Dogged Blog

Costly spa for pampered pets -- or a way to save animal lives?

The San Francisco SPCA has had its share of problems recently, and I've covered a few of them -- accusations they'd abandoned their commitment to guaranteeing a home for every healthy and treatable homeless dog and cat in the city, and questions about how they handled the closing of their nearly-30-year-old Hearing Dog Program.



But the more I dug into this story, the less and less I agreed that there's a problem with the new 44,000 square foot veterinary hospital the SF/SPCA built adjacent to their adoption center.



Granted, they only recently began to do a good job of portraying the Leanne B. Roberts Animal Care Center as a vital part of their animal lifesaving mission. Before that, its original incarnation as a specialty hospital meant to provide revenue to the shelter had made a lasting impression in people's minds, even though that plan had been abandoned before the project was halfway built.



Somehow the hospital had the image of being a costly spa for pampered pets and a cash cow for the shelter (oh, if only there were a surefire way to raise buckets of cash for animal shelters!) and, as the project went over-budget and the economy tanked, a financial black hole that was killing other good programs in the shelter.



But is that image a fair one? Regardless of the project's origins, regardless of how it's been spun or not spun during its construction, the fact is that the new hospital has a vital, even essential, role to play in the shelter's stated mission of saving animal lives. And to understand what that role is, you also have to understand the quiet revolution that has swept through veterinary practice and the shelter world in the last few years. From my column this week at SFGate.com:

The new care center is part of the emerging -- some might say exploding -- field of shelter medicine. Ten years ago, that field didn't exist; today, 24 of this country's 28 veterinary colleges offer training in shelter medicine.



You might assume that shelter medicine is about making sure as many pets as possible are spayed and neutered, cutting down on the number of animals who end up in the shelter in the first place. Certainly that's a vital part of this field, as is the treatment of illnesses and injuries among shelter animals. But its greatest impact comes from a broader approach to preventing illness and behavior problems in shelter animals -- those very pets who will be playing with our kids and sleeping at their feet at night.



By developing shelter-specific protocols for evaluating the health of animals when they arrive at the shelter, shelter medicine practitioners ensure that dogs and cats in need of treatment can get the best care for their unique needs. If they're sick with an infectious disease, they can be kept out of the general shelter population, preventing the spread of illness.



The practice of shelter medicine encompasses every procedure that might affect the health and adoptability of pets in shelters, including making sure kennels, runs and adoption areas are cleaned effectively. It also promotes best practices for training non-veterinary shelter staff, so that animals needing medication receive it on schedule, and those with behavior problems are socialized and housed so as to minimize stress.



In fact, stress reduction is probably among the most important components of shelter medicine. Pets kept in noisy, over-crowded or sterile environments can become shy, fearful or "cage crazy" while awaiting adoption. Such animals often become difficult or even impossible to adopt, either because their shyness makes them easy to overlook or because their behavior problems make potential adopters fear they'll be problem pets.

I go on to describe my tour of the shelter's old hospital, and describe the many ways in which animal's lives -- those of animals in the SF/SPCA, in the city shelter, and belonging to homeless and low income San Franciscans -- are going to be saved by the new care center's cutting edge shelter medicine practice and its charitable work. But it's not just animal lives that will be saved; human suffering and taxpayer expense will, too:

Make no mistake; infectious diseases and stressful confinement don't just cost shelters money and result in the suffering and death of shelter pets. Keep one dog with kennel cough out of the dog park or one cat with ringworm from infecting the kids in the family, and you've saved hundreds of dollars in medical expenses for the humans who might adopt them. Stop one dog or cat from developing stress-related behavior problems, and you might prevent the development of a nuisance barking problem, destructiveness like digging and chewing or even keep a child from being bitten.



Certainly the new hospital, coming online in the midst of the worst economic climate in a generation, is controversial. But the SF/SPCA's decision in 1990 to guarantee that every healthy, treatable dog or cat would be adopted was controversial. The resulting 1994 Adoption Pact between the city and the shelter was controversial. Even the San Francisco SPCA's multimillion-dollar Maddie's Adoption Center, where animals awaiting adoption live in home-like environments instead of cages and runs and now a model for similar shelters across the country, was controversial in its day.



