored, they were attacked by reporters with axes to grind, and the ASPCA attempted to silence them, but they stuck to their principles and 2009 saw No Kill advocates spearhead a unanimous declaration by the Austin City Council to embrace the No Kill Equation model of sheltering. That achievement landed the head of Fix Austin with the Henry Bergh Leadership Award from the No Kill Advocacy Center as one of the top No Kill advocates of the year.

As 2009 closed, the pound director told the community that No Kill is “too hard” and not to expect her to achieve it. Will the Council follow through and demand accountability and new leadership who will do the job humanely? 2010 will prove a pivotal year in the fight for a No Kill Austin.

Coin Toss: Shelter Pet Project

In late 2008, Maddie’s Fund announced a partnership with the Ad Council and HSUS to launch a nationwide advertising campaigning to increase adoptions from shelters. Released to much fanfare in September of 2009, the parties promised it would be a “game changer.” The parties also promised to utilize the revolution in social media to spread the message. But the website was built on a high bandwith flash platform that made it inaccessible to smart phone users, and sacrificed function for visual appeal. And while the first ads were upbeat and entertaining, they failed to inspire. And then…silence. Will the Shelter Pet Project live up to the hype?

A Banner Year

Part I: A Month by Month Look at 2009

It was the best of times and the worst of times. But 2009 will be remembered as a seminal year for the No Kill movement, as new victories combined with scandals on the part of the “catch and kill” establishment, to make “No Kill” a household word. The Humane Society of the United States and the ASPCA came off as the biggest losers, while No Kill advocates emerged to take center stage in the humane movement.

January Winner: Washoe County, NV

The New Year opened in Reno, Nevada as it did all over the country, with a key crucial difference. On January 1, while many shelters closed their doors for the New Year’s Day holiday, the Nevada Humane Society stayed open for adoptions, and 49 animals found loving new homes. It was only the first day of the New Year but it turned out to be a harbinger of things to come. Combined with the retirement of the anti-No Kill director at Washoe County Regional Animal Services, the community finished with a 90% rate of lifesaving countywide, among the top in the nation.

January Loser: Philadelphia, PA

After increasing the save rate to 73%, from an 88% rate of killing just a few short years earlier, incompetence on the part of the Board and leadership of the Philadelphia Animal Care & Control Association caused Philadelphia to descend into chaos. The Department of Public Health conspired with the leadership of the Pennsylvania SPCA and closed down PACCA, giving the animal control contract back to the PSPCA. Just days later, the PSPCA CEO resigned amid turmoil within the agency. The numbers of dogs and cats needlessly killed in City shelters skyrocketed once more. Now with new leadership, will Philly succeed once more?

February Loser: Humane Society of the U.S.

At the end of 2008, Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, stated that HSUS’ goal has always been a No Kill nation, and that HSUS has always been the leader in helping make it happen. The claim was insupportable given HSUS’ sordid history, and most questioned Pacelle’s sincerity. But everyone held out hope that this signaled a shift in HSUS policies. Hope turned out to be short-lived. In February of 2009, Pacelle and his team at HSUS lobbied a court to kill each and every dog and puppy “rescued” from a dog fighter in Wilkes County, North Carolina.

Pacelle refused to spare even nursing puppies (including the one pictured to the left), forcing a foster parent to return two of them for slaughter. The “Wilkes County Massacre” sparked national outrage and calls for Pacelle’s ouster.

Others met with Pacelle in Las Vegas to force HSUS to end its policy of automatic destruction of dogs seized in dog fighting cases, including friendly dogs and puppies. The April announcement of success turned out to be premature, however, as Pacelle subsequently stated that dogs seized just a few months later in a Missouri dog fighting bust should be killed. He is half-ignored, as some of the dogs are placed with rescue groups. The rest are killed, however, and are placed into garbage bags even though HSUS had the power to save them all.

February Loser: Animal Humane Society

The Animal Humane Society in the twin cities of Minnesota follows the Wilkes County Massacre with one of its own. Roughly 120 cats it claimed to rescue from a hoarder are systematically put to death, some within hours of arrival (including those above), even though they were not suffering and Minneapolis’ largest No Kill shelter and scores of rescuers offered to help save them.

March Loser: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

In March, PETA reported its killing rates for the previous year: a staggering 95% of all animals it sought out. (The dog on the right was one of PETA’s victims, his body unceremoniously thrown away in a supermarket dumpster.) As animal lovers condemned PETA, PETA fired back by threatening lawsuits against critics, saying all the animals they killed were hopelessly ill. The threat proved specious, however, as PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk admitted in a Canadian television interview that they “absolutely” kill adoptable animals.

March Loser: Los Angeles, CA

After Los Angeles passed a mandatory spay/neuter ordinance, city officials promised that the law would make it a No Kill community. But, consistent with results elsewhere, officers threatened low-income families with citations if they did not surrender their intact animals, which Los Angeles Animal Services then turned around and killed. For the first time in a decade, the number of animals impounded and killed increased—roughly 30% more animals lost their lives.

Adding insult to injury in March, the city suspended the low cost spay/neuter voucher program which allowed some poor people to comply with the law. It was reinstated following a public outcry but this latest in a long line of scandals resulted in a unanimous vote of “No Confidence” from the city council. The beleaguered head of Los Angeles Animal Services resigned shortly thereafter.

March Losers: Wayne Pacelle & Ed Sayres

In 2009, San Francisco began debate on a city law that would end the needless killing of savable animals in local shelters. Ed Sayres, the former President of the San Francisco SPCA and now head of the ASPCA, sent a representative to testify at the hearing in March, who called No Kill “radical” and asked the city to continue the status quo. Not to be outdone, Wayne Pacelle of HSUS also told the City to reject the No Kill legislation, and this allow the SPCA and animal control to continue killing.

April Winner: San Francisco Bay Area (East Bay)

While San Francisco—the birthplace of the modern No Kill movement—continued killing savable animals, No Kill finally came to the Bay Area. Four East Bay communities ended the killing of healthy and treatable animals, announcing a 93% rate of lifesaving.

April Winner & Loser: Indianapolis, IN

What were 2009’s most progressive animal shelters in Indiana? If you guessed the ones in Indianapolis, you would be wrong. Indiana is the home of two No Kill communities, but Indianapolis isn’t one of them.

To their credit, Indianapolis activists in April successfully derailed proposed breed discriminatory legislation that would have condemned dogs deemed “Pit Bulls” to death. Leading the opposition was a newly hired Indianapolis Animal Care & Control chief who also announced an overturning of the automatic Pit Bull killing policy he inherited.

Taking his cue from success elsewhere, the director also stood up to union-protected shirkers, taking an agency beset by neglect and cruelty to one that put the animals first. On July 4, when the shelter was historically closed, he stayed open until 10 pm for a holiday adoption campaign. The result: 153 animals who would have been killed in years past were adopted, a single day record for IACC.

