Dogged Blog

No Kill Conference 2011: Shelter directors who are saving 90 percent and more

Here at the No Kill Conference in Washington DC. we're hearing from what's called "The  90 Percent Club" -- communities that are saving 90 percent and more of their dogs and cats.

The panel is being moderated by Ryan Clinton of FixAustin.org (another community that's been saving 90 percent for several months now), and includes Bonney Brown of the Nevada Humane Society, Reva Laituri of the No Kill Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter in Marquette, Mich., Mitch Schneider of Washoe County Animal Control, Michael Linke, Director of the Royal SPCA in Tasmania, Australia, and Suzane Kogut, the Executive Director of the Charlottesville SPCA, an open admission animal control shelter that is celebrating its fifth year of no-kill.

The panel opens with Mitch Schneider talking about the public-private partnership between animal control and the Nevada Humane Society. He was "against" no-kill, thought it was a divisive term, but when Washoe County decided to go no kill and brought in Bonney Brown, he figured he'd just "do my job and stay out of her way." But that didn't last:  "She changed our world for the better."

Bonney points out that Nevada Humane takes ALL Washoe County's owner surrendered pets.

Mitch: In a transformation in ANY field, you can retrain a third, fire a third, and a third will quit.

Bonney says that's pretty much what happened at Nevada Humane -- only four original staffers left.  Says board became receptive after a scandal damaged the shelter's image in the society.

She says that all team members have to be on board with the mission. Tough decisions are what you're being paid to make and the animals lives depend on it. You will have to fire people.

Susanne Kogut: Their board also wanted to do something different - thought her ideas were crazy. They told her she couldn't use the term "no-kill," and she said that it was her best tool for fundraising and community support. "Good thing I have trouble with authority." She said it anyway and one day the board started saying it, too.

"Do not hate or make your community mad at you; you absolutely need them to do this." "Need a passion to save lives and a relentless determination to succeed."

Once to quit once a month and seriously, 5 or 6 times. "You just gotta push through it and keep going, because you fundamentally know you're doing the right thing.... because it's all about the animals."

Ryan: Reva, you were the president of a board of directors. Didn't have control of the shelter, but you had a vision. How did  you see something many boards of directors don't? And what's it like doing this transition from the board.

Reva: Got on board in early 80s until mid-90s. Came back around 10  years later.

We had around 60 percent adoption rate when she left, but when  she came back they were killing over 60 percent.

She went to conferences given by big national groups with the shelter director, and realized she got a lot of rhetoric  from her, maybe burnout or bad experiences. Adoption procedure was ridiculous.  People called them "animal nazis" who would rather kill than adopt. Couldn't keep volunteers, high turnover of staff. Donations down. Everything was bad.

Then in 2006 got introduced to "Meet Your Match" and the philosophy that you let the adopter take ownership of the process.

Also, more visionaries on board.

Director was always poking a stick  in the wheel, would go behind the scenes and do things against new rules, making adoptions harder.

In 2007, another board member read Redemption, and the board started making a lot of changes. The director wouldn't go along with it, found out director was lying to the board, and in July of 2007, she resigned. She had resigned before and board had always begged her to stay, but this time they said "Thank you."

In her last six months she did her best to obstruct change (resignation was effective six months later, which she says in retrospect was  mistake).

Director left the animal welfare movement.

Ryan: "Which is probably a good thing for animals."

Ryan asks Michael Linke about the toll of the transition on relationships. Staff of 60, only has 2-3 remaining. "You have to make tough decisions sometimes."

Discussion of working with union workers -- know your laws.

Ryan asked Mitch, what do you do when you have shelter directors who aren't interested in saving lives/

Mitch: Dealing with someone who is entrenched in old thinking, doesn't want to change, cause failure. He worked with someone like that who ended up retiring, then the fight was with the people who sided with the old guy. Most of the people changed "kicking and screaming."

Ryan: But why were YOU reachable, as a self-described former no-kill hater/

Mitch: "No-kill" was always used as a weapon against animal control by humane societies and rescue groups, traditionally. But I didn't come into animal control as a profession, had a lot of experience as a trainer, saw pet owners differently and wanted to treat them as I'd like to be treated. I believe in doing the right thing for the right reasons. Not to say I've never made mistakes, but I'm always trying to do the right thing for the right reason. Gov't should never stand in the way of no-kill -- there's no logical justification for it.