Beyond maintaining a healthy skepticism and a watchful eye, does it help the city's animals to assume this project, too, won't save lives and make our community a better place to live for people as well as pets?

You can read the full article here.

Friday night with Gina and Dr. Becker!

PetHobbyist.com Chat Month continues to eat my life, but I won't mind so much when the event resumes this Friday evening. That's because joining us at will be Gina Spadafori and Dr. Marty Becker!



Their topic? Something we all care a great deal about: helping our dogs and cats live as long as possible. They'll share two secrets that can help our pets just do that, which they've dubbed the "Furry Fountain of Youth."



It's happening Friday evening, February 13, at 10 PM Eastern Time in the Auditorium chat room on PetHobbyist.com.



You might want to check out the chat right before Gina and Dr. Becker's; Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D., author of "The Cautious Canine" and "The Other End of the Leash," will be discussing canine behavior with us at 9 PM Eastern in the Dog Den.



Although I hope you can be there, if you have questions for Gina and Dr. Becker, or for Patricia McConnell, and can't make the chats -- or just want to improve the chances your question will get asked -- you can email them to me at [email protected] or post them here.



See you at chat!

What are animal shelters for?

"I think some people are just using the economy as an excuse to dump a pet they didn't want anyway."



Add that to "I'd live in my car before I'd give up my pets" as WTF comments I keep hearing in discussions about pets being relinquished to shelters when their owners lose their jobs, homes, or suffer other effects of the current economic collapse.



It's not that I don't feel the same way about my pets, nor even that I disagree that some people will get rid of their pets for the most trivial of reasons.  It's this: This is a useless path to go down if we want to solve the problem of animal suffering and death.



Yes, hello, some people suck. They drive drunk, blow their paychecks at the track, buy a new HD television set instead of paying their bills, embezzle from their clients, and skip out on child support. Do you think that will ever end? Do you think those people will ever stop getting pets? That's why we have shelters, and why we'll always need them. Every time I see someone say that the goal of the shelter movement should be to put itself out of business because there are no more animals in need of their services, I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry.



As long as we define "success" as the literal end of a need for animal shelters, and insist that goal must be met before we stop killing healthy, treatable pets instead of finding them homes, or before we stop insisting that breeding is evil and that pets should be required by law to be sterilized, then we're dooming ourselves to abject failure. That day will never come. Never.



We have to replace the paradigm of "people are bad and evil so we have to prevent them from having pets in the first place so we no longer have to mop up after them" with one of, "Sometimes animals need our help, and that's why we're here."



Of course we should have programs to help people cope with behavior problems, so they know they have alternatives to surrendering their cat or dog. Of course we must provide accessible, low-cost, free, or incentivized spay/neuter. Of course we should provide counseling, dog training, and whatever other services we can to help people and their pets be happy together. Those services are for people who aren't "irresponsible," but rather people who need resources and assistance to do what they want to do in the first place: keep their pets and have it be fun, rewarding, and joyful instead of stressful, difficult, and unpleasant.



And of course we should provide sheltering, medical care, and rehoming services for the animals of people facing economic hard times, illness or disability, or other challenges. Those things, too, are inevitable, and their animals will sometimes need more help than they can give them.



But equally "of course" is that some people just don't want to keep their animals. The bond isn't that deep, and they'll get rid of them for flimsy reasons. Reality check: that's none of our business and we can't change it, because it's not about animals, but about those people, their values and personality type. We should BEG them to give up those pets to a shelter that will find them a new home with someone who really wants them. We shouldn't be lecturing those people; we should be smiling and nodding and pushing the surrender papers and a pen into their hands as fast as we can.



Now, I need a reality check here, too, because of course, not all communities currently have the resources to take every animal in need of their services into their system 24/7. I'm not talking so much about actual policies and programs that should be implemented immediately everywhere, but about changing how we envision the role of animal shelters in our society.



Right now, America is in a transitional stage of animal sheltering, as popular support for solutions to animal population control that don't involve killing animals is growing nationwide. For many in the shelter world, being told they're doing it wrong by the very class of people they hold responsible for the problem in the first place is infuriating.  Tempers are short on both sides, and it can sometimes be hard to hear each other over what British folk singer Billy Bragg once called "the sound of ideologies clashing."