But victory in Indianapolis turned out to be short-lived. The director’s car was vandalized twice as the union fought back and won—which meant the animals lost. Recently uncovered documents show a conspiracy between city bureaucrats and the Humane Society of Indianapolis to undermine the progressive director. Following his ouster, killing resumed at IACC with a vengeance.

While Indianapolis animal shelters don’t even come close to earning the label “progressive,” they do have that car race: 500 laps of going around in circles. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

May Winner: No Kill

While communities like Charlottesville continued their No Kill success, newcomers like the Nevada Humane Society joined the 90% club. Not to be outdone, other communities announced similar success including those in Utah, Kentucky, Kansas, Colorado, and elsewhere.

May Winner: No Kill Conference

Hosted by the No Kill Advocacy Center and the Animal Law Program at George Washington Law School, the No Kill Conference rocked the nation’s capital. Featuring the country’s most successful shelter directors, shelter reformers, and animal lawyers, the conference sold out two months in advance, spreading the No Kill message to representatives from over 30 states and six nations.

May Loser: Wayne Pacelle

Despite a series of scandals in 2009 that made No Kill advocates and animal lovers think he could not sink any lower, Wayne Pacelle stunned the nation by embracing the most notorious animal abuser of our time: Michael Vick.

While HSUS testified that the dogs Vick abused should not be given a second chance and should all be killed, Pacelle said that their abuser should be. Vick became a spokesman for HSUS. Or was it the other way around?

June Winner: Redemption

The bible of the No Kill movement, Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation & The No Kill Revolution in America, won its fifth national award and went into a second edition printing. It continued to send shockwaves through the movement and was once again credited with helping to transform communities in the U.S. and, in 2009, abroad.

June Winner: The Science of No Kill

Three national studies confirmed the claims of No Kill advocates: breed bans are costly and don’t work, pet overpopulation is a myth, and success is defined not by how big a shelter’s budget is, but the size of the shelter director’s heart. Investing in leadership pays off big.

July Losers: Wayne Pacelle & Ed Sayres

Making yet another disturbing appearance on the worst of 2009, Sayres and Pacelle return for more ignominy. After his release from prison, Pacelle and HSUS help the most notorious animal abuser of our time get reinstated into the National Football League, erasing any punishment and making Vick a millionaire once more. Vick gets his life back, while the dogs he killed are still, well, dead. As dog lovers across the country cry foul, Ed Sayres of the ASPCA calls the NFL Commissioner’s decision to reinstate Vick “thoughtful.” Vick follows up by saying he wants dogs again: will HSUS help him with that also? And will the ASPCA call that result “thoughtful”?

July Loser: Wayne Pacelle

The largest raid against dog fighting in U.S. history occurs, with over 400 dogs seized by authorities in several states. Most of the dogs ended up in a Missouri humane society. While Wayne Pacelle said killing was the only recourse, hundreds instead went to rescue groups.

But after walking away from the dogs, HSUS then turned around and dishonestly fundraised off of one of the victims at the end of the year. Replete with misinformation and outright lies—including their failure to even get the spelling of the dog’s name right—HSUS said it hoped to raise $1,000,000 from unsuspecting donors. After the humane community—and the dog’s foster parent—cried foul, HSUS announced it would donate $5,000—only about ½ of 1% of the expected take—for the dog’s surgery and pocket the rest. Even HSUS’ false claim of a happy ending turned out to be premature: Fay died shortly thereafter.

July Winner: Pit Bulls and Dogs People Think Look Like Pit Bulls

A national study showed that shelters misidentify breeds as much as three-fourths of the time. Calls to end the needless killing of “Pit Bulls” and dogs mistakenly classified as “Pit Bulls” gained momentum in cities like Denver with regressive anti-dog breed bans. Some communities went a step further and repealed their bans.

August Loser: The Economy

With killing on the increase in some communities, shelters in those areas blamed the economy. But the truth was more sobering as the correlation between declining economic indicators and shelter killing rates didn’t pan out.

Some communities, including those hardest hit by the recession, continued to increase rates of lifesaving when they were run by progressive shelter directors who followed the No Kill Equation model of sheltering. By contrast, those communities least impacted by the recession, nonetheless, saw killing increase, when their shelters were run by regressive directors who found killing easier than doing what it took to stop it.

September Winner: The No Kill Equation

The No Kill Equation goes global as the model is embraced by both Australia and New Zealand. A national Australian conference headlines the No Kill Equation and highlights two Australian communities saving 90% after following the model. The race is on to see which country—the USA, Australia or New Zealand—will become the first No Kill nation.

September Loser: San Francisco SPCA

The once mighty San Francisco SPCA is rocked by a series of scandals culminating in an expose showing the former crown jewel of the No Kill movement is a shell of its former self. The scandals are followed in November by the announcement that its beleaguered director will resign.

October Loser: Catch & Kill Sheltering

Scandals explode all over the country. In Memphis, TN, the shelter is found to starve animals to death. In Lucas County, OH, the director is found to kill animals even in the face of readily available alternatives. In King County, WA, a whistleblower confirms staggering levels of neglect and cruelty in the county shelter. HSUS’ call for National Shelter Appreciation Week is ridiculed as out of touch.

November Winner: Irreconcilable Differences

Irreconcilable Differences: The Battle for the Heart & Soul of America’s Animal Shelters, the long awaited follow-up to Redemption, is released to rave reviews. In response, Wayne Pacelle followed up with a temper tantrum proclaiming he is the leader of the No Kill movement, attempting to rewrite history and his agency’s sordid history of fighting No Kill.

November Winner: No Kill

Bowing to public pressure, municipalities across the country acknowledged and condemned the neglect and killing by their own pounds/shelters. King County (WA) officials announced they will close their abusive shelter, while the Austin (TX) City Council unanimously embraced a No Kill resolution.

November Loser: ASPCA

An abused dog who survived being thrown from a sixth floor Brooklyn rooftop does not survive the “rescue” by the ASPCA. Ed Sayres, the President of the ASPCA, ordered a dog named “Oreo” killed despite the offer of guaranteed lifetime care by a No Kill sanctuary. Dog lovers across the country are outraged, prompting two New York State legislators to introduce “Oreo’s Law” which would prevent shelters from killing animals when a rescue group offers to save that animal’s life. Leadership of the No Kill movement, the nation’s top animal law professors, rescuers and shelter reformers across New York State and the country immediately embraced the legislation. Only the ASPCA came out in opposition. A few weeks later in December, the ASPCA does it again, killing a dog named Max despite a sanctuary’s offer of lifetime care.

December Winner: No Kill Advocates

As No Kill takes center stage all across the country in 2009, six recipients are given the No Kill Advocacy Center’s Henry Bergh Leadership Award as the nation’s top No Kill advocates.

