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We all face crossroads in our lives. Events which create what we consider a "before" and an "after." Life milestones. The loss of someone we love. A choice we make that puts us on a different path. I encountered one of my many crossroads almost 20 years ago when I learned that the animal shelter in the city where I worked - Huntsville, Alabama - was ending the lives of the majority of the animals entering the building for what amounted to the status quo. It had always been done and so the destruction of animals continued despite the shelter being located in one of the most progressive cities in the country. Huntsville, Alabama, is located in the northern part of the state and is the largest city in the state. It is home to the Army's Redstone Arsenal, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and Cummings Research Park with an economy internationally recognized for research and technological innovation. The city is considered as a great place for families due to its strong school systems, affordable cost of living, and a thriving job market. All these great things about Huntsville admittedly make it atypical of the state and the region. I sometimes joke that time travel is possible; it just depends on where you go in Alabama and who you interact with. Like many places in the state, however, it was once home to a tax-funded animal shelter that killed thousands of animals a year not far from the shadow of the Saturn V replica on the west side of the interstate. I first lived in Huntsville in 1982 when I was assigned as an Army Spec 4 to what was then called "the school house" on the Arsenal, used to train "special" weapons and EOD troops. It was not until 16 years later that I returned to Huntsville to work at a civil law firm from which I retired just over a year ago. And it was not until 2006 that my heart was broken after I learned the terrible truth about the operation of the animal shelter that serves what is often called The Rocket City.
The live release rate (the number of shelter animals leaving the building alive) at Huntsville Animal Services in 2008 (the first year for which I have data) was 33% for dogs and 13% for cats. The lives of healthy and treatable animals were ended along with animals who were suffering and the irremediably ill as the process was blamed on the "irresponsible public" and the shelter director dismissed the killing of healthy animals with no more regard than the destruction of a paper plate or a broken shoelace. Both actions were called euthanasia as the shelter functioned with a first in, first out mindset in which the building was less a shelter and more of a disposal facility. The shelter director at the time was a city department head who earned a 6-figure salary and was afforded an assumption akin to "do no harm" because she was a veterinarian. "Surely," said city leaders, "the lives of animals would not be ended unless there were no other options." This level of death was not uncommon in Alabama and not uncommon at many shelters across the country due to a calcified and archaic mindset which promoted the idea that killing was kindness and that there were fates worse than death. Why were so many animals dying in this proud and progressive community? For no good reason at all. Fast forward to 2025 when the live release rate at Huntsville Animal Services was 93% for both dogs and cats. So, what changed? Did the irresponsible public move away to be replaced by more responsible people? No. Did the shelter director or city officials examine how the shelter operated and decide to make saving lives of animals a priority? No. What happened was the functional equivalent to a slap across the face of city officials (because there is no polite way to say, "please stop killing animals needlessly) and it came in the literal form of political advocacy. A few like-minded people who were fed up with the killing got angry and then got smart and then banded together to speak with one voice to say, "we are better than this. If we can support the space program and our troops, we can keep animals alive." I formed No Kill Huntsville in January 2012, inviting dozens of people to form a coalition to seek change. It ultimately became a small group of animal advocates who worked hard to make sure the public knew what was happening using their money (through events, billboards and with the help of the media) and who had the audacity to fight city hall to change behavior that was inconsistent with public values. It wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, it wasn't perfect and for many years it was a 7-day a week effort to promote shelter reform in the face of opposition not only from city officials, city employees and shelter volunteers but from an unlikely source: people in the animal rescue community. But our advocacy worked because we spoke publicly with one voice, we stayed on subject, we focused on municipal accountability (as opposed to specific people) and we never wavered from promotion of the programs and services of the No Kill Equation as the cure for the disease of shelter killing. I firmly believe that any community has the capacity to become a No Kill community - a place where the lives of all healthy and treatable shelter animals are saved. Saving lives is not about the shelter building or even about spending. There are beautiful shelters across the country that cost millions of dollars to build and where most animals entering the building do not survive the experience. Saving lives is about a culture in which there are no excuses for killing healthy and treatable animals which can and should be saved and where every animal is treated as having been or being capable of being someone's beloved companion (with the exception of dog who are cognitively impaired and present a genuine public safety risk). Having said that, I understand that not every community is ready to become a No Kill community and political advocacy on behalf of shelter animals doesn't always work. It only succeeds on the foundation of public support in places where the lives of companion animals are valued. No amount of advocacy will force change through magical thinking in places where the mindset is that animals are disposable and not worth saving even if that means no additional spending. In more progressive places like Huntsville, however, advocacy can often be the difference between maintenance of the status quo and a future in which a city or county make the highest and best use of tax dollars not just for the sake of public safety but for the sake of the people served and the animal companions with which they share their lives.  I, and the other members of No Kill Huntsville, always said we sought not to be recognized but to be made irrelevant and we have for the most part. It was never about us and it was always about the animals. Always. As Shirley Marsh so aptly wrote in her March 2011 Yes Biscuit blog about what it takes to reform a community to save animals: “In reality, [animal shelter reform] takes a group of dedicated animal advocates willing to stir things up in their own community by challenging the status quo and refusing to accept killing as a means of population control. There are consequences to such actions: old friendships may be broken, egos may be bruised, glass houses may be shattered. This ain’t no fairy tale. It’s hard work, which will be met with resistance by some. You will no longer be able to ride the I Love Everybody and Everybody Loves Me bus. You will not be nominated for homecoming queen. No soup for you. Like all things in life, working to end the killing in your community is a choice you must make for yourself. You can choose to carry on with the ‘save a few and kill the rest’ status quo. You’ll get to keep all your Facebook friends and play Farmville with them in between posting pets from kill lists. Or you can choose to reject the idea of needless killing as justifiable in any way. You’ll make some people feel uncomfortable, and they will resent you for it. But you’ll have the opportunity to educate and learn from others who are on the same path. No longer will you feel an awkward compulsion to defend those who kill friendly pets in shelters while simultaneously advocating to save shelter pets. You will have the clarity of mind that comes from knowing where you stand.” The members of No Kill Huntsville have absolute clarity of mind. We stand behind our advocacy despite underestimating the length to which people would go to defend ending lives, despite making some people feel uncomfortable, despite having been compared to terrorists and despite having lost some people along the way we though were friends. We've made peace with that. I've made peace with that. Huntsville is now one of the safest cities for companion animals not just in Alabama and not just in the region, but in the country. We see this as the result of advocacy which led to public awareness which led to public pressure on municipal officials which led to a realization that something had to change. It was our "slap across the face" that began the process, as unwelcome as that action may have been. The city first began making progress by the end of 2014 when city officials declared healthy and treatable animals were no longer being destroyed in the shelter. The process was sustained through the first couple years of the pandemic before some decline related to "dangerous dogs" that begin in the Spring of 2022 and continued until late 2024 when the current shelter director was selected to fulfill the commitment of city leaders to make life-saving a priority in partnership with public safety. We were worried when the current shelter director was hired; we were told by contacts in Texas he opposed No Kill philosophies and we found some content online that supported that. What we learned instead was he believed the phrase No Kill had been weaponized, but he agreed with the programs and services of the No Kill Equation we had promoted with city officials for more than a decade. The new director called 2025 a "triage year." He has done an incredible job as the leader of Huntsville Animal Services and we look forward to him not only holding the line but helping other shelters in the region become more progressive.  