" saved" and when HSUS presents a holiday picture of a puppymill dog, living " happily ever after" I wish it would mention the percentage of those that are beyond saving. To do otherwise bolsters No Kill's ridiculous claim, that animals don't have " time stamps". Nor have I found the shelter " killing for fun" that Yes Biscuit depicts. Shelters like their inhabitants, and surrounding communities are a reflection of ourselves, and our committment to making things better.Sometimes they are a testement to our apathy......There is no magic someone, somewhere who will sweep in and make a striking change, there is no clear cut villain we can hate. Open Door Shelters are the only hope for a healthy animal population. There will be euthanasia, always, because so many times animals come into the shelter broken beyond repair. Sometimes it's a very decent owner who has done the best they could with the dog they had. We are seeing that frequently with the NoKill mentality putting animals up for adoption that should never be released. I hope you will Google Lessons from Layla, Luke's Story, it's the most accurate depiction of whats going on today.
Oreo has always pushed for the accountability of owners, but that only works when the truth is part of the adoption process.. I have little patience for the person who doesn't check out what they are getting, and brings it back, but when facts are manipulated, who do you blame ? If you turn your dog over to an Open Door Shelter ( I think we should brand that ) and tell the person behind the counter that your dog has killed a couple of cats then snapped at the baby, that dog will appropriately be removed from the system. We must cease releasing aggressive dogs, we have enough that aren't aggressive to be placed.......Sometimes these dogs are put into what I call "postponed euthanasia " situations, the people who do this type of fostering see it as giving the dog " one more chance" people who have been in the trenches for over 15 minutes see it differently...We covered this in the Mario story, best use of resources is not saving the animals with the least prognosis for permanent placement. Otherwise we are recycling animals. The only way the No Kill can work is to limit admission, it doesn't work well even then because the animals deteriorate in shelter. The edges of the No Kill picture are always shifting, trying to play catchup with one idea or another that just didn't work. Now Mr. Winograd is talking about taking dogs and giving them back to the same neighborhoods that called the shelter in the first place. I don't know how one argues with a mental defective, I would gather, not very well....
6 comments:
This is a review from Amazon on Mr. Winograds book......I found it interesting, I hope you do as well.
I am not ready to post on the Discussion Page yet, but I found this review on amazon (really a comment to a review) of Winograd's last book and the woman spoke about MSN. Do any of you know her? It was a good comment.
Andrea E. Wells says:
Hi Maggie! reading the next book "Redemption" will do you no good either. The purported "myth" of pet overpopulatin is a myth (begun by famous high-volume breeders called the Strands not Nathan). The small but "cult-like" followers refuse to examine Winograd's assertions or research the nagatives about his B.S. He turned animals away fr: his "No Kill" because "we don't take animals like that here' so they go to the open-admissions "kill" shelters where they're (yep, you guessed it)... Killed. It doesn't matter if you have 100 potential adopters if m...ost of the irresponsible pet owners who've of ommission (or commission) have bred animals people won't adopt. Not everyone can/will have a pit mix and the feline #'s are insurmountable. Unless/until people are mandated to spay/neuter (l ISAR (International Society for Animal Rights), SCIL (Social Compassion in Legislation) & even PETA (just to name a few organizations) are also in support of mandates. Bob Barker (the venerated spay/neuter proponent) even recognizes that educating the public has not worked and pleading w/ people to do "the right thing" has been ineffective as well thus Mr. Barker told a Chicago City Council committee, "[T]he only answer is legislation....It's the obvious answer. ...The movement for spay and neuter legislation is sweeping across this country". Cesar Millan is also a huge advocate of MSN (see: http://www.cesarsway.com/newsandevents/cesarsblog/Solving-the-Stray-and-Unwanted-Dog-Problem ) as it's the only way to solve the fiscal waste created by the senseless suffering brought about by killing excess companion animals in our midst. Such taxpayer resources could fund public goods/services which instead help society. I've researched if for years (incl. the initial failures of MSN as they didn't ensure it was affordable & accessible first but that's been remedied where it's now proving to be amazingly successfull even early on). Don't drink the Kool-Aid of Winograd... I sampled it w/ hope it when he first came on the scene years ago as I too wanted to believe it but it's B.S. + made me incensed & retch the message (vs. regurgitate it like others who won't examine the truth).
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2NRD0J7UKTCGH/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2NRD0J7UKTCGH
An oldie but worth sharing... read and learn..
By Amy Lewandowski
A 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.
And here we go again..
Completely appalled..., February 13, 2012
I am literally seething as I write this review. It took some serious willpower to get through the first 3 pages of this book, let alone the whole thing, but I wanted to be fully educated on what Nathan Winograd was trying to say before I wrote a review. I work in an open-intake shelter (taking in strays as well as owner surrender animals) in Northern California which has both urban and rural aspects. We're on the outskirts of a large city but also have farmland around us. This shelter has EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of the programs that Winograd proclaims will be the solution to "killing" in animal shelters. We have a TNR program, adoption outreach, a fantastic foster care program, over 1,000 volunteers that occupy many aspects of the shelter's function and a wonderful relationship with over 200 rescue groups. We have high volume/low cost spay neuter surgery, a behavior department, a pet retention program and a relationship with a local veterinary school that provides many surgeries for sick/injured shelter animals as well as feral spay/neuter vets. We do over 25 adoptions in one day, and some weekends we perform over 60 adoptions of cats, dogs and small critters. Despite all this, we receive, on any given day, 40-80 ANIMALS. The math simply does not balance out.
