Two years ago, a major animal welfare group could put out a piece in the media stating “we have massive irresponsibility in our community and we need X law” (insert mandatory desexing, pet owner licencing, cat curfews etc) and pet lovers, who believed everything they’d been told by these animal welfare leaders without question, would jump in and fully support whatever was being proposed. I mean, why wouldn’t they? These people were ‘on the coalface’ of welfare and they would know.

Two years ago, a major animal welfare group could put out a piece in the media stating “we have massive overpopulation in our community and so we have no choice but to kill thousands of pets” and pet lovers, who believed everything they’d been told by these animal welfare leaders without question, would jump in and offer condolences to the poor animal welfare workers. These people are professionals who must be exhausting every avenue to save animals… mustn’t they?

Two years ago, a major animal welfare group could put out a piece in the media stating “our community is worse than any other; the pets aren’t rehomable and the community doesn’t care enough to help us save them” and pet lovers, who believed everything they’d been told by these animal welfare leaders without question, would agree wholeheartedly that their situation was unique and their pets were unsavable and their problems were insurmountable and that the only solution was in fact, to continue to kill animals.

But today, things are different.

Those same pet lovers who believed everything they’d been told by the animal welfare leaders without question… are connecting with each other. They are able to see that they have not only been shut out of the decision making of these community funded organisations, but that these groups have been hiding facts and figures and performance behind the mantras of ‘public irresponsibility’, ‘overpopulation’ and ‘unique and insurmountable problems’, which when critically examined, prove to be false.

Whats more, by believing killing was the only way, the shelters themselves have created systems and procedures which ensure the killing continues. Cat ‘welfare’ groups who accept paid council tenders to trap and remove cats, despite killing 9 out of 10 intakes. Mega pounds which pull in stray pets from dozens of councils, cherry pick the best and kill the rest. Pounds which block access to community rescue groups, preferring the simplicity of killing unclaimed pets. Shelters who refuse to implement basic programs like foster care, off-site adoption and extended trading hours. Shelters who choose to kill, rather than offer free and discount desexing to at-risk pets. Shelters who kill unweaned kittens and untame cats. Shelters which lobby for laws that kill bull breeds. Shelters who kill rather than offer behavioural and veterinary rehabilitation. Shelters who continue to choose killing over implementing the programs that could stop it.

But now, thanks to the ease of which pet lovers can communicate, the community are getting wise. They can compare the performance of their own local pound or shelter, with those in other communities – both here and around the globe. They can see the results of the implementation of new legislation on other communty’s kill rates with a few clicks on the web, rather than relying on just what the shelters tell them. They expect that their local shelter will speak to them directly about which life-saving programs and services they are implementing and how the community can be involved. They expect council funded pounds will be more than just another ‘garbage disposal service’. And they expect transparency in performance and outcomes like never before.

No longer can a pound or shelter complain about their ‘high kill rates’ without a community backlash – of both frustration and assistance. The community don’t want pets to die in shelters. The community will support programs which reduce intakes and rehabilitate pets. The community will foster and be involved with their local community rescue groups. The community, when offered convenience and a friendly welcome, will adopt in droves. The community will volunteer and fundraise when they can see the resources are being spent on caring for animals, not killing them. The community want shelters to be a place of safety for pets.

A community who no longer believes the myths, mantras and excuses of shelters who defend killing in the face of alternatives, have the power to bring about the change needed to save the lives of pets. So while the shelters defend killing and continue to lobby for laws to punish the ‘irresponsible’ and ‘reduce overpopulation’, the community’s pet lovers are realising that because the problems exist inside the shelters – the solution lay there also.

The No Kill Primer – a beginners guide to making any community No Kill

I saw Mitch Schneider speak last year – he wasn’t a ‘rescuer’, but the upper management of animal control. He had realised that treating the community like the enemy and blocking rescue was leaving his pound full. He said “what kind of crap boss am I, if I’m forcing my staff to kill pets, be stressed out and traumatised – when there’s an alternative?”

This interview is awesome.
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This week we hear from an animal control director known for his innovative, yet very common-sense business model for animal control, Mitch Schneider of Washoe County Regional Animal Services in Nevada. His approach serves both the public safety and the welfare of animal, which the traditional model of animal control treats as incompatible.

Schneider was initially skeptical that No Kill could work in Reno, but didn’t want the initiative to fail because of him—you can’t know it won’t work if you have never even tried it. He agreed to try and Reno, Nevada now has one of the highest rates of lifesaving of any community in the United States, saving all healthy and treatable shelter pets, which turns out to be literally 95% of them. His model represents a better future for animal control—one in which animals’ lives are saved, and animal control works collaboratively with the animal rescue community and the animal-loving public, rather than treating them as adversaries. As an added bonus, this results in a cost savings to the taxpayers, better relations with the public and an improved image for animal control, all the while remaining consistent with their public safety mandate.

He is a strong believer in collaboration, but also understands that collaboration isn’t always possible. That was one of the things he sought to change when he became manager of WCRAS. In the past, leadership at animal control refused to work fully and collaboratively with the Nevada Humane Society. Sadly, that is true in many communities around the country, as traditional animal control shelters simply refuse to collaborate with rescuers and animal advocates, throwing away opportunities to save lives.