As we come to the end of an era of advocacy and I look back at the hard times, the lost sleep and the self-doubt, I'm proud of what we accomplished. I proud of our audacity and our commitment to the cause. Huntsville, Alabama, will never be the same and I consider our advocacy part of my personal legacy. I wrote about the advocacy of No Kill Huntsville in my book first published in 2019 on the anniversary of the passing of our dog, Snake. I uploaded a new version recently with some post-pandemic notes and a new cover just because I wanted it to have a fresh look. The book is available on Amazon if you like to hold a book in your hand (both paperback and hardcover), but is also available as a pdf you can download. No money is made on the book so it makes sense to just give it away. I consider it an easy read. Because it was originally published before the pandemic, I am sometimes asked if anything changed as a result of the pandemic. The answer is no as it relates to the solutions we promoted. The value of the No Kill Equation which was the focus of our advocacy not only remains relevant today but we were reminded during the pandemic that the programs and services of the Equation were more important than ever to help both people and animals to keep pets in existing homes, get them home quickly if lost and get them into new homes or placed with rescues quickly. Animal problems are, and have always, been people problems. It makes perfect sense to engage in positive ways with the people who live and work in the community by providing help, providing answers and treating all people with dignity and respect. If you oversee, lead or manage a tax-funded animal shelter where most of the animals entering the building do not survive the experience, I implore you to try something new. The public expects no less. You can spend money on a new building, but that changes little if you do not change your culture. The methods available to any community to end the needless killing of healthy and treatable animals have been known for almost 2 decades and there are just no excuses for doing the same thing over and over while blaming the public for the loss of life. Even if you implement the programs and services of the No Kill Equation over time, that is better than doing nothing. As the saying goes, nothing changes - - if nothing changes. If you live or work in a community where most of the shelter animals are destroyed while that process is called euthanasia, please educate yourself about the No Kill Equation and consider banding together with like-minded people for the sake of your community and the animals with whom you share your lives. Every healthy and treatable animal destroyed in an animal shelter belonged to someone. That someone could be a neighbor, co-worker, your dentist or even you. The deaths are just numbers on a page until they become personal and people put their outrage into action.  We suspended our Facebook page last year and have unpublished our website (which costs money to host) but you can find it using The Wayback Machine which archives web content. The archive goes from January 14, 2013 through October 13, 2025. You get bonus points if you know the name of this internet archive is based on the characters Mr. Peabody (a dog) and Sherman (a boy) who originally appeared in a 1960s cartoon series and later in an animated film in which Sherman was Mr. Peabody's adopted son.
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Author’s Note: As an animal welfare advocate, particularly a No Kill animal sheltering advocate, I’ve written about a number of topics I consider “difficult.” Talking about issues related to race and discrimination makes me feel like an impostor; my goal is to be an ally. I am not a member of the BIPQC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) community. It would be totally inappropriate for me to behave as if I fully understand members of that community or their experiences. I have not walked in their shoes and I simply cannot. Writing this blog has been a challenge for me as I search for words to articulate how I feel. I will do my best and hope you will focus less on me finding the perfect words and more on what I hope to share with you.  I recently had the privilege of viewing the advanced version of an upcoming documentary about the animal shelter, animal welfare and animal rescue industry called "Brown & Bonded," a production of CARE (Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity). CARE CEO James Evans (who directed the film) shared the following about the film on the CARE website: Being anything other than 'white' within the United States adds an unnecessary burden to life. Seeking pet companionship doesn’t prevent people of color from experiencing this hardship, as many assume it would. Despite the exhaustive challenges we face, including repeating historic injustices presently, we remain bonded with our communities, friends, and families. . .including our pets. . .Our film follows people of color who have formed deep bonds with their pets despite the challenges and obstacles they face in the pet adoption process and within Animal Welfare more broadly. Viewers will witness the struggles faced by marginalized Black and Brown communities, from remote Indigenous communities to under resourced urban Atlanta. Despite limited resources and safety nets individual pet parents face, the film highlights the power of these Brown & Bonded relationships that transcend for love’s sake. Amen to that. As I told James in a recent call, this is one of the most consequential films I have seen in my entire life. Let me say that again for emphasis. Brown & Bonded is one of the most consequential films I have seen in my entire life. It is brilliant. It is shocking. It is joyful. It is uplifting. It is hard to watch. And it should be a game changer in our society. It is my genuine hope that millions of people will be exposed to the film and that elected officials, community stakeholders, animal shelter leadership and those in the animal rescue community examine what is happening in their own communities and take a long, hard look at their own behavior related to helping and serving the BIPOC community. It is no secret that many in the animal sheltering industry and animal rescue community assert they want to help animals while making their loathing for people painfully obvious, something about which I have blogged many times. This comes as no surprise when we consider the decades during which most shelters have blamed “the irresponsible public” for the fact that the lives of shelter animals are ended as a population control measure while completely ignoring the fact that that the same public is vital to reducing shelter intake, getting animals adopted, fostering animals, volunteering and donating. In communities that no longer end the lives of healthy and treatable shelter animals that is not because all the irresponsible people moved away and were replaced by “better” or “more responsible people.” It is because the tax-funded animal shelter changed the culture from one of killing animals to saving animals while inviting the public - all of the public - to be part of something bigger than themselves.  It is also no secret that discrimination runs rampant in our country. We like to think we have evolved as a society. But have we really? The Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal, but no one would claim all people are treated equally. We need only make a modest effort to keep up with national and local news to know that much progress made in the last few decades for which people struggled and died has been lost; we now live in a time when people who once hid their racism and bias have been empowered to put it on full display while claiming they support some patriotic cause or movement. It is our public shame. This is why films like Brown & Bonded are so very, very important. Animal problems are people problems. When we help people, we help animals. When we help animals, we help people. As former animal control officer Beunca Gainor said so eloquently in the film: Animal rescue in my eyes is different to me because there’s so much more than just the animal. It includes the person. The community. The family. . . So when you’re rescuing in our community you’re rescuing not only pets but we’re rescuing people at the same time.” There was a time a few decades ago when 16 to 17 million animals died in our nation’s animal shelters. That number is now less than 1 million animals a year. So consider these facts:
Jo-Ann Zoll, the CEO of the Providence Animal Center and Francis Vale Home for Smaller Animals, shared these thoughts in the film: In thinking about racial disparities and the challenges people have in being welcomed to adopt pets I think it’s’ really imperative that we ask ourselves the questions about why not, We should always get to the yes. The yes is this person deserves the same experience that anyone else wants to have and may need more and difference support, but that’s what we’re here for. It’s how we treat people. It’s the care they receive while they’re here." There are many issues in our society related to discrimination we may never fully come to terms with. Racism is deeply rooted in our society and the disparities we see in our country are not going away any time soon. The issue of inclusion and equity in interacting with the BIPOC community to save animals (while helping people) is something we all can and should focus on not next month or next year but right now. Today. We all benefit from animal companionship and we all want the lives of shelter animals saved no matter what we look like, where we live, what we do for a living, how much money we make or what kind of car we drive, if we even have a car. We can and should chose to break away from the racism that plagues our society for the sake of ourselves, the sake of our neighbors and the sake of the animals with whom we share our lives. This means having a focus on getting to "yes". How? We can start this way.