Of course, it's human nature that large groups of people will always have such divisions. I'm not expecting there to be unanimity of opinion on sheltering, any more than on anything else. Fortunately, we don't need to march in lock-step to succeed in helping animals. But we do need to share a common goal, and right now, we don't.



My proposal is that our goal be to bring the need for animal services in a given community below its threshold of resources. We can reach that goal both by reducing need and increasing resources, two approaches that are almost infinitely customizable to match regional and local circumstances. It's compatible with a wide range of techniques, programs, policies, and even ideologies. It's definable by data, not emotions.



And it's an achievable goal, because it works with, instead of against, human nature, both good and bad. It accepts that some people will always do wrong by their animals, but many others will be ready and willing to help them. It meets the reality check.



But it's also a goal that requires we all adjust how we think about – and discuss – the problem. In other words, what do we want animal shelters to be for? Places to get animals out of sight and mind so they're not troubling society? Slaughterhouses and prisons where every attempt at reform is cast as enabling irresponsible pet owners? Adoption and rehoming centers at which people aren't stigmatized for needing their services, and that people aren't reluctant to visit if they're looking for a new family pet? Centers for training, education, and pet health care?



As long as one set of stakeholders has a goal of putting shelters out of business because they think they can end all need of animals for sheltering, while another envisions them as a safety net for the animals who will inevitably need their services, it's hard to imagine we'll be able to make much more progress in saving animal lives.



So I say it's time for reality-based sheltering. You say people suck and that's why animals suffer? You're right. But fixing that isn't the job of animal shelters; their job is to take care of animals.



They can do that by embracing the other reality: for every person who sucks, there's someone who doesn't. There are people who would like to volunteer at the animal shelter, if only it were made inviting and rewarding for them. Who would donate if they believed it would really help animals. Who would adopt a pet from a shelter if they felt welcomed and not judged. Who would foster sick or orphaned pets if they were recruited, trained, and given support. That, too, is reality.



But putting shelters out of business forever because there are no more animals who need them? That's nothing but a fantasy.

Catching up with Design Star's Matt Locke

 As part of my very difficult and important job as a girl reporter, as well as AfterElton.com's go-to-girl (I just typoed that as "go-go-girl" which would be a lot more interesting,wouldn't it?) on all things HGTV, I got a screener for this weekend's upcoming episode of HGTV Showdown, a design competition series.

They sent it to me because, of course, it had the gay. And in this case, the gay it had was last season's Design Star first runner-up Matt Locke, who I'd interviewed a couple of times for AE. I was scheduled to interview him today, and I did, but before that, I put the DVD in and watched it. (See how hard it is to be a girl reporter?)

The announcer introduced the contestants. Team One was Design Star Season Two winner Kim Myles of Myles of Style, paired with Matt, who was the runner-up in Season Three.

Team Two was Design Star Season Three winner Jennifer Bertrand, along with Kim's Season Two runner-up, Todd Davis, a blond surfer dude type.

Just to put what I'm about to say in context, Kim is African-American, Jennifer is, of course, a woman as well as visibly pregnant, and Matt, well... we know about Matt.

So, everyone is chit-chatting and then Todd says that he intends to win because he's not "going to be beaten by a chick."

I thought to myself, Todd, you're going down -- just as Kim was saying the same thing out loud on my teevee.

Oh, and one other thing: you already were "beaten by a chick," Todd dear. That's why you're the sidekick and Kim has her own show.

Journalistic ethics prevent me from telling you how it all turned out, but it will be on this Sunday night at 9 PM ET/PT on HGTV.

Forgive me for bringing the politics to the pop culture, but there's something very, very wrong about the only straight, white man on that stage saying something like that. 

On a happier note, Matt says his career has exploded since his appearance on Design Star. He's been doing design work for clients, pitching a television show to the various networks, and making public appearances all over the country. I asked him what kind of show he wanted to do, and his answer reminded me of the first thing we bonded over when I interviewed him last year: a mutual love of designer Candice Olson, whose Canadian show Divine Design airs on HGTV.

"I tried to pitch something like 'an American version of Candice Olson,'" he told me, "but it will never happen here. The Canadian government subsidizes those shows, and the homeowners pay for at least part of the work she does. We just don't have the budgets here for that kind of work. It will never happen."