His love of logic is why he has focused on return to owner. Dog's better off, owner's better off, taxpayer's better off.Around 65 percent return to owner rate for stray dogs. Seventy five percent are back to owner same or or next day.

"We hire staff who love animals but are asked to do the 'dirty deed'."

Michael started in animal welfare 2-3 years before "Redemption" came down. People who worked in that industry told him that they were just a "recycling center" and couldn't worry about the animals they killed, and he said it took him almost no time to realize he didn't want anything to do with that way of doing things.

Within 8-9 months were rehoming more than 90 percent dogs.

Figured it was ridiculous to kill to create space for another pet, "You have to solve the problem in front of your face first, not just kill them."

Susanne: Planning needs to be fast, short-term and flexible. Don't waste time planning for things that might never happen.

Bonney: There's a lot of power in just doing it and seeing what happens. There's always more than one good solution. Our challenge was just to think of one of those solutions. As Seth Godin said yesterday, people are looking for a leader. Just stand up and say, now we're going to do this. You can't be terribly risk-averse. Show great confidence to your staff and they will rise to the occasion. Doubt and negativity are contagious, but so is a can-do attitude.  I think we don't see more no-kill communities because people are timid, and think "What if this, what if that."

But Bonney says she does like documentation and setting things up like manuals, because it needs to be able to keep happening without her.

"Create and adjust." The "create" part is really important. When you're doing it, you keep adjusting it. It doesn't have to be perfect right out of the gate.

Susanne: Eliminate "we can't because" and "it won't work because." Focus on solutions, not what won't work. If you can't offer a solution, just shut up.

Mitch: Document what you're doing, and as things work, make them part of your policy and procedures. Leave people who come behind you a road map. Bonney and Mitch aren't going to live forever.

Ryan: Now, speed-dating questions. No comments, no experiences.

Q to Reva: Why didn't you accelerate the resignation of your director?

A: We should have.

Q to Bonney: How increase adoptions and foster homes?

A: Customer service, streamlining adoption process, making it friendly. We see lots of adoptions each day, adopters only adopt a few pets in their lifetime. They're heroes! Make a big deal about it! Let them leave your shelter feeling really good!

Susanne added marketing, don't make it so hard -- true with fosters too. Don't put up a lot of barriers. The minute someone wants to do it, don't make a big process out of it. If they walk in the door to foster, send them home with some kittens!

Q: Have any of you made complete career path changes and did any of you take a big step backward to do it?

A: Susanne: Do you mean in how much you make? Absolutely. But it's about how you define success in your life.  I was doing very well financially in the corporate world, but I wanted what I did with my life to have meaning. It was a huge step back financially, but what I have is myself. As hard as it is at the end of the day, I know that I've made a difference in animals' lives.

Q: For Mitch, what is RTO program secret?

A: Ah, you should have gone to my show! Email me [email protected]. I will send you my white paper.

(Missed a couple of questions when I had a brief computer issue, sorry.)

Q: Best tool to reach out to communities?

Susanne: Cute animals! All the other non-profits hate us.

Reva: Community ownership. People can sponsor part of adoption fee, advertising, vaccination, cat condos -- we get the money like nobody's business. We acknowledge them right on the page. People love that. Our website is a lot of people's home page.

Q: During first 6 months- 1yr, during staff turnover, how do you find new staff and keep up morale of staff that's there?

Michael: We were open and honest with existing staff.

Susanne: You are better off with a person who has no knowledge and doesn't want to sabotage everything than the reverse.

No Kill Conference 2011: Social media

Alan Rosenblatt, Ph.D., of the Center for American Progress is doing a presentation on social media advocacy. Not particularly animal-related.

Talks about additive summation. Used Pres. Obama asking everyone to call congressional reps last week, they call -- and crash the phone system -- but they also post to reps' Facebook pages, protest outside of their offices, etc. Hit them everywhere, they're more likely to budge.

Same for us if we want to mobilize people we know. Reach with Twitter, Facebook, signage, talking in coffee shop, house parties, dog-washing parties. Bring people together, spread the message. We know repetition works with messaging. When we hear from more than one source, there's this thing called "source amnesia," they may not remember where they heard the message, but they remember the message.

Social media. "Here Comes Everybody."

The way things were: Talks about email lists of the past. Email is a closed communication loop.

