pet connection

I can’t stand it anymore. Nearly every day, some animal welfare person is quoted in some article about the crumbling economy’s impact on animal shelters. And most of them use the word “abandoning” when describing people bringing their pets to animal shelters because they have lost their homes or jobs.

Just explain to me what animal shelters are for, even in an ideal world, if not to offer a safety net to the pets of people who are in trouble so bad they can’t keep them anymore? How on earth is that “abandonment” in anyone’s dictionary?

I mean, we’re talking about words here, right? What do they think “shelter” means? Why this barrage of condemnation, of “I’d sleep in my car before I gave up my dog,” or judgmentalism at people seeking shelter for their animals at shelters?

I interviewed Betsy Saul of Petfinder.com last year, talking to her about the foreclosure crisis. I asked her what she thought about people who brought their animals to shelters:

Betsy Saul: We feel compassion for them, and a little indignant at a shelter worker or rescuer who acts angry, because for 20 years we’ve been saying, ‘Don’t abandon your pet. Don’t just let it out. Take it to the shelter, be responsible.’ And so now when people take it to the shelter, we want to act holier than thou? I mean, they’ve heard our message; they’re doing what we told them. They getting into trouble, and they’re taking their pet to the shelter. That’s the best-case scenario, don’t you think?

Sure, there are those times when people adopt a pet and then it gets hair on the sofa or it doesn’t match the carpet, and they’re back in two weeks. That’s really not the norm.

Shelters don’t have a ton of resources for training and customer service and things like that. The shelter worker is talking to this person and being adamant. They’re saying, “No, that’s it, this is the end. I’m giving it up. I’m not going to try any of these solutions.” Well, sure this shelter worker proceeds to be a jerk, because they’re faced with someone who’s not willing to try anything.

But the thing is, this is a real process that began three months ago, when they realized they may be in trouble. And two months ago, her husband said if you don’t give up the pet, then I’m going to leave. And I can go further and further down that line, and by the time the people actually get to the shelter – because it’s so hard to give your pet up – they’ve already crossed all those bridges, and at that point, they’re finished.

I think the secret is getting people talking about it a lot sooner, like how do we catch pet parents in that first stage of, “Oh, what have I gotten into?” as opposed to, “This has gone too far and now I just have to shirk all of this because I can’t take anymore. “

Those are two very real places along the continuum of giving up a pet and “Ah, what have I got myself into?” is where we need to talk to them. And we’re not meeting these people until they’re like, “I can’t take anymore. “

Christie Keith: Yes, and by then, it’s over. I’ve noticed that too. That at that point they’ve already detached and moved on in their heart.

Betsy Saul: That’s just exactly the way; they shut down.

[....]

Someone [who is scornful of those people] has clearly not had a sick child or has not been in real trouble; it must be a wonderful, wonderful place. But we’ll all be there at some point in our lives. We shouldn’t be that naive. And God willing, we could all be there, in that space, right? But usually life touches us, and we’re humbled, and we realize that there but for the grace of God go I, right?

I’m the president of Petfinder.com. And I have been so fortunate to never have been in a situation where I had to make that decision. And yet, I’ve had enough craziness in my life, and I’ve been touched by things that are not in your control, that I know that moment where you sit up in bed and you think, I can’t handle any more responsibility. I have to get rid of the responsibility. And I’m always surprised to meet adults who haven’t done that.

I mean, I think it’s great and amazing, to never ever feel that way. But haven’t you had those periods in your life? A lack of humility in someone I think, who doesn’t get that sometimes life gets out of control.

Amen, Betsy. Of course shelters, like every other group providing any kind of social service, are completely battered right now. Donations are down, intake is up (although in many places, so are adoptions). It’s a terrible time. But it makes no sense to say that people who bring their pets to shelters are abandoning those animals; if that’s abandonment, what is it when they leave them locked in an empty house or on the side of the road?

Yes, it’s a tragedy. So is it a tragedy that children get only two meals a day or parents have to let their health insurance lapse and that people are losing their jobs and homes and having to live in their sister and brother-in-law’s basement. And it’s a tragedy, too, that their pets are caught in this disaster.

