Consider this parable about “no-kill” policies: You’re walking next to a river and you see a kitten floating past. You jump in and save the kitten. Then another one floats by, so you save that one, too. Then another and another and another float by, and you soon realize that you can’t save them all. So you run upstream to see who’s throwing kittens into the water—and you stop that person.
Thousands of unwanted, abandoned, neglected,and stray animals pour into animal shelters acrossthe country every day—far outnumbering the goodhomes available to take them in. But instead of“going upstream,” i.e., instead of working to addressthe source of the problem, which is the runawayanimal birth rate, people are being pressured intofocusing on the symptoms. We can end the cycle ofanimal births, homelessness, and deaths, but we mustaddress the root cause instead of flailing in the water,pulling out one kitten at a time while so many othersfloat by, and screaming that others in the water withus aren’t saving enough kittens.
IS ‘RESCUE’ WORK FIXING THE HOMELESS-ANIMALCRISIS?
Finding homes for needy dogs and cats is gratifying,but to use another apt analogy, it’s like bailing outa sinking ship with a teaspoon: The boat will still godown unless we fix the gaping hole in the bottom.Finding a home for one dog may save one life, butsterilizing one dog will save hundreds, if notthousands, of dogs’ lives by preventinggenerations of potentially homelesspuppies from being born. Gettinga spay/neuter law passed saveseven more lives. Stoppingthe problem at its sourceis where our time, energy,and funds are neededmost. That is how wecan drastically reduce—and hopefully end—thehomeless-animal crisis andthe need for euthanasia.
Many groups striving to go “no-kill” use limitedresources to provide temporary care; ship dogs andcats across the country (even though every statestruggles with the same crisis); close their doors tothe neediest animals—those who are in danger ofabuse or are injured, sick, elderly, or aggressive; andeven attack open-admission sheltersthat must euthanize animals.
“No-kill” rhetoric lets the real culpritsof the overpopulation crisis—greedybreeders and the “pet” trade—offthe hook and keeps them laughingall the way to the bank. We mustplace and support ads that tell thetruth: that breeders and pet shopsare the ones that kill … shelterdogs’ chances of finding a home.
Bigotry begins when categories such as race, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or species are used to justify discrimination.
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THE DEADLY CONSEQUENCES OF‘NO-KILL’ POLICIES
It’s appalling to contemplate, but when sheltersgive in to pressure to go “no-kill” before they haveovercome the breeding and selling of animals in theircommunities and before establishing sufficient spayingand neutering services, the results are often far worsefor animals than a peaceful death through euthanasia.Here’s what happens:
- Animals are turned away at the shelter door, but they don’t magically vanish. “No-kill” shelters are usually at capacity, so they stop taking in animals, including those in emergency or abusive situations. As just one example, someone turning three dogs in to an open-admission shelter in Mississippi told a reporter, “It was either that or shoot them.”
- Animals still die—but in pain.Instead of a peaceful death in a caringperson’s arms, animals die slowly and in agony on the streets, in backyards,under sheds, on chains, and at the hands of abusive people. In San Antonio,Texas—which is striving to be a “no-kill” city—the bodies of nearly 16,000dogs and nearly 12,000 cats were scraped off the streets and properties in justone year. One animal control officer termed it “euthanasia by proxy.” It is alsobecoming common for shelters that boast high “save rates” to have a sky-highrate of unassisted deaths in cages and kennels from illness or injuries.
- Animals spend months or years in cages. Experts agree that after aslittle as two weeks in a traditional shelter, animals can begin to deterioratepsychologically and become withdrawn, depressed, anxious, or aggressive.If adopted, animals who have been confined for extended periods areoften repeatedly returned because of behavioral issues—a traumaticyo-yo experience that makes them even less adoptable.
- Animals are cast out and keep on reproducing. To increase “save” rates,some shelters promote animal abandonment. One big sanctuary recentlyissued a news release urging Good Samaritans to leave homeless kittenson the streets, rather than taking them to a shelter. That’s madness: Not onlyare abandoned kittens in danger of infection, disease, starvation, and beinghit by cars, attacked by dogs and wildlife, and abused by cruel people, thesurviving ones will also eventually go on to reproduce, resulting in evenmore homeless animals.
- Animals are handed over to abusers and hoarders. When numbersbecome the priority, animals are no longer viewed as individualsdeserving of consideration and respect but instead as inventory thatmust be moved, causing shelters to toss aside even basic safeguards.Homeless animals are increasingly being found tortured and killedby adopters who weren’t screened or, even more commonly, cagedin hoarders’ filthy basem*nts, garages, sheds, and barns. Every day,headlines appear about raids on self-described “rescuers” and theanimals—both sick and dead—who were removed from the crueland disgusting conditions in the homes of the “rescuers.” When onehoarding facility masquerading as a “rescue”in San Jose, California, caught fire, nearly100 cats burned to death inside carriers,unable to flee while the plasticmelted down on top of them.
COMPANION-ANIMAL HOMELESSNESS: WE CAN END IT
Profiteers that breed andtrade animals for a buck aresucceeding because the powerful voice of the animal rights movementis being diluted and because good activists are being misled into attackingone another rather than those who are making money off the backs ofanimals: pet shops, breeders, and phony “rescues.” We can wipe out animalhomelessness by working together to strike at the root cause, including bylobbying for laws that have been proved effective in reducing unplannedbirths and shelter intakes in communities that enforce them and by developinglow-cost or free sterilization programs for dogs and cats in every community.In other words, by stopping animal homelessness before it starts.