Regarding Henry

Or, my family vacation to New York City

I just returned from our now annual family trip to New York City, my second favorite city in the United States. This is our third trip since we moved out of the state in 2004. It rained and gusted one day and one of the places on our “to do” list, a vegan ice cream shop named Lulu’s Sweet Apothecary was closed for the holidays, a disappointment. But I love New York City: Christmas in Central Park (except the heartbreaking spectacle of the cruel carriage horse industry), Rockefeller Center, walking among all the people, and most of all, the food. We ate at Candle 79, Hangawi (quite possibly the best meal I’ve ever had), Blossom, GOBO, and new vegan chocolatier, CocoaV.

For the second time, we found ourselves at a table next to Alicia Silverstone. The first time was at Real Food Daily in Los Angeles a couple of years ago. This time it was Candle 79. Both times I wanted to go over and speak to her. Not just because Clueless was a fun rendition of Jane Austen’s Emma or because I used to have a bit of a crush on her. Not just because Silverstone uses her fame to promote a vegan diet, including her new book on the topic: The Kind Diet. But because, aside from her veganism, her animal activism is misguided. I wanted to set her straight.

About a year or so ago, I developed a rapport with her mother. She read my first book Redemption and, like other animal lovers, it fundamentally changed her views about animal shelters, the needless and cruel killing of animals at their hands, as well as her views of PETA which defends the killing and kills thousands of animals every year themselves. As you can imagine, this was problematic in the Silverstone household because daughter Alicia is a spokesperson for PETA.

Her mother tried to get her to read my book, but apparently Ingrid Newkirk told her I was trying to destroy the animal rights movement and that was that. The idea is laughable: I’m vegan (and writing my own vegan cookbook), I used to volunteer for PETA before I learned the truth about them, and my goal is to make No Kill an animal rights issue.  As I write in Irreconcilable Differences:

The goals of the animal rights movement are in line with those of No Kill… Imagine what could be accomplished if [No Kill advocates and animal rights activists] came together around the goals they share. The voices championing No Kill would increase exponentially. Ultimately, we all seek to end the senseless killing of animals in shelters—especially those animals not suffering.

While I have never been one for being star struck, it did strike me that what the No Kill movement is missing is a big name promoter. If someone like Silverstone spoke about a passion for No Kill the way she does for veganism during media interviews and how groups like PETA and HSUS are thwarting it, the pressure to change would mount for the celebrity, media, and money hungry Wayne Pacelles of this movement.

And though some might be tempted to say that sitting next to her twice on two different coasts was “fate,” I don’t believe in supernatural forces of that ilk, or any kind for that matter, and because Alicia thinks I am trying to destroy the animal rights movement, rather than save the lives of four million animals, I passed on the opportunity for the second time. If her mother can’t get her to read my book or to see the light, what chance have I?

Then came the highlight of the trip. On December 26, during a rainy and blustery day, the kind that turns your umbrellas inside out and soaks you to the bone, we took a subway ride to and then a walk through Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.  There are a lot of big names interned at Green-Wood, but we came to visit only one: Henry Bergh.

To those who read Redemption or have heard me speak, Henry Bergh needs no introduction. To those who haven’t, Henry Bergh was a 19th Century animal advocate who launched the humane movement in North America. He gave the first speech on animal protection in the U.S., incorporated the nation’s first humane society (the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), and succeeded in passing the nation’s first anti-cruelty law. Every night, as President of the ASPCA, Bergh would patrol the streets of his native New York City looking for animals in need of protection.

Upon his death, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote of him:

Among the noblest of the land; Though he may count himself the least; That man I honor and revere; Who, without favor, without fear; In the great city dares to stand; The friend of every friendless beast.

And he truly was: After he succeeded in passing an anti-cruelty law, he put a copy in his pocket, and took to the streets that very night—and every single night thereafter for the remainder of his life—to help animals and punish violators. The annals of the ASPCA describe the first such encounter:

The driver of a cart laden with coal is whipping his horse. Passersby on the New York City street stop to gawk not so much at the weak, emaciated equine, but at the tall man, elegant in top hat and spats, who is explaining to the driver that it is now against the law to beat one’s animal.

Aside from prosecuting animal cruelty cases, fighting city dogcatchers and protecting horses, among many other achievements, he even invented the clay pigeon to put an end to cruel pigeon shoots. Henry Bergh is my hero, the one person in history I would want to meet if I could.  If he were alive today, there is no doubt that Bergh would be the nation’s most vociferous No Kill advocate and a fierce critic of the ASPCA he founded, as well as a harsh opponent of all the other pretenders in our cause, such as HSUS, the American Humane Association, and the animal killers at PETA.

It was his resoluteness that made him the subject of condemnation and ridicule, the way No Kill advocates today are at the hands of groups like HSUS. The political cartoons of his day often mocked him, saying he was divisive and enemy seeking and actually hindered progress.

Wayne Pacelle’s recent blog post where he wrote about what he called “the shrill efforts of a few no-kill advocates whose work has retarded the progress of that cause by alienating so many people, especially within the sheltering community,” may be little more than a temper tantrum—without our voices and the pressure we have caused, HSUS would still be opposing TNR, transfers to rescue groups, foster care programs, offsite adoptions, holiday adoptions, indeed, the concept of No Kill itself—but it is not unique. Aside from rewriting his and HSUS’ sordid histories promoting killing, those were the very criticisms—if not the very words—defenders of the status quo—the Wayne Pacelles, dog catchers, and others of Bergh’s day—wrote about Bergh himself. To those who opposed Bergh, he was simply known as the “Great Meddler.” And meddle he did. I write about one such incident in Redemption:

One evening in February of 1871 during the evening rush hour, working people rushed for the cars, and the horses began to strain with heavy loads through snow and slush. As one overloaded car reached the corner near where Bergh stood, the driver was ready to give the horses another lash when the call came to “Stop!” and “Unload!” It was Bergh. “Who the hell are you?” came the reply from the driver. “Unload!” called the order again. When the driver refused, Bergh reportedly pitched him into a snow bank and unhitched the horses. Often, Bergh would completely stop traffic on the lines, causing traffic jams that would leave thousands of people stranded and cursing to no avail—because one man had stopped all the traffic to protect a single horse.

During these incidents, Bergh literally brought an entire City to a halt in order to protect animals from being abused: a 19th Century version of the man standing in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square. And as much as the Wayne Pacelles of the time attacked him for doing so, he never failed to do what he knew was right, what he knew was necessary to stop cruel practices, in spite of the people he made angry as a result. And it was that tenacity that resulted in ridicule and condemnation from his detractors, but made him very effective and earned him the tremendous respect and regard evidenced by the gushing obituary from the very newspaper that was—more than once—one of his fiercest critics in the early days of his work.

Holding the doorknob to his mausoleum, I could imagine them closing it in 1888 forever. Some might call it creepy or macabre, but it was very profound. The animals lost a great friend that morning. But they lost so much more as his work remained unfinished. And while I was cold and wet and tired (it is a long, long walk from the 25th Street subway exit to the actual site of his mausoleum high on a hill on “Dawn Lane” as Green-Wood is nothing short of colossal), it was fitting. Standing in front of the site, I pictured Bergh out on the streets, in the cold, wet, sleet, and snow, seeking out animals to protect, day after day, night after night. And it made me respect him all the more.

