How will history perceive you?

Slowly but surely, the momentum to end the killing in our public and private shelters is growing. Communities across the country are embracing initiatives that are dramatically limiting, or totally ending, the killing of healthy, non-aggressive shelter pets.

There is little doubt in my mind that 20 years from now we will look back at this point in time with embarrassment over having waited so long to make the changes necessary to cure a very fixable problem.

When we look back 20 years from now, how will people see you? 

Will they see you as someone who was at the forefront of progressive shelter changes that helped end the killing?

Or will they see you as a person who defended the status quo and was barrier to the necessary shelter changes.

Will you be seen as one of the people who strived to move things forward for animals?

Or as a dinosaur to a dying breed of shelter workers who defending the killing of shelter animals because you believed it was the only way?

Twenty years from now, when we all live in a society where all healthy and treatable animals are saved, how will people perceive your actions? 

It's not too late to start changing how history will perceive you.

Comments

[Dianne Rhodes]

I have attended the No Kill conference in DC two years running, and I plan to be there again in July. I'm a little antsy because last year my 12 1/2 yo Aby died (in his sleep) while I was at the cocktail party. So, I hope I'll be remembered as someone in the forefront, and twenty years from now I will really be old!

[YesBiscuit!]

My goals for 20 years from now are to be A) alive and B) even more annoying than I was 20 years ago, which was really pretty annoying already.

[Kathy Pobloskie]

The time of a No Kill Nation will be soon. And the closer it comes, the harder the defenders of shelter killing are digging their heels in. I'm remembering their names.

[Nokillhouston]

People won't remember us if they read the "history" written by groups like HSUS or ASPCA etc. We've already seen their revisionist history in action as they claim to be leading the way, all the while fighting us every step of the way.

Hopefully, our blogs and articles will still be around to tell people the truth. And hopefully Nathan's books will still be around (and in their ten billionth print). :-)

[kmk]

Yea, if you WEREN'T around twenty years ago (or thirty) you would think we are killing more animals than ever in shelters, when in fact the opposite is true.

*Shelter euthanasia has been declining ever since the 70s, even though the human and pet populations have increased.

*Many shelters achieved no-kill quite unintentionally, with no coercive legislation. Good volunteer rescue and outreach programs combined with aggressive speutering assitance means empty shelters and, unfortunately, shelters that are importing/smuggling dogs from overseas in New England, the Pacific northwest, and parts of California.

*Here in the Midwest (urban areas) we see very few puppies in shelters and nearly no small dogs and Toy purebreeds.

I didn't think I would see such a dramatic change in my lifetime. On the other hand I didn't expect to see the government care about whether or not my dog had testicles instead of whether or not the streetlights were working.

And I also intend to be just as annoying as I am right now if I'm still alive in 20 years. I predict the local shelters will have all achieved true no-kill, by accident rather than by acutally doing what they need to do, and the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City and other animal rights groups will still be whining that the entire metro needs MSN.