The way things are now: Eg, Congress can't ignore FB, Twitter, etc. on social networks is because the world can see. Because the reason most people are there is to share what they find.

Social is not intrusive. It's not in your email box. It's just in your news stream. That is the nature of the platform. It's there, then it's gone, you don't have to do anything about it if you don't want to.

Members of Congress may not care to hear from non-constituents by email, phone, via web contact, but they have to care that people from anywhere can shut down their Facebook page with posts, or organize to raise money for their opponent.

You can't target everyone. You have to focus your message and pick key people. (I AGREE!!!!)

A 9-second sound bite = around 140 characters, Twitter limit.

He's never found a haiku longer than 80 characters, and they can describe the universe. "Imagine what you can describe with 140." But he says stay at 120 if you want people to re-tweet -- 80 percent RT manually, so they can add their own comments or hashtags.

Discussion of hashtags. This conference is #nkc2011, but people on #nokill don't seem to know. Need to announce a new or event-specific hashtag by announcing to more widely-used hashtag what the new hashtag is. Eg, tweet to #nokill and mention that #nkc2011 is the hashtag for this conference.

Long discussion about using "Facebook page takeovers" and the "etiquette" of removing posts on your wall and comments that you don't like. Your shutting down your critics can hurt you. Big time.

The movement of sophistication on these platforms is different from old time PR (how to make you LOOK good, not be good) to new PR, where they're really being told they have to  BE good, DO good, to walk the talk.

I just noticed David is reading this liveblog while he's sitting next to me listening to it in real time. I AM DEAD OF THE META.

Interesting that most interest at this presentation from the audience is about Twitter!

Question from audience: Do hashtags have RSS feeds? Answer: Yes.

Q: How to find someone's Twitter name? A: He recommends searching on Google with the person's name and the word Twitter rather than searching on Twitter.

Twitter reaches INFLUENCERS, Facebook better for grassroots.

Experts are more trusted than the most trusted institutions, so not just your organization should be on Twitter and FB, YOU and YOUR PEOPLE should be on FB and Twitter.

Better to have a few influential followers than many more who aren't.

To get more followers:

Step one: Make a connection. Fan or friend them, follow them.  Talk with them on social media -- it's SOCIAL. wefollow.com. listorius.com. keyword search or location search on search.twitter.com.

Step two: Engage the people you want to get in your audience. Share their stuff with your audience. Ask them for their expertise so they can help you, which massages their ego.

Step three: Recommend them. #followfriday or #ff. Create lists who are influencers in your field, then rec the list. On FB, like a post, or comment, and share on your wall. Once they follow you, keep repeating "engage" and "recommend." The more you give the more you get.

Web is altruistic. We draw people to us to send everyone to other places.

No Kill Conference 2011: Advocacy blogging

This is so meta -- our own David Greene and me, liveblogging the presentation by bloggers Brent Toellner of KC Dog Blog and Shirley Thistlewaite of YesBiscuit! talking about advocacy blogging at the No Kill Conference in Washington, DC. That's Brent, Shirley and David in the photo.

All the usual disclaimers apply: I'm doing this live, there will be typos, and I'll be updating a few times during the presentation so use your refresh button to check for new material.

By the way, there is a persistent rumor that Shirley is going to sing for us. Brent started that rumor. Shirley says if she does, it will be at the end.

The session starts at 10:45 AM Eastern, so stay tuned!

Brent and Shirley are introducing all the bloggers in the audience. Kathy Pobloskie of Wisconsin Watchdog, the Pets Alive blog, SavingShelterPets.wordpress.com, No Kill Nation, Valerie Hayes from coolcrazybeautifulworld.com, David and me  from PetConnection.com, new blogger from Prince Georges, MD (georgeofdenmarkscounty.blogspot.com), straycatalliance.org (Los Angeles).

Brent has been blogging at KC Dog Blog for around 5 years, Shirley at YesBiscuit!

Brent: How get news has changed. From over the fence to papers to TV news to 24 hour news channels, to media conglomerates.

People losing faith in the news media now. 57 percent have little to no trust in mainstream media (Gallup).

Online news is growing. 41 percent of Americans get news from Internet. Online is single biggest news source, more than TV and newspaper.

This is great for us. Your start up costs of an online community are zero. Go to Blogger or WordPress, it's free. We can be on the same playing field as maimstream media and cover things they aren't.

