If proponents get their way, cats will be killed quicker in shelters and families whose cats end up at the shelter will not have the right to even a single day for reclaiming them. Not only is depriving cat lovers of the companionship of their cats cruel, offensive, and wrong; not only is legislating second class status unethical; not only is it not supported by the evidence or experience; it is also unconstitutional.
As I’ve recently posted, there is a concerted effort by several shelters and national organizations in the U.S. to shorten and in some cases eliminate holding periods for cats. Although those who are advocating for these changes are arguing that eliminating or reducing holding periods will allow shelters to adopt animals more quickly, not only is there nothing in the proposed laws to guarantee such a positive outcome, but copious evidence and experience suggest that for most cats, killing, and not adoption, will result from such changes.
How do we know? Because that is what they are already doing to over half of all cats who come off their holding periods. Sixty percent of all cats who enter our nation’s shelters fall victim to their needles. If the shelters that claim to want to eliminate holding periods for cats so that they can adopt them more quickly were sincere, they wouldn’t already be killing cats and claiming to do so for “lack of homes.” Indeed, the frequent claim that they must kill animals due to “pet overpopulation” is entirely inconsistent with the assertion that they would love the opportunity to find homes for cats on holding periods even sooner by eliminating constraints that prevent them from doing so. And if the only opportunity that some of these cats have at escaping a shelter alive is reclaim by their family, how can anyone claiming to represent the best interest of cats argue against this vital and virtually singular protection?
In addition, given that cats who are surrendered by their families (“owner surrendered” cats) do not have a holding period in the U.S. of any kind (except in California which will change if these groups have their way), and these cats are often marched directly from the front counter to the kill room, this is the fate that certainly awaits most stray cats if and when the holding periods are shortened.
Not only would cats be killed quicker, but they could also be adopted to someone else immediately upon impound, with no redemption period whatsoever to allow people the time to notice their animal is missing, and to go to the shelter to get him safely back home. There are many reasons why cats end up at shelters as strays, but a number of them are not even lost. They were taken to the shelter by neighbors or others who assumed they were lost. Regardless, that not allowing people any time to reclaim their cats is an obvious threat to the deep and meaningful relationship between people and their cats must be pointed out to groups which have grown astronomically wealthy trumpeting the value of the “human-animal bond” adds another layer of absurdity to the already bewildering necessity of this discussion.
I find it completely tragic that rather than working to increase shelter regulation, to move the ball forward, to work to increase protections for cats, to give them greater rights, we have to spend our time trying to prevent what often amounts to the one and only protection animals have in shelters–holding periods–from being eviscerated. Still, there are some who are sympathetic to what these groups are doing. According to one such proponent, “in 2012, the Nevada Humane Society (Washoe County/No Kill since 2008) returned 99 of the 5,234 cats (1.8%) that came into their shelter.” His conclusion: “In Reno, NV, they are 43x more likely to leave by adoption than by RTO [return to owner].”
That the proposal does not follow from these conclusions is inescapable. For one, low return rates for cats is not because the cat lacks a family, but because shelters kill them too quickly before their families can find them (which would be made even worse if holding periods were reduced or eliminated), because of poor lost and found techniques on the part of an uniformed family, because some cats do not enter shelters for several weeks after a family has already stopped looking fearing the worst, and also because of the failure of shelters to match lost with found cats. In fact, shelters who do a better job at these things vastly increase their reclaim rates for cats: 22% across all shelters in Colorado (about the same as the dog reclaim rate nationally), and even higher in other North American communities. Once again, the fault lies with the shelter and they are using their own poor performance as a reason to do even worse and kill more cats.
Second, the proposal (shortening and, in certain circumstances, abrogating rights of reclaim) will not increase the number of lives saved as noted above and it would further reduce reclaim rates. So even if the data were accurate, it wouldn’t change anything. Indeed, it is surprising that any cats are reclaimed because NHS does not take in stray cats.
Using the same data, what we see is that NHS took in 3,120 formerly stray cats from Washoe County Regional Animal Services which is the agency that took them in as strays. After the five day holding period (and in some cases, longer) at WCRAS, they were transferred to NHS. Despite this, 3.2% of them were reclaimed by their families at NHS, well after the five day hold. In other words, what this proves is that people do reclaim cats days and in some cases weeks after they are impounded. In fact, the cat reclaim rate at NHS compares very favorably with the 3.9% of the formerly stray dogs also reclaimed there, likewise after their minimum five day stay at animal control next door. In short, the data shows that people do reclaim cats, can do so consistently as with dogs, and that the double standard is grossly unfair. It is, in short, a proposal to legislate second class status for cats. It is also unconstitutional.
Given that cats are 13 times more likely to come home on their own as compared to being taken to a shelter (no small part due to the thoroughly inept manner in which many animal control shelters today are operated) and given that shelters exist and therefore by having a place to take cats, they hinder the possibility of those cats to come home on their own; taking in cats but not giving people a reasonable period of time to reclaim them is illegal.
As wrong as it is to talk of cats as “property,” given their current legal status as such and without the benefits that would come with having other legally guaranteed rights at this time in history, in this limited circumstance, their legal status as property confers a protection where no others currently exist: the express intent of the proposals being put forth is to divest a person of his “title” without any reasonable proceeding for that purpose and would manifestly be a taking of property without due process of law. Under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and of Section 1, Article 1, such taking would not be within the power of the state or municipality, and the statute purporting to provide therefor would be void.
In the final analysis, not only is depriving cat lovers of the companionship of their cats cruel, offensive, and wrong; not only is legislating second class status unethical; not only is it not supported by the evidence or experience; not only is it illegal; it is also downright un-American.
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What should be the policy?
What I have proposed instead, which so far the groups promoting these proposals have not accepted, is a bifurcated holding period that would essentially set day 0 (the day they come in), day 1, and day 2 for owner redemption, and the remainder of the holding period for owner redemption, adoption and transfer to rescue, but not killing. The hold period expires when one of those things happens: redemption, adoption or transfer to rescue. In addition, I proposed that shelters should be allowed to transfer strays to rescue groups immediately upon impound to get vulnerable populations out of the shelter but with the same rights of redemption as if the cats were still in the shelter. In other words, the cats would be in the “constructive” custody of the shelter. Finally, I proposed that the holding period not come into play in cases where cats are taken in for purposes of sterilization and are then returned.
Of course, there is much more that shelters can do and are ethically obligated to do, but do not. This includes making it illegal for shelters to kill animals when rescue groups are willing to save them. It should be illegal to kill animals simply because the holding period has expired. Before an animal is killed, all of the following conditions should be met:
- There are no empty cages, kennels, or other living environments in the shelter;
- The animal cannot share a cage or kennel with another animal;
- A foster home is not available;
- Rescue groups have been offered the animals and will not accept him/her;
- The animal is not a cat subject to sterilization and release (and a valid explanation as to why); and
- The director of the agency certifies he or she has no other alternative.
While I believe that it should be illegal for shelters to kill any animal who is not irremediably suffering, given that local and state governments are not likely to pass such sweeping laws at this time in history, bifurcated holding periods which require shelters to make animals available for adoption, rescue rights laws, and more shelter regulation will, at the very least, save more lives than shelters are saving now given that they abuse their discretion in the absence of regulations time and time again, such as killing animals despite rescue groups ready, willing and able to save them, as studies in New York, California and Florida have proved. As it stands, simply reducing hold times without more will be a death sentence.
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Here is my story: www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=11902
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