As I previously reported, the Companion Animal Protection Act was introduced in Texas (Texas CAPA). Many people who are “in the trenches” i.e. foster parents, rescue groups and volunteers are overjoyed because they all know that the protections mandated in Texas CAPA are very much needed. These people are fighting kill shelters every day trying to save lives only to see animals that they are willing to save, killed instead. They are the ones who are forced to stay silent when they see horrendous abuse because they are afraid of being banned from the shelter, as has happened so many times, because currently there are few protections for shelter animals and none for the people trying so hard to save them.
These people, and national animal protection organizations such as the No Kill Advocacy Center, Alley Cat Allies and Friends of Animals support Texas CAPA because it legally mandates proven life saving programs that many shelters currently refuse to voluntarily implement. If Texas CAPA passes into law, many life saving programs will no longer be optional depending on the shelter directors' or employees’ whims.
Kill shelters and their cronies oppose Texas CAPA
Then, there are the uneducated who claim that Texas CAPA will cause a whole host of scary problems. In Rebecca Poling’s article she warns people to “be careful what you wish for” making ridiculous, unfounded predictions such as, if Texas CAPA passes there will be no one left to handle adoptions, rescue transfers or work offsite adoptions; the volunteer coordinator won’t have time to coordinate volunteers; there will be frightened, starving dogs on every street corner, darting through traffic and living in sewers; abandoned pets will be stacked 4-high in small plastic crates lining the halls of animal shelters…. the mind boggling and completely ludicrous claims go on and on.
Are any of her scary predictions true? In fact, none of them are true. Ms. Poling's statements are just scare tactics not based on any real facts. It is fear mongering at its finest. The fact is that we don’t have to guess whether the programs within Texas CAPA will cause any of Ms. Poling’s horrible predictions, because many shelters in 4 countries already implemented these programs voluntarily years ago. The result? An increase in life saving. In addition, a version of this law was passed in California over 10 years. The result? Increased life saving because it increased rescue groups access to shelter animals. (It also saved the city and county of San Francisco $486,000). The city of Austin passed a version of Texas CAPA last year. The result? Life saving has increased ever since. In fact, Austin’s open admission animal control facility saved 92% of all animals in February. None of Ms. Poling’s doomsday predictions have come true in these communties.
As a reminder, if passed CAPA would:
1) abolish the gas chamber;
2) abolish “heart sticks” as a method of “euthanasia” except under certain specific circumstances;
3) ban “convenience killing” (killing when there are empty cages);
4) mandate collaboration by requiring shelters to work with non-profit rescue organizations to maximize life saving;
5) mandate transparency by requiring shelters to report how many animals they kill;.
6) ban the killing of animals based on arbitrary criteria such as breed, age or color;
7) prohibit selling shelter animals to research labs;
and provide many more protections for shelter animals.
Most citizens would be outraged to know that the above is not already “standard operating procedures” in every shelter in the US. Sadly, it is not. Shelters have been allowed to regulate themselves and the result has been 3-4 million animals being killed each year even though we know that there are enough homes for them. Horrendous abuse has been allowed to continue unfettered within “shelters” and there has been little to no laws in place that citizens could use to stop it. Clearly it is time citizens have access to legal remedies.
Ms. Poling claims that the reason that Dallas' animal control “shelter” kills 23,000 of the 30,000 animals that enter their doors every year is because of “irresponsible people" but we have research that proves that this is not true.
Ms. Poling also criticizes the requirement to hold animals for 5 days as if this is an outrageous length of time for an owner to try to find their lost pet before he/she is killed by a "shelter". Or that 5 days is an unreasonable amount of time for an animal to find a new adoptive home. She states that this would cause all the scary problems listed above, but she completely ignores all of the programs of Texas CAPA which help move animals efficiently through the shelter system so that a shelter doesn’t “need” to kill animals in only 3 days or doesn’t “need” to kill owner turn in animals the very same day, as many do now. There is kennel space because other programs are working to keep animals out of the shelter in the first place, like the lost and found program or help desk. Other programs in Texas CAPA ensure that the animals that do enter the shelter system move through quickly. For instance, when Nathan Winograd ran the Tompkins Co. SPCA, he ran an open admission shelter that was also animal control for 10 municipalities. The average length of stay for any animal there was only 8 DAYS. He accomplished this by using the programs on which Texas CAPA is based.
Ms. Poling also claims Texas CAPA will cost too much money. But, this isn’t necessarily true and it is the same argument that kill shelters use to claim that they shouldn’t have to implement these programs. The fact is that many of the programs would save money because it actually costs more to kill animals than to save them.
