'Building No Kill Communities' lights the way for change in Georgia

Irreconcilable Differences is Nathan Winograd's most recent book.

 

 

Related articles

All-day No Kill seminar to take place in Nashville May 12

'Building No Kill Communities' with Nathan Winograd this Friday in Douglasville

A modest proposal: PETA should 'euthanize' only animatronic dogs and cats

Shelter Pet Population 101: Building No Kill Communities with the No Kill Equation

Georgia poised to ban the gas chamber effective December 31, 2010

On the evening of April 16, about 270 animal advocates from across Georgia and five other states gathered together in Douglasville to learn about the growing No Kill movement and how to implement its principles from one of its most forceful and respected proponents, Nathan Winograd.  Representative Knox made a few opening remarks about the status of Grace's Law, the bill to ban the use of the gas chamber in Georgia's shelters.  The Carroll County Humane Society collected several hundred pounds of donated cat and dog food for their Empty Pet Bowls program which provides pet food to those in need, helping them to keep their pets.  The formation of a new grassroots organization in support of the No Kill movement was announced--more on that in upcoming articles.

No Kill advocates often find themselves in conflict with old-guard organizations, but animal shelters are supposed to shelter and protect animals, animal welfare organizations are supposed to protect the welfare of all animals, shelter directors and employees are supposed to be compassionate people dedicated to saving lives. Why then is shelter killing the leading cause of death for healthy dogs and cats in this country?  Why have large national organizations like HSUS traditionally advocated that feral cats be rounded up and killed rather than trapped, neutered and released?  Why does the ASPCA oppose Oreo's Law?  Why do we even need Oreo's Law?  Why are some shelter directors openly hostile to those who advocate the proven and lifesaving No Kill Equation?  And what's up with PETA?

A wise man once said, "If you don't know your history, then you don't know where you're coming from."  The first part of Winograd's inspiring multimedia presentation was an eye-opening history lesson.  The story was familiar to those who have read Winograd's first book, Redemption:  the Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America, but seeing it presented with historic photos was perhaps even more compelling and really gave a flavor of the changing times.

He began with Henry Bergh, who founded the ASPCA in New York City in 1866.  At that time cruelty was both rampant and generally in full public view.  Bergh initially championed the plight of working animals--draft horses and cart dogs who were often beaten and worked to death, but he soon came up against the Poundmaster.  In New York, and elsewhere, at the time, dogs were rounded up, often stolen, and brutally killed in public, usually by some combination of beating and drowning.  The notion of an adoption shelter did not exist.  Bergh sought to protect the dogs from people with some success.  Similar organizations sprang up around the country.  The city wanted the ASPCA to take over as Poundmaster, but he refused to compromise his principles.  Bergh knew that his mission to protect animals from people was completely different from that of the Poundmaster, which was (supposedly) to protect people from animals.  Saving lives and ending them are fundamentally incompatible.  He feared what would become of the ASPCA when he was gone, and shortly after his death in 1888, his fears came true--his successors took the Poundmaster's contract and the ASPCA became the leading killer of dogs and cats in New York City.  The dirty deed was done.  So soon after it got started, the humane movement threw away its central core, and became hollow by choice.  Thus began over a century of attempts to conceal the proverbial elephant in the living room.

Shelters adopted a three point plan for dealing with homeless animals:

1. Humane Education
2. Adoption
3. Humane Death*

This plan was championed by the American Humane Association, founded in 1879, and the first truly national organization dealing with companion animals.  This plan is still with us today and it has yet to solve the problem of shelter killing, probably because shelter killing is built right into it.

