So many times people have written to us saying “we thought a shelter was a depressing place, but your centres are so friendly and the dogs look happy!”. Of course there will be some animals that are miserable from time to time, because kennel stress can affect them no matter how wonderful the surroundings; for these animals we run fostering schemes so that they spend stretches in people’s homes - this makes them more likely to be permanently homed.

I can also assure you (having met a few!) that our sponsor dogs, who might live out their lives in our kennels, are much better off alive and looked after than killed for want of a home. They have loving, consistent care from dedicated carers, toys and visits from supporters, plenty of good food and exercise and a warm, clean, comfy place to sleep.

Please go and visit a well-run no kill shelter before you believe the critics - I’m not telling you you’re wrong, I just want everyone to have some personal experience before making up their own minds!

:)

I am off to bed now. I expect a blog post, long, insightful and intelligent, to be here when I get my 5 a.m. wake-up call from someone in Kansas City pricing cat spays.

Gina Spadafori

Jeesh, give me, you know, TEN HOURS to get over this deadline thing before throwing me to the jackals, yo.

Sincerely,

Christie Keith

Can you please write a blog post about how to find a great dog, so we can all start arguing about show dogs again? I promised you would, here.

Gina Spadafori

P.S. To readers: Can you tell Christie and I have spent, oh, a million hours on the phone talking about no-kill communities? Now, if only she would agree with me that retrievers are better dog than sighthounds …

Get out of my head.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Christie Keith

That’s not true, though. Number one, it’s not true because killing animals for space is not, by definition, euthanasia.

Second, since there are a number of communities all over this country that don’t kill for space, it’s incorrect on the face of it.

Third, stop talking about no kill SHELTERS. The no kill movement isn’t about shelters, it’s about COMMUNITIES. The idea of no kill SHELTERS, and the blah blah about “warehousing,” is propaganda. Don’t buy it.

Comment by Grae — September 3, 2008 @ 7:34 pm |Edit This

Grae, for the record, you’re wrong. You seem to be unaware that the no-kill movement isn’t about shelters as hoarding, but about communities of animal lovers working together. This glib derision of no-kill shelters as miserable, life-sentence prisons is straight from PETA’s playbook. In fact, in no-kill communities, shelters ARE open admission — and most sheltered animals walk out alive.

Pardon me if I don’t want shelters to emulate PETA’s 90 percent kill rate.

And I DO think it’s a bad thing to kill animals for space, when there is another way.

And by the way, killing for population control isn’t “euthanizing.”

It’s killing.