Trust in bloggers we "know" is growing -- and we define "know" very broadly these days.

Citizen journalists are doing journalism.

Reviewed basics of setting up blog.

Typepad, WordPress, Blogger, Examiner.

Looking at how to get content for blog. More basics. Some in audience interested in getting started with blogging.

Discussion of freedom of information act requests. How to get info from animal control and from private orgs doing animal control. Even when they don't want you to. Brent says you'll be amazed at how much people will tell you -- including animal control officers who want things to change but feel they have no voice. Also gets data just by putting "FOI request" in the subject line of his emails -- not an official request that way, but signals to clerk that he knows he has the right to the info.

Promoting blog. SEO, be involved in the community, provide links, reach out to others, use other social media tools like Facebook and Twitter.

Just looked around -- this session is JAMMED. Yay, Brent and Shirley!

Discussion of various platforms that track web traffic. Google Analytics, etc.

Now to Shirley. Kind of things you can do on a blog.

Alabama 44. HSUS got owner to surrender these dogs. Shirley wanted to find out what happened to the dogs. Online newspaper in South Carolina said they'd rescued some dogs from Alabama. She wanted to find out where the rest went.

HSUS did not want to release the info. So she started digging.

The three dogs sent to Lincoln County in SC were put in a gas chamber. "This was not a rescue."  This, she says, is why HSUS did no promo of this "rescue."

Some of the dogs ran away from small groups HSUS farmed them out to, without any support. Dogs were scared, unsocialized.

How she ended up finding out what happened. Readers helped. Digging, digging, digging. "Where did these dogs go?"

Several had been killed by "shelters" they were sent to, several ran away, and some were adopted It was very hard to find the info and couldn't have done it without help from readers. Ultimately HSUS did issue a statement on website about case, "of course they told it a little differently than I told it."

HSUS said/implied were all unsocialized, feral. Would be no good to anybody.

Shirley eventually tracked 41 of the dogs. Put last 3 as unaccounted for, presumed dead.

Back to Brent. Story of Fay, which we also covered here on Pet Connection.

HSUS sent out a fundraising letter using Fay's picture "to help dogs like Faye (sic)." "HSUS in the end raised about $1.4 million with this." A small organization in St. Louis was really caring for Fay, and until furor erupted, Brent does not think the people really caring for Fay would have seen a penny.

"This one was my Twitter moment, because it exploded on Twitter." Within a couple of days, HSUS had donated $5K and then went up to $10K, and when Fay died during one of her surgeries they tried to get some of the money back.

Comment from audience: Reading Shirley and Brent's blogs has helped her put the pieces together in her own community.

Brent: We're trying to hold people accountable and providing an alternative information source to the official press release.

Back to Shirley, and Memphis Animal Services saga.

"It's sort of become the blog's focus in the last few months."

Recapped history -- "shelter" raided by sheriff's deputies for animal cruelty and neglect ("starving dogs to death"). New mayor said he would right the animal shelter, and put web cams in place. Transparency.

She showed some of the disturbing webcam images. Says she's found out they tie all the dogs to the wall in the kill room and they have to watch each other die. Dragged on choke poles into the kill room, terrified.

Started letter writing campaign to ask city for reform. "The more we became active asking the city to clean up its act, the more they resisted."

Stray area is only visible on webcams. Public is not allowed in stray area. They ahve hundreds of dogs there and never get out of their cages until it's time for them to be killed. Public has no way of knowing. Literally behind locked doors. Select a couple dozen chosen for adoption hallway. Rest of them get three day mandatory hold and go to kill room.

Shirley wrote to shelter director about a dog she saw on webcam and offered to get dog veterinary care, but dog had already been killled. Shelter director told him they killed the dog "to prevent suffering."

Filed FOIA request for records on this dog. Brought in as a stray. Noted in record by time vet saw her, she'd been there a couple of days, vet noted , "The dog is suffering," but nothing was done until they killed her.

A reader posted a webcam photo of litter of pups being transported to kill room in a garbage can. Another of a cat being hung by neck by tongs. She said mayor continues to stand by director even so.

Locals have mobilized. Billboard. But the more they push, the more they resist. Now saying they'll remove webcams. Closing shelter advisory council meetings to public, and have added new members to council who are supportive of shelter status quo.

