A: I have been an animal lover my whole life. In fact, by the time I arrived as a first year student at Stanford Law School, I was already committed to helping animals as a lawyer. But when I moved into the law school freshman dorms, the transformation became complete--because that is when I discovered the cats outside my dorm. Stanford University, like most colleges, was a campus filled with feral cats. But Stanford also had a group of people dedicated to protecting them. Thus began my first encounter with the Stanford Cat Network, and the reality of U.S. shelter practices. When a small group of faculty, staff and students pledged themselves to protecting the campus feral cats, they naturally turned to the local shelter and a national animal welfare organization for help. But the response was not one they could have foreseen. Convinced that these agencies would support their efforts to save the cats, against a campus administration intent on eradicating them, the cat caregivers of the Stanford Cat Network were shocked to discover that both agencies shared the administration’s philosophy. The cats, they were told, should be “humanely” trapped and taken to the pound where they would be killed—an outcome that was anything but humane. I dedicated myself to helping animals, particularly animals being needlessly killed in shelters.

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