The Problem with No-Kill

It's not Enough

A lot of people and organizations in the animal welfare community have a problem with the no-kill philosophy, and we're no exception here at Olympic Animal Sanctuary. But it's probably not for the same reasons you think, so we urge you to read on.

Let's start with the way a typical animal shelter works. Shelters receive dogs and cats from owners who no longer want them or are unable to continue to care for them, and from Animal Control, who picks up animals that have been abandoned or confiscates them from abusive or neglectful owners. Those animals are placed in small, holding pens where they receive the bare minimum care, usually food, water, something to sleep on, and frequent cleaning and removal of waste from the cage. Stray animals are held for a few days, usually three to five, to give the owners a chance to come in and claim them, while the rest are made available for adoption. Those strays not claimed by their owners are put up for adoption. After a few days to a few weeks, depending on policy, any animals not adopted are killed. Somewhere between 7 and 12 million dogs and cats die this way every year in the US.

Of course, not all animals get a shot at adoption; sick animals that may or may not be treatable are killed. Old animals are often killed. Animals with temperament issues are killed. And sometimes shelter personnel just kill a bunch of animals to make room for more. It's important to note that the shelters call this "euthanasia" which literally means 'good death' -- we don't see much good in it, which is why we call it killing, and reserve the term 'euthanasia' for animals that would die an inevitable, horrible death as a result of illness or injury, or continue to live in agony indefinitely -- mercy killing, as opposed to killing for convenience, or because we simply don't know what else to do with all these animals.

The rules for killing shelter animals are that the death has to be quick, relatively painless, and as stress-free as possible, and most of us take it for granted that this is the case, but often it is not. The people administering the death drugs are usually not veterinarians, they may not give the right dosages, they may not use the right drugs, they may not be able to find a vein, so the animal endures repeated bad injections, or the shelter personnel may prefer easier, less humane methods, like intracardiac injection (needle into the heart) without first anesthetizing the animal. It's illegal in most places, but it is a lot easier.

Here's something to think about: would any of us dispute the idea that certain sadistic, abusive, predatory individuals become foster parents or seek employment at group homes, in schools, or in other places where they will have access to children so that they can have a steady supply of victims? Of course not -- we know this happens, because we hear about it every day. Most of the people in child services are there for the right reasons, but some are there to perpetrate abuse on the vulnerable. The same is true of elderly care, and care of the mentally handicapped. So does it not follow that some people enter the animal welfare field for the purpose of abusing animals? We know it happens, because we've seen it, but chances are you haven't. And since animals can't talk, and unlike child services, killing the animals is considered part of the job, these people's cruelty can go undetected for years. In fact, we've even seen people fired for animal abuse and go right on working at another facility, or even returning to the same facility after a management change!

Moving on, after the animals are killed, they're generally given to an animal disposal company, and in most cases they're taken to a rendering plant where they're chopped up and mixed up in a vat along with road kill, expired grocery store meat, dead animals from factory farms, mink carcasses from fur farms, etc. The contents are boiled, and what floats to the top is sold to pet food manufacturers as "animal fat", while what sinks to the bottom is sold as "meat", "meat byproducts", "protein meal", or other nondescript terms that essentially mean a mixture of dead animals, plastics, polystyrene, narcotics (remember the drugs they used to kill those shelter animals?), and anything else that may have gone into the vat. And we don't want to get sidetracked, but if someone ever needed to dispose of a human body... maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't.

So having read about how shelters function, how could we possibly be against no-kill? The answer is that we're not against the no-kill movement, we just have a problem with one part of it, which we'll get to, after we briefly discuss the movement itself.