Local advocates still fighting, but Memphis doing everything they can to shut people out. Say they may privatize the shelter. Shirley says she's suspicious they're trying to privatize to get out of FOIA requests.

Should still be subject, but based on track record with city attorney threatening her because she was trying to help and fundraise for animals rescued from MAS, not optimistic about laws being interpreted and followed in accordance with public rights.

Shirley says these cases can burn you out. "It's very hard to do this, to keep with something like this, especially when you are seeing the images and they're so horrific and so heartbreaking. You have to know when to give yourself a break. If you get to the point where you're heartbroken and can't do it anymore, you have to step back.... " Make happy posts, talk about your pets.

Brent: May take you a while to build readership, stick with it, it will come. Think of yourself as a citizen journalist, covering the news no one else is. No ranting.

A log of blogs are constantly ranting, and it's not helpful. Get photos and data, and present solutions.

Involve your readers. Get a lot of data sources, even those you oppose. More info you have, more blog ideas you'll have, more accurate your info will be.

Grab screenshot in case it's changed in the future.

Verify tips. Can get bad information, even false info.

Time posts for optimal readership. News cycles.

How to win friends. You're going to make enemies. Have a thick skin. Be prepared.

You can't spay/neuter your way out of pet over-population

It’s often said that “we can’t adopt our way out of pet over-population.” I say we can't spay/neuter our way out of it.

I'm not even entirely sure what people mean when they talk about not being able to adopt our way out of pet over-population.

If they mean we have to have a big-picture view of the issue of pets being killed in shelters across the country, and not focus on just one piece of the puzzle, I can go along with that.

But I don't think most people who use that sentence mean it that way. They seem to mean one of two things.

The first is, "There is no point in trying to adopt out all these pets and we should just kill them instead, because if we find homes for these we'll just get more in to take their place." (True also of killing them, but they don't seem to consider that.)

The second is, "The only way to stop killing pets in shelters is to spay and neuter more of them."

Now, low-cost/free and accessible spay/neuter is one of the steps to no-kill, and I support and applaud any community that has that in place. Yay.

But I think it's kind of obvious that spaying and neutering will do absolutely nothing to save the lives of the pets who are homeless right now, nor the ones who will come into your shelter tomorrow or the next day.

The options are death and adoption. Spay/neuter isn't going to help these pets, and rushing past adoption and waving your little speuter flag is going to mean those pets get dead. And the ones who come in the next day to take their place? Also dead.

I think it's great that you have an upstream, supply-side plan. Don't get rid of it. Near-universal spay/neuter has almost certainly accounted for a lot of the gains we've made in reducing shelter killing in the last two decades, even if there aren't really any studies out there to support that. But I'm more than willing to believe that's the case.

But if you don't also have an equally strong demand-side plan, you're going to continue to have the kind of killing rates in shelters that we have today, which are -- or should be -- absolutely unacceptable to anyone who cares about animals.

Although there are places in the country where there's still a good amount of lifesaving potential in increasing spay/neuter accessibility and prevalence, in most communities, we've already harvested the low-hanging fruit. Most pet dogs and cats are already spayed or neutered, and spending huge resources chasing down the tiny number who aren't is going to result in ever-dwindling returns, particularly when it's done at the expense of better sheltering and better adoption, as is so often the case *cough* Los Angeles *cough*.

But adoption? Building better adoption systems is all low-hanging fruit. That's because there are millions more people every year who get new dogs and cats than there are pets in shelters. Most of them are willing to consider adopting a shelter pet -- and millions of them already have, and plan to again. Shelter and rescue group adoption accounts for more than one-fifth of all new dog and cat acquisitions in this country already.

It would take a very small increase in that rate -- just up to around one-quarter -- to save the lives of every healthy pet, as well as every pet with a treatable or manageable health or behavior problem, in every shelter in America.

Creating better, more appealing ways to get pets adopted doesn't just help those pets or your shelter, either;  it raises the profile of adoption in general and creates more social acceptance and awareness of adoption.

It both saves lives now, and builds infrastructure to keep saving them in the future. And even more importantly, it builds that infrastructure on a cultural level, not just for that one agency or community.

That's why adoption is so critical, and in most places is the silver bullet, while spay/neuter is not. As long as you have high rates of spay/neuter in your community already, and a free/low cost and accessible spay/neuter program, all your low-hanging fruit is in adoptions, not surgery.