I will share more information about public release of the film when it becomes available. (images and film trailer courtesy of CARE)
Animal problems are people problems.
I make these points because I was reminded again this week of the level of hatred displayed by some in the animal shelter and animal rescue communities toward the public. Some attitudes rise to a level I consider toxic. People who lead or work in shelters where the lives of healthy and treatable animals are ended as a population control measure do not want to be called killers and they should not. Applying the act to the actor is inflammatory and counterproductive. Yet those same people who do not want to be faulted for destroying animals (needlessly, I would argue) do not hesitate to blame the public for the fact that animals die at their facilities. Most of them remain ignorant of (or refuse to acknowledge) proven programs that have been available for the taking for 2 decades and which can and should be used to keep more animals alive. This is what I read and hear weekly if not daily.
But here's the problem with that us v. them attitude. It does not serve shelters and rescue groups well and it certainly does not serve the public well toward resolving the very issues that cause animals to be in need. Animal sheltering and rescue is not what the public thinks. Or even understands. I blame that in part to television shows and documentary films that have highlighted animal control/shelter operations and on rescue groups that have led the public to have entirely unrealistic expectations of those animal care agencies. Add to this the fact that we all live within the bubble of our own reality and we focus on what is in front of us, what affects us and what we value no matter the subject. Politics. Money. Our troops. Disease. Animals.  Whether people in the shelter and rescue community want to acknowledge it or not, most of the public has no clue of the challenges faced by shelters and rescues related to companion animals because it's just not on their personal radar. Should the public know more about what is happening when it comes to how their personal behavior affects shelters and rescue groups? Probably. But. They. Don't. I once spoke to this in a podcast for which I was interviewed years ago and referred to the divide between the public and animal agencies as like a gorge. On one side of the gorge are the animal loving public. Most of them mean well. They think they are doing all they can but they do make bad choices, they sometimes wait too long for pets to be spayed/neutered and accidents happen that cause dogs to get loose. Most of those people on the public side of the gorge believe animal shelters keep all healthy and treatable animals alive. They also have developed an unreasonable belief that rescue groups are prepared to drop what they are doing and absolve them of responsibility for their pets, a belief that is bolstered by the fact that many in rescue will do just that. On the other side of the gorge is the animal shelter and rescue community that have such loathing for the public they can hardly function. They are certain the public is entirely to blame for the fact that animals die because people are irresponsible and don't care enough. I'm not sure who all these irresponsible people are. Apparently everyone other than the people who work at or volunteer for the shelter. I firmly believe that the culture in our communities toward companion animals changes when the shelter leads the way and invites the public they serve to be part of something bigger than themselves. In places where the culture related to shelter animals has changed and more lives are saved, the "irresponsible public" did not move out only to be replaced by more responsible people. Unless and until those in the animal shelter and rescue community stop vilifying the public they expect to behave differently, nothing will change. It is totally counterproductive to say, "it is your fault animals die, but oh, by the way. Can you adopt, volunteer, donate and foster?" You cannot slap someone across the face with your words and expect adoration or cooperation in return. If you want to modify public behavior, please suspend your judgment and check your attitude at the door. Instead try helping people so they make better choices and so there are fewer animals entering shelters or in need of rescue.
 And some suggestions for everyone involved that are a reality check. For animal shelters:
 This week I have been called insane, clueless, delusional and told to "F off" multiple times. Name calling and profanity by those who refuse to acknowledge that animal problems are people problems are tactics of desperation. One woman told me to "hush." Alrighty then. I have also been told I am not allowed to have an opinion about tax-funded animal shelter operations if I have never done that job myself. I simply do not agree. I have plenty of contacts across the country who do run animal shelters and with whom I have interacted for years. And I think we can all agree I am not expected to fill potholes, mow city parks or stand in the street and direct traffic to have an opinion about how tax dollars are spent by other municipal departments that do not make life and death decisions daily.
 Do you think you know about the history of animal sheltering in the United States and what the No Kill movement represents? Let's see how you do. Pop quiz (the answer key is found at the end of this blog). 1. Who was the founder of the modern animal protection movement? a. Richard Avanzino. b. Nathan Winograd c. Henry Bergh. d. George Angell. 2. True or false. The same person founded the first Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals AND the New York Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children. a. True. b. False. 3. How many animals were being destroyed in American animal shelters each year in the 1960s and 1970s? a. 30-35 million b. 20-25 million. c. 16-17 million. d. 10-12 million. 4. Where was the location of the first No Kill animal shelter in America? a. San Francisco, California. b. Austin, Texas. c. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania d. Tompkins County, New York. 5. What does the phrase "No Kill" mean? a. No animals die in the animal shelter under any circumstances. b. The shelter saves the lives of all healthy and treatable animals who enter the shelter. c. The shelter saves 90% of the animals who enter the shelter. d. The shelter only ends the lives of animals when it is overcrowded and to make space. 6. True or false. The No Kill movement promotes warehousing animals for long periods of time and leads to abuse and neglect of animals. a. True. b. False. I tend to blog not to read my own words or make a name for myself, but when I have something to say. Today is one of those days and is perhaps long overdue. As we head into Spring of a new year, I am seeing more and more toxic rhetoric against the No Kill Movement as people (and organizations) seek to make this social movement into something it is not or find other ways to describe ending the lives of healthy and treatable animals in our nation's shelters using tax dollars ("low kill," "community pet heroes" or "Saving More Animals Responsibly Together.") The first thing about these voices that surprises me - and which is different than years past - is people (and organizations) declaring the No Kill movement outdated, as if it served its purpose for a while but is no longer effective. Hardly. The No Kill movement has been a fast moving vehicle of change that has drastically shifted not only how many shelters operate but has also served to educate the public on how their tax dollars are spent so they can seek better. That was true decades ago and is still true today. The second thing about these voices - that does not surprise me at all - is there is no indication most of the voices behind these positions have done anything to educate themselves on the history of animal sheltering in the United States or the history of the No Kill Movement other than a few Google searches. It can be hard to take these people seriously because they profess to know something about a subject they genuinely know nothing about. But we ignore them at our own peril because many of these voices are heard the loudest 1) because the positions are put forth by a huge organization that rakes in millions of dollars from people who think their donation will help animals; 2) because of the identity of the speaker who has some form of notoriety; or 3) because of the self-validating nature of social media where people share and comment and share and comment and share and comment on posts about animal sheltering and the No Kill movement that support their current world view without doing any fact checking or better yet - thinking for themselves. I typically try to engage