One example of how a shelter would save money is a return to owner program. The Nevada Humane Society has a return to owner program that returns 65% of all animals to their owner. (This means 65% of all animals entering the shelter are lost with owners who want them back. They were not abandoned by an “irresponsible” person contrary to what the fear mongers say). The average return to owner rate for most shelters in the US is about 5%. Houston’s animal control averages about 5% as well. If BARC had a return to owner program that was as successful as the Nevada Humane Society, it would save 8,100 more animals every year and SAVE $972,000. It would also free up 8,100 kennels for animals that truly do need to be rehomed. The money saved in this program could then be used for programs that do cost money like low cost or free spay/neuter services which would further reduce intakes and again, save money in the long run. Dallas would see similar savings in both dollars and lives as Dallas animal control takes in a similar amount of animals as BARC.
There are other examples of cost saving programs within Texas CAPA. The fact is you can’t look at just one program or service and say "this program costs money so we shouldn’t do it", because the programs all work in concert together.
Ms. Poling also claims that we should just focus on “educating residents on how to be responsible”. Kill shelters and their defenders have recited this rhetoric for decades and as Dr. Phil would say “How’s that been working for you?” The fact is that Dallas has been following this antiquated rhetoric for years and is still killing 23,000 pets every year and shelter workers are still doing horrendous things to animals like allowing them die slow agonizing deaths inside "shelter" walls. Clearly this rhetoric is not working.
Ms. Poling also uses the same tired excuse as THLN i.e. that this bill should be tabled for 2 years because THLN was not consulted before it was filed. (Just so readers know, there is no rule in Texas that says the THLN, or any other organization for that matter, must consulted before filing a bill.) Again, more utter nonsense and more than a bit egotistical.
Ms. Poling also claims that Texas CAPA should be tabled for 2 years because no sheltering organization was consulted before filing. This statement is beyond ridiculous. She actually states that we should consult with the very shelters that are killing hundreds of thousands of animals each year (80,000 in Houston alone), who are doing horrendously inhumane things to animals, and ask them if they want to be regulated? Seriously? Do we consult with criminals before passing laws that would protect their victims? No. Likewise why would we consult with the very organizations that are killing 3-4 million pets every year all the while life saving alternatives have been in front of them for 15 years? The egregious and horrendous things that are taking place in our shelters have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that most shelters cannot, and should not, regulate themselves.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised in Ms. Poling’s doomsday predictions as they are the same type of fear mongering that the kill shelters themselves have used to convince people that it is better to just keep doing things the same way i.e. killing thousands while “educating” the public that they are so irresponsible. And, we have discovered that Ms. Poling’s fear mongering is most likely based on her close ties to groups like THLN. (Note: THLN will merge with Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in a few months. HSUS has historically fought No Kill efforts in other communities for years. And this is the same HSUS that embraced Michael Vick and even said he would make a good pet owner. THLN and HSUS will be one and the same in a few months.)
Ms. Poling is also on the city of Dallas’ Animal Shelter commission. Part of stated duties of this commission are to “assist the city of Dallas in ensuring that animal shelters operated by the City meet certain standards required Texas state law.” So we see that she has very close ties with a high kill shelter (we also clearly see the need to create life saving Texas state law that this commission would be required to follow).
Ms. Poling's fellow board members on the Dallas Animal Shelter commissions include Skip Trimble, who is also a THLN board member. THLN is the organization whose board also includes a shelter director whose high kill shelter kills 89% of all animals entering their doors, including every single Pit Bull.
THLN is the same organization that claims that Texas CAPA should wait 2 more years while THLN thinks about it. It doesn’t matter that THLN will not exist in a few months. Texans should just wait 2 more years while Texas “shelters” continue to gas and “heart stick” adoptable animals to death. Texans should wait 2 more years while “shelters” turn down citizens who beg to adopt animals); Texans should wait 2 more years while “shelters” kill dogs simply because a shelter worker says the dog looks like a Pit Bull.
Part of the Dallas Animal Shelter commission’s mission statement also claims to “Develop, implement and enforce the policies and programs that will make Dallas a no-kill city.” In fact, it appears that the city of Dallas has been talking about No Kill for at least 9 years.