And if you're in an area with very low rates of spay/neuter and no services, then yes, you need to get those s/n programs in place immediately. But that's no reason to ignore adoptions. Those surgeries will only reduce future shelter intake; it takes adoption programs, and better sheltering practices, to save the lives of the homeless animals in your community right now, and the ones who will need your help in the near future.

The next time someone tells you that "you can't adopt your way out of pet over-population," don't believe it. If they tell you that you can't stop the killing with adoption, believe it even less. Because finding homes for homeless pets is the only way to save their lives.

CDC investigating water frog breeder for salmonella

From kingsnake.com (and also, h/t to reader Susan Fox:

The Centers for Disease Control announced yesterday that it is still investigating an outbreak of salmonella typhimurium associated with African Dwarf Frogs bred at Blue Lobster Farms in California.

• This nationwide outbreak is ongoing. As of July 18, 2011, a total of 241 individuals infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 42 states since April 1, 2009. These infections are associated with African dwarf frogs–a type of water frog–and water from their habitats (e.g., tanks or aquariums).



• Epidemiologic, traceback and laboratory findings between 2009 and 2011 link this ongoing nationwide outbreak of human Salmonella Typhimurium infections to a single African dwarf frog breeding facility in Madera County, California, Blue Lobster Farms. The owner of Blue Lobster Farms voluntarily stopped shipping African dwarf frogs in late April but resumed shipping the frogs in early June. These frogs may be found in pet stores, educational stores, toy stores, fairs, carnivals, from online retailers and other venues.



• Public health officials with the Madera County Department of Environmental Health are currently working with the owner of Blue Lobster Farms to conduct interventions and ongoing testing and monitoring of the frog breeding facility. At this time, the effectiveness of these interventions is unknown, and reports of ill persons infected with the outbreak strain are continuing.

More information at kingsnake.com.



Photo: CDC.

Animal control saying ' yes ' to tax dollars, ' go away ' to taxpayers

It struck me as odd that so many animal control agencies in different parts of the country were responding in the same way to public calls for reform: by shooting the messenger.



From my column in SFGate.com:

There's an epidemic spreading through the nation's animal control shelters, and it's not something a vaccination can prevent. It's an epidemic of secrecy.



Consider this: Animal control is a government function, paid for with your tax dollars. It's work done on behalf of the public; shouldn't the public have some way to ensure it's being done appropriately?



But in communities all over the country, including here in California, calls for animal control reform have been met with the sound of a door slamming in the public's face.



[....]



The Central California SPCA, a private organization that holds the animal control contract for the city of Fresno, recently closed its board meetings to the public, sparking a wave of protests, including a July 19 demonstration organized by FixFresno.org, an advocacy group aimed at ending the killing of healthy and treatable pets in the city's shelters.



It's not surprising that citizens want to reform how Fresno's homeless animals are treated; the CCSPCA kills around 80 percent of the pets it takes in, one of the worst kill rates in California and far above the national average of 50 percent.



Recently, animal rescuers in the community have also been alleging mismanagement, abuse and neglect at the shelter.



Until last month, the CCSPCA's board meetings were open to the public, but on June 16, the president of FixFresno.org, Melissa McDonald, received a letter from the shelter's attorney, Jeffrey M. Reid, advising her that the meetings were now closed and members of FixFresno.org would no longer be allowed to attend.



Attendance by FixFresno.org members had been permitted previously, he said, after the group asserted that the board meetings were subject to the Brown Act, California's open meetings law. However, Reid told them this interpretation of the law was incorrect.



He pointed to what is essentially a loophole in the law, which calls for open meetings of private organizations contracted to do government work only in cases where the organization was created specifically to do that work, or if a member of the government sits on the organization's board. Neither of those provisions applies to the CCSPCA.



Members of FixFresno.org showed up at the next board meeting anyway, only to be met at the door by Reid.



"He said that having us there was too 'intimidating' for the board to function," McDonald told me. "It is sad that they chose to hide what is going on instead of addressing the problems."



I called CCSPCA spokesperson Beth Caffrey, and asked what prompted the organization to contact an attorney on this matter in the first place.



"We want our board meetings to be productive," she told me. "We couldn't be productive because of the disruptive behavior of people who were there."

