Nathan Winograd Rebuttal of the Cat Protection Society NSW argument on why they can't go No-Kill.

by Nathan Winograd

The Abolitionist asked Nathan Winograd, an expert on No-Kill, Trap-Neuter-Return, Pound animals, De-Sexing, Founder of No Kill Solutions and animal activist to rebut the argument put forth in the recent edition of The Cat Protection NSW's magazine “Cat Affairs”. The article is called “No Kill” Shelters. It was written by their Office Coordinator Jasmin Cox in reply to some of their members questioning the pro-killing stance of The Cat Protection Society, NSW.

Note: As early as two weeks ago we rang the Cat Protection Society NSW to ask for their euthanasia figures. They said they “put to sleep” between 50-60% of the cats they see and the office manager said if “the cat is unfriendly she gets put to sleep immediately”. Cat Protection? You decide.

Nathan Winograd: I can only speak for the situation in the United States and will therefore respond from the American perspective, but since agencies in Australia cite articles by the Humane Society of the United States for their positions, and as shelters in the United States make the same arguments for killing in my country, it may be that the situation is similar in Australia. I will leave that for the reader to decide. I also cannot speak for the policies and practices of any particular group or shelter in Australia, having never visited. So I will keep my comments focused on the arguments made, and why I think they are not correct as a general matter. This is not a condemnation of any shelter or group. It is a condemnation of the notion that killing homeless animals is an act of compassion.

For far too long, we have accepted the idea that the best we can do for homeless animals is adopt some and kill the rest. Nowhere is this better summarized than the 19 th Century policy statement of one of the oldest rescue agencies in the U.S.:

“We keep all dogs we receive, unless very sick or vicious, five days; then those unclaimed are humanely put to death except a limited number of desirable ones for which we can find good homes. We keep from twenty to thirty of the best of the cats and kittens to place in homes and the rest are put to death… We do not keep a large number of animals alive…”

That we are living in the 21 st Century and this is still the status quo is, in my mind, a profound and dismal failure. And a state of affairs that the No Kill movement seeks to end.

As stated in the Preamble to the U.S. No Kill Declaration, “Today, most Americans hold the humane treatment of animals as a personal value, which is reflected in our laws, cultural practices, the proliferation of organizations founded for their protection, increased per capita spending on animal care, and great advancements in veterinary medicine. But the agencies that the public expects to protect animals are instead killing more than five million of them.” We can do better.

Why don't we? Let's look at the rationale offered.

“ Not all of the cats that are surrendered to us are suitable for rehoming.”

This is true, but it should not be an excuse for mass killing. Some are feral cats who do not belong in shelters. That is why it is incumbent on shelters to support non-lethal alternatives like Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Others come to shelters unweaned, sick, injured or traumatised. That is why it is necessary for shelters to put in place medical and behavior rehabilitation programs, foster care networks, and pet retention programs that help owners overcome the medical, behaviour, and environmental conditions that may cause them to relinquish their pets.

As head of an animal control agency in Upstate New York, we typically took in more than three times the number of animals than we had cages/kennels in the shelter to care for. But we did not kill a single animal for space. By putting in place those programs with a demonstrated track record of success—TNR, foster care, volunteer, pet retention, medical and behavior rehabilitation—we were able to achieve success. And the results were dramatic. In a two-year period, we reduced the death rate 75%. In the end, only 7% of all impounded cats were killed—reserving “euthanasia” for those who were either irremediably suffering or hopelessly ill.

We would love to be able to label ourselves “NO KILL” but with irresponsible pet ownership, and cat over population, this is not presently possible.

Once again, I can only speak from the American experience, but it is illustrative. Shelters generally operate out of a myth of pet overpopulation, which seeks to put the onus of responsibility on the public's failure to spay/neuter, constrain their pets or make lifetime commitments. This is appealing, but it is ultimately a failure to take responsibility. People may relinquish their animals to the pound but it is the pound that is killing the animals, and one does not necessarily follow the other.

Conventional Wisdom says, “there are too many animals and not enough homes.” This is an old stand by of the humane movement used to explain why shelters are killing so many adoptable pets. But if there really are “too many animals and not enough homes,” how are pet stores and breeders still in business?

In fact, the problem is not about too many animals or too few homes. The problem is that shelters are doing a poor job getting animals into those homes. Data from the American Animal Hospital Association data shows that approximately 53 million dogs are already in 31 million homes, and 59 million cats are in 27 million homes. As one commentator put it, “if each pet lives 10 years, on average, and the number of homes grows at the same rate that homes are lost through deaths and other attrition, then replacement homes would come available each year for more than twice as many dogs and slightly more cats than enter shelters. Since the inventory of pet-owning homes is growing, not just holding even, adoption could in theory replace all population control killing right now–– if the animals and potential adopters were better introduced .” (Clifton, Merritt, Animal People, October 1998, emphasis added.)