Wow, Matt, way to break my heart; I'm sick of all the new "faux drama" reality crap on HGTV, like Property Shop and Buy Me. "That's what viewers like these days," he told me. "That's the direction HGTV is going in more and more."

Then we reminisced about 80s music, but some things are, you know, personal.

Don't forget to watch Showdown, and root for Matt and Kim!

WTF, California?

 What is wrong with this state?

California's budget crisis may be "solved," with news of a tentative agreement leaking out today. Via Kim Thornton at Pet Connection, from the Sacramento Bee:

Multiple legislative sources said Tuesday that it would raise revenues temporarily by these means:

• Increasing the state's sales tax by 1 cent on the dollar.

• Increasing gasoline taxes by 12 cents per gallon.

• Raising the state's vehicle license fee from the current 0.65 percent of a vehicle's value to 1.15 percent, with 1 percent going to the general fund and local law enforcement getting 0.15 percent.

• Increasing the personal income tax across the board, either by assessing a surcharge on tax liability or increasing the tax rate.

Sigh, regressive taxes. Morons.

The vehicle license fee should never have been lowered in the first place -- that Ahnold brainstorm alone is responsible for a good bit of the state's financial problems.

The income tax is a no-brainer, and if we had good public transit across the state, the gas tax, too.

But to increase sales tax and, under the circumstances, the gas tax, is to simply crush people who are already barely making it to what, divert the wrath of the Republicans if they dared increase the income tax too much? Maybe they should read this New York Times op-ed by Netflix founder Reed Hastings:

I’m the chief executive of a publicly traded company and, like my peers, I’m very highly paid. The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I’d like to offer a suggestion. President Obama should celebrate our success, rather than trying to shame us or cap our pay. But he should also take half of our huge earnings in taxes, instead of the current one-third.

Then, the next time a chief executive earns an eye-popping amount of money, we can cheer that half of it is going to pay for our soldiers, schools and security. Higher taxes on huge pay days can finance opportunity for the next generation of Americans.

[....]

This week, President Obama proposed imposing a $500,000 compensation cap on companies seeking a bailout. It’s a terrible idea. We all want the taxpayers’ money returned, and capping compensation at bailout recipients will just make it that much harder for those boards to hire and hold on to the executives who can lead their companies to compete and thrive.

Perhaps a starting place for “tax, not shame” would be creating a top federal marginal tax rate of 50 percent on all income above $1 million per year. Some will tell you that would reduce the incentive to earn but I don’t see that as likely. Besides, half of a giant compensation package is still pretty huge, and most of our motivation is the sheer challenge of the job anyway.

Instead of trying to shame companies and executives, the president should take advantage of our success by using our outsized earnings to pay for the needs of our nation.

I will never understand why people in this country aren't rioting in the streets.

Tiger the Deerhound ' s fifteen minutes of fame aren ' t quite over yet

I promise this is the end of my Westminster "a Scottish Deerhound won the Hound Group and his daddy was a field hound!" squee-fest.



But I couldn't close this chapter without sharing with you all this charming video from a young girl with a bright future as a dog journalist, reporting from the benching area at the Garden, where she's interviewing the dogs.



No, that wasn't a typo. She's interviewing the dogs. And Tiger, the Deerhound who won the Hound Group at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show Monday night? It's at the end, and it's worth the wait.

No parrot can be happy without toys

Every dog and cat owner knows it's true: a tired pet is a good pet. And to that end we buy balls and laser pointers, stuff cheese inside of Kong balls, and put the empty grocery bags on the floor. But what about pet birds? From this week's Pet Connection newspaper feature:

(A)s important as toys are for dogs and cats, they’re even more essential to those who spend a great deal of time in cages that can never be big enough for a pet whose ancestors had the sky as their home.



No parrot can ever be happy, in other words, without toys.



Playthings are essential to maintaining the physical and mental well-being of parrots large and small. They help keep pet birds fit while fighting the boredom that can contribute to behavioral and health problems such as feather-picking.



Although you can buy toys by major manufacturers from the big chain stores, it’s also nice to choose from the variety of playthings lovingly made by a cottage industry of bird lovers and available from independent bird shops, through catalogs and on the Internet. You can even make your own!