In the rest of the article, I update the situation in Memphis and New York City, and have a great wrap-up commentary from FixAustin.org's Ryan Clinton. It's all here.



Photo: Courtesy of Celeste Pryor.

Brand new GPS tracker: It ' s what ' s for dinner!

How do you know I love my dog Rawley? I haven't killed him.



I'm on my fourth Kindle thanks to his insatiable appetite for them. I blame myself for leaving them where he can get them, though.



But today he ate up his brand-new, never been used Garmin GPS locator, which was sitting on my desk connected to my computer, charging for its first use.



He has never taken anything off my desk, let alone something connected to the computer. I mean -- my mouse, my phone, my speakers, my router are all right there. Why this? Why now?



Why, Rawley, why?



He complete destroyed the USB cable, but I'm not sure he's actually destroyed the GPS unit itself. I'm going to order a new cable and keep my fingers crossed.



Metaphorically, of course. Otherwise it's too hard to type.



I love him, I love him, it's stupid but I love him.

Should you trust your veterinarian?

When your pet's veterinarian says the sky is blue, do you feel a need to run outside and check?



I'm constantly bombarded by emails from pet owners who seem to feel that way, so much so they often don't take even clearly very sick pets to the veterinarian, but instead waste time writing me 20-page missives on every symptom their pet has expressed for the previous several weeks.



When I ask why they haven't taken their dog or cat to the vet, sometimes the answer is money. But most of the time, it's a screed ranging from general distrust of the entire veterinary profession to the occasional full-blown conspiracy theory heavily tinged with paranoid delusions.



Setting aside that last group, whose problems are beyond the scope of a pet writer, it really worries me that so many people have let one or a few bad experiences with veterinarians turn them away from getting necessary care for their pets. From my column today on SFGate.com:

I've had bad experiences with veterinarians. I've also had terrible haircuts and gone to dishonest auto mechanics. Nonetheless, I keep getting my hair done and my car fixed -- and taking my pets to the veterinarian.



Good veterinarians have knowledge and experience, as well as access to diagnostic testing, that no pet owner -- and no pet writer, either -- can have. Condemning the entire profession for the unethical behavior of one or a few individuals is irrational and dangerous for your pet if it means he doesn't get necessary care.



But trust should never be given unquestioningly, simply because someone has a "DVM" or "VMD" after her name. Trust is something the veterinarian has to earn.



Obviously, once a vet has been treating your pets for years, you can trust him based on his track record. But there are plenty of times we can't rely on a vet we've had for years -- when we move, while traveling, when our vet retires, or when a pet needs immediate care and his regular vet isn't available.



I've written before about how to find a veterinarian who practices excellent veterinary medicine. Here are the tips I use to decide whether or not a veterinarian deserves my trust:



The trustworthy veterinarian knows he doesn't know everything. No one is omniscient. I have no problem with that. While I would assume any veterinarian knows a great deal more than I do about general medical issues relating to pets, I don't expect him to be an expert on every single medication, condition or obscure article in a medical journal.



But when I ask him a question he can't answer I do expect him to respond by saying, "I don't know, let me check on that." Veterinarians who try to bluff to preserve their authority, or worse, imply you're being fussy, bothersome or over-protective for asking in the first place, don't deserve your trust.



For example, my dog Rebel, who died in 2009, had a very rare genetic condition that most vets will go their whole careers without treating. I understood that even the best veterinarian was going to need to do some research to treat him.



As long as the veterinarian understood that, too, everything was fine. But the minute a vet dismissed my questions or the information I was giving him about my dog, I was gone. Not because I wanted him to replace his judgment with mine, but because he was doing so not on the basis of his greater knowledge or expertise, but arrogance or insecurity.



She keeps up with the profession. This one seems like a no-brainer, but I've met a few veterinarians who seem proud of the fact that they still practice to the standards of the year they graduated from vet school.



One veterinarian I saw in San Mateo County -- fortunately now retired -- bragged to me about how he didn't use modern anesthetic gases because he felt it was better to keep using the methods you were most familiar with.



"Even if they're more dangerous than newer, safer drugs?" I asked him in amazement.



Even so, he insisted. I guess the prospect of learning the new methods of anesthesia was just too much change for him to contemplate.



Bottom line: If you ask how the veterinarian handles anesthesia or pain management and are brushed aside with outdated information, it's time to walk.

Read the rest of my tips here.