directly with the people who oppose the No Kill Movement in an effort to educate them if I think there may be a conversation to be had. I spent an hour on the phone a few weeks ago with a prominent figure whose family rose to prominence at the time of Henry Bergh (and who now leads a well known nonprofit organization) after she wrote a blog critical of the movement. I spent the same amount of time on the phone last week with an individual who engages with animal shelters and animal control personnel nationally because he is on the speaker circuit for conferences and he provides consultant-based training. Sometimes these calls achieve little, but I tell myself I tried. There are other times I don't even try to engage with the person if the hatred for the movement is so obvious there is no conversation to be had. I pick my battles. I have long said that an educated advocate is an informed advocate and I believe there is no shortcut to avoid doing our homework. How can we possible speak to the validity of a philosophy like the No Kill movement if we know nothing about the history that created the movement and about the challenges we face today? We cannot. This blog is intended to help two groups of people. The first group is people who genuinely want to learn about the history of animal sheltering in our country and the No Kill movement but don't know where to start. There is so much information on the Internet it can be easy to get lost. The second group is people who chose to parrot an opinion as a follower of someone else without taking any time to develop an informed opinion. Consider this a challenge issued. You cannot possibly say you know that you are talking about (or commenting about) unless you have invested time to learn, learn and then learn some more. If I was teaching a class called No Kill 101 for Everyone (Not Just Dummies), the first semester would start with the following assignments. Class is in session. Let me know if you have any questions.  Lesson 1. Read "Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America" (time - approximately 10 hours) Redemption was first published by Nathan Winograd, the founder of the No Kill Advocacy Center, in 2007. A second edition was published in 2008. The title of the book took many people by surprise when it was published, including many with decades of experience advocating for shelter animals. Why? Prior to having bubbles burst, almost everyone was certain animals died in shelters due to "pet overpopulation." We had been told that same thing over and over for so long that we believed it had to be true (when it is not). The book is almost 20 years old but the content stands the test of time. It is part history book and how "how to" book as it introduces us to the No Kill Equation which I consider to be a DIY solution for any shelter or any community seeking to balance public safety with saving the lives of shelter animals. Reading this book changed my life and put me on a different life path. To use a word from my legal career, it is a treatise. I refer to it often. I consider it the foundation to any education about animal sheltering in America and the No Kill movement.  Lesson 2: Watch "Redemption: The No Kill Revolution in America" (time - 56 minutes) This 2014 documentary film is based on the book Redemption and is described as follows: "This is the story of animal sheltering, which was born of compassion and then lost its way. It is the story of the No Kill movement, which says we can and must stop the killing. It is about heroes and villains, betrayal and redemption. And it is about a social movement as noble and just as those that have come before. But most of all, it is a story about believing in the community and trusting in the power of compassion." The film is still available on DVD if you want a personal copy but can be viewed on Youtube for free. It contains no graphic images.  Lesson 3: Watch "The Myth of Pet Overpopulation" (time - 21 minutes) This short film was published by the No Kill Advocacy Center in July 2019. It explains logically why it is a myth that "pet overpopulation" is the reason why animals die in American shelters (as opposed to shelter overpopulation). This is one of two short films I share most often with rescuers, fellow advocates and elected officials to explain that what people think is happening in animal shelters is, well, not true. In any given year, many millions more people will bring an animal into their home than the number of animals killed in shelters. This is not an overpopulation issue. It is an issue of market share.  Lesson 4: Watch "No Kill 101" (time 28 minutes) This film was published by the No Kill Advocacy Center in 2020. It is probably the most succinct explanation of the No Kill Equation in visual form. It takes us through each element of the Equation to explain how using that program serves to reduce intake, shorten length of stay and get animals out of the shelter faster. I share it with elected officials and shelter leadership often because it is short, logical and engaging. It also sets the stage for me to explain to those officials how the elements of the Equation can be implemented in their own community, often using existing resources and no (or very little) additional spending.  Lesson 5: Read "Not Rocket Science: A Story of No Kill Shelter Advocacy in Huntsville, Alabama (time - approximately 5 hours) This is my book published in April 2019. It is part my story and part the story of the political advocacy of No Kill Huntsville which formed in January 2012 to promote the City of Huntsville, Alabama, ending the outdated practice of killing healthy and treatable animals for space. I wrote it primarily to help the public learn about animal sheltering and programs and also to help people outside our area learn about our path, including what we did right and what we did wrong. It explains the No Kill Equation and how we used the Equation to help take an animal shelter than was destroying most of the animals who entered the building to a shelter that now saves the lives of most of the animals, while still focusing on public safety. The book is available on Amazon for just over 5 bucks if you want a book you can hold in your hand, but you can also read the pdf if you want it for free.  Lesson 6: Listen to the Winograd's Substack Series entitled, "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Animal Sheltering in the United States" (time - approximately 9 hours total) In late December 2021, the Winograds began sharing a 5-part series of Substack podcasts about the history of animal sheltering and current challenges in response to what they considered significant backsliding by organizations and individuals associated with the No Kill movement which is damaging the movement as a whole. I blogged about the series in September 2022 using the word "gobsmacked" because it was the only word I could find to explain my reaction to the series. Because I shared my thoughts about the series in my blog, they are not restated here. I have included a 6th podcast that is not part of the original series but which I feel is important related to the other podcasts. The series is nothing short of amazing; I learned more from this series than I had in a very long time and I now consider if as important to the education of anyone interested in animal sheltering or animal shelter reform as is Redemption. Some of the episodes are long but I found them captivating. They are conversational between Nathan and Jennifer (who does not get enough credit for your advocacy with Nathan) and easy to listen to. I recommend listening while traveling, driving, exercising or some other task. I listened to most of them while doing other tasks and had a pen and pad of paper handy to take notes. I have encouraged the Winograds to put the series in book form and I hope that will be possible at some point in the future. Part 1: Regarding Henry. The birth and betrayal of the humane movement in America (51 minutes) Part 2: A House of Cards Divided: The fight for the heart and soul of America’s animal shelters (1 hour, 52 minutes) Part 3: All of Them: No Kill moves from the theoretical to the real (2 hours, 5 minutes) Part 4: A glass half full and half empty: we’ve made tremendous progress but we still have a long way to go. (1 hour, 52 minutes) Part 5: What’s Past is Prologue: To best serve animals, humane societies must recapture their roots (1 hour, 9 minutes) Winter is Coming: The movement faces dangers that threaten to erase the gains of the last three decades and increase animal homelessness, abandonment, neglect, abuse, and killing (1 hour, 12 minutes) My advocacy is in honor of our dog, Snake, who left us on Earth Day 2006. Pop Quiz Answers. 1c, 2a, 3c, 4d, 5b, 6b. *The dummies reference relates to a very popular series of books to help people which is a Wiley brand.