In fact, studies show people get their dogs from shelters only 15% of the time, and less than 10% of the time for cats. In other words, if shelters better promoted their animals, they could increase the number of homes available and replace all population control killing with adoptions. Sound too good to be true? That is exactly what happened with healthy pets in San Francisco and with all savable dogs and cats in Tompkins County (NY).

The bottom line is that there are plenty of homes out there, and it is up to the shelter to effectively promote our pets so that they find their way into those homes—from offsite adoptions and other community venues, effective use of the internet, increasing partnerships with the media, enlisting the support of volunteers and foster parents, and making their shelters more inviting.

Traditional shelters argue that shelters that don't euthanase animals are able to do so because they admit and care for a limited amount of animals. The animals that no kill shelters don't take end up in shelters that have to euthanase. Inevitably a shelter that says no forces another shelter to take responsibility for the animal turned away.

“Many times I've heard the statement made that No Kill shelters can exist only because someone else down the street is doing the killing,” writes one commentator. “The implication is that No Kill shelters are derelict because they refuse to kill animals.” This point of view is advanced for one reason: to shield a shelter who is doing a poor job at saving lives from public scrutiny by painting a picture of the alternative as darker.

In a recent article, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) claimed that “There's not a ‘no-kill' shelter in this country that does not turn animals away every single day.” Another advocate of the status quo writes, “A no-kill shelter really can't have an open admission policy. It must limit its intake if it wants to adopt out animals and not kill them.” One of the top veterinarians at the ASPCA in a textbook on shelter medicine states “Because the term no-kill can be inflammatory and misleading, and many of these shelters are able to reduce their euthanasia numbers by limiting their admissions, they will from this point hereon be referred to as ‘limited admission' shelters.” Go to the Humane Society of the United States' website and look for articles on No Kill and you are told to “See Limited Admission.” The goal is singular: to defend killing as morally justifiable by painting a picture of the alternative as darker. And once again, the claims are misleading.

The Tompkins County SPCA, for example, is an open admission, No Kill animal control agency. The shelter provides all impoundment and animal sheltering services in Tompkins County, NY and so ensures that the entire community is No Kill. A shelter or community can be “open admission” and still be No Kill. The problem, however, is that the Humane Society of the United States and others have ignored the success in Tompkins County and so have not promoted it as a model for others to follow. They have not endorsed the programs and services that made it possible. More importantly, they have not used their significant resources to help other communities follow suit. As a result, it is true that at this point of time in history many No Kill shelters are not “open admission.” But that is just a matter of time—time that will take longer than necessary because of continued opposition from those mired in the failed philosophies of the past.

But the problem runs deeper. If, for example, private shelters are going to take in all animals on behalf of government, they should demand adequate resources to do the job. The era when private shelters killed animals on behalf of government because government refuses to value their lives and provide enough resources to handle the volume of animals humanely and responsibly is over. Government belongs to the citizens. And as citizens, we have a right to expect that our tax dollars go to programs that reflect our values.

Indeed, the irony of the “open door” shelter crowd is that many of their facilities are little more than open doors to the killing of homeless animals. They are often so enmeshed in their “open door” philosophy that they are blind to any proactive steps that might limit the numbers of animals coming in through those doors or increase the numbers of animals adopted. In the final analysis, “open door” does not necessarily mean “more humane” when the end result is mass killing.

Traditional shelter workers despise the need for euthanasia but believe, it is more humane and responsible than letting animals suffer as strays out on the street, neglected pets or in overcrowded shelters. No kill advocates believe that no animal should be euthanased unless it is suffering and a less than ideal life is better than no life at all.

Are those really the only two choices? Hardly. No Kill doesn't mean announcing a policy change and then getting bogged down with animals because you do not have programs to keep animals moving through the system and into loving homes. No Kill means comprehensive implementation of programs and services to save lives which includes adoption, foster care, transfer to rescue groups, pet retention programs, spay/neuter, and helping people overcome medical, behaviour and environmental conditions which may cause people to relinquish their animals. Doing so eliminates the problem of “overcrowding,” unreasonably feared by sincere animal lovers and unfairly painted by cynical proponents of the status quo.

While traditional shelters argue that increasing the quantity at the expense of quality is not good for the animals and that increasing adoptions does not solve pet overpopulation.

No Kill's focus on high volume adoptions has nothing to do with lowering the quality of those adoptions. Increasing the number of adoptions has to do with keeping the shelter open when working people and families with children can visit the shelter. It means taking the animals offsite to where people work, live and play. It means bringing animals for adoption to neighborhood events. It includes adoption incentives, foster care programs and working with rescue groups. Increasing adoptions means greater visibility in the community, competing with pet stores and puppy/kitten mills, and proactive marketing.

This is the “Starbucks” model of success—you can have mass quantity, with mass quality. In other words, a double tall soy latte from a Starbucks in rural Indiana tastes the same as one in New York City. Increasing quantity just means more animals placed into loving, new homes. It has nothing to do with lowering quality.

Adopting an animal means you do not “have” to kill that animal. Not only can you adopt your way out of killing, you should.