The next day we visited 429 Fifth Avenue at 38th Street, the site of his home, where he died:

On March 12, 1888, as a storm whipped the city and gales tore the roofs off of houses, New York’s overworked horses struggled to pull carloads of people through the snow. But for once, after two decades of policing the streets on their behalf, Bergh was not there to protect them. In the early hours of the morning, Henry Bergh had died.

At the time, the area was the heart of New York’s high society, home to New York’s most prominent families including the Astors, and provided the backdrop for Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Age of Innocence. Today, Bergh’s Brownstone is gone, replaced by a Sleepy’s mattress store in what is now New York’s premier shopping district. We were sad to see his house gone, long ago demolished to make room for a storefront, with no marker of any kind. But, oddly, that it should be a mattress store seemed tragically fitting. Since his death, the ASPCA he founded has been asleep. As I write in Redemption,

The New York Post, in a prophetic statement, noted that: “His society was distinctly a one man power. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was Henry Bergh and Henry Bergh was the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”

Indeed, Bergh himself had often lamented, “I hate to think what will become of this society when I am gone.” It did not take long for the fears Bergh harbored about the future of his ASPCA to come to pass. Following his death—and contrary to Bergh’s wishes—the ASPCA capitulated and accepted a contract from New York City to run the dog pound. It was a tragic mistake. In little more than a decade, animal sheltering became the ASPCA’s primary role. By 1910, the ASPCA was doing little more than impounding dogs and cats on behalf of the city, with all but a small percentage put to death…

When the ASPCA took over the pound contract in New York City following Henry Bergh’s death, it began a century of squandering not only his life work, but more significantly the ASPCA’s vast potential. Bergh’s ideal of a humane agency founded to save animals was replaced with shelters across the country whose primary purpose was—and remains—killing animals, whether or not they are suffering. And for most of the animals “rescued” by these agencies, death remains a totally unnecessary, but virtual certainty.

It was a great betrayal and would have hurt Henry deeply. Even today, the ASPCA remains mired in regressive practices and failed philosophies Bergh would have fought against. Moreover, true animal activists—who should find a ready and willing ally—are forced to spend their time fighting the ASPCA. Ryan Clinton of Fix Austin just received the No Kill Advocacy Center’s Henry Bergh Leadership Award for his work to reform the shelter in Austin, Texas. Clinton was given an award named for Bergh and intended to honor those in our own day and age who exemplify the dedication to animals which Bergh exemplified. Ironically, Clinton was given an award for courage in fighting the very agency Bergh founded. Clinton’s efforts included not only challenging the regressive director of Austin’s pound, but challenging the ASPCA which continues to back the pound. That, too, would have hurt Bergh deeply. And it should go without saying that the very idea of current ASPCA President Ed Sayres—Oreo’s killer, a man who once said killing is the moral equivalent of not killing, who opposes the types of laws Bergh would have championed, who destroyed what was once the crown jewel of the No Kill movement when he was the San Francisco SPCA President and then fought the efforts of reformers who tried to reclaim it—sitting in the chair once occupied by the great Henry Bergh is so obscene, it is simply beyond words.

There was so much more we wanted to see and do while in New York City. Because we ran out of time, this was our first trip to New York City where we were not able to visit a single museum. But visiting sights related to Bergh’s life and death left us more inspired by greatness and possibility than any museum ever could.

What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Vegas

Last weekend, Best Friends held their annual No More Homeless Pets conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Roughly 650 people attended, of which 80% were new to the national No Kill movement. The conference was exciting, well executed, and included some remarkable and forward-thinking presenters and workshops. Bonney Brown, who is leading a successful No Kill initiative in Reno, NV gave two workshops on Building a No Kill Community. Jon Dunn, Social Marketing Manager for Best Friends, and Scott Goodstein, who led President Obama’s social marketing campaign, taught seminars on utilizing social media to save lives. There were presentations on non-lethal feral cat programs and much more. It was a great step forward for the movement, and I am grateful to have participated in the event.

Admittedly, I did not see all the workshops. Admittedly, there will always be some things No Kill advocates will disagree on. But there were three statements made by “experts” that were not simple disagreements between No Kill advocates. These three statements were not something on which No Kill advocates can reasonably differ. The claims were simply regressive, antiquated, and harmful for our goals of a No Kill nation. Without detracting from the assessment above, without detracting from the kudos Best Friends deserves for the event (none of the statements were made by anyone from Best Friends and, based on numerous communications with them in the past, I am sure Best Friends was as shocked by them as I was), I address those here.

Like most advocates working to reform our nation’s broken animal shelter system, I am accused of being “divisive,” though the claim only goes in one direction. Apologists for shelter killing are free to call No Kill and No Kill advocates “cruel” and a “delusion” (National Animal Control Association), “warehousing” and “glorified collectors” (Humane Society of the United States), “No Clue” (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), and worse; but when you stand up for the animals, you are the “divisive” and “unreasonable” one.

I don’t enjoy conflict and I don’t seek out conflict. I’ve tried to meet with Wayne Pacelle in order to work out our differences, only to be rebuffed (he ignored my letters for 15 years and then finally responded to say he won’t meet with anyone he doesn’t trust, and he doesn’t trust me. Ironically, he was more than willing to trust, meet, and finally embrace Michael Vick, a convicted felon and dog killing psychotic monster). I’ve met in the past with the American Humane Association, only to watch them continue to promote arcane policies that harm animals. I’ve actually tried to establish a dialog with Ingrid Newkirk. And for two years, I tried to keep Ed Sayres focused on saving homeless animals at the San Francisco SPCA, rather than promoting his own aggrandizement. All, to no avail.

And I’ve said it before and I will say it again: when any one of these groups embraces the No Kill paradigm unequivocally, I will be the first to line up behind them. I’d even go away. Believe it or not, there are other animal related causes that I am passionate about and want to further before my time here on this Earth is finished. When they are ready to move on, so am I.

But their commitment to the mass killing of animals entrusted to their care and to the care of the shelters they provide political cover to, is entrenched beyond the bounds of reason. As I wrote in the new 2009 second edition of Redemption:

The only thing standing between the system of mass killing we are living under today and the No Kill nation we can immediately achieve is that the leaders of the large national organizations refuse to seize the opportunity to act. Instead they are determined to fail—to ensure that the paradigm they have championed for so long is not upended—by blocking reform efforts which challenge their hegemony; by protecting and defending draconian shelter practices, uncaring shelter directors; and by squandering the potential represented by the great love people have for companion animals.

How can I ignore the fact that the 3,600,000 savable dogs and cats killed every year in our nation’s shelters can in fact actually be saved today but for the policies championed, defended, and promoted by groups such as HSUS, NACA, AHA, ASPCA, and PETA? I cannot. And so I am left with no choice but to engage them directly. I am left with no choice but to counter their deadly policies. I am left with no choice but to stand up for the animals, even as I am called “radical,” “enemy seeking,” “unreasonable,” and “divisive.”