Since WWII, the public's attitude towards animals has been changing dramatically, and many have come to regard dogs and cats as family members

The problem persisted and the nation's shelters were killing many millions of animals annually.  In 1974, a group of 'stakeholders' met in Chicago.  They included the HSUS, the AVMA, the AKC, and the American Humane Association.  They formed a consensus about who to blame for the problem of shelter killing, and came up with another three point plan.  They blamed the two stakeholders notably absent from the table:  the public** and the animals themselves.  The public, an easy and amorphous scapegoat, was to blame for being irresponsible.  The animals were to blame for being 'unadoptable'--too old, too young, or imperfect in some way--completely defenseless scapegoats.  The new three-point plan, abbreviated 'LES' focused on the public as the cause of the problem and it too has not solved anything:

1. Legislation
2. Education
3. Sterilization

The legislation was generally punitive in nature, and included prohibitions against feeding strays, limit laws and mandatory spay-neuter laws, all of which end up punishing the animals more so than the 'irresponsible public' they are supposedly aimed at.  The education uses shelter resources and personnel to give talks to schoolchildren in the hope that so doing will make kids turn out better than their parents, but the efficacy of these programs has never been documented, and given the killing at shelters, the endeavor is hypocritical at best.  The sterilization they advocated was to be done by veterinarians at full price, despite the documented success of low cost clinics, which existed as early as 1971 in Los Angeles.  Cost is perhaps the most common reason why someone doesn't spay or neuter their pet, and these clinics reach a population not reached by private-practice veterinarians.  It is a plan that sets itself up in opposition to the public and includes roadblocks to its own success, rather than being based on 'what works'.  They distributed 7000 copies of the conference proceedings to shelters nationwide.  The mantra of "the irresponsible public is the reason why we have to kill" spread like a virus.

This holding pattern of 'adopt a few and kill the rest', facilitated by 'blame the public' continued on for years without anyone in those large national groups asking, "How do we stop the killing?" 

But people outside those organizations did ask the question, and the No Kill movement was born.  An organization called Mercy Crusade in Los Angeles opened low-cost spay-neuter clinics and shelter death rates dropped.  For every $1 the city invested in spay-neuter, they saved $10 in animal control costs.  Sadly LA abandoned this model, began relying on legislation and saw death rates climb once again.

The second part of Winograd's presentation was about stopping the killing.

The No Kill movement saw its next practical application when Richard Avanzino reformed the San Francisco SPCA.  He implemented many creative programs with the goals of saving lives and moving animals out of the shelter and into homes quickly--foster care for animals such as orphaned kittens needing bottle feeding, off-site adoptions to bring the animals to the potential adopters, behavior advice, city-wide trap-neuter-return for feral cats, socialization and training for shelter animals, pediatric spay-neuter, free spay-neuter, and even paying people a few bucks to spay and neuter their pets (which was actually cheaper than having to take in additional puppies and kittens that would result if those animals went unaltered).  Public support for these positive programs was tremendous.  The shelter got out of the animal control business and negotiated the Adoption Pact which extended the shelter's lifesaving mission throughout the city, something unprecedented.  By the time Avanzino left the SFSPCA to lead Maddie's Fund in 1998, the community had seen the death rates of dogs and cats in its shelters plummet.  The shelter became financially solvent and built a state-of-the-art pet adoption facility.  They were close to saving every healthy and treatable shelter pet in San Francisco.  Many of the programs pioneered by Avanzino are becoming more widespread and have been recognized as essential components of  what should be every shelter's lifesaving mission, but at the time naysayers attacked them and denied that the SFSPCA's success was real.  The mindset and emotional baggage that come with killing healthy and treatable animals day in and day out got in the way of adopting successful, lifesaving programs.

Sadly, when Avanzino left, the shelter's new leadership began dismantling it's lifesaving programs and failed to follow through on Avanzino's accomplishments, pushing back the progress so many had worked for and believed in.  Once again, animals were dying when they could have been saved.  One of the people who had worked for and believed in the shelter's lifesaving mission was the speaker, Nathan Winograd.  He left to take the lifesaving mission and the system that would become known as the No Kill Equation clear across the country to a troubled shelter in rural Tompkins County, NY in mid-2001.***

There, the death rate plummeted overnight, and the shelter went from killing most of the animals it took in to saving over 90% and has continued to do so ever since, saving all healthy and treatable dogs and cats, including those traditionally classified as 'unadoptable'--the old cats, the blind dogs, and so forth.  Tompkins County became the first No Kill community in the entire nation, but once again the animal sheltering establishment did not celebrate--they ignored, denied and attacked. 