The basic principle of no-kill is that no adoptable animal is killed if it is healthy or has a treatable illness or injury. Some shelters operate as no-kill facilities, while in other instances entire communities are no-kill, which is preferable, because when only the shelter is no-kill, the animals they don't have room for are still being killed elsewhere. For a no-kill community to work, there are several elements that need to be in place, and many organizations follow what is referred to as the "no-kill equation". It's not actually an equation, which only means that the people who wrote it, or at least named it, weren't mathematicians. Regardless, here it is:

Feral cat TNR program: TNR stands for trap, neuter, and release -- the only method proven to reduce feral cat populations. The neutered cats stay in the area and keep outsiders from moving in, but since they don't reproduce, the population stays within reasonable limits.
High volume, low cost spay/neuter: take away people's excuse for not sterilizing their pets -- make it as easy and convenient as possible.
Rescue groups: animals transferred to other animal welfare organizations means there's more room for new animals coming in. This requires a form of community that isn't always easy to create, but hopefully it's a reasonable goal.
Foster care: get the animals out of the shelter and into a home environment, where they no longer have to endure intensive confinement, exposure to diseases like bordatella (kennel cough) or worse, and where those nasty behaviors they pick up at the shelter don't get the chance to develop.
Comprehensive adoption plan: increasing adoptions is key, and making sure the animals go to appropriate homes means they don't end up back in the shelter next year.
Pet retention: coming up with ways to keep people and their pets together, which may include helping people understand their animals' behavior better, helping with medical bills, providing emergency assistance, etc.
Medical and behavior rehabilitation: treating the sick and injured, and fixing those behavioral issues that would keep an animal from being adopted.
Public relations/community involvement: this one is pretty obvious.
Volunteers: having a strong volunteer base is crucial, as there is always more work that can be done.
Compassionate director: it seems like this one wouldn't need mentioning, but some shelter directors aren't as compassionate as we'd like them to be. Without a compassionate leader, a compassionate community is going to be harder to create.

This all sounds good, but there's one, nagging detail that bothers us; there's one thing still missing. Remember when we said that no-kill organizations and communities don't kill adoptable animals? What about the ones that aren't adoptable? Even if an organization has a rehabilitation program for dogs with behavioral issues, won't there always be some that don't make it to adoption because they just can't get their acts together?

Most organizations use some form of temperament testing to determine whether or not a dog is safe and reliable, terms that are better used for describing a car than a live animal. It's a litigious age we live in, and no one wants to get sued, so shelters use all kinds of methods to ascertain a dog's suitability for home life: shaking a plastic replica of a human hand in the dog's face while it's eating, wiggling a baby doll in front of the dog, walking it past a kennel of barking, growling shelter dogs to see how it reacts. Of course, dogs don't recognize plastic replicas, because they don't view the world the same way we do, so that plastic hand and that baby doll are just toys, and what dog wouldn't bite a toy? And what dog wouldn't get defensive with all those other dogs barking and growling at it? But often, normal behaviors are what keep a dog from passing temperament evaluations, and even when the evaluations have some actual validity, as opposed to the methods just mentioned, some dogs simply aren't going to pass. Fighting dogs, severe abuse cases, coyote hybrids... there's only so much we can ask of these animals, and maybe asking them to change their behaviors so they can go live with the Cleaver family is a bit unrealistic.

So what do you do with a dog that bites strangers, that fights with other dogs, that kills cats, or that will struggle to the point of myopathy, potentially leading to organ failure and death, when you try to put a leash on it? For most organizations, the answer is to 'euthanize' the dog. For us, that's just not good enough.

Olympic Animal Sanctuary was created for precisely these kinds of dogs; sometimes rehabilitation takes years, and sometimes the dog never reaches that place where it can be considered completely safe and reliable. For us, that's OK -- we don't let the cat killers play with cats, we don't leave the fighters alone with other dogs, we don't let strangers, especially children, have access to any of the animals, and for those that won't take a leash, we don't make them -- sure, lugging them to the vet in crates is hard on the lower back, but we do whatever it takes, and we're pretty sure the dogs appreciate the effort. The problem is that we can only do so much -- a few dozen dogs is all we can handle at the moment, and we're turning them away left and right, often requests from no-kill shelters that have run out of options. That tells us that there are an awful lot of dogs that can't make the grade for adoption, and even the no-kill community is killing a lot of animals.

