This is the second in a series of posts on the common tactics used in public discussions of animal sheltering reform by opponents of No-Kill. This one today is a perennial favorite of theirs: The distraction.
One of the reasons they like it so much is No-Kill advocates seem to fall for it a lot. So let me break it down for you.
First, there's a post about some elements of saving all healthy and treatable homeless pets in your community's shelters.
Soon, one or two or an avalanche of strangers appear, all with varying levels of politeness or hostility asking a few simple questions about totally unrelated issues: Farm animal conditions, vegetarianism or veganism, abortion, gun control, the Affordable Care Act, poverty, malnutrition in children, the threat of nuclear weapons in Iran or North Korea, and pretty much any other compelling social issue you can even imagine.
The gist of their questions is that you either can't really advocate for shelter pets if you don't also advocate for [fill in their chosen cause], and/or you shouldn't waste your time on shelter pets when there are all these other horrible problems demanding solutions.
It's very easy to let these people distract you from the actual work of shelter reform, and off the topic of saving the lives of homeless pets. That's because many of us are active in other forms of advocacy as well as shelter reform, and also because many people in our movement lead with our hearts, and want to address all forms of suffering and injustice.
Here's the thing, though: If you let yourself get pulled off in ten thousand directions chasing every injustice anyone mentions to you, you'll be completely demoralized and utterly ineffective in, oh, around ten minutes.
You'll also allow your message to become hopelessly muddied, and thus lose one of the biggest things the shelter reform movement has going for it: Near-universal support from average pet owners. That is, in fact, why our opponents are so vicious in their attempts to distract us and get us off message, because our message can't be contradicted otherwise.
Here's a handy test to know if a question should be answered: Is this a problem that has to be solved before we can save all our community's healthy and treatable homeless pets?
If the answer is "no," then it's a distraction, and you need to point that out and move on. Every minute you spend engaging on their terms is a minute you are not spending focusing on saving healthy and treatable pets.
Right now, the three topics that are most frequently used to divide and distract No-Kill advocates are abortion, farm animal treatment, and veganism.
Do many people in the No-Kill movement have opinions on these issues, particularly the last two? You bet. But we do not need to agree on any of those three things to save all the healthy and treatable pets.
We do not need to have many all-night consciousness-raising sessions on those issues to save all the healthy and treatable pets.
We do not need to limit our ranks to only those who hold the same views on those issues to save all the healthy and treatable pets -- in fact, doing so will only hamper our efforts.
In short, we do not need to resolve, mention, or otherwise discuss those issues to save all the healthy and treatable pets.
Therefore, even if they are issues you care about or want to advocate for or want to support or oppose, they are distractions from the work of saving all healthy and treatable pets. Attempts by people in public conversations to divert your attention to those issues is not part of making the picture bigger or widening the circle of our compassion or even changing our ethical priorities; it's about stopping the No-Kill Movement.
Stop. Falling. For. It.
I need a time machine so I can have my 8 year old self show this post to my Mom during one of our infamous canned spinach refusal/kids starving in China battles.
Posted by: YesBiscuit! | 03 April 2013 at 01:13 PM
One has to learn to ignore and just concentrate on the things that are essential.
Posted by: Peter Masloch | 03 April 2013 at 02:38 PM
"Even if they are issues you care about or want to advocate for or want to support or oppose, they are distractions from the work of saving all healthy and treatable pets." I couldn't agree more. I had someone approach me at last year's No Kill Conference in Washington, D.C., saying she felt out of place because she's a Republican. We need everyone from all walks of life to help stop the killing of shelter pets.
Posted by: Mike | 05 April 2013 at 09:54 AM
I had someone say to me about THEIR community, "Is Nathan Winograd going to come HERE and solve this problem for us?"
Obviously they haven't been to the No Kill Advocacy Center website in a while. There's a whole "toolkit" people can use to reform your local animal control - http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/shelter-reform/toolkit/
Posted by: Cee | 06 April 2013 at 01:59 AM
I have been told by these same no-kill haters and pro-kill activists that I should be advocating for all animals or my advocacy for domestic cats (and dogs) is basically worthless, that if I am not a "vegan" I am not truly an animal advocate, and that chickens who eat worms and other bugs are not "carnivores" or omnivores (but really vegetarians), because worms and other bugs are not "sentient". I suspect that many of these types of internet "animal activists" are really just a bunch of socially outcast 8-year-olds who sit in their bedroom all day on a computer keyboard in order to avoid their drunken female parent.
Posted by: MichelleAdams Antipetahsus | 20 September 2013 at 11:16 AM