Every pet has a personality and a story

Christie has an interesting post today over at the Pet Connection today about Sido - the dog that is generally credited with starting the No Kill movement in the U.S.

Esssentially Sido's owner committed suicide in 1979, and left in her will that Sido should be "destroyed". But the director of the San Francisco SPCA, Richard Avanzino, declined to kill Sido saying that she had a right to live.

"The law says a pet can be destroyed like a piece of furniture" Avanzino told the Anchorage Daily News. "We're saying that's wrong."

At first, Avazino told me, "it was sort of like, 'what is all the furor over a little creature walking on four legs?' And they would come into my office and she would walk over to them an she would put her paw on their knee....and she'd look up at them with those beautiful eyes and they said "I get it. I understand'. And they wrote the story."

It was that one dog, that one case, that change Avanzino's outlook on his job at the SPCA. From Christie's San Francisco Chronicle article Avanzino said:

"I knew then the American people were ready for a transition," he said. Sido's story told him the time was right to make the move from using death as a method of dealing with homeless animals and calling that 'humane'.

Sido's story dates back to 1979.

The great news of the story is that the animal welfare movement has made great strides since this time in reducing the killing happening in our shelters. At the time, US Shelters were killing roughly 20 million animals in their shelters annually. Today, the number is closer to 4 million.

Unfortunately, each of those 4 million has a personality, just like Sido, that if you just met them, you'd understand why we need to save them.

And the great tragedy of the story is that 30 years later, many people have failed to embrace the movement to end the killing of animals in our shelters as the only "humane" option.

We've made great progress. There is still more work to be done.  But there are more options out there rather than killing them. If we took killing off the table, would your shelter find a way to find homes for all of the pets? Or is killing still seen as a 'simpler' solution than the alternative?  

Comments

[YesBiscuit!]

"If we took killing off the table, would your shelter find a way to find homes for all of the pets?"

I would honestly love to find out the answer to this question via a real life trial. How about we place a 6 month moratorium on the killing of healthy/treatable, friendly pets in shelters and see what happens?

[mary frances]

A 6 month moratorium on the Killing of healthy/treatable, friendly pets in shelters?

Brilliant idea...if HSUS wants to make amends...well...this could be a golden opportunity for "redemption" by taking the lead.

[Valerie]

An interesting idea...It makes me think of the euthanasia solution shortage of ten years ago, which was not seized on by most as an opportunity for positive change, but could have been. How much have times changed?