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I received a call from an animal control contact of mine that was quite disturbing. It still upsets me just thinking about it now. My contact (we'll call her River for purposes of this blog) was trying to help a citizen who had trapped a free roaming cat, also called a community cat. The cat was believed to have an upper respiratory infection. The city does not have an animal shelter. Thinking she was doing the right thing, River took the cat to the local animal hospital with which the city has a contract. She thought the cat would receive veterinary care, would be kept at the animal hospital for the requisite hold period and she would later be able to make the cat available for adoption or get it to a rescue group. What happened next could not be further from what she expected. A vet technician said the cat had to be euthanized and used a heart stick to end the life of the cat while River stood watching in horror. The veterinarian was not on site; the tech behaved like this was common practice. For shame. It is possible the cat may ultimately have been euthanized. Upper respiratory infections in cats are caused by a virus or bacteria and it targets the upper airway instead of the lungs. Having said that, ending the life of the cat by heart sticking without the cat being unconscious is illegal in this state. The vet tech who ended the cat's life this way should be discipline and should lose her job. River reached out to me because she wanted to know about the legality of what happened and because she didn't want it to happen again. Euthanasia can be part of her job for animals who are genuinely suffering or irremediably ill but not like this. We talked about how she could pivot and find different solutions in the future to help cats with the help of local non-profit organizations and the veterinarians with whom those organizations work. We talked about how cats are part of the ecosystem and how it can be impossible to determine just from looking at a cat if he or she is social to people or feral (although there are some behaviors which make it easier to spot a feral cat). It is easy to tell the difference between a domesticated dog and a wild canine. The same cannot be said for cats. At all.  River and I talked about Trap - Neuter - Return as the only humane way to manage community cat populations. I have written about TNR before so I won't go into much detail here. The simple explanation is that TNR is a process in which free roaming cats are trapped, sterilized, left-ear tipped for identification (while they are sedated for surgery) and then placed back into the ecosystem in which they were found to stop the breeding cycle and address problem behaviors (mating, marking and yowling). If you want to learn more about TNR, the sources I rely on most are Alley Cat Allies, Million Cat Challenge, Neighborhood Cats (this is specific to New York but has a lot of wonderful information), this 2013 article written by Dr. Kate Hurley and Dr. Julie Levy and this 2019 presentation by Dr. Hurley called Rethinking the Shelter's Role in Community Cat Management. We have been doing TNR at the office where I work for fifteen years with the help of a wonderful organization called Forgotten Felines. It has made a tremendous difference not just for free roaming un-owned cats but for pet cats. We have a feeder station where cats are provided with food and water 365 days a year and near which we do our trapping. Because our close to a housing community, many of our cats come from that community and are social to people. Once those cats are trapped, they are scanned for a microchip, sterilized, vaccinated and made available for adoption. Some of those cats (like Sky, the blue-eyed car you see here) were seriously injured and were able to get the veterinary care they needed because they were attracted to the food source. Those cats who are not social to people are put back into the ecosystem where they are monitored for body weight and general health. When we see an ear-tipped cat, we know it is part of our small colony. There have been a few cats over the years who were so ill they had to be euthanized. We had a old tomcat we tried to help recently who had an infection that was just too advanced to be saved. As sad as it was that he was euthanized, he knew comfort in the last weeks of his life and he avoided what would have been a prolonged and very painful death. River and I also talked about a newer concept called Shelter - Neuter - Return, a subject about which I have engaged with the experts at UC Davis in California. This is similar to TNR but relates to cats entering shelters and how we best help them. Amanda Newkirk shared the following information with me a few years ago: The vast majority of communities have far more cats living outside than adopters looking to bring them inside. For years we trapped cats, brought them into the shelter, tried to adopt as many as we could and, sadly, euthanized the ones that weren’t so lucky. That is until we found out there are an estimated 60-80 million cats living outside and this strategy for managing cats was not one that was ever going to be successful. In fact, removing a small percentage of cats from an environment has actually been shown to increase the number of animals born during the next birthing cycle. I am contacted often by people who oppose TNR or who just don't understand how it works. Most of the opposition is from people who believe the cats they see outside are suffering or who treat cats as an invasive species that pray on birds and other wildlife and would rather have the cats destroyed. People a lot smarter than me have done extensive studies on this topic and I remain unconvinced that the opposing arguments have merit. Removing cats from areas where they are found creates something called the vacuum effect in which other cats take their place. Large-scale efforts to eradicate cats like have been attempted in other countries have never worked and have often endangered other species. I invite anyone who opposes TNR to educate themselves on the facts and not based on sensationalized media hype or emotional arguments. A good place to start is here. On to how it works. It should be obvious: when cats are sterilized, they no longer produce offspring. But the benefits of TNR go way beyond that because of how the presence of those cats in the environment affect other cats around them. My communication with River led to to revisit Dr. Hurley's presentation from 2019 to refresh on what I had learned years ago. It was time well spent. I encourage everyone who is interested in the well-being of all cats to watch the full presentation. This excerpt gets to the heart of why TNR works and last about 4 1/2 minutes. I was very pleased to see a recent Facebook post from another wonderful organization in our area that focuses on TNR and helping people get their pet cats sterilized. They helped River recently with a feral male cat so she could find her pivot. She did not take the cat to the animal hospital where his life likely would have been ended, perhaps in an unspeakable way. River trapped the cat and took him to a veterinarian who agreed to help. This veterinarian sterilized, vaccinated and ear-tipped the cat with the expenses paid by the local nonprofit. The cat was released back into his habitat to live out the rest of his days. He had healthy body weight and it is possible he will live for many more years and will no longer be the "rolling stone papa" he once was. My personal hope is that this new relationship between River and the nonprofit organization means community cats will get the help the need in a way that is humane and which also helps the community.