Winogard proclaims that there are more homes available for animals than pets in our shelters. If this was true (which there is no proof, he just determines that pets get lost/die throughout the year and assumes these homes want another pet) what about the homes that don't want to add a pet to their family? People in the United States are generally sympathetic to the pet overpopulation and a large amount DO adopt from shelters. There is simply too many animals.
I challenge any person who believes this book to have validity to come work where I do for one week. You will see the sorts of animals and SHEER NUMBERS that come into an open-intake shelter. Yes, one Shepherd mix may have moderate-severe food aggression that could be managed with time, resources and the dedication of very experienced trainers, but what about the 6 more dogs that just came in that do not have behavior issues? Should they be turned away and the training resources focused on a dog that may be "cured" or may inflict injury on a person at a later time? "No-Kills" will turn away those 6 dogs that need their help and will likely be brought into an open-intake shelter like mine. Try it.
part 2 of " completely appalled.
Call a "no-kill" shelter and tell them you've got a Pit Bull, or a Shepherd mix that guards his food from people or a Lab mix who really likes kids but is bad with dogs. The answer you will get from them is a big fat NO.
Besides the pompous, arrogant attitude Winogard wprojects in this book (all praise Tompkins County, right?) the most frustrating part of this text is the damage that it is doing to the municipal shelters and SPCAs/Humane Societies that are trying to do right by taking in EVERY animal that is dumped at their doors. By ignorantly accusing the shelter workers (and god help you if you're a director) and declaring it's their fault that animals are dying across the country, Winogard has done a huge disservice to the community and their animals. When someone only donates to a "No-Kill" because they don't believe in euthanizing animals, they are continuing to deprive open-intake shelters of much needed support to develop programs to increase the live-release rate of their animals. If County shelters are seen as the bad guys and receive no revenue because of it, how are they expected to develop programs that REQUIRE MONEY to increase the number of animals leaving the shelter alive?
In regards to Winogard himself, this book is poorly written and lacks the sources of his "information". His footnotes only state more accusatory comments about how he is right or support in the endeavors he's led himself (aka Tompkins County, Tompkins County, Tompkins County...Why aren't you still in one place again, if you're so amazing then?) The entire afterword of the book is a disclaimer about the people that will hate it. That in and of itself is a testament to how misinformed and plain wrong he is. The fact that he believes himself to be right but SOMEHOW every major animal welfare agency (Humane Society of the United States, ASPCA, American Humane Association) should also have readers very concerned (not to mention each one of those agencies has more compassion in their little finger that Winogard clearly has in his whole philosophy). All in all, this book has left me disappointed at best and disgusted at worse. If you care about animals, don't put yourself through the deception that is this book; volunteer at your local shelter, work with your rescue groups, see for yourself what is really going on.
And here we go again.......
For all animals says:
I have not read this book nor will I . He is a phony. I volunteered at a shelter he ran. he put many dogs down but rarely a cat. He was a cat lover (26 of his own) only. At this shelter his first animal behavorist who decided which dog were deemed healthy( fit for adoption in their terms) had never owned a dog and personally disliked them. It was a job to her only. I learned this fact from her. She drove me homes several times and we had conversations that she revealed ;Nathan new. Nathan also gave the cats at the shelter monies people would donate to the dogs to fund his feral cat program. There were many people donating to the cats and also caring for them but it was never enough as cat euthanasia was out of the question.
Because of this the shelter was over run with cats - some were nasty, some sick with highly contagious illness, and still others who could only be adopted out to special people who did not have any other animals and who could handle a ternimal contagious illness or a very hard to handle cat .Cats who did not get along with any animals who bit and scratched people cats with feline leukemia were not euthanized either.
If a dog came in and the owned said it chased cats, did not get along with cats that dog was put down. Dogs were put down if the owner said it didn't get on with other dogs. I know he will negate what I am saying : stating his dog behavorist ( I am not talking about his Cornell person)tested them - the same behavorist who did not like dogs . She loved cats as much as Nathan. he raised money for his cat project (feral cat program)not the animal shelter for all the animals which included dogs too.
There are many examples of how differently Nathan treated dogs vs cats under his reign as director of the shelter- some are heartbreaking. He lost many volunteers. They were there for all animals unlike Nathan. In fact I went up there to initially help with cats and when I learned how little care the dogs were getting I predominately helped them. I still helped with the cats - especially the sick kittens. I personally share my home with 3 dogs ( 1 my daughters who is in military) and 1 cat ( the other died kidney problems at 19 - I miss him dearly). I wish I could tell you of the many dogs he ordered destroyed who should never have been. I see nothing wrong with helping cats but I do see something wrong with an individual who says they are for all shelter animals when it is not true.
If he wants more money for the cats it should not be on the '' backs of dead dogs'' or dog donations. Why doesn't he advocate for cat licenses especially for people who allow their cats free reign of the neighborhood. Those fees could help the cats. I want all the shelter animals to be treated fairly. I am sick of dogs always on the short end of the stick when we humans use them for search and rescue, disaster recovery, seeing eye, service dogs for disabled, military dogs, bomb dogs, drug dogs, and the list goes on. We need to stand up for the ''underdog'' and treat ALL animals with Care and Love EQUALLY!
All I can say is practice what you preach!
I am an animal rights person and do not consume any animals.
Ithaca, N.Y.
Open door shelters used to be fairly common. Now when all the phony lifesaving is going on under the guise of No Kill there is no place to surrender an animal. Nobody who wants to be considered no kill should have a contract or partner with a government agency. Perios
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