I was contacted by a friend of mine recently who shared a blog she had seen on social media about myths related to No Kill animal shelters. This particular author said that animal welfare is her life but it was also making her lose her mind. How every unfortunate not just for her related to her mental health, but because she chose to share information that is not accurate. I presume she means well. I also presume she has read information to cause her to be hypercritical of the No Kill movement. There is no shortage of negative information to be found online. Opposition to progressive animal sheltering has existed for decades back to the early 1970s when large national animal welfare organizations (or so they claim) promoted the idea that killing was kindness and there is much opposition even today by organizations like PETA. I reached out to the author to try to start a dialogue with her in hopes of advancing her education. Will it work? I'm not sure. Cognitive dissonance abounds in animal shelter and animal rescue circles and it can be really hard for people to recognize what they believed for years was, well, just wrong. I will not link to the blog here. I originally planned to write a blog to counter most of the author's claims, but ultimately decided that would not help many people. I've decided instead to talk about myths and truths so the information can be used by others as they advocate for animal shelter reform in their own communities. And so they can counter false information when they see it. As the saying goes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but we are all bound by truth and share one set of facts. I won't cover the myths already addressed in my book because they have already been covered. If you want a copy of my book and are not a "hold it in your hands" reader, let me know and I'll share the pdf with you for free. No money is being made on the book when you buy it from Amazon (you are paying to have it printed ) so I share it as a pdf file often. Shelters exist because of the negligence of the general public. If every member of a community were mindful and responsible, shelters would sit empty. This is not true. Shelters in most states exist related to public safety laws that require a place for animals not vaccinated against rabies to be housed, to house dogs running at large and to house animals in suspected cruelty cases pending due process determinations by courts. The fact that the best shelters also function as animal care facilities and not disposal facilities is a response to public expectations. Just because a dog is found running at large does not necessarily mean someone has been negligent. There are some people who let dogs run loose in more rural areas which is clearly irresponsible; that's a huge problem where I live and I see the results of that every time I get in my car. Most loose dogs are lost or displaced due not to negligence but due to some unforeseen circumstance. Doors get left open by children, gates get left open by contractors, dogs dig under and climb over fences, fireworks startle dogs, vehicle accidents happen and natural disasters happen. Ask Davyd Smith of No Kill Colorado how many times his dogs have gotten loose and he'll tell you his stories. Cruelty cases often end up related to a form of mental illness called "Noah Syndrome" about which I have written before and while these cases are tragic, they often result in no criminal consequences. As for the claim that shelters would sit empty, that is an incredibly naive statement. There will always be animal shelters and they will always be needed for both public safety purposes and to help those animals who either were, or could be, someone's beloved companion. That is what the public expects and I just don't see that changing any time soon. In fact, as time goes by more and more people are learning about animal sheltering and about No Kill philosophies as they seek better use of their tax dollars consistent with public values. Shelters are forced to make hard decisions to remain available to the public, including euthanizing for space. This is not true. The only hard decision any shelter need make it to stop killing healthy and treatable animals while calling it euthanasia and behaving as if there is no other way to function. The cure for the disease that is shelter killing has been known for almost two decades and it is the No Kill Equation, a series of programs that work together (thus, use of the description "equation") to reduce shelter intake and increase shelter output while helping the public instead of vilifying the public. To the extent any shelter has not learned about proven programs to help resolve systemic issues that lead the unnecessary killing of animals, that shelter is mired in a past that has not kept up with public expectations and advances in shelter medicine. Theirs is a betrayal of the public trust. Rescue organizations should not boast about being No Kill. I honestly know of no rescue organization that is NOT no kill. Rescue groups function off of donations and grants. Exceedingly rare is the non-profit organization that receives any type of funding from tax dollars unless that organization is contracted to handle sheltering as is the case in Fremont County, Colorado led by the inspiring Doug Rae. To take on more animals than the organization can actually care for and place would be irresponsible and is a kind of hoarding. Yes, rescue organizations sometimes euthanize animals who are suffering, irremediably ill or present a genuine public safety risk and we should expect no less of them. But they don't end lives as a from of population control killing. Having said that, I am the first to admit that some tax funded animal shelters describe themselves as being No Kill operations when they are anything but. They do so to garner public favor and even donations while at the same time either warehousing animals or ending the lives of healthy and treatable animals while claiming they were "unadoptable" or "aggressive." That is why it is up to all of us who care about how animal shelters operate (or at least about how tax dollars are spent) to learn about how shelters can and should operate so we can see through use of the phrase No Kill by bad actors and call them out of those false claims. Animals who end up in shelters are unwanted, thrown away and forgotten. As explained above, just because an animal enters a shelter does not mean that animals is not wanted, has been forgotten or has been thrown away. When shelters take that type of attitude, the public becomes the enemy when it is that same public the shelter needs to adopt animals, foster animals, volunteer at the shelter and at events and even donated to the shelter. Doing so is totally counterproductive toward the goal of modifying public behavior = helping people make better choices. When the public becomes the enemy, it creates a divide between the shelter and the public being served (or rescue groups and the public) in an us v. them way that is just not helpful. Change comes when you first demand it from the members of your community.
This is not true. Demanding people behave differently presumes they are doing something wrong in the first place. Whether people in shelter or animal rescue circles want to acknowledge it or not, most people give very little (if any) thought to their local animal shelter or how their personal choices affect how shelters operate when it comes to having pets spayed and neutered, making sure pets can be identified if displaced and making plans for someone to care for their pets in the event of their death or some live crisis. It is up to us to help educate the public so they can make better choices that help keep animals out of shelters. A couple of the websites I manage have content for this very purpose. To help people. In places where the shelter went from ending the lives of most animals to saving most lives, the public did not suddenly move away to be replaced by more responsible people. What changed was the culture that the shelter which decided to save lives instead of end them and be seen as places not of judgment but of help and positive outcomes. Think about it.
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AuthorI am an animal welfare advocate. My goal is to help people understand some basic issues related to companion animals in America. Awareness leads to education leads to action leads to change. Categories
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image courtesy of Terrah Johnson
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