The Labrador retriever continues to dominate the American Kennel Club's list of top ten dog breeds:

1. Labrador retriever

2. Yorkshire terrier

3. German shepherd

4. Golden retriever

5. Beagle

6. Boxer

7. Dachshund

8. Bulldog

9. Poodle

10. Shih tzu

Susan Tripp, MS, and Rolan Tripp DVM consider the effect of neutering on canine aggression problems, and share tips on training your dog to come when called. Then Gina asks, are you sure an active dog breed is right for your family?

Your dog barks non-stop. Your dog digs, ruining your yard. Your dog chews anything he can get his teeth on. What’s missing from this picture? Chances are, it’s exercise.



While environmental management (such as removing barking triggers or giving a dog something acceptable to chew) and training your dog are important, these strategies are only part of the solution. When dogs don’t get the exercise they need, it causes problems.



If you’re thinking of getting a dog, think very seriously about what breed you want and whether you can provide an active dog with the exercise it needs. If you can’t honestly say that your dog will get 30 minutes of heart-thumping aerobic exercise at least three to four days a week — daily is better — then you really ought to reconsider getting an active breed.



Instead, consider the alternatives.

Dr. Marty Becker and Mikkel Becker Shannon warn that forensic science may be used in the future to nail dog poop scofflaws:

People can now can now walk without worrying about dog poop in the streets of Petah Tikva, Israel, now that they’re using science to pick up where the dogs left off. Veterinary Economics magazine reports that the city has launched a six-month trial that asks residents to take their dogs to a veterinarian to collect DNA. The information is then used in a database aimed at matching feces to dogs and identifying each dog’s owner. Owners who pick up their dog droppings and deposit them in specially marked bins will be eligible for rewards of pet food coupons and dog toys. Droppings left in the street could earn the dog’s owner a fine. The city is considering requiring DNA samples from all dogs if the trial run is successful.

All this and more, in our Pet Connection newspaper feature, which you can read right here.



You can also see it exactly the way we send it to our client newspapers here. (PDF)

FDA: Don ' t touch that elk meat, consumers

I can't decide whether the FDA or the USDA needs more urgent reform.



Oh heck, let's just get rid of them both and get one agency to make sure our food is safe and another to make sure our drugs are.



Does that make me a socialist?



Via Barb in the comments, a sterling example of the gross incompetence of those in charge of the American food supply. Seems FDA has just announced a little bitty oopsie:

Exotic Meats USA of San Antonio, TX is initiating a voluntary recall of Elk Tenderloin because it may contain meat derived from an elk confirmed to have Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).

CWD is one of the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies, which includes BSE -- "Mad Cow Disease."



Saying concerns about the safety of the meat are purely "theoretical," FDA adds:

At the present time, FDA believes the risk of becoming ill from eating CWD-positive elk or deer meat is remote.  However, FDA strongly advises consumers to return the product to the place of purchase, rather than disposing of it themselves, due to environmental concerns.

You know how Gina created that little slogan about "Why is anyone still listening to PETA?" I think we need a new one, "Why is anyone still putting up with the FDA?"



To quote Barb:

(T)hings are really getting out of hand. I closely follow CWD, BSE, etc., and that this particular Elk meat went into the food chain is shocking!

You know what's really sad? Considering USDA not only doesn't require ranchers to test for BSE in their livestock but doesn't allow them to test for it, I'm not shocked at all.

The son of a fast dog wins big at Westminster

We've been talking a lot lately about dogs being bred for function instead of winning in the show ring. But even when you want to breed for function, the work of some dog breeds has become an anachronism. None of us can test our Scottish Deerhounds on their ancestral quarry, the Highland Stag, a deer similar in size to an elk.



But there are many different performance events at which  breeders can test their hound's instincts and abilities, and in Scottish Deerhounds there is one dog who excelled almost incomprehensibly at them all: Rory.



Rory's full name was BII NFC DC Chartwell Silver Run Valevue SGRC, ORC, LCM 6, VC. He was bred and owned by Ellen Bonacarti of Chartwell Scottish Deerhounds, and Norma Sellers of Vale Vue.