Thank you for your compassion, River. Thank you for taking a terrible situation and using it to find a humane solution for the future.
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Joe and Duncan first met about 16 months ago. Duncan had been found running at large by Joe's neighbor. He was skin and bones and had multiple open wounds on his body. He was impounded in the city shelter where Joe began volunteering to help bathe and care for Duncan. Duncan is a sweet, big goofball of a dog, not unlike a small horse. Man and dog bonded immediately. After Duncan's owner came to reclaim him, Joe was told periodic welfare checks would be made every two weeks. This never happened. Fast forward. Joe learned Duncan was illegally tethered inside the backyard of a house occupied not by his owner but by a relative of the owner, in violation of city laws. I wonder now how very different the rest of this story could have been had the law been enforced and had periodic checks been made as Joe was told they would be. Joe checked on Duncan every couple of weeks and sought help from a local non-profit organization to get a doghouse for Duncan and set up a run line. After months of monitoring Duncan and as the weather turned colder, Joe approached the family where Duncan was kept and offered bedding and food. The offer was accepted. Joe gave Duncan fresh food and water, cleaned up his dog house and put out fresh bedding. Fast forward. During one of Joe's checks in late December, Duncan was no longer in the yard. He learned from the woman living in the house that Duncan had escaped and was impounded in the shelter again. Joe went to the shelter immediately and was assured Duncan would not be returned to the owner. Man and dog were reunited as Joe began advocating to find Duncan a good home. Joe was thrilled to learn that his work with Duncan had paid off and a family with two small children had met Duncan and decided to adopt him. They had spent an hour with Duncan and felt completely safe with him being around their 4 and 7 year-old daughters.
Not so fast. Within hours of the adoption, the new family called the shelter for help. Duncan (who had likely never lived inside a house) was jumping and reacting to the ceiling fan. "What should we do?" the family asked. Rather than being given help, the family was told to return Duncan to the shelter which they did. I've never understood this response. Dogs have to adjust. Dogs have to decompress. Dogs have to get used to new experiences, particularly when they have lived outside their whole lives. My expectation is that the shelter would guide the family and not be so quick to suggest they return a dog who may behave the same way in another home in the future. We will never really know exactly what happened next and where the miscommunication happened, but shelter staff were led to believe Duncan had tried to bite a child. When he was returned to the shelter, he was met by staff members who were prepared to deal with an aggressive dog. A catch pole was used. Duncan did not react well. Slow down. As soon as Joe learned of Duncan's return, he dug into what had happened. Bite a child? Not the Duncan he knows. He was able to speak with the adoptive family who explained Duncan reacted to a fan, did not try to bite a child and there was a terrible breakdown in communication. When Joe explained to the mother of the children that a reported bite history could lead to Duncan's death, she went to the shelter to make sure Duncan's record was clear. She engaged with Duncan while he was there and he was reportedly happy to see her. Joe told shelter staff he wanted to adopt Duncan and was told no. Stop. Despite this positive interaction with the former adopter and based on the false report about Duncan's bite attempt and his reaction to the catch pole, Duncan was housed in a back kennel in the shelter not accessible to the public. Staff were afraid of the "aggressive" and "dangerous dog" who had allegedly tried to bite a child. Because of their fear, Duncan spent weeks in a kennel without being allowed outside and with very limited interaction with anyone. He was medicated. A representative from a local rescue group tried to pull Duncan from the shelter so Joe could foster him. The rescuer, who had pulled "behavior" dogs from the shelter before, offered to sign a liability waiver as had been done in the past and was told no. Duncan had been deemed aggressive and was to be "euthanized." Wrong. And wrong What followed to save the life of a single dog was nothing short of inspiring and amazing. Joe would not take no for an answer. He began interacting with local behavior experts Lisa and Jason Maasen from The Grounded Pooch, with veterinarians, with a former city council member and with other advocates in the community to fight for Duncan's life. To help convince city officials that Lisa and Jason had experience working with dogs like