He has said, “In some ways, I see part of my job as getting out of the way of people who want to save lives.”

Mitch Schneider will be giving a webinar entitled ‘Getting to No Kill as an Animal Control Shelter’ on January 28, 2011 and will also be presenting at the No Kill Conference in Washington, D.C., July 30-31, 2011.

Animal control in Washoe County, Nevada follows a very different business model from any other animal control unit in the country. How did it come to be so different from animal control across rest of the country and what key things set it apart?

My fundamental belief is that one should try to do the right things for the right reason. With that in mind it makes sense to work with all the stakeholders in the community to achieve the best for the community. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when everyone respects one another (even differences) and works together toward a common goal (keep your eye on the ball, so to speak).

Many animal services programs and animal rescue groups focus on the difference in their primary missions; animal services’ focus is public safety and animal rescue groups’ focus is saving animals. By doing so, they often fail to recognize the commonality in their missions and resist working with each other, either intentionally or due to conflicting policies and practices. As a result, some animal services programs may be overlooking a significant opportunity to reduce costs and increase community support.

Compounding the problem, many traditional animal services programs follow an approach that parallels parking enforcement. In some parking enforcement situations, a vehicle is towed and impounded and held until the costs of the towing and impound fees are collected. This makes sense when you have a vehicle that is worth a substantial sum of money. But it doesn’t work quite as well when you’re talking about an animal that, more often than not, has little or no monetary value. This approach to recovering costs of animal services often increases the need for more shelter space and increases the abandonment and death rates, which in turn increases the cost of the program. Additionally, this approach fails to recognize that most people consider pets to be a family member and therefore, the traditional business model does little to garner public support.

To reduce the likelihood of needing a larger shelter facility in the future, at a cost in the millions of dollars, WCRAS policy directs Animal Control Officers to make every reasonable effort to return animals to their owner instead of impounding the animal. In addition to checking the pet for identification (tags or microchips), officers will check lost reports and speak with area residents in an attempt to determine if anyone knows where the animal lives. Besides reducing shelter costs, this policy also reduces animal abandonment and enhances public support. A dog license is promoted as “Your Dog’s Ticket Home”; providing a true benefit for licensing increases voluntary compliance, further reducing shelter needs and the inherent potential for abandonment. In 2009, officers returned nearly 1,000 dogs directly to their owners without impounding them, reducing shelter space needs, stress to the dogs and their owners and reduced shelter staff and supply costs. Upon returning the animal to the owner all laws are enforced and warnings or citations issued as deemed appropriate.

Another traditional practice in animal services that increases abandonment is the policy of not allowing an owner to redeem their pet if they can’t pay all of the fees at the time of redemption. Continuing to hold the animal until all of the fees are collected simply increases the redemption fees for the pet owner and increases the need for greater sheltering space, reduces public support and increases abandonment and the [kill] rate and associated costs. To address this issue, Washoe County has established a billing system, which is only used with supervisor permission to ensure that this option is offered as a last resort; unpaid bills are turned over to collections.

Disclosure of statistics is an area that requires some mention. It’s not uncommon for agencies to be reluctant to publish their statistics. However, WCRAS feels that by publishing detailed statistical information citizens can see the problems that need to be addressed within the community; this type of transparency can also help in gaining the trust of the animal rescue groups.

Rest of the article

With the dawning of a new year, we have the chance to reflect on the ideas of the past and take a serious look at what has worked and what hasn’t. It makes sense that things that aren’t working get ditched – though this is often easier said than done. Some of our most unhelpful mantras are so pervasive, so ingrained, that we do not even recognise them as on the table for change. Here are my top shelter mantras that we should all chuck out in 2011.

“Banning pet shop sales is the only way to stop impulse purchases ending up in shelters and increase adoptions”

“As a society, we can no longer accept that thousands of animals in need of homes are being euthanased while profit-driven breeders continue to churn out puppies”

Pet shops are located in convenient places, where people go. Being visible the community attracts potential customers, while the animals are presented in clean, well lit and well ventilated enclosures, all at eye height to maximise impact.

They offer convenient opening hours, 7 days a week 9-5 and ‘late night trading’ nights where they stay open 7pm and later. These extended hours attract customers who work, who have families (and money to pay for lifetime care!) and who are looking for a pet.

But even if pet shops stopped selling pets tomorrow, we wouldn’t see a surge in adoption – with the hurdles of of the way locales of most pounds, the inconvenient opening hours, shelter environments that are loud and confrontational and the difficulties in getting pounds to work with their communities, rather than against them – it’s a wonder that any pets get adopted at all.

Banning pet shop sales isn’t going to lead to more adoptions – people looking for a pet will just move to other, convenient sources of pets; newspapers, the internet and BYB. The only thing that can increase adoptions and reduce the killing of pets in pounds and shelters is, is shelters acting more like pet shops. And whether or not this happens, is in no ones hands except the shelter management.