And all those initials? From Ellen Bonacarti's website:

[Rory was] the first AKC National Lure Coursing Champion in 1994; the 1995 ASFA Best in International Invitational; the first NOTRA Oval Race Champion Deerhound; the first LGRA Gazehound Racing Champion Deerhound and the first ASFA Lure Courser of Merit 4, Lure Courser of Merit 5 and Lure Courser of Merit 6 Deerhound. He was the #2 ASFA Deerhound in 1994, 1995 and 1996 and the #1 ASFA Deerhound in 1997 and 1998; he is also currently the #1 lifetime ASFA Deerhound with over 600 Bowen points (dogs defeated). Rory was the #1 LGRA Deerhound in 1999 and #4 ASFA Deerhound. Rory was also the #1 NOTRA Deerhound in 1994 and 1995, making him one of the rare hounds to have been #1 in three different venues.



In 2000, Rory repeated as the #1 LGRA Deerhound and earned the Deerhound Sporting Club's "Fairchild Perpetual Award for Excellence in Racing." He tied for 6th in the ASFA Top Ten, his 7th straight year in the Top Ten.

I loved this dog back when he was a youngster, and wanted to breed my bitch Rosie to him. But I was young and stupid, and was worried that both sides of that pedigree had some really bad tails -- a fault I now couldn't possibly care less about. And it's too bad, too, because not only did Rory live past the age of 11, he was literally the runningest dog ever in our breed, as well as being a show champion -- yes, he really was -- and Rosie, herself a show champion, had two incredible running brothers and lived to be 13 and a half years old.



Yes, I do kick myself every day for being stoopid, stoopid, stoopid. What I wouldn't give now to have bred those two hounds together.



Fortunately, other breeders weren't such idiots, and Rory sired a few litters.



And today, one of his sons won the breed at Westminster, in something of an upset.



Congratulations to Ch. Gayleward's Tiger Woods -- who is 7 years old -- and to his breeder and owner, Gayle Bontecou. And good luck in the Hound Group!



Congratulations also to Ch Altnamara's Trial By Fire, owned by Linda and Ned Madden, for winning Best of Opposite Sex to Best of Breed, and to Diane Murray's Ch Lindisfarne Coll Of Gayleward CD RA JC NAJ for winning the only Award of Merit given today.



And here's to the day that no one has to make a post like this again, because all our conformation winners excel in the field, too.



[UPDATE:] Tiger won the Hound Group! Only the second deerhound since Ch. Fernhill's Phantom in 1991! And the son of a great field dog!



Here's a video of Ellen Bonacarti with Rory and a deerhound puppy, on a TV news "meet the breed" segment. She gives a pretty good overview of the breed:







Top photo of Rory at age 11, by Ellen Bonacarti. Bottom photo by Dan Gauss of Shot On Site photography. Both used with permission of Ellen Bonacarti.

Can we adopt our way out of shelter killing? HSUS, Maddie ' s Fund, and the Ad Council team up to try

Currently, somewhere between 3 and 4 million pets die in America's animal shelters and animal control agencies.



No-one involved in animal welfare is happy about that, but how we're going to solve it is a matter of great controversy. On one hand is the growing no-kill movement, and on the other is the traditional sheltering community. The two camps are caught in an ideological conflict about the use of killing to control animal population.



I could probably write a book comparing the different world views, ideas, and underlying ideologies of the two movements, but the most fundamental difference between them is how they answer this question: "Are there enough homes to absorb America's homeless pets?"



The traditional shelter world says no, and thus all its actions, policies, and programs and assumptions are based on that belief. From mandatory spay/neuter legislation to limit laws to breeding bans to restrictive adoption policies, their approach is predicated on the idea that we have too many pets for the carrying capacity of our country's resources. The only answer is to drastically reduce the supply, and until that happens, kill the excess. "Until there are none, adopt one." "Don't breed and buy while shelter dogs die."



The no-kill movement agrees that we should decrease the supply through widespread, low-cost, accessible spay/neuter -- something it argues has already been pretty successful, given that the vast majority of owned dogs and cats are already sterilized -- and find homes for those animals who come into the shelter system by utilizing programs like satellite adoptions, foster care, etc. It insists we can end the use of killing as a tool of animal population control if only the will is there to do it, and that "pet overpopulation" is a regional or facility-specific problem, rather than a national reality.