How does it make it better for the animals, their owners, or the shelters themselves to act like those people are faithless jerks who don’t deserve to ever own an animal again?

/rant

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“I think some people are just using the economy as an excuse to dump a pet they didn’t want anyway.”

Add that to “I’d live in my car before I’d give up my pets” as WTF comments I keep hearing in discussions about pets being relinquished to shelters when their owners lose their jobs, homes, or suffer other effects of the current economic collapse.

It’s not that I don’t feel the same way about my pets, nor even that I disagree that some people will get rid of their pets for the most trivial of reasons.  It’s this: This is a useless path to go down if we want to solve the problem of animal suffering and death.

Yes, hello, some people suck. They drive drunk, blow their paychecks at the track, buy a new HD television set instead of paying their bills, embezzle from their clients, and skip out on child support. Do you think that will ever end? Do you think those people will ever stop getting pets? That’s why we have shelters, and why we’ll always need them. Every time I see someone say that the goal of the shelter movement should be to put itself out of business because there are no more animals in need of their services, I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As long as we define “success” as the literal end of a need for animal shelters, and insist that goal must be met before we stop killing healthy, treatable pets instead of finding them homes, or before we stop insisting that breeding is evil and that pets should be required by law to be sterilized, then we’re dooming ourselves to abject failure. That day will never come. Never.

We have to replace the paradigm of “people are bad and evil so we have to prevent them from having pets in the first place so we no longer have to mop up after them” with one of, “Sometimes animals need our help, and that’s why we’re here.”

Of course we should have programs to help people cope with behavior problems, so they know they have alternatives to surrendering their cat or dog. Of course we must provide accessible, low-cost, free, or incentivized spay/neuter. Of course we should provide counseling, dog training, and whatever other services we can to help people and their pets be happy together. Those services are for people who aren’t “irresponsible,” but rather people who need resources and assistance to do what they want to do in the first place: keep their pets and have it be fun, rewarding, and joyful instead of stressful, difficult, and unpleasant.

And of course we should provide sheltering, medical care, and rehoming services for the animals of people facing economic hard times, illness or disability, or other challenges. Those things, too, are inevitable, and their animals will sometimes need more help than they can give them.

But equally “of course” is that some people just don’t want to keep their animals. The bond isn’t that deep, and they’ll get rid of them for flimsy reasons. Reality check: that’s none of our business and we can’t change it, because it’s not about animals, but about those people, their values and personality type. We should BEG them to give up those pets to a shelter that will find them a new home with someone who really wants them. We shouldn’t be lecturing those people; we should be smiling and nodding and pushing the surrender papers and a pen into their hands as fast as we can.

Now, I need a reality check here, too, because of course, not all communities currently have the resources to take every animal in need of their services into their system 24/7. I’m not talking so much about actual policies and programs that should be implemented immediately everywhere, but about changing how we envision the role of animal shelters in our society.

Right now, America is in a transitional stage of animal sheltering, as popular support for solutions to animal population control that don’t involve killing animals is growing nationwide. For many in the shelter world, being told they’re doing it wrong by the very class of people they hold responsible for the problem in the first place is infuriating.  Tempers are short on both sides, and it can sometimes be hard to hear each other over what British folk singer Billy Bragg once called “the sound of ideologies clashing.”

Of course, it’s human nature that large groups of people will always have such divisions. I’m not expecting there to be unanimity of opinion on sheltering, any more than on anything else. Fortunately, we don’t need to march in lock-step to succeed in helping animals. But we do need to share a common goal, and right now, we don’t.

My proposal is that our goal be to bring the need for animal services in a given community below its threshold of resources. We can reach that goal both by reducing need and increasing resources, two approaches that are almost infinitely customizable to match regional and local circumstances. It’s compatible with a wide range of techniques, programs, policies, and even ideologies. It’s definable by data, not emotions.

And it’s an achievable goal, because it works with, instead of against, human nature, both good and bad. It accepts that some people will always do wrong by their animals, but many others will be ready and willing to help them. It meets the reality check.

