THE "NO KILL REVOLUTION

By Nathan Winograd

Americans love their pets. Collectively, we spend $40 billion annually on their care. We talk to them, celebrate their birthdays, take time off from work when they are sick, and when it is time to say good-bye, we grieve deeply. 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 animal 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 animals annually. Shelter killing is the biggest cause of death for healthy dogs and cats in the U.S. But it doesn’t need to be this way.

In the mid-19th Century, New York became the first state in the country to pass a law banning cruelty to animals, and it was in New York City that North America’s first SPCA opened its doors. The movement to save the lives of animals had begun. The scope and influence of these early humane organizations were testament to the public’s concern for animals and within a decade, SPCAs and humane societies began to dot the American landscape. They brought with them a passion for saving lives and the promise of a kinder, gentler relationship with animals, especially domesticated dogs and cats.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, such organizations lost their path. Although they became very large and influential, they had none of the zeal for reform that characterized the movement’s early founding. And while many of them entered into animal control contracts with towns and cities to ensure that the killing was done more humanely, in taking on municipal animal control duties, these agencies abandoned their lifesaving and life-enhancing platforms when those beliefs conflicted with their contractual responsibilities.

In the current era, where laws require killing by even more “humane” methods, these contradictions have become starker. And with a growing humane ethic in the U.S. sweeping across the American populace, the practices of both humane societies and municipal animal control agencies have become increasingly out of step with public sentiment.

Thankfully, we are coming full circle. In 1994, the City of San Francisco became the first in the nation to end the killing of healthy homeless dogs and cats. Spearheaded by the local SPCA, officials succeeded in putting in place a series of programs and services that increased adoptions, reduced birthrates of “unwanted” kittens and puppies, and helped keep animals with their responsible caretakers. Rather than continue the century-old practice of blaming the public for high rates of shelter killing, San Francisco’s SPCA embraced the community by making it easy for the public to do the right thing. This approach involved increasing opportunities for adoption, allowing volunteers to assist in the operations of the shelter, partnering with foster parents and rescue groups to save more lives, creating pet retention programs to help people overcome obstacles to keeping their pets, implementing feral cat assistance efforts for the community’s homeless cat population, and more. But most of all, it involved believing in the community and trusting in the power of compassion.

And the results were dramatic. Within a year, San Francisco reduced shelter killing rates to national all-time lows, a mere fraction of the national average. It also proved that even in one of the most culturally, economically, and racially diverse cities in the world, people would work together to build a better world for animals.

Following San Francisco’s model of success, Tompkins County in New York ended the killing of all but hopelessly ill and injured pets and truly vicious dogs. A few short years later, Charlottesville, Virginia saved 92% of all dogs and cats at its open admission animal control shelter. More recently, Reno, Nevada achieved a better than 50% decline in killing and 84% increase in adoptions in one year by replicating the model. Communities all across the country are following.

These communities are very diverse. Some are urban, some rural, some in the North, some in the South, some in what we call “liberal” or “blue” states, and some in conservative regions (at least one is in the “reddest” part of the “reddest” state). Demographically, these communities share little in common. What they do share, however, is shelter leadership committed to saving all the lives at risk. And together, they are proving that all the tools needed to achieve success — including volunteers, resources, philanthropy, and other community support — already exist in these communities, waiting to be properly channeled by committed leadership to that end. In other words, when local citizens see animal shelters truly striving to do everything in their power to increase adoptions and reduced rates of shelter killing, they overwhelmingly respond with their hearts, homes, and wallets.

As a result, they are achieving unprecedented lifesaving success, saving in excess of 90% of all impounded animals. Not only are death rates plummeting and adoptions skyrocketing in these communities, but these results have been achieved in a very short period of time — virtually overnight — proving that saving lives is less a function of any perceived pet overpopulation problem than a shelter’s leadership and practices.

In the history of animal protection, this news is seminal, as it harkens the fulfillment of the chief goal of the companion animal movement — ending the killing of savable animals in U.S. shelters. The formula for saving the lives of over four million dogs and cats, and hundreds of thousands of other animals, has been discovered. And we should be working feverishly to ensure that this formula is replicated in every community across the country.

Nathan J. Winograd is the director of the national No Kill Advocacy Center. He is also the author of the book Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America. He can be found on the web at www.nathanwinograd.com.