Rescue groups also have a part to play in attracting and retaining potential adopters;

“… brick and mortar shelters quickly adopt out the highly adoptable, small fluffy dogs. Small dogs languish in rescue organizations longer than shelters – mostly because of the restrictive adoption policies imposed by the rescues on the adopters. The rescue groups still don’t seem to understand how this perpetuates the cycle. Denying adoptions and/or overly restrictive adoption policies drives people to the very same pet stores that the rescuers abhor. Many dog rescuers are pet store protestors on the weekend. This doesn’t make sense to me.”
~ Wisconsin Watchdog ~

If a potential adopter is not suitable for a particular pet, spurning their ownership capabilities, or simply ignoring their application is not helpful. In fact its counter intuitive to our mission to get pets out of shelters and into homes. Have a list of high-volume local shelters on hand that you can return mail, so that these potential owners aren’t lost and can visit to find a suitable pet.

Finally, there are a lot of good, ethical reasons to ban pet shop sales. But their existence does not prevent No Kill. Nothing will change in pounds and shelters, unless we change the pounds and shelters. Right now in some organisations, if you send them 100 pets, they’ll kill 90 – if you send them just 10 – they’ll still kill 9… it’s not about numbers, but a belief that the best and most appropriate response is to kill.

There are changes that could and should be made TODAY that would make our community pounds a safe place for animals. And its about pound and shelters taking on responsibility and accountability for their performance.

“Christmas surrenders are unwanted presents”

“Every year, people leave the unwanted animals they have received as Christmas presents. An influx of abandoned or unwanted animals over the Christmas period has put a strain on the shelter.”

While shelters harp on about ‘unwanted presents’ every year, despite there being little evidence that gifts are at risk of abandonment, a much larger issue continues to be ignored.

Nearly every animal boarding facility in Perth is booked out.

While those in Canberra were booked out months ago.

Chief executive of RSPCA ACT Michael Linke said the shortage of short-term accommodation was causing major problems for the Canberra organisation.

”We’ve seen a tremendous increase in the number of animals being surrendered over the last few weeks,” Mr Linke said.

”This problem will probably go until mid to late January.”

………

”We definitely need more [suitable pet accommodation in Canberra] at this time of year,” Mr Linke said.

”It would stop people giving up animals.”

The same problem is national – running a pet hotel in the off-season can be unprofitable, and then suddenly during the holidays there is a rush of bookings. Simply saying “you should have booked earlier” does little to help owners who have Christmas commitments make other arrangements.

So there’s the problem – what’s our solution?

“Pets are ‘dumped’ shelters by irresponsible owners”

“A kitten abandoned for playing with decorations is among those pets dumped at shelters since Christmas. And the excuses are flowing in almost as quickly as the animals themselves, as frustrated shelter workers predict more animals will be dumped on their doorsteps by the end of January.”

‘Shelters’ should be a place of safety for pets; the giveaway is in the name, an animal shelter. In Australia we also call them ‘pounds’, but the premise is the same – a place where pets go, where they are cared for, while we work out what we should do with them next.

If a women’s shelter said “our shelter is full because of ‘irresponsible’ women”, there would be an uproar. “These women should have made provision to not end up at the shelter, they should have made different choices, they should have cared more”. These kinds of beliefs run counter intuitively to the shelter’s mission as a place of safety for victims.

It seems crazy to us now, but it wasn’t so long ago that women were blamed for domestic violence as ‘they brought in on themselves’. The approach of offering judgment instead of compassion, blaming clients for their situation, rather than working to empower them to find a better future is Victorian and desperately unhelpful. And yet, animal shelters – the place we beg people to take their pets if they can no longer care for it – offer condemnation, describe the reasons people give for surrendering as ‘excuses’ and work to alienate their public by painting everyone who uses their services as simply and arbitrarily ‘dumping’ their pets.

One of the key differences, however, between open-admission shelters that continue to kill animals in high numbers, and those that dramatically reduce shelter killing, is that the progressive shelters don’t waste time blaming anyone for anything; they find it isn’t productive, and it certainly doesn’t solve the problem.

Instead of looking for someone to blame or shame, they look for a way to help.

Instead of shaming a local resident who brings in kittens from her cat, progressive shelters convince them to bring in the mom so they can spay her for free. Instead of castigating the public for failing to spay or neuter their pets, progressive shelters offer free and low-cost spay neuters. Instead of punishing someone whose dog escaped from his or her backyard, progressive shelters knock on doors and talk to neighbors in order to return the animal to its owner without removing it from the neighborhood and subjecting it to illness and stress at a shelter. And instead of embarrassing someone who considered surrendering a pet to an animal shelter, progressive shelters offer solutions to common pet problems and seek out positive ways to help keep animals in homes.
~ Ryan Clinton ~

And if all efforts to keep the pet in the home have failed and the animal must be surrendered, then that owner must be acknowledged as doing exactly what we asked them to – bringing the pet to the shelter. Not letting just turning it loose or giving it away free in the newspaper. I’ve even heard shelters say that owners should be made take the vet to have the pet killed themselves to ‘teach them a lesson’ – how incredibly unhelpful to be of the belief that an unwanted pet should be immediately killed, rather than offered a second chance at an animal shelter.

“Dogs go into shelters because we’re breeding too many of them”

“It seems inconceivable that as a society we have come to accept the killing of thousands of healthy companion animals for whom no homes can be found—rather than demanding proactive solutions by government to stop the unrestricted breeding and selling of companion animals.”