But it’s also a goal that requires we all adjust how we think about – and discuss – the problem. In other words, what do we want animal shelters to be for? Places to get animals out of sight and mind so they’re not troubling society? Slaughterhouses and prisons where every attempt at reform is cast as enabling irresponsible pet owners? Adoption and rehoming centers at which people aren’t stigmatized for needing their services, and that people aren’t reluctant to visit if they’re looking for a new family pet? Centers for training, education, and pet health care?

As long as one set of stakeholders has a goal of putting shelters out of business because they think they can end all need of animals for sheltering, while another envisions them as a safety net for the animals who will inevitably need their services, it’s hard to imagine we’ll be able to make much more progress in saving animal lives.

So I say it’s time for reality-based sheltering. You say people suck and that’s why animals suffer? You’re right. But fixing that isn’t the job of animal shelters; their job is to take care of animals.

They can do that by embracing the other reality: for every person who sucks, there’s someone who doesn’t. There are people who would like to volunteer at the animal shelter, if only it were made inviting and rewarding for them. Who would donate if they believed it would really help animals. Who would adopt a pet from a shelter if they felt welcomed and not judged. Who would foster sick or orphaned pets if they were recruited, trained, and given support. That, too, is reality.

But putting shelters out of business forever because there are no more animals who need them? That’s nothing but a fantasy.

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Many times positive changes come out of the most trying of times. That is certainly true when it comes to animals in the post-Katrina era of disaster response. Authorities now know that helping people evacuate with their animals is a life-saver not only for animals but also for people. That’s because many people will not leave their animals behind.

More good-from-bad situations may be developing now, and again, animals and people will benefit in the long run.

The deepening economic turmoil has forced many from their homes for reasons as sad and varied as the loss of a job, the adjustment of the interest rate and payment on a mortgage or bankruptcy from a health crisis for the uninsured (by the way, the PBS series “Frontline” recently looked at five other developed nations and concluded that ours in the only one that piles economic disaster on top of a family’s health crisis. Watch the show here.)

When people must make abrupt  and tragic adjustments to their lives, animals often suffer in the aftermath.

Shelters are seeing drop-offs increase, but instead of acting like shelters — a place of last resort to care for those in need — the organizations and people running them are too often condemning the very people who cared enough to bring their pets in hopes of their animals being rehomed. (As opposed to leaving them in abandoned houses or simply turning them loose to fend for themselves.)

Christie wrote about the problem, in her SFGate.com column, “Your Whole Pet“:

[P]et owners who don’t want to abandon their pets to an uncertain fate seek help at their local shelter. But rather than being offered assistance, they sometimes are lectured about their “irresponsibility.” Some are simply told that their pets will be put down. This harsh scenario exposes a weakness in this country’s reigning animal-shelter philosophy, which may not be serving the unwitting animal victims of the foreclosure crisis well. [...] The sheltering philosophy that has dominated animal control policy in this country since at least the 1970s is one that lays the blame for every pet problem, including large numbers of animals being killed in shelters every day, squarely at the feet of irresponsible pet owners. [...] Proponents of this approach believe that high kill rates in shelters are simply their best attempt at cleaning up after an uncaring and careless public.

I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to people in rescue or sheltering talk about pet-lovers sobbing as they gave up their pets, only to have the folks who are supposed to be helping dismiss the pet-owner’s tears as being “just for show,” make a dramatic point of stressing how quickly the pet would be killed in the “shelter” and offer contemptuous diatribes on how “if they really cared, they’d …. ” [fill in the blank with some unrealistic solution].

But even as Katrina changed the way we think of animals as part of disaster relief, the economic meltdown may be forcing welcome change in the way we think of “sheltering” and “rescue.” The result may be a true no-kill nation in which animal-lovers and animal advocacy organizations work together to provide a real safety net and true compassion — not just death and lectures.

Maddie’s Fund and Nathan Winograd have been at the forefront of this movement, and now, the Humane Society of the United States seems to be shifting its massive resources into helping to hasten this change.

