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« Some thoughts on 4th of July Shelter Intakes, and solutions | Main | Rethinking animal cruelty & neglect laws »

July 11, 2016

Comments

Cheryl Huerta

It has been pointed out to me that very few, if any, shelters really honestly DO have a true 'no kill' program but often don't do the killing themselves and they call that 'no kill'. You mentioned Portland OR which is where I live and I am pretty sure I know the shelter you are talking about. I know that they are a no kill shelter and advertise as much but I also know that when a dog that has a low likelihood of being adoptable comes to them they refuse the dog.

Do you think that we'll ever really have a 'no kill' system in place in our country and also I think we need to re-define what 'no kill' means. I usually refer to it as 'low/no kill' because there will be animals that you must euthanize for a myriad of reasons.

Maybe that's one of the problems this animal welfare community has. We expect to save every single animal when it's neither prudent or good for the animals themselves to do so and it seems whenever we begin to discuss it in those terms people get upset.

Brent

Cheryl, I think it is generally accepted that 'no kill' shelters are really very low-kill as it allows for the euthanasia of very sick/injured animals and truly dangerous ones.

RIN

Everything works great when the resources and backing from the people is there. When the resources are scarce and you spend a significant portion of your time appeasing zealots and making beqrecratic paper it's easy to see why some shelters and people, especially government shelters, find the no kill pill hard to swallow. Out the Front Door had an interesting article. Anecdotally I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times I've been personally attacked this year and I'm the progressive one making changes and not even directly involved in operations.

http://outthefrontdoor.com/2016/06/28/what-happened-in-moore-county/

RIN

Last time I post from my phone... apologies for the poor grammar.

Brent

RIN -- good comments. I'm a huge proponent of advocacy and the need to push for change for communities that do need change (there are many of them). But agree that often it is people instituting positive change that are also attacked -- which is in no way helpful to the cause.

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