I first learned about the killing of healthy and treatable animals in our nation's "shelters" in the summer of 2006 when I had an unwelcome epiphany, thanks to the veterinarian who was the director of the tax-funded animal shelter in the city where I work. I was like most people back then. I though the only animals who died in shelters where those who were too sick or injured to save and the other animals were all reunited with their families, adopted into new homes or helped by rescue groups. I was wrong. The killing of healthy and treatable animals in our nation's shelters has continued for decades while the people doing the killing blame the deaths on "the irresponsible public" and on "pet overpopulation" while acting as though there is no other way to function. This awakening angered me so much that I began learning more about animal sheltering in America from those advocating for change and those leading the best performing shelters in the country. My education put me on a path I never expected and changed my life. I continue to learn new things to this day. Despite what some of my critics think, I am capable of admitting when I am wrong and I am capable of engaging in civil discourse with people who do not share all of my values. The cure for the disease that is shelter killing has been known for almost 2 decades and is there for the taking: the No Kill Equation. I am a member of the No Kill movement and I am an unapologetic supporter of the No Kill Equation for one simple reason: it works. Shelters that have stopped killing healthy and treatable animals for space or convenience have not done that because all the irresponsible people moved away and were replaced by people who care more. The shift from ending lives to saving them is the result of a change in the culture at the shelter which embraces proven programs that reduce shelter intake, shorten the amount of time animals are in the shelter, help the public make better choices and still protect public safety. I am bombarded every week by content from people who oppose the No Kill movement, promote the idea that shelters have no choice but to end the lives of animals and are more focused on how words are used than they are on the unnecessary deaths of animals that either were, or could have been, someone's beloved companion. Blogs. Social media posts. Media articles. I have historically spent a lot of time trying to reach out to these people, trying to start a conversation, only to find there was no conversation to be had in most cases. Some of these people are household names in our country (at least within animal welfare circles) and some are people who promote dangerous ideas online (like the photographer who administers a Facebook page called "Kill Shelters Care Too"). The reality is that large national animal welfare organizations - and people with lots of money or lots of followers - are heard the loudest. Folks like me in the trenches of animal welfare will never have the same reach and trying to connect with opponents individually is often of little value. This blog is about what I believe. If you are open to the idea that shelter animals don't have to die, would not want your own healthy and treatable animal to be killed in a shelter, support reform of our nation's animal shelters or just want your tax dollars spent consistent with public values, I hope you will share my blog. I am happy to engage on these topics with anyone who is interested.  What I Believe
So. That is what I believe based not on something I saw shared a dozen times on Facebook or because I have heard it so many times that I believe it to be true. These are some of my beliefs based on 2 decades of education and networking for the benefit of companion animals in my own community and across the country and for the benefit of people I believe want to do right by those animals. You are welcome to contact me if you have questions about this blog or want to learn more to advance your own education. People just never cease to amaze me. People who defend the killing of healthy and treatable animals in municipal animal shelters never cease to infuriate me. I was tagged on a social media platform recently related to a new page that openly and repeatedly defends the killing of healthy and treatable animals in tax-funded shelters. At first I thought I read the name of the page wrong. After my initial reaction of shock, I was reminded yet again that time travel really is possible depending on where you go in America and about which subject you are speaking. The views of this person may have been more easily understood had she stood on a wooden crate in the town square during the days of Henry Bergh. But this is 2025 and not 1875 so her insistence that municipal shelters have no choice but to end the lives of animals for space - and her stories about having personally participated in this process - made me both sick and angry. I have chosen not to share the name of her page here because I don't want to promote it. For me it is the social media written equivalent of a "stuff film." It is a "pro kill" page.  But back to the social media page. I tried commenting on a couple of the posts to see if I could get the attention of the page administrator and did not have much luck. I messaged her instead and implored her to learn more about the difference between "pet overpopulation" and "shelter overpopulation" which are not the same thing. She agreed to watch the 27-minute No Kill 101 video from the No Kill Advocacy Center and I offered her a free copy of my book so she could read about how the Equation was used in my area to take the municipal shelter from one that kills the vast majority of animals to one that saves the vast majority of animals. So much for that idea. She watched 3 minutes of the video, reached the point where Nathan Winograd talks about the concept of pet overpopulation being a myth, stopped watching and declared that I am wrong and have no idea what I am talking about. She continues to this day to post on an ongoing basis about shelter killing treating it as a fait accompli when it is not. I tried. I understand there are plenty of shelters that kill healthy and treatable animals while remaining either willfully ignorant or catastrophically uninformed despite the progress achieved by the No Kill movement to prevent that from happening. I also understand there are people that really believe that animals die in shelters due to "pet overpopulation" and "the irresponsible public." They have heard these excuses so many times for so many years that they hold tight to their beliefs with no allowance whatsoever for the fact that they may be wrong. When the Winograds first posited almost 20 years ago that pet overpopulation was a myth, people just could not believe it. They had heard so many times over so many years that animals die in shelters because there are just too many of them that the fact that animals were being killed seemed to confirm that belief. But pet overpopulation is a myth and is not the reason healthy and treatable animals die in shelters. In any given year about 30 million people are looking to bring a new companion animal into their homes and in any given year less than a million animals die in shelters. This is not an issue of too many animals and not enough homes. It is a marketing issue because people get animals from sources other than shelters. Shelter overpopulation is a separate concept and it does lead to the deaths of animals. When a shelter does not take steps to help reduce intake and move animals out faster, it becomes overpopulated. This leads to the antiquate practice of ending lives as a population control measure. If more animals enter the shelter than leave the shelter, the "excess" are destroyed. That may not matter to many people when looking at statistics on a form. But every one of those animals belonged to someone and you would not want that dog or cat killed if he or she belonged to you. As I have written about for years, the cure for the disease that is shelter killing is known and has been know for decades. It is found in the programs and services of the No Kill Equation which provide a DIY solution for any shelter to: 1) reduce shelter intake; 3) shorten length of stay (the phrase used to refer to the amount of time animals stay in the shelter); 3) help the public make better choices which affect how the shelter functions; and 4) focus on public safety so that dogs that are cognitively impaired and genuinely dangerous do not leave the shelter. This is not just something I read about and said, "hey, that sounds like it would work so that is what I believe and will promote." I know the No Kill Equation works because I have personally seen it work from Colorado to Texas to Alabama to Florida and and so very many places in between.  