If shelters were full of puppies and pet shops couldn’t sell a pup, then ‘there are too many puppies bred’ would have some credibility. But this isn’t the case. The dogs entering shelters go there for many reasons, just off the top of my head;

The owner can’t find pet friendly accommodation – the owner can no longer afford the pet – the owner can’t find a solution to issues like digging, escaping, barking or inappropriate toileting – the pet needs vet care the owner cannot afford – the owner has holiday commitments and cannot find a pet hotel – the owner doesn’t really like the pet – the owner got the wrong kind of pet for their lifestyle – the owner’s relationship has split – the owner has a new child – the owner has less time for the pet – the owner moves to a place where less pets are allowed – the owner loses their house/job/spouse – the owner gets sick and goes into hospital – the owner dies – the owner doesn’t realise the importance of pet desexing and has an unwanted litter/behavioural issues – the owner neglects to go to complete basic training/socialisation – the owner’s circumstances change and the pet is no longer wanted – the owner’s neighbours are making it hard to keep the pet – the owner had unrealistic expectations of living with the pet type they choose – the owner has lost interest in the pet – the owner tried to fix a behavioural problem with or without professional assistance and made the problem worse – the owner thought it would be more like in the movies – the owner took the pet from a friend/relative and it was the wrong match…

Notice I’ve framed all of these as ‘owner’ problems – which they all are – so as not to be seen as ‘letting owners off the hook’, but by realising that all of these are issues with different solutions, we can see how naive the idea of shelters being full because of ‘too many pets being bred’ really is.

Solutions include pre-purchase education on choosing the right pet, early intervention with good training options, after purchase support, taking in pets in crisis situations, recognising that 15 years is a long time and sometime things just come up and other times people make bad choices (just like in human relationships) and that the relationship between pet and owner is never going to work.

But the biggest reason pets enter shelters? Because they’re lost. Surrenders make up just 15% of dogs entering shelters, with 85% entering as strays. Proactive redemption strategies including; putting photos of impounded animals up on the internet, returning animals with identification directly to owners, and eliminating hurdles to collection like breed bans, high impound costs and fines and inconvenient opening hours, are vital to reducing shelter killing. Getting pets home is core – reducing surrenders is very much a secondary role.

“Cats go into shelters because we’re breeding too many of them”

“Only by eliminating the indiscriminate breeding of cats, can we stop the the annual destruction of tens of thousands of unwanted cats and kittens by animal welfare organisations.”

Contrary to popular belief, it is not a “cat breeding problem” causing high levels of killing in shelters – it is a cat shelter intake problem causing high levels of killing in shelters. Presently, the only option we have for unowned and undomesticated cats is death in a shelter. Until we’re willing to provide services which keep cats out of shelters we will always see high kill rates. Why? Because without these programs (TNR, semi-owned cat desexing and free-roaming cat programs) which give options other than death for these cats, we will not see a reduction in killing. With enormous numbers of undesexed, unowned cats breeding in the environment, the only solution to cats being killed in shelters, is finding other solutions for these animals.

“We should be trying to reduce the community’s need for animal shelters”

“If people were responsible, then perhaps we would need shelters less, and they would truly become safe havens.”

We cannot aim to ‘fix’ the community to the point where we will not need shelters. Nor should we aim to. What we can do is change the wider community’s regard for us and our animals. We can become a resource for pet owners needing assistance. We can change our policies to be proactive, rather than reactive. And we can follow the path of others who have found success by embracing their public.

If anything, pounds and shelters need to play a larger part in their communities. Shelters should be a place of refuge and help, providing a safety net for animals. Our mission, to serve our communities, and our community’s pets.

Yes, there will always be deadbeats and jerks, and yes, sometimes people could have done something sooner, or harder, or better. Who the hell cares? That’s just the reality of the world we live in. Our communities need to help people and animals as they ARE, not as we think they should be.
~ Christie Keith ~

Will 2011 be the year Australian pounds and shelters embrace their public…

… dropping unhelpful mantras and replacing them with progressive solutions?

I guess we’ll wait and see!

From Canada’s International Summit for Urban Animal Strategies…

THE OPPORTUNITY: Care for Cats and the Year of the Cat are the first major initiatives resulting from ideas born at the International Summit for Urban Animal Strategies. This national program will enable all sectors of the companion animal industry to work together to tackle the cat overpopulation crisis while raising the social status and value of cats in our communities.

Care for Cats is a long-term project that will respond to the cat overpopulation crisis by creating and distributing public education programs and support materials, encouraging community collaboration across all industry sectors; providing accurate resources; and collecting and evaluating national metrics to measure success.

We cannot expect to completely solve the cat crisis in a single year. Care for Cats was formed … Year of the Cat is its first project. Launch date: 5th January 2011.

2011 Year of the Cat (YOC) is a Canada-wide initiative orchestrated by Care for Cats that is intended to “get rid of the myths and give the facts!’ This program will bring a national time-line of events such as adopt-a-thons and an identification week. To facilitate the effective delivery of these programs online tool kits will be provided at no cost to community collaborators across Canada.

THE CATALYST: In October 2009, industry thought leaders from across Canada gathered for the 4th Annual International Summit for Urban Animal Strategies (ISUAS) to focus on the issue of cat overpopulation. Dr. Elizabeth O’Brien was invited to showcase a successful education campaign created by the Hamilton-Burlington SPCA in 2008. It was called The Year of the Cat.