As Winograd wrote last week:

In announcing a partnership for a national advertising campaigning promoting adoptions being launched by Maddie’s Fund, HSUS, and the Ad Council, Wayne Pacelle stated:

“It will make a life-saving difference in securing loving homes for untold numbers of pets and get us closer to a no-kill nation.”

But, most importantly, HSUS states that the public does care and is not to blame for their killing, that killing animals in shelters is “needless,” that we can be a No Kill nation today, and that “pet overpopulation” is more myth than fact.

On his blog, Pacelle says:

If the humane movement had a signature issue, it would be the euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals in shelters. The numbers have been moving in our direction, with The HSUS and other animal protection groups spurring steady progress through legislation, education, and sterilization. Euthanasia is down from 15-20 million dogs and cats 30 years ago to about 4 million today—but this is a preventable tragedy and there’s still too much killing of our best friends. We can do better and we must do better.

[...]

Now, just 20 percent or so of dogs in homes come from shelters and rescue groups. If we raise this number to 35 percent, we would solve the bulk of the homeless dog problem.

Yes, and we can do it without the Pet Extinction Acts known as forced spay-neuter, without bans on the scary breed de jour and without demonizing people who are truly trying to do their best.

Things just seem to come in threes … disaster response, no-kill nation and, and, and … a growing demand for changes in the “closed book” system of dog-breeding that has done incredible damage to the health of many wonderful dogs.

Earlier this year, the BBC took a look at the problems of purebreds, and although we had our problems with the show, the basic premise was spot-on: Current breeding practices based on maintaining breed “purity” continue to produce dogs that are riddled with congenital defects. Opening breeding practices to more programs like the Dalmatian-Pointer outcross and demanding that no dog be given a “championship” without being able to demonstrate health, soundness and some degree of ability  — or even be able to breathe without sitting on an ice pack (like the pathetic Crufts Best In Show Peke above) — is the very minimum we can do for our dogs. We can protect and preserve our heritage breeds, but we need to make some changes in how we breed to do so.

Terrierman has been all over this like a, well, Jack Russell … here and here, as he reports on sponsors abandoning the Crufts dog show as quickly as they can. For major sponsor Pedigree, the pull-out represents a shift not only to get away from the mess of sick and deformed dogs but also an embrace of pet adoptions, seen last year in its ads for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog show, which it also sponsors.  Instead of touting the “show champions” that eat Pedigree dog food, the company pushed shelter adoptions.

Yes, change is in the air.

***

Speaking of disasters …

So look at this. Where I was with McKenzie last weekend ? Facing a wall of fire this week.  That little green spot on the map just east of Highway 71 is where I was.

The only thing to find encouraging about this map are those horse icons — evacuation stations for people in the area who need a safe place to put their livestock. Yes, after Katrina, the situation regarding animals and disasters will never be the same, and than heavens for that.

Which reminds me to remind you: Are you ready to leave your home now? The most important item for evacuating household pets is a crate or carrier. You need to have one for every animal. It keeps them safe, makes them transportable and provides them with temporary housing where ever you are. And make sure you can get to those crates when you need them. You don’t want to be wondering where they are or fishing them out of the garage rafters when you need to evacuate.

We have a several archived articles on disaster preparation in our searchable library, online thanks to a grant from Pfizer Animal Health. Here’s the most recent, and here’s the page to search for more.

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The tragic fate of many pets left behind in foreclosed properties by their distraught, overwhelmed, or optionless owners has caught the attention of the good folks at PETA. They’re spreading the world via letters to the editor from coast to coast that the fault for these terrible circumstances lies not with national economic policies, nor the unethical practices of the financial institutions who engaged in predatory and irresponsible lending practices, nor with local agencies that weren’t prepared to deal with the overwhelming crash of real estate values and economic collapse.

No, it’s the fault of those great enemies of animals everywhere, the people in the no-kill movement.

