Dear Memphis: The status quo isn't good enough

Eighteen months ago, there became a firestorm of media controversy regarding Memphis Animal Services after a young puppy was starved to death at the shelter.

Upon reveiw, Memphis fired their director of animal services and hired someone with a less than spectacular track record, Matthew Pepper, to run the shelter. They also inserted web cams at the shelter so people could keep an eye on what is going on at the shelter.

Well, in the months that have followed, Memphis passed a law that increased impounds into their high-kill shelter and their kill rate continues to be around 70%.

For the last couple of months, Shirley over at YesBiscuit! has been doing a magnificent job of covering the exploits at the shelter -  with many screen grabs from the webcams of ACOs hoisting animals into kennels with their catch poles, dragging animals through the shelter via catchpole, killing animals that never make it to the adoption floor or onto pet finder, killing treatable animals immediately upon impound because of fairly minor injuries -- that sort of thing.

Through the process, Shirley has been collecting donations that are going toward helping particular animals at the shelter.

Now, let's say you worked at a shelter with limited funds and a 70% kill rate -- and someone from South Carolina began raising funds to help out some of the animals at the shelter.  Would you:

a) Send a note to thank her

b) Realize how big of a mess your shelter has become and work hard to fix the problems that she is exposing

c) Sue her for violating a South Carolina law that you have no power to enforce

If you guessed "C", you are now qualified to be in Memphis City Government.

Yes. Seriously.

In a strange act, the Memphis City Attorney, Herman Morris Jr, sent a note calling for a cease and desist for her donation drives because it is violation of a South Carolina code that prevents you from raising funds on someone else's behalf without written consent to do so because it apparently gives the impression that your actions are endorsed by that party.

Now, I can't speak for everyone who's read Shirley's blog over the past 2 months, it I can assure you I never once would have assumed the city was endorsing her activities. In fact, I can safely say that I assumed that the city cared so little about animals that even if they were grateful, they still would have been too lazy to say so.

But here's the deal Memphis. Your shelter is broken. Animals are needlessly dying and there is seemingly little attempt to improve the situation. And your attempts to squash the voice that is making it public, and your attempts to cut off support from people who want to help the animals is the wrong approach.

Instead of having someone sift through pages and pages of South Carolina public code, why not spend that time doing something productive -- like working to fix the problems?  Because the status quo isn't good enough. And it's not just one blogger in South Carolina that is upset -- it is a whole nation of animal lovers who think animals deserve better than the outdated catch and kill sheltering models.

If you're tired of the very fair criticism. Fix it.

And residents of Memphis -- these are your elected leaders and your tax dollars at work. You are paying for this. And you also have the power to influence change.  Take it. Run with it. And make the change happen.

And for Shirley, congratulations on getting their attention. You are getting a standing ovation from over in my corner. 

More from: Raised by Wolves and the Pet Connection

 

Comments

[Lis C]

There are more No Kill shelters and, more importantly, No Kill communities, than ever before, which is what makes the conditions in Memphis even more outrageous. There are proven, successful alternatives to what they're doing; they're killing animals because they can't be bothered to do anything else, not because nothing else is possible.

[Brent]

Lis,

Sorry, I deleted the post you were commenting about -- I'm pretty sure it was a spam comment from someone promoting their own website. But I'm leaving yours - just because you're right and it's worth reading :)

[mikken]

According to someone who spoke with him regarding the matter, Matthew Pepper considers the idea of a no kill shelter "a joke".

The man is not interested in getting animals out of the shelter alive. He's just interested in his $92,000 a year salary.

[jen]

That's how much Pepper makes?

Day-um.

[Emily]

No Kill shelters....would that be like the apparent fraud that has been going on in the KC city shelters that claim to be No Kill but aren't? (according to posters on this blog anyway),

Or like the public shelters on the other side of KC that were a mess when they were run by the city....so they were taken over by a private group that assured everyone they would do so much better.

And then 2 years later conditions were so much worse, that the city had to take back over again?

[kmk]

Emily - that's sort of accurate.

It depends on the shelter.

The Humane Society of Greater Kansas City (Kansas City, KS) probably is close to no-kill; however, they're using a lot of other community resources to achieve that goal rather than stopping the intake by fighting bad laws and policy in KCK. They send/sell a lot of animals to other rescues, shelters, and foster homes, I believe.

Animal Haven (Johnson County, KS) probably is no-kill; however, like HSGKC they don't do anything to stem the intake of animals that come in due to bad laws and policy. Johnson County, which is very wealthy, only has one city with a public shelter (Olathe). Most of the rest of the cities on JoCo contract to Animal Haven, so you would think Animal Haven would attempt to stop the unnecessary intake. Nope.

