I have been an animal welfare advocate for years. More years than some, not as many years as others. I had an epiphany in 2006 when I discovered that shelter pets die not because they are suffering or because we have too many of them, but due to an industry steeped in defeatist attitudes which is meant to serve the public but blames that very public for being put in a position where people are "forced" to kill animals as some form of Orwellian public service.
In 2009, I began speaking out very loudly about the killing which takes place in the city where I work. I tried to be diplomatic. I tried to be empowering. Encouraging. It did not work. I kept hearing, "but I don’t want to kill animals," and "but you just don’t understand that we can’t stop putting them to sleep tomorrow," and "getting to no kill takes time and time and more time." The words came across as heart-felt and appeared to be sincere. They were just that. Words.
I go to sleep thinking about shelter pets. I dream about conflict with the shelter director. I wake up thinking about what I can do today to try to make a difference now that the diplomacy has done so little good and I am still hearing the same words more than six years on. I asked some of my contacts to join with me a few years ago in hopes we could find common ground and speak with one voice to try go bring change to our community. We hope to make ourselves irrelevant in time. We hope that our local leaders will realize that our shelter is not an island and our community can, and must, learn from people in other parts of the country who are saving the vast majority of shelter pets. Insisting on using our own ideas to the exclusion of proven methods has obviously not worked well.
I’m often asked by people outside of animal welfare circles why it is so difficult to try to bring change to an area where thousands of animals have been destroyed over a period of years when there are proven methods being used across the country to save them. Our region is progressive, smart and creative. We support the space program and the Bubba Factor just does not apply here. My answer is pretty simple: pride.
If you run a kill shelter and are told that there are programs being used across the country to save lives and you refuse to fully embrace them, I am left with no alternative but to believe that your pride is more important to you than the lives of the animals entrusted to your care. You are too proud to say your answers are not the only answers. You are too proud to admit that someone in some other place may know things you do not. You are more focused on your own image of yourself than you are with making the world a better place for pets, the people who love them and the people who pay for your shelter to operate in the first place. Which is actually quite illogical. If you did embrace change, you could potentially save thousands of animals and then your image would be even more sterling in the community that you perceive it to be at this very moment.
Don’t tell me we all want the same thing. I want the killing to stop. If you did to, you would put that pride on a shelf, roll up your sleeves and say, "let’s do this." Now. Not in a year and not in five years. The cost is just too high.
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