Few things make me feel think I’ve fallen through the looking glass so surely as the fierce and unbending opposition of PETA to the emerging no-kill movement in America. They never miss an opportunity to frame any issue, from Michael Vick’s pit bulls to the fight against forced sterilization of pets, in terms that both misrepresent the no-kill movement, and insist that saving animal lives is actually worse than killing them.

The first such letter came to me via Nathan Winograd, signed by Lindsay Pollard-Post, a staff writer at PETA’s headquarters in Norfolk, VA. It was published three weeks ago in the Vallejo Times-Herald, a paper in an area not far from San Francisco where foreclosures are skyrocketing:

Please, never hand animals over to uncertain fates with strangers or leave them at “nokill” shelters where animals may be warehoused in cages for months or years, either.

She goes on tell pet owners to instead take their pets to what is, in PETA-land, the opposite of a no-kill shelter, a “well run open admission shelter.”

Which I guess will make some poor person who lives in a community where there’s a well run, open admission, no-kill shelter just turn into a frazzled little pile of liquefied neurons, right? Because guess what, PETA? Plenty of communities seem to have figured out how to make that work, no thanks to you.

(Which is a good time for a reminder that the “no kill movement” is not about individual shelters, but about communities. But no wonder PETA and its ilk keep attacking imaginary targets; unlike the real thing, they fall down so easy.)

So in addition to fostering the “blame the pet owner” culture that results in national shelter kill rates of around 50 percent (still nowhere near PETA’s own kill rate of over 90 percent — which is, interestingly, the SAVE rate for dogs in Washoe County, Nevada, since it began implementing the policies and programs of the no-kill movement), PETA is actively spreading a description of no-kill that doesn’t match the definition of its proponents and leaders, and encouraging people to take their pets only to shelters that kill half the animals that come in their doors.

The second letter went even further than just advising individual pet owners to abandon all hope of a no-kill solution for their pets. This one, entitled “No kill shelters have ripple effect of cruelty,” was published a week or so ago in the Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times, and was signed by PETA spokesperson Daphna Nachminovitch, who actually blames the no-kill movement for creating the problem in the first place:

It’s not surprising that “no-kill” crusader Nathan Winograd’s assessment of the Porter County Animal Shelter didn’t mention that just weeks ago when Porter County implemented its new, dangerous “no-kill” policies, neighboring LaPorte County reported receiving calls from distressed Porter County residents who had been turned away from Porter County with both stray and owned animals for whom they could no longer care.

According to news reports, three cats died what must have been slow and terrifying deaths, locked in an abandoned house in after their guardians were asked to make an appointment to bring them to the shelter — something they evidently could or wouldn’t do. This sad case is just one of many where animals have paid the price because shelters policies were based on numbers and statistics instead of compassion and reason.

Both letters conclude with PETA’s real agenda, universal spay/neuter of all dogs and cats. That’s what will solve this problem, they conclude… not economic reform and recovery, not compassion and a helping hand, not an overhaul of animal sheltering and animal control in this country, none of it:

No one wants to end the euthanasia of healthy homeless animals more than the caring shelter workers who hold the syringe. But the way to do that is by preventing more animals from being born, by spaying and neutering — not by slamming the door on the noses of animals who need refuge.

Trying to link the foreclosure crisis to “pet overpopulation” and solve it by reducing pet births is the stupidest and most misguided thing I’ve ever heard. This crisis has nothing to do with pet overpopulation. It has to do with the economy, and the fact that people don’t know what else to do with their pets and despite what Ms. Nachminovitch advises, don’t want to leave them at as shelter where they’ll be killed, because they care about them and want them to live.

Doesn’t it seem just a little cruel, not to mention cynical, that PETA should try so hard to take away the hope that people cherish that their beloved pets might find a better future than death, in the care of a no-kill shelter or rescue group? Can it be that PETA feels threatened by the buy-in apparent on the part of the public for the no-kill movement? Does it make it too hard to keep blaming everything on bad pet owners when the public is clamoring for more no-kill options in their communities, because they actually do give a damn about their pets?

Gina’s asked it many times before. I’ll ask it myself now:

Why is anyone still listening to PETA?