I have written about the concept of cognitive dissonance and shelter apologists related to shelter killing of healthy and treatable animals before so I won't restate the whole explanation here. The short version is this. Cognitive dissonance theory states that we routinely resolve the conflict in one of four ways: 1) we change one of the thoughts to alleviate the conflict; 2) we change our behavior to alleviate the conflict; 3) we add new thoughts to rationalize our behavior; or 4) we trivialize the inconsistency. As it applies to people who defend the destruction of healthy and treatable animals in shelters, an example of how cognitive dissonance works goes like this: Belief: healthy and treatable animals should not be destroyed in shelters is in conflict with Behavior: I support a shelter that destroys healthy and treatable animals Method 1 Change a belief - the shelter I support has no choice but to destroy healthy and treatable animals Method 2 Change behavior - I will not support the shelter because it destroys healthy and treatable animals Method 3 - Add new thoughts to rationalize - the shelter I support destroys healthy and treatable animals because the public will not spay/neuter, there are too many breeders and the public is irresponsible AND I know that the people who work at the shelter I support are good people who don’t want to destroy animals and are doing the best they can Method 4 - Trivialize the inconsistency - this happens across the country and there really isn’t any way to change it The methods I see used most often to alleviate dissonance are adding new thoughts and trivializing the inconsistency. Such is the case with the administrator of the pro kill page. She is not the only voice to defend the killing and she will not be the last or the loudest. While I was typing this I learned about a blog written by the founder of a nationally respected "pet foundation" who claims the "kill" label is killing our nation's pets. Uh, no. They are being killed at shelters that could stop that process by municipal officials and shelter leaders learning there are other ways to function instead of defending a process that is nothing short of an utter betrayal of the public trust. 2025. Not 1875. There are just no excuses since the ways to save lives are known and have been for a very long time.  I recently listened to a lengthy podcast on Youtube in which the former director of an animal shelter in Texas was interviewed on a variety of subjects related to animal sheltering. This person has a demonstrated history of hostility toward the No Kill Equation I have long promoted as the cure for the disease that is the killing of healthy and treatable animals in our nation’s shelters while the public is blamed for that process. I did not agree with much of the discussion which included the typical opposition to the No Kill movement. Two topics discussed bear clarification because the information stated in the podcast was false. I think it is important for people to know correct information and not continue to parrot things they have heard in the past as if they are true because they are repeated over and over and over again. As the saying goes, you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts.  The Source of the 90% Reference There are organizations (and people) that profess that once a shelter saves the lives of 90% of animals, it is a No Kill Shelter. This is false. A No Kill shelter is one that does not kill healthy and treatable animals and which euthanizes animals who are suffering or who are irremediably ill. A No Kill community is one in which the lives of all healthy and treatable animals in all shelters are saved. So, where did the 90% reference come from anyway? The people participating in the podcast jokingly said it “came out of nowhere” and challenged the listening audience to share the source of the 90% reference. Challenge accepted. The 90% reference came from Nathan and Jennifer Winograd almost 20 years ago at a time when there were no metrics of success put forth by national animal welfare organizations – many of which firmly opposed No Kill programs that are now considered commonplace. The Winograds were saving more than 95% of animals in Tompkins County, New York and the few No Kill shelters that existed at that time were saving about 92% of the animals. Nathan said they “rounded down” to say that 90% was an ordinary byproduct of saving all healthy and treatable animals at that time. It was never intended to be a rule or a goal, after which the lives of the other animals did not matter. The Winograds have since called the 90% reference their "Frankenstein’s Monster" because it has been used in ways they never intended. National organizations use the 90% figure to raise millions as they tell the public a certain area (like Los Angeles) will be No Kill by __________ (fill in the year) as they continue to kick the can down the road year after year. People want animals to be saved so they donate (and donate and donate) thinking they are doing good when very little of that money actually changes anything at local levels and the stated goal is never reached. Other organizations fixate on the number and modify their statistics to make it look like they are saving 90% of animals when they are not. There is a shelter in my state that claims to be a No Kill facility and says it saves 90% of animals by not counting animals it deems unadoptable in a self-fulfilling use of language. If an animal is not adopted, that means the animal was unadoptable. It is as if they never existed. Yet other shelters and organizations claim to have reached the 90% level to gain public favor while warehousing and neglecting animals, leading people to claim the No Kill movement is a bad thing. In other places, use of the 90% figure has led to what some call a "killing budget." Development of progressive shelter programs and advances in veterinary medicine have led to live release rates as high as 99% in some places in municipal animal shelters. The current model shelters to watch are in Lake County, Florida; Williamson County Texas; and Fremont County, Colorado. You can learn more about the source of the 90% reference by listing to a portion of episode 4 of the Winograd’s 5-part Substack series called “called “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Animal Sheltering in the United States.” The part of the discussion about the 90% reference starts at about 16:03 goes to about 38:30 in the link provided above. You don’t need a subscription to listen.You can also listen to an excerpt from episode 4 which is the sound file below. I highly recommend the whole series about which I blogged before. I am hoping the Winograds put it in book form as a follow-up to Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America. excerpt from episode 4 of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow  The Asilomar Accords The person interviewed in this podcast erroneously stated that the Asilmoar Accords are the source of the 90% reference and went on to speak about the Accords as if he is fully familiar with them. The Accords do not refer to a percentage at all. I have long referred to them as a cop-out that have done more harm than good to shelter animals, providing political cover to end lives while making it seem like there was no alternative. So, what are the Accords? In 2004, the Humane Society of the United States, the American Humane Association, the ASPCA, Maddie’s Fund, some original members of the Best Friends Animal Society and others met in Asilomar, California with the stated goal of finding “solutions” to the killing of dogs and cats in shelters. What they came up with instead was a document the title of which includes the phrase, “saving lives and not pointing fingers” which pretty much sums up the tone of the Accords. It was a meeting of self-proclaimed shelter industry leaders not to truly focus on saving animals but to instead focus on not offending people, including the very people killing animals while refusing to acknowledge the validity of the No Kill programs already working successfully to save lives. Once you get past the self-congratulatory language about why the Accords were convened (and the fact that they are not regulatory in nature) what people focus on the most are a series of definitions that have been used for decades not to save the lives of animals but to end them. If you have ever seen a shelter report that includes categories of “healthy,” “ treatable-rehabilitatible,” “treatable-manageable” and “unhealthy and untreatable” that report is based on the definitions of the Accords. The problem with using the Accords definitions are many. Just like a shelter can say an animal who was killed and not adopted was “unadoptable,” it is easy to use the definitions to end the lives of animals by labeling them anything other than “healthy.” Using the Accords shelters can end the lives of neo-natal animals, community cats and animals with minor injuries or conditions. Even if the definitions were universally understood and used ethically at the time they were magically created, they were developed 20 years ago so they have not kept pace with advances in veterinary medicine and shelter veterinary medicine. A condition that may have been considered untreatable decades ago is now entirely treatable. To learn about what conditions really are treatable and not treatable based on modern veterinary medicine, this Animal Evaluation Matrix published by the No Kill Advocacy Center in cooperation with veterinarians is the key. Nathan Winograd wrote this about the Accords in Redemption: “Sanctioning or allowing for local practices that permit killing to continue is no way to bring an end to the killing. As a result, the No Kill paradigm and the Asimolar Accords are irreconcilable. When two philosophies are mutually exclusive, as No Kill and the voices of the status quo are, agreement can only come about when No Kill’s hegemony is firmly established and the old philosophies and practices are abandoned. In the end, this is not a war of ‘ideas.” It is a life-and-death struggle for saving shelter animals. Either they live or they do not. No Kill demand that they do.” Nathan covers the Accords in detail at pages 146 to 155 of Redemption which I consider compulsory reading for anyone who cares about the lives of animals. The Accords themselves, including the list of “signatories” to the Accords, is found at this link.  