Wayside Waifs - (Kansas City, MO) - They claim they are Kansas City's largest no-kill shelter. On their web site they state they achieved no-kill by going to a limited admission policy. Wayside occasionally takes animals from public shelters.

Those are all private shelters. To my knowledge there are no public shelters claiming to be no-kill.

The Kansas City, MO public shelter wasn't "taken over" - the operation of the shelter was put up for bid by the city a couple of years ago. The contract was awarded to Wayne Steckleberg, DVM, who formerly had Arrowhead Animal Hospital (I think). He changed the name of the city shelter to "Halfway Home Pet
Adoptions". Brent probably knows more about this than I do, but I don't know that Halfway Home was any worse than when the city was running the shelter. Per Brent's posts here on his blog adoption rates had improved dramatically with the private contractor. This is my opinion (caveat- opinion) of what happened when some people filed a complaint against Halfway Home regarding treatment of animals and conditions at the shelter. Because the city had contracted out the shelter they were forced to address the complaint. I'd really like to chat with the state inspector and find out if things were as bad as the complaint stated.

What's odd is one of my dog training club members used to work at the shelter when the city still ran it. She cleaned up the basement at the shelter and started an Adoption Center. They set up the Adoption Center as a 501C3 so people could donate money and take donations off of their taxes. they made the Adoption Center look "cozier" so it was more appealing to the public and took the best candidates for adoption down there. Adoptions increased dramatically but the city hated it because it cost more than it did to just kill the animals. The Adoption Center lasted much longer than it should have - the city would have shut it down but it was very popular with the public. When the shelter was contracted out that solved the city's problem with the Adoption Center.

I don't know that "fraud" is necessarily the correct term since the definition of "no kill" seems to have become whatever someone wants it to mean. "Less than honest" works for me.

In Wayside's defense they aren't defrauding anyone. I'm sure their many supporters, many of them wealthy, didn't agree with Wayside's policy that they were NOT going to be 'no kill', so Wayside found a way to be "no kill" by modifying the definition - and they don't lie about it. Apparently their supporters aren't the sharpest pencils in the box because clearly they don't have a problem with the concept.

What disturbs me is the big "animal shuffle" that goes on to achieve no-kill, rather than addressing bad policy that's putting animals in the shelters in the first place. It makes me think of driving over a nail in your driveway every day and replacing the tire rather than picking the nail up!

[Lis C]

There are many communities that aren't engaged in any "animal shuffle" to achieve No Kill, and the existence of either fraud or "less than full honesty" in other places doesn't change that fact. Tompkins County NY and Reno, NV are two examples, but there are quite few others. And what they are examples of are addressing and changing bad policy--picking up that nail rather than replacing or patching your tire every day.

[Brent]

Lis is of course right. No Kill can and is happening without the "animal shuffle" of attempts to mislead the public.

There are also, of course, shelters that want to call themselves "no kill" that achieve that through a variety of nefarious methods.

Similar to how all "Humane Societies" are not money-grubbing lobbying orgs -- and in fact, a good many are good organizations that help animasl -- same is true for "no kill" shelters -- just because someone is using the name without the best of intentions doesn't mean the movement, as it stands, is a fraud.

Emily is of course smart enough to get this, but for some reason has decided she just doesn't want to.

[Cindy]

I appreciate your blog but Shirley was not raising money for animals at the Memphis Animal Shelter, she was raising money for animals that got out of the shelter. What she actually was doing was not against the law as stated by the city attorney.

[Brent]

Cindy -- I agree. I think the city attorney was told to find anything he could to try to scare her into stopping...and this was the best he could do. It's just a shame that all of the energy wasn't spent on trying to fix the problems instead of trying to stop someone from exposing them.

[kmk]

@LisC - I agree that there are A HANDFUL of communities that are doing "no kill" properly. I understand the concept. I read Nathan's book.

The tone of your post seems to imply that I agree with what's going on in our community. I do NOT agree. I was explaining and clarifying the sitution as it stands. These shelters p*** off every fiber in my body. Just ask Brent.
;-) He's been listening to me gripe for many years.

I have to wonder why you dislike me so much. Hmm.....but I really don't care. I'm disliked by bigger people than you.

Brent - I have to agree with you on the situation with the city attorney in Memphis. To quote that character on SNL, "FIX IT!".

[Brent]

KMK -- I think Lis was mostly commenting toward Emily. And disagreement doesn't = disliking.

[kmk]

Okay - we need a "reply to" option on here, LOL.

Is it wrong for me to say the "No Suffer" plan is looking promising? :-) Let's start a "No Suffer" movement for pet owners.