May 13, 2008By
Amy LewandowskiA no-kill shelter was recently built on 13 wooded acres outside a city near me. The facility has space for 250 animals. A huge budget. Slick marketing. A partnership with a major pet food manufacturer. A variety of innovative programs. 1300 volunteers, 130 foster families and thousands of extremely generous supporters. Last year, 2100 of their animals found new homes. It's the kind of operation Nathan Winograd would call a no-kill success story. And yet the organization admits they cannot accommodate the more than 300 requests they receive weekly from people trying to relinquish their pets to them. Within 15 miles of this beautiful facility are 2 open admission shelters that have to euthanize for space. They have implemented most if not all of the programs Mr. Winograd claims is necessary to achieve no-kill status. But, unlike their no-kill neighbor up the road, these shelters do not turn any animals away. Last year, they took in 21,000 animals! Anyone out there willing to build, staff, operate and fund a no-kill shelter for 21,000 animals? Which brings me to what I found most irritating about Redemption. Nathan Winograd never discusses what I believe is the biggest issue separating the two kinds of shelters- what to do with the staggering number of animals no-kill shelters turn away. He only briefly mentions the necessity of no-kill shelters to "occasionally" limit incoming animals. Where I live, however, no-kill shelters only occasionally accept animals! In fact, I don't know anyone who has been successful getting a stray or their own animal into a no-kill shelter. My point is this: EVERY NO-KILL SHELTER IN THE COUNTRY HAS TO FIRST ACCEPT EVERY ANIMAL BROUGHT TO ITS FACILITY BEFORE WE CAN HAVE ANY HOPE OF ACHIEVING A TRUE NO-KILL NATION. They shouldn't be setting standards for open admission shelters when their very way of operating directly contributes to these shelters having to euthanize for space. The author crows about his success leading an open admission no-kill in a sparsely populated rural part of New York. Note that, last year, Tompkins County SPCA took in less than 3000 animals. His urban success story - the San Francisco SPCA- did not even take animals from the public if I correctly understand their relationship with the SF Animal Care and Control. Last year, the San Francisco SPCA took in less than 4000 animals. When Nathan Winograd can take over an open admission shelter accepting 21,000 animals annually and still make it no-kill, then and only then will I be impressed enough to jump on the Redemption bandwagon. I also did not like that Redemption is full of inflammatory, anonymous and dated remarks that cannot be verified easily because the author does not include footnotes and references you usually see in a piece of nonfiction. Fact checking is limited to a 12 page bibliography. It is a myth that we can somehow save every homeless or unwanted animal without having to first address the disparity between no-kill and 'kill' shelter admission policies and intake numbers. Redemption only gives one side of the story and, unfortunately, the author is promoting it as the whole & balanced picture it isn't. I'm just a little surprised that readers are swallowing his half-truths with such gusto. Dig a little deeper, animal lovers! You can start by asking you favorite no-kill shelter how many animals they turned away this week.
Priss after a long nighttime read..
11 comments:
When you think about it, what kind of animals end up at an open admission shelter? That would be a pet that someone's friends or neighbors didn't want, that he couldn't adopt out himself on craigslist, that a "nokill" shelter did not want. You end up with sick, old, ugly animals with behavioral problems at open admission shelters. These animals are the least likely to be adopted. They are the most likely to be euthanized.
I was at San Diego SPCA. They are right next door to an open admission public shelter. A person brings an animal in. If it's a pretty, healthy puppy, the SPCA takes it. If it's an old mangy feral cat, the public shelter takes it, and most likely euthanizes it. We can clearly see why the SPCA is nokill and the public shelter is not.
While Nathan Winograd is a smart guy, his book reads like a brochure for his consulting services. He spends 99% of the book talking about how bad public shelters are and how great he is. He only talks about nokill programs in the last part of the book.
These nokill programs and even the term "nokill" were around years before Nathan arrived. Nathan just told the world that he invented the term and programs. Then he tells everyone that just using his programs can make any shelter nokill "overnight." That has not happened. His consulting at Philadelphia was an utter failure. Disease was rampant because of overcrowding. The SPCA had to be called in. You can't just "stop the killing" because they will just end up dying of natural causes. I'd hate to think that is what he means by "nokill" but it seems to be.