It comes with the territory. As I told Best Friends conference attendees in a series of slides at my workshop on “Reforming Animal Control,”

They’ll tell you No Kill is impossible (even though it has already been achieved!). They’ll use that as an excuse to continue killing. And to whitewash their failures to hold staff accountable. Or their failure to implement lifesaving programs. To keep customer service poor and the shelter dirty. To allow this to continue: algae covered water bowls and filthy kennels. And this: cruel methods of killing and dirty litter boxes. To fill body bags, despite empty cages. It is truly time for change.

But when you call it into question.  They’ll call you “divisive.”  They’ll give you one excuse after another:

“It’s pet overpopulation.”

“It’s the public’s fault.”

“We need more laws.”

“The animals are not adoptable.”

“Wait five years.”

Even though none of these are true.

Being called “divisive” is not something I— or other No Kill advocates such as the good folks at FixAustin who were recently accused of the same in a newspaper editorial—relish.  I suppose, however, that since this is the mantel that people often bear who challenge vested interests intent on harm, we might as well wear it as a badge of honor. After all, we are in good company: Harriet Beecher Stowe was considered “divisive” not just for being an abolitionist, but for refusing to compromise by challenging the liberal concept of “humane slavery.” Alice Paul was considered “divisive” within the suffrage movement for not being civil with the two-faced Woodrow Wilson. As were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. was “divisive” not just for challenging segregation, but liberal “supporters” in Chicago who allowed the “ghetto” and Lyndon Johnson for sending black and poor people to fight his dirty war against poor people in Viet Nam. Cesar Chavez, Rachel Carson, Harvey Milk, Thomas Clarkson, and everyone else—great or small; remembered or forgotten—who ever said “enough is enough” in their respective social movements. All of them were “unreasonable.” All of them were “divisive.” All of them were “radical.” I suppose we should be grateful that being labeled a “communist” is no longer in vogue, though it is just a matter of time before we are called “terrorists.” Thankfully, history always vindicates those who champion compassion, those who aspire to do the right thing in spite of the consequences in the here and now—because progress depends on it.

And so I stand up in spite of the personal attacks. And while the conference itself was exciting; while the vast majority of speakers were terrific and trailblazing; while the venue and process was flawless; while the end result was a positive step forward in our efforts to achieve a No Kill nation; while 80% of attendees were either new to conferences or new to the movement, showing that the No Kill movement is growing by leaps and bounds; while I came away energized and excited and grateful that Best Friends gave me and others an opportunity to reach a whole new set of activists with the No Kill message—activists who have joined our army of compassion and will spread out across the county to their respective communities and help burn down every last vestige of the “catch and kill” paradigm that HSUS and others champion and protect—I also felt nervous and angry and once again forced to stand up and defend the animals against potentially deadly misinformation.

Only this time, the misinformation that allows killing to continue came not from my enemies (such as Pacelle, Sayres, and Newkirk), but from my friends. It came from other presenters who claim to be allies in the fight for a No Kill nation. (One panelist in another session actually claimed the City of Los Angeles is a national model because of its mandatory spay/neuter law which has caused killing rates to increase for the first time in a decade! Another panelist is a poster child for killing apologists and killing enablers like Judy Mancuso who want to spread this warped version of “success” statewide.) And I could not, and I cannot, allow that to go unanswered. It would be a betrayal to my good sense. It would be a betrayal to my conscience. But most of all, it would be a betrayal to the animals.

As I write in my upcoming book Irreconcilable Differences,

While it is always more difficult and uncomfortable to stand up to one’s so-called “friends” than to stand up to one’s “enemies,” stand up we must. For if we are ever to achieve a No Kill nation—and end the wholly unnecessary killing of millions of animals every year in U.S. shelters—we must respond strategically to the actual problems that cause animal suffering and prevent greater lifesaving…

Nationwide lifesaving success will be achieved only when all shelters and all animal protection groups embrace the No Kill paradigm that says that the killing in our nation’s shelters must end—and not when we “respect” opposing views that accept and legitimize that killing.

And so at the risk of being again (and unfairly) labeled “divisive,” I feel duty bound to clear up the false claims made by some of the “experts” at the Best Friends No More Homeless Pets Conference. During my involvement on a panel on adoptions, my fellow panelists made several statements that are quite simply wrong and indefensible.

One panelist defended leash laws for cats and “indoor only” adoption policies. Another panelist claimed that cat killing in shelters is currently inevitable because of “pet overpopulation.” And yet another stated that with the growth of adoptions, their “return” rate (adopted animals who are returned to the shelter within one year) also increased significantly.

When measured against seminars showing shelters and rescue groups how to embrace social media to save lives; when measured against workshops on increasing adoptions, embracing Trap-Neuter-Release, foster care, and other programs to achieve No Kill; when measured against all the wonderful outcomes and presentations of the conference, some may be tempted to say that I protest too much. But I don’t think so.

There were 650 people in the room, eight out of ten of who are new to the national No Kill movement. And if they walk away with lowered expectations, if they walk away with lowered demands, if they embrace cat leash laws or “indoor only” adoption policies while cats are being killed in their local shelters, if they give animal control more power to turn away good homes and kill the animals well meaning Americans are willing to adopt, if they do not embrace high volume adoptions because they think it comes with high return rates, if they wait five years when they shouldn’t have to wait any, if they embrace punitive laws as “reform” even though these are often part of the problem, animals needlessly die. And how can we—as animal lovers and No Kill advocates—allow that?

This is not theoretical. In Ohio, the Lucas County dog warden is under fire for an astronomically high kill rate. Roughly eight out of ten dogs are being put to death, even as rescue groups are turned away, even as owners are calling to try and find their missing dogs he has already killed, even as the dogs are getting sick because he refuses to vaccinate them, even though his response is always “kill, kill, kill” despite readily available lifesaving alternatives, and even though he is an incompetent hack who was given the job due to nepotism (he is related to a county commissioner). And so while a Committee overseeing problems at the shelter uncovered a pattern of neglect and incompetence, they also recommended door-to-door canvassing for dog license violators as the first step towards a solution. That’s correct: they want to give the Lucas County dog killer and his animal control thugs more power to cite, impound, and kill animals not in compliance. And they are not alone.

Los Angeles activists complain about the killing going at Los Angeles Animal Services. And what did they seek and ultimately enact into law? A punitive ordinance that gave uncaring animal control officers more power to cite, impound, and kill animals. And the officers have done exactly that: the first increase in killing in a decade.

How is that approach a path to No Kill? And who is championing it? Sadly, a minority of “experts” at the recent conference. Leash laws, license laws, arbitrary adoption policies, mandatory spay/neuter laws, and myths about overpopulation and the “need” to kill. Even though this approach has never worked and too often, has the opposite results.

