Why are some shelters not no-kill????

[misskitties]

Originally Posted by fifi1puss

I would love to read the book you did! Can you IM me or post it here. Thanks!

It's called Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America by Nathan Winograd.

Granted, I do not agree with every single thing that is said in this book. If you go to the Amazon page for the book, one review does claim that he touches very little on the fact that many no-kill shelters turn away animals. Unfortunately, this is true. Many will not take owner surrenders or strays off the street. The shelter I work with does not turn away animals. But I think this just means that transforming no-kill shelters has to be part of the process of eliminating kill shelters.

There is also a nice website here: http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/...l-control.html

 

[howtoholdacat]

Here's a question: Does the prevalence of no-kill shelters increase the rate of owner surrenders? Does knowing that the cat that, "just not working out anymore" won't be killed make it more likely that they'll turn them in, feel warm and fuzzy for "doing the right thing" then turn around and get a new pet for the kids six months down the road? If so, how do we combat that problem?

(I'm not suggesting we do away with no-kill shelters at all! Just asking the question in the hopes we might begin to create some solutions for the animals.)

 

[fifi1puss]

thanks for the book title.

I think that their are owners who are more likely to surrender because they know it's a no-kill shelter which is probably a main reason why no-kill's are pretty strict about who they take in.

 

[cinder]

Any cat that I ever assisted in euthanizing had at least some medical problem, but it was still difficult. The TNR had a blanket policy on FELV/FIV+s and at the clinic sometimes problems were treatable, but owners weren't willing to take the time or foot the cost. In some instances I was actually happy to help end an animals suffering.

There seems to be a big difference in owner surrenders and strays as far as who gets in and who doesn't. That may be part of my problem. When a cat/kitten gets dumped off here the first thing I do is take them in to the vet, treat anything that's wrong with them. Maybe that in itself pegs me as an owner. If so, I'll still take care of them, but how I present my willingness to do so may have to change.

 

[white cat lover]

Originally Posted by MissKitties

But after reading a book and finding a guide to transforming kill shelters into no-kill shelters, I do not believe there is an excuse. There are ways for even the poorest shelters to at least try begin the transformation. I know the change cannot be instant, but it saddens me to see that many shelters are not even trying to become no-kill.

I would never, in a million years, want my shelter to become "no-kill". Yeah, it sucks that we're kill, but man....I've met a dog that was adopted out from a no-kill shelter. He was utterly dangerous. He severly injured his owner - which, IMO, set the owner's health downhill that lasted for several months, going as far as almost making the owner housebound.

He was downright aggressive - yet they were "no-kill" so they adopted him out. Yes - they informed the owner - but you have a human aggressive dog - no dog like that should be adopted out.

While you feel passionately that all shelters should be no-kill, I likely wouldn't volunteer for my shelter if they became no-kill. Because we would never be able to take owner surrenders, due to the sheer numbers of strays. We would have all feral cats that would end up living out horrible existences in cages, because there is no way we'd ever adopt a feral cat out.

We get approximately $1,500 on city & county funding a year. The rest we have to raise ourselves. That's pretty mcuh $1 per animal per year. Say it costs us, on average, $75 in vet bills for every animal adopted. You do the math - that's a lot of money to be raising.

Yes, I have the blood of hundreds on my hands - but when you have a dangerous/aggressive animal - they need to be euthanized. When you have a 15 y/o kitty who lost it's owner, who is no longer eating, depressed in the cage - they need to be euthanized.

Our euthanasia rate, BTW, is anywhere from 4-10% (I can't remember the exact number from last year). Many feral cats are euthanized, if we don't have farm homes for them. Dogs with aggression issues are euthanized, as well as dogs with severe health issues. But we've had 10 dogs fostered out (large dogs) to make room at the shelter, so as not to have to euthanize anyone. We don't kill someone because they reached XX number of days - we had a 10+ y/o mother/son pair for 8 months, we had one dog for 2 years.....we do our best, and while some may not think us as great as a "no-kill", I think we're pretty lucky to have what we do.

(And I'm not just aiming this at you MissKitties - but generally for all to know)

 

[icklemiss21]

As a no-kill we still have a clause for dangerous animals. Nat, a dog like the one you mention would be euthanised at most no-kill shelters up here maybe with the exception of one major shelter I can think of.

If a cat is feral, we TNR. We have a few each year the vets tell us are adoptable but in general they are released. We do take surrenders (we took in 5 today alone) but yes, you find people with stupid excuses because they know the animal wont be euthanised but we also get idiots who just want us to do the healthcare on their cat and 'find it as a stray but really want to adopt it'

 

[booktigger]

Your post is really interesting Nat - a friend sent me an article from teh REdemption book yesterday, and I disagree with him that all shelters can be turned to no kill - maybe in the future, but with the current financial climate, you can't adopt out enough animals to be no kill, there are simply too many animals and not enough space or funds. I find it interesting to read the different policies on here regarding what cats will be taken in - we have some rescues over here who wont take strays - we are a feral rescue, so ferals and strays who could start a feral colony are our priority (as we dont always know if they are neutered), then mums and kittens to make sure the kittens are adopted out to people who will neuter and avoid them becoming feral.

