Reforming Animal Control

Last week, I posted about the recent failings with the Memphis Animal Care and Control (with all hat tips to Shirley at YesBiscuit!)

And several people asked (rightfully) in the comments "what can we do?"

It's a great, and honest question.

It's great -- because these readers not only recognized that something needs to be done -- but also realized that sitting on the internet, complaining, wasn't going to solve the problem. You have to actually DO something to fix it.

But what?

If you live in Memphis, or any other city that has a failing animal control, and has not expressed a desire to fix it (or, in many cases, expressed a huge desire to keep it the same) you owe it to yourself to watch the video below.  The video is of a presentation given by Ryan Clinton of Fix Austin.  I wrote about this after listening to Ryan's presentation last year at the No Kill Conference -- now it's available to you in its entirety. For free. Take advantage of it.

 Six years ago, the shelter in Austin, TX had no foster programs, no off site adoptions, no desire to quit killing and a stated GOAL of saving 50% of the animals they've taken in. With the help of Ryan -- and a few other animal welfare advocates in Austin, they changed the perceptions in Austin - -and the shelter has now seen a 90%+ save rate for 5 consecutive months and a new shelter director with a history of no kill success. 

It was hard work. It was a struggle. It took fighting a whole lot of people with a lot more power and clout than they started with. It took overcoming a lot of barriers from people saying "it can't happen here".  And it is. The video is a little over an hour long -- but this presentation is the best resource I can think of for anyone facing a situation like Memphis (and there are many situations like it out there) that could use a change in attitude.

Many of the programs Clinton recommends work (we've been doing many of them in KC with equal success - our failures have come in the areas where we have fallen short with what he's talking about.)

So if you are at all serious about changing your shelter -- you owe it to yourself to watch.

Reforming Animal Control from Animal Ark/No Kill Advocacy Cent on Vimeo.

H/T to Animal Ark for posting the video.

Comments

[Joni]

I just tweeted and facebooked (do same): Reforming Animal Control - a must watch video about saving more #animalshelter #pets http://ow.ly/4Rnxl SHARE it!

[Brent]

Thanks Joni -- I appreciate your support!

[MichelleD]

Its not an option to stay on the sidelines politically anymore. I've heard too many times "ruffleing feathers will jeopordize my ability to save animals". Well, sitting back silently and letting the city govt and negligent shelter managers waste OUR tax dollars to needlessly kill animals means you are playing a part in their killing.

Not to say it will be easy as there will be many that refuse to listen. In KCMO, our previous AC mgr Mike Schumacher kept feeding our city govt lies on how everything was just "fine" at the shelter and with AC (people like hearing everything is "fine"). Well, the shit finally hit the fan and we are moving forward with reform...its taken at least 6 years to break thru and we have a long way to go.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -Martin Luther King, Jr.