Others did notice, however, and began implementing the No Kill Equation in shelters around the country, adding Charlottesville, VA, Reno, NV, Shelby County, KY and others to the nation's growing list of No Kill communities

According to Winograd, it all comes down to leadership.  A committed leader is the most important part of the NKE, and merely throwing money at a shelter will not save lives in the absence of a committed leader.  He emphasized that individuals can make a difference, and that the compassion of the many is more than enough to overcome the irresponsibility of the few.  Challenges can be made into opportunities.  The public wants to help the hard-luck cases, and the more usual animals as well.  Successful shelters use creative marketing, capitalizing on everything from the Super Bowl to Arbor Day to promote adoptions.

He presented his own three-point plan for shelters:

1. Do things for animals.
2. Tell people about it.
3. Ask for help.

It turns out that allying with the public, rather than using them as a scapegoat, works.  There's strength in numbers.  Who's going to save more animals, a shelter railing against the "irresponsible public" or one working with the compassionate public?

According to recent data, of the 4 million animals killed**** in American shelters this year, 3.6 million could be saved.  Why is this still happening when 21 million people are looking to acquire a pet, and 17 million of those have not yet decided from where?  Shelters often have poor customer service, fail to market the animals effectively, are relegated to poor locations, are dirty, have under-performing staff, and charge high fees.  People adopt only about 20% of the time, but if that market share were increased by just a few percentage points, it would zero out killing.

Winograd called for animal advocates to change their language to reflect the truth and to view shelter killing as a solvable problem.  It's not 'euthanasia' if the animal is healthy or treatable, and it's not 'pet overpopulation' when shelters kill because they fail to TNR feral cats, fail to provide behavioral rehabilitation, use bogus temperament tests, allow animals to get sick because they don't clean or vaccinate, fail to market animals effectively, or kill animals despite having empty cages.   The will of 3500 or so shelter directors cannot hold back the will of millions of animal lovers.

He called for regime change, pointing out that no shelter has gone from a culture of killing to a culture of lifesaving without a turnover in staff and saying "It's better to fire a bad staff member than to kill a good animal."  He pointed out that efforts must be comprehensive and vigorous.  Token efforts will not do.

No Kill must be institutionalized through legislation, so that reformed shelters stay reformed.  The Companion Animal Protection Act is a piece of model legislation that mandates lifesaving and accountability in shelters.  Oreo's Law, currently in the New York State legislature is modeled after the Hayden Law, which has been in effect in California for ten years.  It would make it illegal for a shelter to kill an animal that a rescue group was willing to save.

We live in interesting times.  For over 100 years, shelter killing was a dirty little secret and went largely unquestioned.  Indeed, it was backed by large, wealthy organizations which acted as enablers rather than problem-solvers.  It is now being dragged into the light of day by the public, armed with facts and compassion, and fed up with scapegoating and lame excuses.

Also at this event:  the Carroll County Humane Society collected several hundred pounds of donated cat and dog food for their Empty Pet Bowls program, which provides pet food to those in need, helping them to keep their pets. The formation of a new grassroots organization in support of the No Kill movement was announced--more on that in upcoming articles.  If you are interested in participating in this new grassroots organization, you may email the author to request a volunteer interest form.

*At that time, stray animals were killed by a combination of beating and drowning, and humane organizations introduced the gas chamber as their preferred method, substituting one brutal form of killing for another, leaving a legacy of failure which Georgia and others are still dealing with today.

**In so doing, they violated an important principle of scapegoating:  be sure that you have your scapegoats outnumbered.

***More on Tompkins County in a future article, stay tuned.

****Georgia kills an estimated 260,000 dogs and cats in its shelters every year.  Click here to download the GVAW report.

If you liked this article and would like to receive other articles by the Atlanta Animal Welfare Examiner by email, just click the 'subscribe' button at the top of this page.

Strayed--a brief video history of the animal welfare movement and the advent of No Kill.