Enthused by the support she received at the ISUAS and the Regional Summits, Dr. O’Brien was asked by delegates to become the spokesperson for a national campaign in 2011, which is officially the Vietnamese Year of the Cat. With the support of an impressive team of industry collaborators, Dr. O’Brien has since traveled across Canada championing the initiative.

THE STRATEGY: With the generous support of its sponsors, and the volunteer commitment of dozens of Canada’s most well-respected industry experts, Care for Cats is working collaboratively to:

• Develop a website and online tool kit containing resources to help create awareness by response and education.
• Promote collaboration between the sectors within each community and across the country.
• Encourage communities across Canada to host YOC events and education campaigns.
• Synchronize promotions Animal Health Week, Cat Awareness Week, Cat ID Week and Adopt-a-thon.

YEAR OF THE CAT WILL EDUCATE COMMUNITIES ON:

• The importance of spaying and neutering to curb cat over-population and improve cats’ health and well-being
• Effective methods of delivering spay/neuter financial assistance programs
• Improving existing Trap/Neuter/Release programs and introducing TNR to new communities
• Increasing animal shelter ‘Return-to-Owner’ rates through identification, registration and licensing

However, what makes this Canadian program so much more exciting than anything we’ve seen in Australia, is those things absent from these progressive and outcomes based programs:

• Strategies for getting government to implement mandatory desexing,
• Blaming the community for feral cat numbers,
• Confinement – killing street cats for the greater good,
• How to get those ‘irresponsible’ cat feeders to bring their cats off to the pound to be killed instead.




Australia needs animal welfare leaders to stop championing cat abuse and killing, and start lobbying to implement those programs that are set to solve our cat welfare issues.

I’ve just received my copy of the 2011 Kittens and Cats Annual, which includes ’show cats’, health articles and, disappointingly, both the RSPCA and the AVA calling for people to surrender unowned and semi-owned cats to councils and championing the ‘Who’s for Cats’ program – despite knowing council pounds and some cat welfare agencies run to a 90% kill rate for stray, 100% semi or untame animals, almost guaranteeing free-roaming cats who are impounded will be killed.

But the good bit? They also have included an article on the Secret Cat Society, Community Cats and international TNR and humane cat management programs submitted by myself. So while the ‘leaders’ of cat welfare in Australia are still championing death for unowned cats, this publication has kindly given us a couple of pages to advocate for new programs which are both successful in managing cat numbers, and have that moved beyond the now redundant thinking that you can ‘kill healthy animals, to be kind to them’.

Do me a favour if you can?

Buy a copy

And write to the publisher to say thank you on behalf of those cats who seem to be beyond the compassion of major animal welfare groups here in Australia.

I know a single article doesn’t seem like much, but free-roaming cat advocates being given the respect of being seen in a mainstream publication (right alongside those groups championing for the destruction of the unowned cat) is a great boon. We have to start somewhere recognising those working hard and advocating across the country to bring about a humane future for these animals.

The videos from the Cat Alliance of Australia WA Cat Welfare Symposium from earlier in the year will be coming soon – will let you know as soon as they become available.

But I’ve been lucky enough to be able to get mine.

Click play below if you’d like to see it! :)

Image: Lovemeow.com

• Why haven’t major national animal welfare groups championed the myriad of studies showing that cats in urban areas are a very tiny, manageable pressure amongst many enormous pressures on native animals?

• Why do national animal welfare groups continue to align themselves with cat haters and cat trappers in the community, promoting cat ‘removal’ rather than advocating for the cat’s right to live free from abuse, harassment or death?

• Why haven’t national animal welfare groups adapted their policies to acknowledge that owned cats are not a large contributing factor to cat overpopulation, and why have they instead continued to lobby for failed laws aimed at punishing cat owners?

• Why do national animal welfare groups ignore successful programs which demonstrate that outreach desexing for free-roaming and semi-owned cats immediately reduce cat intakes?

• Why do major animal welfare groups support the bulk killing of cats in the face of alternatives, not only defending the killing, but seeking out council contracts which require them to actively trap and kill on behalf of government?

• Why do major national animal welfare groups who purport to care and advocate for cats… fail to do either?

I used to naively believe this was because they were behind in their science; that once the details became common knowledge, that policies would change and major national animal welfare groups would reclaim their roots as cat advocates. But after being in the industry for a decade and researching and lobbying for cats specifically for nearly five years, I now see something else is at play.

They already DO get it. They really do. They know all this stuff, have all the science, can see what works and what doesn’t. But they play ignorant in the media and hold tightly to failed policies, when they have the answer to cat overpopulation at their fingertips.

They choose to keep killing in the face of alternatives.

Imagine for one moment if a national dolphin advocacy group neither furthered the view that wild dolphins deserved protection, nor promoted the science showing why they deserved compassion. In fact, they were often seen to be supporting laws and campaigns which harmed dolphins, including making caring for them illegal and promoting community dolphin trapping programs. Also, while taking money from the public in the name of dolphin protection, they simultaneously supported the government in the wholesale slaughter of dolphins by taking an active, paid roll as their primary exterminator. The biggest killer of dolphins are the dolphin protection groups themselves.

When we use ‘dolphins’, the conflict is obvious.