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I’m watching the responses to my foreclosure pets piece, both public comments and private emails, and still seeing the exact same pattern that drove the article in the first place.

On one side, people like Cheryl Lang and Bonney Brown who are actually trying to show some compassion for people facing hard times, and give their pets a hand.

On the other side? Blame, blame, and more blame, wrapped up with judgmentalism. “I’d never abandon my dog! Never!” “Anyone who abandons their pet should be put in jail!” “I was in an abusive relationship/lost my home/was on the streets and I still kept my dog!” “I’d live in my car before I’d give up my pets!” “I work/volunteer in a shelter, and people come in and dump their dogs and cats all the time. Of course it’s their fault, although I guess if someone was being beaten daily by their spouse it might be okay if they had to put their pet in a shelter.”

As Gina said to me the other day, if that’s your attitude, “Why are you calling it a shelter?” She pointed out that when shelters don’t want to help people who walk in their doors, they’re justifying their actions with a circular argument:

Responsible pet-lovers don’t take pets to shelters no matter what. So by definition they’re not helping anyone who was responsible, because if you take a pet to a shelter you’re a bad pet-owner.

So who IS allowed to take a pet to a shelter without being ripped a new one? Are you granted a pass only if you drop dead without family?

I suspect even then, Gina, you’d just be blamed for not making better plans.

I particularly loved what Petfinder.com’s Betsy Saul had to say in my interview with her:

Someone like that has clearly not had a sick child or has not been in real trouble; it must be a wonderful, wonderful place. But we’ll all be there at some point in our lives. We shouldn’t be that naive. And God willing, we could all be there, in that space, right? But usually life touches us, and we’re humbled, and we realize that there but for the grace of God go I, right?

I’m the president of Petfinder.com. And I have been so fortunate to never have been in a situation where I had to make that decision. And yet, I’ve had enough craziness in my life, and I’ve been touched by things that are not in your control, that I know that moment where you sit up in bed and you think, I can’t handle any more responsibility. I have to get rid of the responsibility. And I’m always surprised to meet adults who haven’t done that.

I mean, I think it’s great and amazing, to never ever feel that way. But haven’t you had those periods in your life? A lack of humility in someone I think, who doesn’t get that sometimes life gets out of control. And that being said, I’ll also say that I’ve known homeless people who I think were better pet parents than some of the richest people I know.

And one final point is that I always like to point out to people on that front is that you look at my dog, one of the best dogs in the universe, you look at your dog, all these rescued dogs out there that have great lives, and how can you think anything other than thank God someone gave you up, so I could have you?

I used to spend a lot of time hating on whoever stuffed my beautiful dog Colleen in the night deposit box at the Peninsula Humane Society. But like Betsy, now I’m so grateful that they did, because that dog? She was everything to me.

More to the point, I guess, is simply this: Lack of compassion and empathy, lectures, and being judgmental don’t work. They simply do not have the effect you think they have, that you want them to have. As I said the other day, you catch flies with honey, not vinegar.

And as Nathan Winograd points out in his public presentations on creating no kill communities across America, irresponsible people will always be with us. They’ll fail to pay child support, drive drunk, cheat on their spouses, and not help their kids with their homework. They’ll also be irresponsible with their pets.

That’s what shelters are for. That’s what they should be for. That is what animal control policy should be based on.

Of course we need to reduce the upstream flow of unwanted pets, but we’ve very nearly done that. Almost all owned dogs and cats are already spayed and neutered. Kill rates at shelters have plummeted in the last 20 years, down from 27 million a year to around 4 million a year, a huge percentage of which are the offspring of unowned cats. Richard Avanzino of Maddie’s Fund has calculated that just by nudging shelters as a source of pets up from 23 to 25 percent, we will get every pet in every shelter in America into a home, every single year, instead of killing them for shelter space.

This is in our grasp, folks. If we just have the will to do it, and stop pursuing pointless, self-defeating policies based on our judgment that some people just don’t love their pets the way we want them to.

It’s not just the compassionate thing to do. It’s what works.

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