Imagine this. Imagine it was a conference sometime in the future: a “No More Cancer” conference. And let’s say a cure for cancer has been discovered. It has a 100% rate of success in every patient to whom it was given as long as they follow the prescription. And let’s say one physician is championing that cure and has demonstrated time and time again, in patients all over the country and in all types of cancer, how it has worked. But the other panelists are championing old treatments that don’t work. Imagine what that first physician would feel like; what he would feel compelled to scream: “There is a cure people! What the hell are you talking about? Patients are dying and it is unnecessary.”

That is exactly how I felt listening to the panelists on adoptions advance outdated, antiquated, and downright regressive approaches to ending the systematic killing of animals in shelters. Don’t get me wrong; I do not want to overstate the case. For the most part, the panelists agreed on the many issues surrounding adoption programs, as they should have. There is only one model that has achieved No Kill success and it is the model we should all be championing: high volume, thoughtful but not overly bureaucratic screening, incentives and promotions, offsite events, evening and weekend hours, public relations, good customer service, and a fun and inviting shelter where people can interact with the animals. But this isn’t some minor process disagreement.

For example, comprehensive adoption programs are crucial to ending the killing of healthy and treatable animals. But while daily offsite adoption events were central to the strategy in San Francisco (we did offsite events seven days a week, at seven different locations every day) and they accounted for roughly 25% of overall adoptions, Bonney Brown of the Nevada Humane Society will tell you that while they have embraced every other aspect of a comprehensive adoption effort, including periodic offsite adoptions, given their centrally located facility, offsite adoptions aren’t a daily necessity for them, and the results prove it (adoptions for dogs are up over 50% and adoptions for cats are up over 80% since she took over). This is a difference of degree, which is community specific, even while we both agree that only the No Kill Equation model of adoptions achieves success.

The statements made by the panelists are not a difference of degree. They are a difference in kind. It is tempting to suggest they simply do not know better. This is bad enough. As self-proclaimed experts, they have a higher duty to stay on top of their field and only give the most relevant and modern advice—a  duty they fundamentally abdicated by giving bad advice and drawing the wrong conclusions. But I believe there is something deeper at work. And regardless of the motivations, all of these claims are simply wrong. They are not wrong in my opinion. They are wrong, in fact. And while I was not on the particular panel when the City of Los Angeles was promoted as a model of success (I did debunk this claim in my conference seminar on “Reforming Animal Control”), I did challenge the rest during the panel discussion I was a part of. And I must challenge them here, too. [In many ways, the blog “Lessons from an Andy Warhol Tote Bag” is apropos here also. I recommend people read it again with an eye to what was championed by a minority at the recent Las Vegas conference.]

I won’t address the issue of mandatory spay/neuter. I’ve written about it too many times to go into again, as have many, many other animal lovers who correctly oppose: giving animal control more power to divert resources from lifesaving programs to enforcement; increasing the power of the catch and kill bureaucracy; and punishing the public for the shelter’s failures, especially as this punitive approach leads to more killing. For this, you can read Redemption, or go to nokilladvocacycenter.org, petconnection.com, kcdogblog.com, among many others. Even the ASPCA—the flagship for the Eastern “catch and kill” establishment—has finally, finally, finally, woken up and come out against them because they don’t work (though they don’t mention they also kill more animals).

But as for the rest:

Myth: Shelters should have “indoor only” adoption policies for cats/shelters should embrace cat leash laws.

Analysis of Claims: Instead of taking a pragmatic approach which itself is questionable (indoor-only policies might make sense in Manhattan, but not in rural America, and case-by-case in between these two extremes); the idea that cats belong only indoors and adoption policies should reflect that, requires shelters to accept an ethical contradiction: it is acceptable to kill cats today because some may be killed later if allowed outdoors. In addition, the risks of being outdoors are thoroughly exaggerated. A comprehensive 11-year study of outdoor cats found that they had similar baselines in health, disease rates, and longevity as indoor cats. A subsequent study gave feral cats “A+” grades across a wide range of physical and health characteristics. In yet another study, less than one percent of over 100,000 feral cats admitted to seven major TNR programs across the United States were killed for debilitating conditions; while a fourth survey across 132 colonies in north central Florida showed that 96 percent of feral cats had a “good” or “great” quality of life.

Moreover, as I write in Irreconcilable Differences:

In the end, however, the “risks” associated with being outdoors—disease, malicious humans, and even predation—are not the primary killers of cats. (A study on the diet of urban coyotes in an area filled with outdoor cats showed that domestic cats were found in only 1.3 percent of the scats). People in shelters are the number one killer of cats. If we care about cats, we should put programs in place that prevent them from entering these facilities and that provide an opportunity for them to get out alive when they do.

And that includes not putting in place arbitrary barriers to their adoption. We should not turn away good homes just because the potential adopters indicate the cat will be let outside, especially while shelters are killing savable cats.

Myth: Shelters cannot adopt their way out of killing cats and have no choice but to kill cats because of overpopulation.

Analysis of Claim: There are four reasons to reject this claim. First of all, the argument that it is impossible to end the killing of savable cats because there are too many ignores that it has already been achieved in many communities. In addition, it has been achieved in communities with per capita intake rates that exceed this claimant’s community several-fold. The fact that the claimant’s community has failed to end the killing of healthy and treatable cats is because of the practices (or lack of appropriate practices) by the animal control shelter in that specific community. It cannot be universalized.

Second, the data proves pet overpopulation is a myth. Several studies from a number of sources confirm that there are more people looking to bring a new cat into their homes than the total number of cats entering shelters, and most of these people can be influenced to adopt from a shelter. On top of that, not all cats entering shelters need adoption.

Third, there is consensus on this issue among the national groups including the No Kill Advocacy Center, Maddie’s Fund, HSUS, the ASPCA, and others. Given that these groups agree on very little, the fact that they all acknowledge that a small percentage increase of market share—roughly 3%—will eliminate the population control killing of all healthy and treatable cats and dogs indicates a high degree of confidence.

Finally, the claimant has no direct control over the practices of the community’s animal control shelter, the shelter has a long history of bureaucratic inertia and underperformance, it kills—rather than TNR—most feral cats, the large TNR group in the community has repeatedly failed to rescue notched ear cats in the animal control facility, there is a lack of full scale commitment to ending the killing of savable cats by the large shelters in the community, resources are misallocated, and shirkers on staff are not held accountable.

In summary, it cannot be called impossible since it has already been achieved, the data proves it, as does the consensus of groups who normally agree on very little. There are many reasons shelters kill cats. But “pet overpopulation” is not one of them. And there is ample evidence animal control in the claimant’s community is not doing nearly enough to save the lives of cats.

In the end, the real motivation behind this claim may be to provide political cover for the failure to achieve success by trying to universalize it. But, in the end, this amounts to nothing more than the age-old diversionary tactic of avoiding responsibility by pointing the finger of blame to others.

Myth: High volume adoptions results in high rates of returns (as high as 20%).