However, cat ‘welfare’ groups straddle this ethical divide unashamedly. Killing and promoting killing. Taking money in the name of protection, while also taking money to kill.

There’s a chapter in ‘Redemption’ outlining that when major national animal welfare groups took over council contracts they ceased being animal advocates and instead simply became the executors of government policy. Government policy is driven by what is popular. Believe it or not, this is actually a pretty sweet position for the animal groups. Rather than the tricky role of advocating for the best possible outcomes for animals, they can simply hold the middle ground and agitate to keep the status quo. They can simultaneously say ‘we’re bound by the requirements of the government at the time’ while having this reflect the popular and most profitable sector of the donor community.

Leadership and advocacy can make you unpopular; reflecting whatever is popular regardless of basis or outcome, can make you very, very rich.
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Why do major national animal welfare groups continue to push failed policies, promote killing and ignore the repeated successes of organisation who stand up and advocates for cat welfare?

Because it’s popular and profitable.

It is popular and profitable condemn all the ‘irresponsible owners’ and lobby for strong laws to punish them. It’s seductive as people gather mob-like to rally and rail against ‘terrible people who don’t care for their pets’ as being at the core of overpopulation. Even though there is no scientific evidence that have ever been found to support the theory that owned cats are the problem, the coffers of these groups are filled each year with donations from people who’ve for decades been told ‘major animal welfare groups simply doing the irresponsible public’s dirty work’.

It’s not profitable or popular to present the more accurate position that the key to reducing cat breeding is to desex the unowned strays and help poor people to afford the surgery for their pets. Compassion doesn’t extend to poor people or street cats, meaning there few donations in real solutions.

It’s profitable and popular to promote anti-cat sentiment in the community, pandering to cat haters by futhering the myth that free-roaming cats are suffering or dangerous and while on one hand lamenting killing, on the other advocating that the cats be removed. By supplying traps and supporting the community in their incorrect belief that ‘cats are to blame’ for urban habitat and animal loss, major national animal welfare groups pander to their donors delicate sensibilities, rather than offer cats protection.

It’s not profitable or popular to point out to supporters that their big house, polluting car, non-native garden, grassed football fields and shopping centre carparks might be at the core of native animal loss, and to swim against the tide and promote cat welfare. There is no popularity in supporting cats whether owned or unowned.
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But popular changes and profitable follows.

As small and independent groups gain footing and take a more thoughtful and compassionate approach, the pet loving public will follow. Once the tide begins to swing, major animal groups will come out as cheerleaders – advocating the effective positions available to them all along. But it will not happen until it’s popular and profitable to do so. And even then it won’t be because of a true desire to promote animal welfare, but because by reflecting the status quo, rather than creating it, they maintain maximum community support.

Until major national animal welfare groups advocate for cat welfare and protection we will see killing continue. The key to reducing cat overpopulation and killing, therefore, is simply leadership from major national animal welfare groups. The solution is in their hands.

And we as the public and their supporters, must not be fooled into thinking it it will take anything less.

I just caught the “Animal Wise Radio” interview with Nathan Winograd on the subject on TNR. I just plinked out some notes, but it’s really worth a listen (I’ll put links at the end).
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TNR, Feral Cats and Community Cats

Back in the 1980’s TNR was a controversial issue. Seminars were held where most of the animal welfare groups in attendance were anti-TNR. Today more groups are in favour of it, than against it, so we’ve come a long way.

We only have three options when dealing with cats in the communtiy;

- Cats are trapped, come into the shelter and are killed
Unsocial cats (community cats, alley cats) are generally the offspring of other outdoor cats. They have a nearly 100% chance of being killed for being unadoptable.

- Desex the cats
Now in the US the favoured solution. This has been practiced for decades in Europe.

- Leave them alone
Not a the preferred option/practical as cats are attracted to the resources of people. People care. People get upset that nothing is being done.

Other than ‘leaving the cats alone’, the only humane way to address the issue without killing is TNR.

There is no reason why shelters should prefer trapping and killing.

Cats will always live in the community. They are members of our community. Some people don’t want them around which causes conflicts. However, regardless of your goals (don’t want to kill/ want to have no cats) TNR is the only solution to reaching these goals.

If you want to control cats without resorting to lethal methods, then you must TNR. Even if you don’t care about whether the cats are killed, killing is not a solution that has ever shown any long term success.

TNR is the most effective way to manage cat populations.

People see cats outdoors, worry and then ring shelters to ask what to do. Shelters say, ‘bring the cat to us and we’ll save it’ – what are you saving it from? And are we really ’saving it’ if we kill it? We see a situation where animal shelters who claim to promote humane cat care, are encouraging people to ‘rescue’ an animal, only to put it to death.

What is rescued? When we’re dealing with unsocial animals, we’re not dealing with cats who need rescue. With or without a caretaker, they’re not just surviving, they’re thriving.

The traditional sheltering dogma is that outdoor cats are suffering. Their lives are short and miserable. When you look at the data and studies on colony cats, owned and unowned cats have similar low baselines for disease. Longevity, life expectancy are the same. 96%+ have a good to great quality of life. The cats caught in traps are healthy, robust animals.

This false notion that these cats were suffering has meant healthy cats are impounded and killed. We need to fight conventional wisdom. Groups who once opposed TNR, are now solidly on our side.