Darlene White from the San Diego Animal Support Foundation says the responsibility for ending euthanasia is not with the shelters but with the community. Rescue and adoption does not attack the root of the problem and only when over population is prevented by desexing companion animals will the community become no kill.

This is not entirely accurate. If an employee cuts corners and does not clean and sanitize water bowls daily leading to a parvovirus outbreak, or an employee does not scrub cat cages leading to spread of URI or panleukopenia, large numbers of animals will be needlessly killed. If a shelter does not maintain adequate adoption hours, if the public finds it difficult to reach the shelter on the telephone, if customer service is poor, a volunteer program is not in place, or if a community is underfunding its shelter, lifesaving will also be compromised. These problems, moreover, are not only epidemic, they are endemic to animal control in the United States.

These shelters continue to ignore their own culpability in the slaughter, while professing to lament the continued killing as entirely the fault of the public's failure to spay/neuter or to make lifetime commitments to their animals. And in the face of No Kill successes around the country, their response has been to vilify or ignore these alternatives.

Many reactionary shelters to this day are not sterilising animals before adoption or providing the public with affordable alternatives. Some do not have foster care programs, nor do they work with or socialise dogs with behaviour problems. Still others do not take animals offsite for adoption, have not developed partnerships with rescue groups, limit volunteerism, are not practicing TNR, and still retain adoption hours that make it difficult for working people or families to visit the shelter, the very people they should be courting to adopt their animals.

The first step to saving lives is to take responsibility. If you blame the public for the killing, the shelter not only shields itself from public scrutiny and accountability, but the question of how to stop the shelter from killing is sometimes not even asked.

Another factor is the need for individual responsibility and commitment to pets. Pets are a lifetime responsibility not to be discarded when novelty wears off or when problems occur.

The biggest irony with shelters that kill is the inherent contradiction in the message. How can a shelter argue that pets are a “lifetime responsibility” and should “not be discarded” especially “when problems occur” if they themselves do the very same thing? In other words, they are saying: “animals are not disposable and we will dispose of your animals.”

To these shelters, animals are not a lifetime responsibility, because when they “can't keep them,” they kill them. When “problems occur” such as a full shelter, URI, or some behaviour problem, they “discard” them with an overdose of barbiturates.

The message is loud and clear: animals are disposable. It is time for shelters to practice what they preach.

We see our most important role as providing quality, discounted desexing in an attempt to reduce cat overpopulation…

That is a laudable and important goal. But it is not enough. Otherwise we advance the argument that mass killing is necessary to fund mass sterilisation. That is not ethical.

While shelters provide low to no cost spay/neuter to reduce impounds, they must simultaneous care for the animals who will come to them. To do so in a responsible, humane and non-lethal manner, they need to also make a commitment to:

• A foster care network for underaged, traumatized, sick, injured, or other animals needing refuge before any sheltered animal is killed, unless the prognosis for rehabilitation of that individual animal is poor or grave;
• Comprehensive adoption programs that operate during weekend and evening hours and include offsite adoption venues;
• Medical and behavioral rehabilitation programs;
• Pet retention programs to solve medical, environmental, or behavioral problems and keep animals with their caring and responsible caregivers;
• Trap-Neuter-Return or Release (TNR) programs;
• Rescue group access to shelter animals;
• Volunteer programs to socialise animals, promote adoptions, and help in the operations of the shelter;
• Documentation before any animal is killed that all efforts to save the animal have been considered, including medical and behavioural rehabilitation, foster care, rescue groups, neuter and release, and adoption;
• An end to the policy of accepting trapped feral cats to be destroyed as unadoptable, and implementation of TNR as the accepted method of feral cat control by educating the public about TNR and offering TNR program services;
• An end to the use of temperament testing that results in killing animals who are not truly vicious (e.g., shy/timid cats and frightened dogs) but who can be placed in homes, or are feral cats who can be returned or released;
• Abolishment of trapping, lending traps to the public to capture animals, and support of trapping by shelters, governments, and pest control companies for the purposes of removing animals to be killed;
• An end to owner-requested killing of animals unless the shelter has made an independent determination that the animal is irremediably suffering or cannot be rehabilitated;
• The repeal of unenforceable and counter-productive animal control ordinances such as cat licensing and leash laws, pet limit laws, bans on feeding stray animals, and bans on specific breeds.

Finally, success will only be guaranteed when the animals are put first and welfare groups rise above their differences.

In a movement of conscience, promoting unity above spirited debate about what each group thinks is best for the animals can lead to stagnation, and may even allow animals to continue to suffer. If achieving movement unity is the primary goal that trumps all others, there would be no TNR, nor would there be a No Kill movement, because these efforts were done largely in opposition to and disagreement with the views of traditional shelters. Disagreement in the advancement of saving lives is absolutely crucial to the vitality of No Kill and our great hope for the future of this movement.

In any event, success will not come as long as we keep making excuses. Success will only be guaranteed when all shelters and animal welfare groups fully embrace the No Kill paradigm.