So what do we do? Well, what would you do? Not what would you do if you were in our shoes, but what would you do, you, the person reading this, whatever your name is, if someone said to you, "We have a dog that bites people, we've tried for months to rehabilitate him and he still bites people, we can't find a facility anywhere in the world that will take him, and if you don't take him and keep him for the rest of his life, he dies tomorrow. Here he is; you decide." Well, what's your answer? Do you find a way to give him a life worth living, or does he become low-grade dog food?

At this point you're probably saying to yourself that there's no way you'd take in a dog like that one when there are perfectly well-mannered animals that need homes, too, or maybe you're thinking about things like liability issues, how to keep visitors to your home safe from this dog, what it's like to get bitten by a dog -- a real bite, the kind that bleeds and requires a visit to a doctor... Hey, we know all about that stuff. But we also know that a few special needs dogs in a typical American home aren't that difficult a thing to manage for a lot of people. If you don't have young children, you're patient and flexible, and you don't mind having a dog that you can't take to beach parties or parade around in front of your relatives when they come to visit, maybe you can save this dog. Well, truthfully, he's already dead, but maybe you can save the next one, and leave the easy dogs to the people with the small kids at home, the never-ending stream of visitors, the door that doesn't always latch... But chances are there are still a few things you'll need to make it work. And to save you the trouble of sorting them out yourself, we'll provide you with a list:

Training: you need to learn from people that have done this before, so you're not dependent on trial and error (those errors can be pretty expensive). You need to understand both normal and abnormal canine behavior, and you need to learn to determine what's acceptable, what needs to change, and what to address first. Do we practice walking on the leash first, or do we work on that biting thing? Should we address the food-guarding now, or should we wait until the dog lets us pet her? These are important questions, and there are others that won't be as obvious.
Community: You need to be in touch with other people doing the same thing as you, to support you, share their experiences, and help you when you run into problems. Sometimes you'll just need to vent, and you'll need someone to listen to you. And what if you need someone to take care of that dog when you want to take a trip? We all need a vacation from time to time, but do we all have a pet sitter that can deal with a dog that eats people?
Protection: You need liability insurance. For some dogs it's not as crucial, but you need to protect yourself and your dog, and you need to have an affordable policy to do just that.

Let us now reassure you that most of the non-adoptable dogs in the system turn out to be quite sweet; they just need a little time in a safe environment. Can you provide that? We hope so, because we're full, and that means dogs are dying because we were their last hope and we had to say no. As far as the training, community, and protection, well, we're working on that. Here's the plan, and we'd love for you to get involved:

A seminar on the care of special needs dogs in the home: this will likely be a two-day program, discussion-based, covering canine behavior, both normal and abnormal, how to house and care for special needs dogs, how to protect yourself, the public, and the dog, and how to do it all without your entire life being consumed. To attend, a fee and criminal background and reference checks will be required. At the end of the seminar, attendees will receive a certificate, a membership to a community of certified special needs adopters, and access to a website where they can find dogs to rescue, share with other members, get advice, read articles, etc. And perhaps the best part, we want to get a special rate on liability insurance for members. How does a $500,000 policy for $500/year for up to four dogs, and $50 for each additional dog sound? That's what we're going to push for. No guarantees, but we think we can do it.

Of course we recognize that there are older, larger, better established organizations that are more ideally suited to developing a program like this, so we're reaching out to them as well -- help us make this happen, so that when someone asks us, "Can you take this dog?" we can say, "No, but there are a thousand people we know who might be able to -- we'll ask them."

If you want to get in on the development of this project, please contact us; we'd love to have your help. Email steve@olympicanimalsanctuary.org.

Posted on June 18, 2008 | Link