 

[addiebee]

I had read recently that our main county shelter is striving -- has the goal of -- becoming no-kill. It is actually quite a progressive operation with all kinds of good programs to help people fix and vaccinate their animals.

 

[howtoholdacat]

I rather agree with Nat. It sounds like we've had similar shelter experiences where in spite of being at a "kill" shelter everyone busts every available resource to do our very best for the animals. If we were burdened with dangerous dogs and massive feral populations, I'm afraid they would shut us down entirely. Then, NO animals would be helped.

I think the real issue is owner education and spay/neutering. If those things were under control this whole topic would be moot. We had a stray German Shepherd come in today. She's a great dog, super friendly. She has a microchip so we contacted her owner. When the guy picked her up I said I hoped she wouldn't get out again. She's so pretty someone might keep her rather than return her. He said to me if wouldn't matter if they did. He has her daddy and could just make more. I told him I thought that would help the overcrowding at shelters and he had the decency to look embarrassed but that was about all the decency he had. People like that should be prohibited from owning pets, or at least from owning pets who can reproduce.

 

[cinder]

Well good luck with trying to educate the brain dead. It would be great if there were some way to put teeth into consequences for those who won't take any responsibility to spay/neuter, but in many instances all that would do would be to create possibly worse circumstances for the animals. Around here if you got fined for bringing in multiple litters of kittens to the shelter year after year, they'd just hit 'em in the head with a shovel or throw 'em in the ditch. (in front of someone else's house)

I mean, for cripe's sake.... you can get cats spayed & neutered for NOTHING around here. How do you educate that kind of stupid and lazy?

 

[howtoholdacat]

Originally Posted by Cinder

I mean, for cripe's sake.... you can get cats spayed & neutered for NOTHING around here. How do you educate that kind of stupid and lazy?

I wish I knew the answer to that question. If I did, the problem would be solved.

 

[Willowy]

I do think most shelters could go (almost) no-kill with dogs. Pit bulls are a problem in most cities---too many people breeding them irresponsibly and encouraging them to be aggressive. So in those areas it would be harder. And of course strict temperment requirements would be a must, you can't be adopting out aggressive dogs to unsuspecting families. But I do think that any shelter could dramatically reduce their euth rate on adoptable dogs with a bit of work.

Feral cats should be TNR'd, not killed. That would reduce the kill rate at any shelter. In most cases ferals should be released where they were trapped. Farm homes should be enlisted for tame cats with litterbox issues and for ferals who were trapped in areas where they can't be released.

But.....cats are a real problem. People who wouldn't dream of letting their dog have puppies will let their cats reproduce uncontrolled. Reasonably responsible people who don't realize their kitten can get pregnant at 4 months of age. People who think cats are like dogs and can't get pregnant when they're not actively in heat. Cats are professional reproducers. Better than rabbits, really. Even with free spay/neuter programs, there will still be many accidental kittens. I don't really know what could be done about that.

 

[booktigger]

Originally Posted by Willowy

Feral cats should be TNR'd, not killed. That would reduce the kill rate at any shelter. In most cases ferals should be released where they were trapped. Farm homes should be enlisted for tame cats with litterbox issues and for ferals who were trapped in areas where they can't be released.

Your area must be better than mine, we can't always put ferals back where they were trapped from, and we have had an advert on our website for over a year for farm homes, and not one enquiry, even speaking to friends who have farms hasn't found us a single home yet.

 

[white cat lover]

We can't release ferals where they were found, as something like 95% of them come from within the city & it's illegal (and unsafe) to release them there again. I've had 2 farms in 4 years take feral colonies. But yeah - we have had 4 people come in wanting farm cats in the past week....we have 4 cats fixed for farms - all at least semi-feral, one pretty feral - nobody wants them.

 

[Willowy]

Well, I can't say if this area is any better about that....probably not, as it's hard just to find farms that aren't actively killing their farm cats because there are too many of them. Just stating what would be necessary to reduce cat euthanasias.

As for not releasing cats in the city.....well, if it's illegal you can't help that, but the cats were living there anyway, so it can't be "too dangerous" for them. They've survived this long and shouldn't be relocated.

But, yeah, like I said, it would be very hard to reduce cat euthanasias in shelters. Irresponsible cat ownership is far to deeply ingrained in U.S. attitudes.