Analysis of Claim: The underpinning of this claim is that in order to increase quantity, you have to reduce quality. And because of these lower quality adoptions, this line of thinking goes, more animals are being returned. Increasing adoptions involves:

• Public access adoption hours
• Beating the competition (commercial sources of animals)
• Offsite adoptions
• Special events
• Adoption incentives
• Foster care
• Utilizing rescue groups
• Alternative placements
• Thoughtful but not overly bureaucratic screening
• A fun and friendly shelter environment
• Setting specific goals
• Encouraging the public to interact with the animals
• Turning challenges into opportunities

It has nothing whatsoever to do with reducing quality. That is why some of the most successful shelters in the country have return rates of less than 5%. In Tompkins County, New York, for example, it was closer to 2% despite a 93% save rate, the best in the nation.

In the end, however, even if it did involve a 20% rate of return and even if we accepted for the sake of argument, that this figure could never be lowered, what would be the significance of that? Sure, it would put more pressure on resources, but as long as the shelter was No Kill, no animals have to die as a result. And why focus on the 20% rather than the 80% who are still both alive and in their homes?

In the end, I’d rather have a lifetime home than a six-month home, but I’d treat the latter no different than an animal returning from foster care and simply find that animal another home six months from now. Our goal may be a lifetime home, but our greater goal is no more killing. And if the home falls through, while not the ideal, as long as the lifesaving guarantee is in place, there is no permanent harm.

When you release yourself from this (and other) conventional shelter dogma, all kinds of lifesaving possibilities open up: leasing animals to military families who are stationed for a defined period of time, trial run adoptions, and other creative alternatives to traditional shelter practices that result in killing far too many animals. In fact, during my recent trip to Australia, a rescue group recounted saving dozens of animals immediately threatened with death at the pound by placing them (“leasing them” she called them) in fixed-term homes for people from other countries on a temporary work related visa.

To be fair, the claimant on the panel admitted to be struggling with their own relatively new program and therefore was simply offering results before they have ironed out the “bugs” and achieved success. The claimant also admitted they had no control over the specific adoption policies of some of the groups involved in their multi-agency adoption efforts. The miscue here was clearly not intentional, but merely a relaying of preliminary data as it was. I’ve debated simply leaving it out, because it was not an effort to universalize their results, but I include it because it is worth clarifying misconceptions about high volume adoptions, especially since this misconception feeds into the dark vision promoted by people like Ingrid Newkirk, Wayne Pacelle, and others who advocate continued killing of animals.

And while the latter claim was not made with the dogmatic pronouncement of the first two, what the entire claimants share in common is that none of them have ever achieved a No Kill community. A priori, that makes their advice on how to achieve No Kill open to immediate challenge. Having achieved a No Kill community and having assisted other communities to do the same, I told the attendees at my conference workshop what they needed to hear and what should be their uncompromising mantra: no more excuses, no more killing. In the end, that will earn them the label “divisive,” but in the light of history, it will be seen for what it truly is: the mark of compassion.

For further reading:

Lessons from an Andy Warhol Tote Bag

Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation & The No Kill Revolution in America (2nd Edition)

Irreconcilable Differences: The Battle for the Heart & Soul of America’s Animal Shelters

The Confederacy of Dunces

“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. – Jonathan Swift from Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting.” – J.K. Toole, The Confederacy of Dunces.

I do not claim to be a genius, far from it. But that has not stopped the Confederacy of Dunces from aligning themselves against me. In fact, the Confederacy will align themselves against anyone who seeks any progress in this movement. Ask Bonney Brown, the Executive Director of the Nevada Humane Society, who is saving 90% of all animals in Washoe County and being attacked for it by Ardena Perry. Ask Suzanne Kogut of the Charlottesville SPCA who has run a No Kill animal control shelter for three years and has her band of Naysayers. Ask Richard Avanzino who was mercilessly attacked by HSUS, the ASPCA, and others when he was blazing a new trail as the President of the San Francisco SPCA. Ask anyone who has ever tried to build a better society, regardless of the field. The status quo always has its champions. And when that status quo is regressive, as the humane movement has been over the care and treatment of sheltered animals, rest assured the Confederacy will be also.

For me, the latest salvo was an interview I did this week where I was asked whether I support puppy mills, hunting, and other animal abuse as the Confederacy has suggested. I was also asked if I get money from these types of groups for promoting that pet overpopulation is a myth.

I did not wake up one day and say “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 Kool Aid. The dedication of my book, Redemption, says it all:

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

I once actually argued with her on a date, before we were married, that “There were too many animals and not enough homes” and “What were shelters supposed to do with them?” I am ashamed of having done so, but I did. She correctly argued that even if it were true, killing them was still unethical. She also correctly 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.

How did I know? Because I’ve 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 Charlottesville (VA), then visiting hundreds of shelters across the country, reviewing data from the ASPCA, HSUS, the AVMA, and others, and then the data of over 1,000 shelters nationwide, and more research and crunching of numbers, and several national studies. And the conclusion became not just inescapable, but unassailable. And 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 since that time, other studies have come out which not only prove I was right, they show I was conservative. Seventeen million people are potentially looking for 3,000,000 shelter animals. What that means is that even if over 80% of people who are going to get a dog or cat next year get one from somewhere other than a shelter, we could still zero out deaths of healthy and medically/behaviorally savable animals.

What that means is that contrary to what many shelters falsely claim are the primary hurdles to lifesaving (e.g., public irresponsibility), the biggest impediments are actually in shelter management’s hands. Effectiveness in shelter goals and operations begins with caring and competent leadership, staff accountability, effective programs, and good relations with the community—which most shelters refuse to do. It means putting actions behind the words of every shelter’s mission statement that “All life is precious.” And it is abundantly clear that the practices of most shelters are not aligned with this principle.

What that means is that shelter killing is not the result of pet overpopulation; it is the result of shelter managers who find killing easier than doing what is necessary to stop it. And not only do they kill animals they should be saving, too many of them neglect and abuse them in the process.

The bottom line is that shelter killing is unnecessary and unethical. And pet overpopulation is nothing more than an excuse for poorly performing shelter managers who want to blame others for their own failures. I dare anyone to challenge the data without resorting to petty ad hominem attacks against me. Because I could go away tomorrow, but that wouldn’t change the facts, or the inescapable conclusion one bit. The cat is quite literally out of the bag, and is never going back in.

The No Kill message I advocate is incredibly power because it is the truth and because it resonates so strongly with the experiences that animal lovers have with their own brutal and regressive shelters. And that threatens the Confederacy—the Judy Mancusos, Wayne Pacelles, Pat Dunaways, Ardena Perrys, and Ingrid Newkirks of the world because it does not fit with their predetermined agenda in support of either killing or killing shelters, or in the case of Newkirk, her own mass slaughter. And since they cannot attack the message, they attack the messenger. It’s an old trick and petty trick, but it is all they have because the data is unassailable and no matter what the reality,

• they want to continue supporting laws that kill animals (Judy Mancuso);
• they are apologists for killing to the point of standing side-by-side with shelter directors whose shelters neglect, abuse, and unnecessarily kill animals (Wayne Pacelle, Pat Dunaway);
• they kill animals themselves (shelter directors who are “against No Kill”); and,
• they have dark impulses that cause them to actually seek out animals to kill (Ardena Perry, Ingrid Newkirk).