Handling community objections

“We don’t want the cats there, so we need the lethal approach to get there”

Putting aside the people see this as a zero sum game (cats mean wildlife suffer), the conventional wisdom that ‘people don’t want cats arounds’ has largely reflected the negative messages put out by cat welfare groups about cats (they should be kept indoors, outdoor cats are suffering etc.). As our messages changed, the public have come with us as we started to advocate effectively for cat welfare.

Those people who are intolerant, the ones who don’t care about the cat. We can’t meet their goals of improving wildlife outcomes through lethal methods.
- Studies show denser population of birds where there are cats (keep rats down)
- Cats allow denser populations of native birds, preying largely on other non-native species
- Even if you kill them, cats aren’t gone forever – more cats will move into the area because the area supports cats. These new cats aren’t unsterilsed and they’re unvaccinated.

Even if you believe the less cats out there the better, the only way to have that happen over the long term is TNR.

Finding out the true concerns. If the concern is that based on a 19th century public health model, that cats are spreading diseases; when you look at the data, regardless of which area you’re looking at (rabies/toxoplasmosis) they are not a great risk. Even if you can’t be convinced by the data, if you want to control disease spread, what you want to do is sterilise the cats so they’re not reproducing, get people to feed them at the same time each day so they’re not scavenging. You want to have them vaccinated. All of these things point back to TNR.

Regardless of whatever objection you throw out, TNR is the solution.

Can a community reach No kill without TNR?

No absolutely not. Without provision for unsocialised cats, you will always be killing.

Even if there were a sanctuary you could send them all to, there would still be cats in the community. The size/cost of the sanctuary would be prohibitive.

It’s expensive to not implement TNR. It reduces impounds. It reducing killing. A 10 year study in the Journal of the AVMA in Ohio, showed cat impounds and deaths were increasing, except for one community – the one who had TNR.

There is a webinar on community outreach for TNR advocates.

How do you engage the ‘wildlife’ people? How do you engage the people traditionally opposed to TNR. How can you have the discussion in your community. How do you diffuse objections?

The science of TNR is not that complicated anymore. Concerns evaporate over the years – and people want a third option for that ‘under the porch’ cat.

How do you take the message to city councils? They realise killing doesn’t work. Encouraging people not to feed, doesn’t work. While maintaining these approaches mean people who care about cats and want to do proactive programs like TNR, get pushed away – the very people they need to help with solutions.

The webinar is here (costs $125 US for a season pass)

There’s an interesting trend amongst animal groups. Those who kill a high number of pets tend to keep their resources as closely guarded collateral (shelter centric). While those who have pledged to make the preservation of life their highest priority, open their doors and share their resources with both the public and other groups (community centric).

This doesn’t mean these ‘open’ groups are niave, or bad business people – in fact far from it. There is growing evidence that in a pet-loving nation like Australia, there is abundant resources for animal welfare groups should they open their organisations and embrace their public.

Wanna know how much? A single media piece this week about the Sydney Dogs and Cats Home’s pledge to save lives;

One of Sydney’s biggest animal shelters is hoping to stop putting down unwanted pets – a plan that could save the lives of thousands of animals.

Sydney Dogs and Cats Home in Carlton wants to find adoptive homes for all “healthy and treatable dogs”, which account for about 90 per cent of impounded animals. In many cases, dogs are unnecessarily destroyed after falling victim to broken homes or poor gift choices.

Chief executive and veterinarian Christine Cole said the recent “no-kill” movement in the US had put pressure on Australian pounds to create similar programs.

Was picked up in no less than 7 newspapers a month out from xmas;
The Bellingen Courier Sun
The Whyalla News
The Bay Post/Moruya Examiner
The Fairfield City Champion
The Flinders News
The Camden Advertiser
And all the way over to the small town of Busselton WA (my home town!) in The Busselton Dunsborough Mail

A pro-life policy reflects the progressive values of Australian pet lovers. It captures peoples hearts and minds to know that you have made a commitment to save lives – not just the highly adoptable and the cute – but the lives of all pets who are able to be saved.

The Sydney Dogs and Cats Home has 12 council contracts and takes in about 4,500 animals per year. To make their new life saving pledge a reality, they have joined forces with another powerhouse of the Australian pro-life movement, the AWL QLD, to introduce the ‘Getting to Zero’ program;

The Animal Welfare League of Queensland has achieved an Australian first – avoiding having to euthanise a single healthy dog or cat on the Gold Coast for more than 12 months.

So how did they do it?

AWL Strategic Development Officer Joy Verrinder says the achievement is a result of the AWL’s ‘Getting to Zero’ program which combines many different projects, all playing their part.

“It’s a very complex process to reduce euthanasia rates in any city. It isn’t just any one thing, it’s a combination of things,” she says.

“First of all it involves a big focus on the prevention of stray and abandoned animals.”

These preventative measures involve offering discounted micro chipping and desexing for pet owners.

“Desexing helps prevent that oversupply of animals being born with no homes to go to, so that’s a really important program.”

But inevitably, despite even the best preventative measures, there will always be unwanted animals.

This is where the AWL’s re-homing program comes into play.