If the Dallas Animal Shelter commission’s stated goal is to make Dallas a No Kill city, wouldn’t it make sense to research what other communities have done to achieve this and copy them? This seems like a no brainer. But clearly that is not what is happening within this commission as Ms. Poling’s article demonstrates. She attacks the very programs which have resulted in No Kill communities. She attempts to scare others into believing that the sky will fall if these proven programs are implemented. These uneducated and blatantly false statements are reprehensible especially considering the mission statement of the board on which she sits.
In fact, a former THLN board member, Suzette Watkins, questioned the actions of the Dallas Animal Shelter commission when a crying, frightened cat was allowed to starve to death, over a period of eight days, within the very walls of Dallas’ animal control “shelter”. Shelter employees did not break into the wall to free the cat until she was ALREADY DEAD and they complained only because the body was stinking up their break room.
Ms. Watkins was outraged at the actions of the employees at this “shelter”, as any animal lover or member of a “humane” organization should have been.
But when Ms. Watkins questioned what actions were being taken by the Dallas Animal Shelter Commission, on which Ms. Poling sits, she received no answer.
When Ms. Watkins questioned whether the commission had recommended that the shelter leaders be fired, she received no response.
THLN-Dallas responded that ‘many fine people sit on the Dallas Animal Shelter Advisory Committee and many of them were very vocal in insisting that there be justice for the cat”. When Ms. Watkins asked for the names of the “many people” who demanded justice, no response was forthcoming.
When Ms. Watkins asked Ms. Poling when she first learned of the trapped cat, she received no response.
Eight months later, there are still no responses. See the entire conversation here.
Within 30 minutes of Ms. Watkins’ valid questions, THLN president Cile Holloway emailed her and asked to speak with her. Ms. Holloway then fired Ms. Watkins from THLN. So, Ms. Watkins was fired from a “humane” organization for asking questions concerning extreme cruelty to a cat committed by a “shelter”.
In a later email to Ms. Watkns, Ms. Holloway stated “For those of us who take on a leadership position with THLN, we must realize we are ALWAYS representing THLN - as the public won't differentiate between the "individual" and the "THLN leadership person". It's often hard to work/stay within the leadership role with all the animal problems surrounding us, but it's essential - simply out of respect for the organization and need for effectiveness."
This reads to me as “Don’t ask. Don’t tell” if it involves THLN or our "friends" and/or “you must not question the great and powerful Oz” even when blatant, ghastly animal cruelty is involved.
As we can see, just because someone claims that this bill will cause every type of problem imaginable to occur, does NOT mean that it is true. You should just consider the source.
And, just because some groups claim that they are working towards a No Kill city does not mean this is true either. Words mean nothing unless there is appropriate committed action to back it up. In this case, it seems there has been no action at all from Dallas animal control, Dallas Animal Shelter commission or THLN’s Dallas branch to further this “No Kill mission” for 9 years. In fact, we see them fight the very programs that would actually get Dallas to No Kill.
It is beyond my comprehension why anyone would suggest that a city or state continue doing the very same things that have proven to be such a colossal failure for so many years.
Isn’t it time that Dallas, and everyone else, study what the successful, open admission No Kill shelters are doing and copy their success, whether or not it is outside of our comfort zones; whether or not it goes against the dogma that shelters have taught us; whether or not it requires us to think outside the box?
The only thing that I agree with in Ms. Poling’s article is the statement that “Simply saying we’re going to stop the killing and keep animals longer isn’t enough”. This is true. And this is exactly why Texas CAPA has many of the proven programs and services that have ended shelter killing elsewhere.
We know that the programs in Texas CAPA work because other open admission shelters are already voluntarily using them and they have stopped killing.
We know this because CA passed parts of this legislation and it resulted in life saving.
We know this because Austin TX passed many parts of this legislation last year and their save rates have been rising ever since (92% save rate in February).
We know this because Williamson Co., TX animal control is using these programs and saving up to 96% of all animals.
We know what works. It’s time to make proven life saving programs the law in Texas.
I urge readers to become informed. Read Texas CAPA for yourself and learn about the protections that will be put into place. It is only 21 pages double spaced, so it doesn’t take much time.
And, when you see fear mongering statements like Ms. Poling’s, consider the source and the vested interests of those making the statements. Don’t listen to the naysayers and fear mongers who want to scare us into never moving forward.
Will you use your voice to fight for thousands of animals in Texas shelters?
If so, please sign our petition.
If you are on the board of a rescue group or animal welfare organization, please ask all of your board members to send a letter in support of Texas CAPA and send this to your members. Click here for a template letter with talking points.
Do it today. We have a chance to stop the insanity in Texas shelters but legislators MUST hear from all Texans.
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