The two camps can argue philosophy until their heads explode, but there's a good case to be made that this isn't a debate about philosophy; it's about math.



The answer to "How many dogs and cats would you have to put into homes every year to stop killing in shelters?" is, quite simply, a number. "How many dogs and cats are adopted from shelters every year right now?" is also a number. So is "How many dogs and cats are acquired from other sources every year right now?"



And those three numbers, when looked at together, answer the question of whether or not there are enough homes for America's homeless pets. The numbers don't change based on your ideology. They're the same whether you love or hate Nathan Winograd, whether you think traditional shelters are heroes or villains, and whether you think the term "no-kill" is a powerful force for good or the worst of deceitful propaganda.



Richard Avanzino, the president of Maddie's Fund, a group that is spending $200 million from the Duffield Family Foundation to end the killing of America's healthy, treatable homeless dogs and cats, says that right now, Americans adopt around 20 percent of their pets from shelters. If that number were increased by only a couple of percentage points, it would put all the healthy, treatable homeless dogs and cats into homes, not just once, but sustainably. Is he right?



We may be about to find out.



Last year, Maddie's Fund and HSUS teamed up with the Ad Council, the country's leading producer of public service advertising and source of the famous and success campaigns “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” and “Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk," to design a three-year ad campaign aimed at closing that gap in shelter adoptions:

The goal of the Ad Council pet adoption campaign is to encourage millions of pet lovers who are looking for a pet to make animal shelters and rescue groups their first choice, saving the life of a dog or cat in need, rather than buying from other sources. It is the first time ever that the prestigious, 66-year-old Ad Council has focused a nationwide public service campaign on an animal welfare issue.



“We are ecstatic,” said Richard Avanzino, president of Maddie’s Fund. “This campaign has the potential to save all of our nation’s healthy and treatable shelter dogs and cats and change the course of events in the cause of animal welfare.”



“It will make a life-saving difference in securing loving homes for untold numbers of pets and get us closer to a no-kill nation,” added Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States.



“We are thrilled to partner with these prestigious organizations on this critical initiative to help save shelter pets by giving them homes,” said Peggy Conlon, President and CEO, The Advertising Council.

The campaign is not just about television and print ads. It has a huge social component, one that's based on extensive research and focus group testing about where people get their pets, why, and their attitudes about shelter adoption.



It turns out that there are 41 million people who want to adopt a pet from a shelter, but haven't done so yet. They are, in effect, the "swing voters" in this effort, those whose actions will make the difference between success and failure -- literally, between life and death for America's shelter pets. It would take only a small percentage of those people following through on a decision they've already made to get all healthy and treatable dogs and cats out of the shelters and into homes.



There are 14 million of us who did get pets from shelters. The campaign will be asking all of us who have shelter pets and/or who support shelter adoption to put our weight behind this campaign. Because although I know I've often written about my beloved shelter dog, Colleen, and many of us write and blog about our shelter pets, the reality is that this topic isn't well-represented when researchers look at the content of online pet conversations.



In other words, we need to talk about our shelter pets, and shelter adoption, more. Not yell at people, not guilt and shame them into action, not make them cry with the sad fate of animals in shelters if they don't come and get 'em. No, this is a change year, a hope year; negative messaging is out. We need to talk about the rewards and joys of bringing a shelter pet into our homes.



Imagine that; something fun and positive that you can do to save animal lives, and you don't have to get off your computer or spend a dime.



Will this campaign succeed in closing the adoption gap and making that change permanent? That's a question only time is going to answer, but if nothing else, it's going to get a lot of dogs and cats out of shelters and into loving homes, and elevate the images of shelter pets and animal shelters.



And if it works? We won't ever have to argue the ideology of no-kill again, because the numbers will settle the debate.



I invited Rich Avanzino to come answer questions about the new campaign, Maddie's Fund, and the no-kill movement at a chat tonight, Saturday, February 7, at 7 PM Pacific/10 PM Eastern Time, as part of PetHobbyist.com's annual Chat Month. Please feel free to email me your questions for Rich at [email protected]; questions received in advance have a better chance of being answered.



(Note from Christie: I've been doing some editorial work for Maddie's Fund, but the Ad Council campaign pre-dates my involvement.)