“We have a really high re-homing rate – that’s because we do a lot of promotion of our animals, we make sure we have beautiful photos of them on our website and we do lots of advertising. And the general public have been fantastic in coming forward to adopt from us so that helps an awful lot as well.”

The success is three-fold;
- By embracing your community you release your ‘fear of the public’.
- From an up-front communications strategy, you release your ‘fear of activists’.
- And from a driven, compassionate and big picture approach, you release your ‘fear of fellow rescue orgs’.

And you enter the world of ‘community animal sheltering’.

The new animal welfare ‘thought leaders’ are those who lead by example, act with integrity and most of all, embrace a life saving philosophy.

The most successful groups are those who have reclaimed their roots as animal advocates and champion the rights of animal to receive safety and care.

While the most successful communities are those who are enlightened, activated and demanding nothing less than the best, from their animal welfare leaders.

Killing is finally being taken off the table as an acceptable method of population control.

The future is looking bright for Australian pets.

In safe hands … a Jack Russell terrier is bathed at the Sydney Dogs and Cats Home.

When you’re a No Kill advocate, you are faced with a standard patter of protests for why it can’t work in whichever particular instance you’re in;

- There are too many pets and not enough homes: all the while puppy farms exist/ breeders breed/ irresponsible people don’t care/ the government doesn’t do something…

- No one wants to adopt: cats/ staffies/ big dogs/ old dogs/ a dog that needs training/ working breeds…

- Our community is different: it’s rural/ it’s low income/ it’s full of bogans/ it’s full of full time workers who don’t understand what it takes to care for a pet/ they buy their pets from pet stores/ they don’t desex/ they just don’t seem to care…

- Our pets are different: they’re stray cats/ they’re unsocialised dogs/ they’re not what people in our area want/ they’re not easy to move…

- We’re different: we’re really small/ we’re really large/ no one knows about us so no one comes/ everyone knows about us so they give us their pets…

- We can’t do better: because we don’t have the resources/ we take in too many pets/ we work under restrictive legislation/ we are no worse than anywhere else…

Of course every shelter, everywhere has these same challenges. Some kill, some find ways not to. The difference is how they choose to approach their work and their communities. It doesn’t matter where the shelter is located or what resources they have available to them, the biggest hurdle any organisation has to setting themselves on a No Kill path, is overcoming the belief that their situation is so different and uniquely terrible and their community so irresponsible and unsupportable that any change in approach would be futile.

However, the sad reality is that an organisation cluttered and hamstrung by a culture of ‘there is nothing we can do, we are simply the victims here’ is deadly to pets.

It’s why you see groups lobby hard for new laws ‘if only we had XXX law, then we’d see an improvement here at the shelter’ only to get that law, and see things remain exactly the same as before. Because the real change, the most significant change, has to come from within the organisation. You can’t influence and lead your community to No Kill goals, if you, in your heart believe they are your biggest problem.

So how do you redesign your own organisations to effectively harness the compassion that seems so available to successful shelters? You have to choose to believe in abundance:

More people want to help us than we believe.
….

We have to think not just in terms of what we can do, as individuals, within our organization, but we have to believe that the necessary skills are out there — we just need to find them.
…

Believing about abundance is very much believing in the possible and in setting up organizations that are geared for it. It doesn’t mean that work is easy — the problems are still hard problems. But it does mean belief that real help is available from outside the organizational walls.
…

So, if we are building organizations on the abundance of goodwill, energy and eager hands — and if we are thinking of ourselves, organizationally, as platforms for change rather than agents for change. If we thinking that way, what are the organizational structures that we have to build?

Go. Read. This. Blog.

No Kill is cemented in the belief of abundance. Of not only,

• if we build it – they will come,


but


• if we communicate it – they will listen,




• if we ask for it – they will help us,




• if we want it – so will they.

You don’t build a No Kill shelter by ‘not killing pets’ (although the belief that a shelter’s obligation is to save lives, is definitely at the core), you build it by first reaching out to the community to establish what resources they have that can help you – developing the relationships both inside and outside the industry you need to succeed – and finally calling on the public to take ownership of the mission your organisation has set yourself.

You’re not building a ‘No Kill shelter’, but a No Kill community, which has free access to your organisation, an understanding of your achievements and failures, and an open invitation to not only contribute and support, but to involve themselves as much, or as little as they would like.

All the while we believe the public ‘are the problem’, we sit as gatekeepers behind self-created walls, gnashing about how no one cares and no one supports our work.

The drive of the No Kill movement has created an exciting new future for rescue. We’ve seen we don’t have to be angry to be effective – in fact those groups who have moved towards embracing their public are kicking huge goals. We don’t have to make it our job to punish people – we can accept that some people are simply shitheads and move swiftly on to finding hundreds of people who are compassionate, like us, to help us with our work. We don’t have to show people the horrors of rescue – we can instead celebrate the positives, the happy endings and the beauty of second chances.

Deciding to have and maintain a positive outlook isn’t simply being naive, but choosing to believe in abundance and becoming more effective for doing so.

Our most important work now, is to take advantage of the opportunities a belief in abundance offers and design and build the kinds of organisations for the future that will both embrace and lead the revolution. What will our shelters look like, when they are a reflection of the progressive values of the pet-loving community?



Big problems; community solutions…


WHAT’S MINE IS YOURS from rachel botsman on Vimeo.