Houston, TX- No Kill sheltering expert, Nathan Winograd has announced the winners of the 2011 “Phyllis Wright award”. The award is given to those who epitomize everything that is wrong within the American animal shelter system. Ten recipients share the dishonor in 2011 and Winograd states that “each represents a different ugly side of our broken animal ‘shelter’ system: the pound directors who kill in the face of readily available alternatives they simply refuse to implement, the bureaucrats who excuse neglect and abuse in the pounds they “oversee,” or those who run organizations that fight lifesaving reforms, protecting and defending the killing and championing the killers.
Winograd, who was recently named one of Forbes’ 15 Key Thinkers and Writers and referred to as the most important intellectual this year, stated that this award is named for the late-Phyllis Wright. "The matriarch of today’s ‘catch and kill’ paradigm, Wright once famously wrote, ‘I’ve put 70,000 dogs and cats to sleep… But I tell you one thing: I don’t worry about one of those animals that were put to sleep.’” Winograd stated that “Wright’s essay created an emotionally acceptable pretext for killing animals: shelter workers were now ‘putting animals to sleep’ and the charade that ‘killing is kindness’ became a national fixture.”
Although Winograd states that there were many, many contenders for this award, Houston holds the distinction of the city with the most Phyllis Wright award winners in America. Houston ranks at the top of Winograd’s list of dishonor this year because three of the ten award recipients have Houston connections i.e., Patty Mercer, director of the Houston SPCA and Dawn Blackmar, director of Harris County animal control are both located in Houston and the Texas Humane Legislative Network has a branch in Houston.
Houston is the fourth largest city in America and is on the cutting edge in so many industries so it is especially appalling and shameful that quite literally the worst of the worst within the American humane industry are also located in Houston.
Please join No Kill Houston and No Kill Texas Advocates shelter reform efforts to make Houston and Texas a safe place for shelter pets.