Thanks for the comment, Anon, it rings true. There is an increase in death in kennels in his "consult" shelters. And even in those who are trying to go no kill without paying him. LA hired the other "guru" of no kill, another slick, self-marketing guy, and now their died in kennels are climbing. Rancho Cucamonga, although they don't handled a lot of animals, had a 600% increase. If you look at the numbers, doesn't seem like many but still reflects the problem. Overcrowding lead to an increase in kennel deaths. But if this is brought up to these "gurus" they will point to the "live release" rate as if that makes a difference to those who died terrible deaths. It doesn't matter to me either because at what price does it come. I don't believe in making any animal suffer needlessly. It amounts to the same as pick and chose, the poodle is a live release and the pit bull is dead in the kennel.
The book is only good because if read it, you cannot miss the design flaws. I have comvered every piece of information on his site,.
Woven through are his keys to success, release fiv positive cats, get rid of pet limits, let them die in shelter, push the resuces beyond capacity, fire all the experienced staff that may want to practice sanitation.
this solution has flags all over it, King County has tried to get help, we need a newer facility, but we have the best volunteers and staff in the country. It is spooky to think this slime ball almost got his foot in the door. And I don't think we are through yet.
To anon
I think the type of animals coming into shelters today are reflective of the kind of kids going into schools. Not enough attention at home . So you take an untrained dog and place it in isolation and what do you get. I have ment a few nice dogs at the shelter, the only one I thought would have been ready to go was a middle aged German Shepherd. she was very quiet and even though we were warned about no cats (no problem) and that she was not dog friendly, she would have worked for our lifestyle at the time.
Today with the mastiffs we go to the dog park, we take them to the lake, it is a good way to have a dog. I don't even want to read the damn book, we have seen the reality.
no kill has been around forever, and in a few small private shelters it works in theory only. The dogs who don't make the cut die somewhere else. It has been said somewhere on this blog, the community has to have an appetit for no kill and that is the number of animals kept, not the number adopted.Thanks to the group at Pet Networt for ou kitty. You are a good example.
to Lynn,
thank you for sharing your good experience with us. And yes we do know they can't take every animal . We are painfully aware that no kill means " not at this address" and the only truth in that book is the price and that is negotiable. It is a list of complaints of issues found mainly between that writers ears, he does nothing to help, unless whing has become helping. we will probably have them in Reno for a while because they got in before all the dominoes started to fall, and Our stupid board of directors can't admit they made a mistake. Best Friends posted the EX Dir. opening and touted a " well connected board of directors" Connected to what, Sure not the real world.
I go along with kc, read the book so you can know the enemy. It is BS front and center. Has anybody noticed how Marks blog is not screaming no kill every five minutes, maybe now that NHS is killing he will shut up. They started killing when they fired Pyle and the new guy is not even gong to play their head games. We are still way over anybody's idea of a healthy population.
NHS is only keeping the dog numbers at a certain level. The cat numbers continue to increase.
Dear pet protector,
The dogs were at 191 last night at 10 p.m., so they are approaching the high of 202 they had right before the purge when David left. the cats are coming faster because that is the nature of the beast, but the true irony is missed by the public..They can hide the numbers by clipping the ear. The 32 loaner kennels were signed over to NHS apparently a year ago and nobody bothered to notify WCRAS.. Great group of people over there.
The number of pitbulls continues to rise because they won't put them down and they can't find them homes. I saw one a couple of days ago that said it was getting hyper from being in the kennel so long, is that a new word for crazy? I am thinking about what mastiff dad said, I would like to take my dogs to the park, but that isn't going to happen. It is hard, the do gooders say don't breed and buy while shelter dogs die; well guess what? It is not my fault they are in the shelter. Digger and Dozer will be the last of any shelter pets for us. It is a shame that NHS lied and pushed so hard that the dogs got a home, but they lost a customer.
That is an accurate review, and I wish it could be in 72 point bold.That piece of misinformation was passed among our workers and volunteers, not one of them fell for it. It appears to me only the higher ups who aren't scooping poop would buy it. anyone ground level would know that is a waste of funding and cruel as well. Nobody enjoys putting an animal down. One minute it is there with hopes and the next gone, but slow death is worse and watching the light go out in any living things eyes while its captive for weeks and months is worsr.
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