Duncan before and had been able to help them, two dozen happy clients wrote letters of recommendation with next to no notice in support of the Maasens. Joe sent email messages, he made phone calls, he sought and attended meetings. He explained that Duncan had been unfairly labeled as aggressive and fought to be able to adopt Duncan himself. With the help of what I began to call Team Duncan and after weeks of effort, Joe was able to convince city officials to allow him to be reunited with Duncan at the shelter under the supervision of the shelter director, the city attorney, and the city administrator to determine if Joe and Duncan could still interact safety toward them leaving the building together. Joe was told the city had never done this before and officials were taking a risk because of Joe's Herculean efforts to save one dog. He was required to undergo a home visit to make sure he was prepared to have Duncan in his home. Plans were then put in place for Joe to visit Duncan in his kennel with people standing by in the event Duncan reacted aggressively so they could intervene.  Perhaps only Joe and Duncan knew what would happen next. And it was beautiful. When Joe approached the kennel, Duncan wagged his tail. He was happy to see his friend. Joe was allowed to take Duncan out to a play paddock to be truly reunited. I dare you to watch this and not be affected in some way. Joe took Duncan home that day as part of a foster-to-adopt plan which required him to check in weekly and have periodic home visits. He worked the plan that had been developed to integrate Duncan into his home with his other dog and his cat with ongoing help from Lisa and Jason and made amazing progress. The bond between man and dog prevailed. Joe told me on April 5th, more than 2 months after he took Duncan home, that he was allowed to adopt Duncan. Finally. Man and dog together for the rest of Duncan's life, an outcome about which I am grateful.
The lives of dogs are ended in shelters every day under the guise of behavior, using labels like "aggressive" and "public safety risk." I do not dispute that some of those labels are warranted and there are genuine reasons to end the life of a dog who may injure or kill someone. I've seen the results of a dog bite fatality attack, and it was gruesome. We know from decades of animal sheltering, however, that how dogs behave in shelters says more about the shelter than the dog. We also know there are ways to set dogs up for success to maximize their ability to be adopted through proper interaction with them, informed kennel assignments and enrichment programs using regular walks, using dog play groups and by providing mental stimulation. We also know that all adopters need adoption counseling, need to be taught about dog decompression and need to be provided with support following the adoption and not just told to bring a dog back who is having trouble adjusting. This can often include common sense guidance and it can include referral to training resources for more long-term solutions.
At one point when Joe was interacting with a senior member of the shelter staff and asked if Duncan had ever bitten anyone of which she knew, the answer was "no. But he might." And therein lies the problem. All dogs have teeth. All dogs bite. They bite themselves; they bite each other, and they use their mouths to communicate. To presume that all dogs are dangerous just because they "might" bite someone is a sure way to end the lives of countless dogs for no good reason at all. And it is wrong. Hundreds of dogs die in shelters like this one every year for issues related to behavior - real or imagined. This particular shelter is currently ending he lives of 1 of every 3 dogs entering the building for "behavior." Let that sink in. More than 30% do not make it out of the building alive. Most are just identification numbers on a report, at least to city officials. They all had lives before entering the shelter, they all had names and they all deserved a chance to be treated as individual lives with value. We will never know how many Duncans are now gone not because they were dangerous but because of failures of a shelter system when solutions are known. This is a tragedy that is entirely preventable but it has to be seen as that - a needless tragedy - for anything to change in the midst of a shelter culture in which this much death is not only accepted but defended. My personal hope is that what happened with Duncan softened some hearts with senior officials with the city and will lead to changes at the shelter. Time will tell. I hold on to happy beginnings like this knowing change comes slowly. And that those who hear the least are those who will not listen. |
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. Archives
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image courtesy of Terrah Johnson
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