About that Podcast If you are wondering why I watched the almost 2 hour podcast in the first place, the answer is that one of the participants was chosen to be the new executive director for Huntsville Animal Services in Alabama following what I can best describe as a troubled tenure at a shelter in Texas. I, and the members of No Kill Huntsville, were very concerned about the selection. Much of his employment history is outside the animal shelter industry working with primates and wildlife, having first become an animal control officer in 2018, six years after our advocacy group formed in Huntsville. He had openly opposed the No Kill Equation, opposed free speech by the public about how shelters function and was in direct conflict with the public at his last shelter. We were told by members of the city council to give him a chance and we have. Since the time this blog was first published, the new director has proven us wrong. He has shown to be open to communication with the public and with advocates like us. He is using creative and innovative ideas to reach the public served and perhaps most important, he has filled a leadership void which existed for many years when the shelter director was a veterinarian who seemed to lack many of the core competencies needed to run the shelter for the largest city in the state. We are in talks with the new director about the the new version of the HAPA we have promoted since October 2022 and which we hope he will support. We look forward to what the future holds for Huntsville for the first time in many years. We would like nothing more than for the HAPA to be codified and for us to move past our advocacy, having left the operation of the shelter in the capable hands of the mayor, city council, city administrator and shelter director. Dare to dream.  I was connecting with Liz Stockton of X-Port Paws recently about No Kill philosophies and specifically about how some people say that if we just did ________________ (fill in the blank with one thing) the problem would be solved and all the healthy and treatable animals in our nation's tax-funded animal shelters would be saved. I wish it was that simple. Really. I do. If you are familiar with this blog or my website at all, you know I promote the No Kill Equation and have since I first learned about it almost 20 years ago after reading Nathan Winograd's groundbreaking book: Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America. The short explanation is that the Equation is a DIY series of programs that work together to help reduce the number of animals entering shelters (while helping the public) and that help animals who do end up in shelters to be placed faster (know of as a shorter "length of stay"). All shelters can and should learn about the Equation and take immediate action to stop the outdated (and I would argue unethical) practice of ending the lives of healthy and treatable animals for space or convenience. There are other ways to function and to the extent any shelter purposefully remains mired in the past, I view that a betray of the public trust. After speaking with Liz, I wanted to address the "If We Just Did This One Thing" theories I hear about most often.  Spay and Neuter. Not a week (often not a day) goes by when I do not learn of someone saying, "if people would just spay and neuter their pets, animals would not die in shelters." It is absolutely true that if more people spayed and neutered their pets in any given community, there would be fewer animals in the community which may mean fewer animals entering the tax-funded animal shelter. I know some veterinarians charge hundreds of dollars for the surgery and a lot of people just can't afford that while trying to pay rent and feed their families. We can tell them that it costs more to care for a litter than to just have animals sterilized but that's a hard sell when your kids are hungry and there doesn't appear to be an immediate risk your dog will cause a pregnancy or become impregnated. Access to high volume/low cost spay neuter is one of the 11 elements of the No Kill Equation which helps keep pet populations low which, in turn, reduces intake. In the city where I work, there is a nonprofit spay/neuter clinic that is open to anyone no matter where they live or how much money they make. The city also funds a spay/neuter program for low-income residents so they can have pets sterilized for $5. This program, the availability of the nonprofit clinic and other factors have helped cut the shelter intake at the tax-funded animal shelter in half over a period of about five years. Communities that make an investment in programs like this are getting ahead of the issue by spending to prevent births as opposed to spending to impound, house and then destroy animals. I also support laws that require any animal adopted from a shelter or rescue group to be sterilized. I know there are some animal shelters and rescue groups that transfer ownership of animals old enough to be sterilized who are still intact. For shame. I know this happens a lot and it is irresponsible. The "promise method" some shelters use to try to get people to have animals sterilized after they are adopted seldom works. People may agree to have the animal spayed or neutered and may even sign a document in which they agree to do that. Once ownership is transferred, enforcement of the promise method is practically impossible. People often mean well and plan to have the surgery performed but then other priorities (either financially or based on busy schedules) prevents that from happening. Once ownership has changed hands, the shelter can't just demand the animal be returned and even if someone signed a document promising to have the surgery peformed, it becomes a civil issue to be handled legally, something I have never seen a shelter attempt. Ever. I do not support mandatory spay neuter for owned animals, often called MSN. This is punitive legislation that tries to force people to have all owned pets sterilized. Even in places that have MSN, there are exceptions for breeders, exceptions for people who do not want their pet sterilized on advice of their veterinarian and enforcement is almost impossible. I blogged about this fairly recently and will not cover this same topic in full again. I do encourage anyone who believes forcing people to have pets sterilized (as opposed to making it easy and affordable) to read my blog linked above. If you still support MSN after having read it, feel free to contact me so we can talk about your position. As Nathan Winograd says in his video No Kill 101 (which I share with elected officials often): "for decades, spay/neuter has been hailed as the singular solution to shelter killing, though it alone has never successfully created a No Kill Community. Why? Because spay/neuter focuses primarily on those animals who have yet to be born, leaving the animals already in shelters and who are under an immediate death threat with no protection from killing. In other words, while a significant investment in sterilization can reduce intakes over the long term, and that is important, it is no substitute for saving lives today."  Rescues and Transports. There are those who profess that the single solution to end shelter killing is to get more rescue groups to help get animals out of shelters to transport more animals to different parts of the country. I've read a number of blogs recently that say just that. Rescuers are some of the most hard working people in the country and are to be applauded by us all. But for rescue groups, many more animals would die in tax funded shelters than do now. I clash with some people in animal rescue circles because their adoption fees price the animals they are trying to place out of the market (as they try to recoup veterinary costs through adoption fees alone), because they refuse to limit their efforts to a geographic area (in their efforts to help more animals than they can responsibly care for) and because so many of them have such loathing for people. Animal problems are people problems and it really is not possible to help animals without helping people in some way. In progressive communities, shelter liaison with rescue groups is incredibly important and is one of the 11 elements of the No Kill Equation. Rescue release should typically be just a fraction of all live outcomes with the other live outcomes being the result of returns to owner and adoptions. I know some in rescue refuse to adopt animals locally because they say the people in their area are too irresponsible, can't be trusted, etc. I once had a contact who drove dogs about an hour to a pet store location to hold adoption events. When I asked her how she was ever going to connect in a