The ultimate irony here is that while people like Mancuso, Pacelle, Dunaway, Perry, Newkirk, and the rest of the Confederacy falsely accuse me of being aligned with industries that neglect, abuse, and kill animals, they are the ones that actually support industries that do so. They like to euphemistically call them “animal shelters.” The more thoughtful among us call them “pounds.” The reality is that too many of them are little more than slaughterhouses and death camps.

♦

Let me set the record straight, again:

I am against mandatory spay/neuter laws because they do not work, because they kill animals. I am also against puppy mills.

I was against mandatory spay/neuter when I was the lone voice on that score arguing from the point of view that they lead to increased impounds and killing. I have never shied away from taking an unpopular view when the lives of animals were threatened. Now, there are a lot of animal lovers and even the ASPCA which are against them for the same reason. That people who run puppy mills are also against them does not mean that I am in league with puppy mills, any more than it means the ASPCA is in league with puppy mills. I am against puppy mills and always have been. Puppy mills fuel over breeding, inbreeding, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of human socialization, overcrowded cages, neglect, abuse, and the killing of animals by those facilities when they are no longer profitable. That is why I put together the following workshop at the No Kill Conference:

Legislating and Litigating an End to Puppy Mills Strategies to overcome institutionalized cruelty. This workshop will explore legal definitions of “puppy mills,” and offer both legislative strategies through anti-cruelty law reform and litigation strategies to combat this institutionalized form of cruelty…

It is not that I don’t support spay/neuter. I do. And when I was in charge of shelters, I supported it more than most shelter directors do. Spay/Neuter is one of the cornerstones of the No Kill Equation and a program I offered for free in both San Francisco and Tompkins County. My opposition to mandatory spay/neuter laws is because they increase the power of the animal control bureaucracy to impound and kill animals for violations, and that is what has occurred in municipalities which pass them. This is not an anomaly. It has happened time and time again. It also causes animal control to divert scarce resources from programs which save lives to enforcement of ordinances that result in higher rates of killing. Now, the ASPCA has come out against them and HSUS has shifted from support to neutral and is evaluating whether to oppose them. Even the former head of animal control in Los Angeles, one of the chief proponents of such laws, admitted to a California Senator that the laws were not about saving the lives of animals:

Senator: “Mr. Boks, this bill doesn’t even pretend to be about saving animals, does it?”

Ed Boks: “No Senator, this is not about saving dogs and cats.”

They are about more power for animal control departments, more officers, more sweeps of stray animals, more citations written, more animals impounded, and more animals killed. (They also feed the backyard breeder market as people then find other unaltered animals.) That groups which claim to be concerned with high levels of shelter killing would actually seek legislation to empower a dysfunctional animal control bureaucracy to impound—and thus kill—even more animals, is a contradiction they conveniently ignore. I’ve even asked supporters to put in protections for animals in these laws, such as: no impound provisions, free spay/neuter in lieu of a citation if violators are on any kind of public assistance, and automatic repeal if killing goes up. They declined. If they believe in these laws, why not put in these protections?

And just in case that is not clear enough, if mandatory spay/neuter worked to save the lives of animals being needlessly slaughtered in shelters, I would support the laws. I would be the single, loudest voice in support of them. My issue is ending killing. I have no other agenda.

I am against animal abuse of any kind, regardless of whether it comes in the form of hunting, puppy mills, or shelter killing.

I am an animal rights activist. I wear the appellation of animal rights as a badge of honor. It is unfortunate that some people hate the term. It is unfortunate that some animal rescuers hate the term. And it is unfortunate that some No Kill advocates hate the term. I am an animal lover and a lawyer and as we live in a legal Republic, that is what my aim is. I have argued that the term “animal rights” is not going away, and it shouldn’t. It is a term intended to put the No Kill movement in line with other social justice movements—to cash in on the heritage of other rights based philosophies that have benefited from building on the work of those movements which have come before them. It is a powerful term which accurately encapsulates what the No Kill movement is seeking for dogs and cats. And, when it comes to these animals, the public is ready and willing to embrace it.

The No Kill movement is the most progressive voice for companion animal rights that there is. By rejecting the mantel that is rightfully ours, the No Kill movement inadvertently cedes the moral high ground to those who do not faithfully represent it, and who use it to justify killing. And in the end, no group, including shelter animals, is safe in a legal republic without the rights afforded by law. By rejecting the concept for dogs and cats due to a mistaken notion that it represents something it truly does not (i.e., the end of sharing one’s home with animals), those in the No Kill movement allow people like Newkirk and her minions at PETA to exercise their dark impulses by slaughtering dogs and cats, while hiding behind their false claim of animal rights.

I do not get financial support from organizations like the Center for Consumer Freedom.

I never have. If they wrote good reviews of my book, they wrote good reviews of my book. I like to think the good review is because it’s a good book. Hell, it won five awards. But if their positive review is nothing more than their hatred of HSUS (“the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of thing), it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve never offered me money and I’ve never received money from them.

I have a vegan cookbook coming out in 2010. Rest assured, it won’t be reviewed by them and it won’t be promoted by them. I hope PETA reviews it, and I hope they say it is a “must read” for animals lovers, but that won’t mean I am aligned with them either. And even if they did give it four out of four stars, I’d still call for the Butcher of Norfolk to be fired.

And the Monster Went Free…

The most notorious animal abuser of our time was just given what he wanted most by being reinstated in the National Football League. I have to wonder how much he pleaded for mercy and empathy, even as the dogs he abused and killed received none from him. But most of all, I have to wonder how much Michael Vick played up his association with Wayne Pacelle and the Humane Society of the United States in his meetings with the Commissioner and others who held his fate in their hands. How he is now an HSUS spokesman. How the nation’s largest animal protection organization is now in his corner. How they forgave him, so why shouldn’t the NFL?

I’ll say it again:

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

From Tangipahoa Parish, LA where he legitimized the unnecessary mass slaughter of shelter animals to Wilkes County, NC where he embraced the mass slaughter of dogs. From San Francisco, CA where he fought shelter reform legislation which would have saved lives to the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, where he claimed “Mission Accomplished” and left with tens of millions in HSUS bank accounts which belonged to the animals who continued to suffer. From legitimizing a round up and kill campaign for cats in Randolph, IA to fear mongering over the bird flu by telling people not to help, feed, or touch stray cats but to call animal control when they see them, agencies with a history of mass slaughter,  even as the World Health Organization was telling people cats posed no risk. From New Orleans, LA after Hurricane Gustav where he fundraised off the largest evacuation of animals in U.S. history conducted by a rescue group by falsely claiming it was an HSUS effort, to Virginia where he demanded that the Vick dogs be killed only to fundraise off of them by telling donors that they were caring for them, when they were not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything to Lose

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing to Gain

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

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

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

Finding Our Voice

Through HSUS, Pacelle has:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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