It is true that some people are irresponsible. As a former criminal prosecutor, animal control officer, and animal control director, I have seen my fair share of it. In terms of being a prosecutor, I’ve seen more than “irresponsibility,” I’ve seen things that have the potential to destroy your faith in humanity. But it shouldn’t because most people, the vast majority of people, are not like that. My point is twofold. One, when we are in the trenches, we have a pretty myopic view and we need to guard against universalizing that. Consider this: In a national survey, 96% of Americans—almost every single person surveyed—said we have a moral duty to protect animals and should have strong laws to do so. Three out of four Americans believe it should be illegal for shelters to kill healthy and treatable animals. Specialization and advancements in the field of veterinary medicine have been driven by a population of Americans willing to spend and do whatever it takes to save the lives of the animals they love. In fact, spending on our animal companions is the seventh largest sector of the retail economy, showing steady annual increases even in the face of economic uncertainty. And giving to animal related causes continues to be the fastest growing segment in American philanthropy. Most people love dogs and cats and do right by them.
Second, the fact that some people are irresponsible doesn’t mean animals have to die. For example, on June 11, 2001, I drove into the parking lot for the first time as the new director of the shelter in Tompkins County, NY. I was met at the front door by someone with five kittens he didn’t want. By handing them over to us, in his estimation he had done his duty. He had brought them to the animal shelter and they were now our responsibility.
For most shelters, this is the point at which the breakdown that leads to killing occurs. The current view is that killing the kittens is, in large part, a fait accompli, and that the fault for the killing belonged to the person at the front door. It was his failure to spay his cat, his failure to make a lifetime commitment to the kittens. But this view, while endemic to the culture of animal control, is not accurate. Thankfully, on that day, the person did not live in a community whose shelter still subscribed to those views. On that day, the Tompkins County shelter explicitly rejected the policies legitimized and championed by most shelters nationwide. Clearly, killing those kittens was not going to be an option. Not surprisingly, we found all of them—and the thousands of others who passed through our doors—homes. And we did not hold them indefinitely. Our average length of stay was only 8 days and no animal ever celebrated an anniversary. Moreover, while there, every dog was required to get out of their kennels four times a day and cats at least twice a day.
Animal homelessness is an inevitable fact born of the very nature of life itself: nothing lasts forever, people die, animals become lost, circumstances change, and yes, some people just don’t want their animals anymore. Animal shelters are supposed to protect animals from the uncertainties of life, and to give them a new home when things go wrong. While relinquishing care of an animal to most shelters in America literally amounts to gambling with that animal’s life, the deadly fate awaiting many shelter animals is not the natural outcome of animal homelessness but, rather, a tradition of killing that can be eliminated. As Tompkins County did then and hundreds of communities across the nation conclusively prove now, shelter killing is a choice.
Of course, this discussion is not meant as a defense of irresponsible people, but rather, as a segue to providing a much needed fresh perspective on issues surrounding homeless dogs and cats. It would be ideal if everyone was responsible with animals in the broadest meaning of the term; but that doesn’t mean shelters must kill until everyone is. Our animal shelters could be great, and the narrative that says that when an animal is no longer wanted, tragedy must necessarily ensue, could be replaced by the understanding that when animals need a helping hand, our society ensures that they have one. The infrastructure for this is already in place. What is lacking is the will to reform the 3,000-plus kill shelters across the nation. As long as we fail to reform shelters, millions of dogs and cats will continue to needlessly lose their lives each and every year.
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