positive way with the people in her own community if she acted like they could not be trusted, she could not respond. When I hear or read that THE solution to keep more animals alive is for rescues to pull most of the animals (in most cases to transport them to other areas) I simply cannot agree. There are cases in which nonprofit organizations with a physical shelter contract with one or more municipalities for animal control and sheltering. Most rescue groups, however, are foster-based and function off of donations and grants with no tax-funded support. Rescue groups cannot carry the burden of life-saving for any community not only because they have a limited amount of space to house animals and limited funds to help animals, but also because doing so enables the failures in leadership that create unreasonable reliance on the in the first place. If a rescue group in any particular area is pulling the vast majority of animals, what incentive is there for elected officials to take responsibility for how their shelters function and how money is spent? None. I know a lot of people in the rescue community view saving animals as a life calling. My argument is that they should be considered part of the solution and not the only solution. The No Kill Equation is not rescue release, rescue release, rescue release, rescue release, rescue release, rescue release, rescue release, rescue release, rescue release, rescue release and rescue release. I know a lot of rescuers are frustrated now, particularly those who have historically relied on transports to other states to move animals. That became abundantly clear during the pandemic, when receiving states would no longer take animals from the source states. I know there are times when people find an animal on a site like Petfinder located hundreds or thousands of miles from them or otherwise learn about an animal on social media who is located far away and decide to adopt. I do not oppose transport for the sake of getting a specific animal from Point A to Point B for those long-distance adoptions. I do oppose mass transports from source locations to receiving locations where the lives of animals are already at risk. One such example is the pipeline between northern Alabama and Chicago. People may like the idea of saving southern animals from what they consider a fate worse than death by shipping them north. But news flash. There are plenty of animals in Chicago already who need help and importing them from other states only makes it harder to place local animals in need. And when nothing is done in the source location to address the reasons why so many animals need help, it is another enabling behavior. I know thousands of animals are transported from Texas to Colorado every year. Every life saved is a wonderful, positive outcome. But if we aren't doing anything to stop the flow of animals from Texas we are doing a disservice to the people who live in Texas and the animals being shipped north. A contact of mine who is the president of a local nonprofit phrased it this way years ago and I have always remembered what she said: the number of animals needing help is like the flow of water through a faucet. If we ever hope to stop the volume of need, we have to turn off the faucet. Yes, Jane.  Stop dog breeding. The third solution I see most often, particularly on social media, is the way to keep more shelter animals alive is to "stop people from breeding animals." I do not discount that the volume of animals bred in our country, particularly commercially, contributes to the volume of animals in shelters. Millions of puppies are born and sold each year; it is a multi-million dollar industry. I am not aware of any study that shows a direct connection between dogs bred in Missouri with dog intake in Florida or Tennessee or California. It is logical to assume, however, that because millions of dogs are bred in the U.S. and are sold on websites and by brokers using creative marketing that appeals to consumers, people looking for a dog to add to their family often buy dogs through those methods like they would by a laptop or a sofa. I've written many times about issues related to the commercial dog breeding industry which I oppose and which is often supported by the rescue community. I have also written about the fact that dog breeding is legal and as much as people chant, "don't breed or buy while shelter dogs die," that is just not realistic. I always encourage people to adopt as a first option; I do all I can to persuade them they can find a great fit for their family and that shelter animals are not damaged. As much as I would never buy a dog from a hobby breeder (someone who breeds dogs on a small scale for the love of the breed) or small-volume breeder, many people do and that is their right. A co-worker of mine recently bought a Jack Russell from a breeder in Georgia. Do I wish he had adopted instead? Of course. But it was his choice and not something I was able to influence in any way. For people who genuinely feel that breeding is an issue in their community and is leading to more shelter intake, I encourage those people to create and advance local legislation that requires breeders to pay fees for their business, that creates standards for those operations, and that provides criminal penalties for failing to adequately care for the breeding dogs and the dogs they sell. I also encourage them to get involved on the state level to advance similar legislation for the sake of not only the dogs being bred, but the people who adopt them to make sure the dogs are healthy (something severely lacking in many dogs bred in commercial operations). Local ordinances that prevent pet shops from importing dogs for sale in a retail setting are also important to keep businesses like Petland from setting up shop; once a store is open and is selling their puppies, it is almost impossible to stop.  Fires and How to Extinguish Them. In thinking back about my conversations with Liz, there is one other issue I want to touch on related to solutions to shelter killing. I am aware of people who spend a lot of time traveling around the county to bring awareness to what happens in our nation's animal shelters, who blog on that topic and who post about it on social media. I firmly believe that awareness leads to education leads to action leads to change. As much as people in animal advocacy and rescue circles believe the public should know about what is happening at their local shelter, most people just don't because it is not on their personal radar. It's incredibly important that we let the tax-paying public know what is happening at the shelter in their community so they know what they are paying for while they are, in most cases, blamed for a process that leads to the death of healthy and treatable animals. Only when people know what is happening can they participate in the political process and let elected officials know what they want and expect, perhaps even voting them out of office.
What I take issue with is the functional equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded room. Don't raise awareness - on any platform - to the needless deaths taking place nationally without also providing information and tools people can use to understand how we can change our society related to how shelters function. And without claiming it will just take __________________ (fill in the blank with one thing) to fix systemic issues. Don't yell "fire!" (animals are dying) without also pointing the way to the exits and explaining how the fire can be extinguished (saving animals using proven programs). The solutions have been known for almost 20 years and are available for the taking. The No Kill Equation can be implemented in any community and will always look different from location to location based on resources, challenges and the amount of public support. If, for some reason, you are not convinced the Equation works anywhere it is fully implemented, fine. Then develop or find some other solution that actually works and which does not rely on the "If We Just Did This One Thing" theory. I think you will find that to be incredibly difficult but am capable of learning new things. If someone can convince me another methodology works better than the Equation, I will consider myself schooled. If you live or work in a community where the tax-funded shelter ends the lives of healthy and treatable animals, speak out. Seek better. It may be necessary to become politically active as part of a group to try to "fight city hall." Don't wait for a large national animal welfare organization to come to your area to save the day because that's just not gonna happen. If you don't hesitate to complain about potholes in the road, timing of traffic lights, garbage pick-up and police response i your area, you can (and should) also be clear about how you want your money spent when it comes to balancing public safety with saving the lives of companion animals. Nothing changes if. . .nothing changes. As Margaret Meade once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has." 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.  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. Categories
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image courtesy of Terrah Johnson
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