Dogged Blog

Know the opposition: 'Will no one think of the strays?'

This is the third in a series of posts examining the comments made by No-Kill opponents in public discussions of the movement to save all healthy and treatable pets in our nation's shelters.

There's a new "talking point" popping up with orchestrated frequency wherever people gather to discuss the No-Kill Movement online. I call it "WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE STRAYS?!?!??" (All-caps and multiple exclamation points and question marks are required to really express the hysteria that underlies this particular talking point.)

Because it's new, a lot of No-Kill advocates aren't quite sure what to make of it -- which is exactly why they thought if up in the first place. It's certainly not because it's true.

To save all healthy and treatable homeless dogs and cats in our nation requires we find homes for around 2.5 million additional pets out of the pool of approximately 27 million households that get a new dog or cat each year.

This simple piece of math puts a huge crimp in the habitual contention of No-Kill opponents that there are "too many pets, not enough homes" and therefore slaughtering homeless pets in shelters is unavoidable.

The other problem with their old math is that communities all over the U.S. are routinely and sustainably saving more than 90 percent of their homeless pets without divine intervention, billions of dollars, or the laws of nature being turned on their heads.

They are doing it by implementing the No-Kill Equation:

• Targeted, free/affordable, accessible spay/neuter services, return-to-owner, and pet retention programs
• Good relations between animal control agencies and private shelters, rescue groups, and the community to maxmize foster homes, other adoption outlets, and volunteers
• Improved adoption programs and customer service, including better hours at shelters, off-site adoptions, and creative marketing
• Compassionate leadership

All of which has left No-Kill opponents in search of something, anything, to change the math. So they came up with strays. I'm sorry; I mean, "STRAYS!!!!!"

What they're contending is that no matter how well shelters perform in saving the lives of the pets who come in their doors, it won't matter nor spell success because there are uncountable quadrazillions of stray dogs and cats all over the country, and if we add them into the equation, there really are "too many pets, not enough homes," just like they always told us back in the days before we learned to count.

The beauty of using this "gotcha" point to argue against no-kill is that it's a sensationalistic, vague, unquantified concept. Advocates of shelter reform could point to success in reducing intake and increasing lifesaving until literally every community in the country was saving more than 90 percent of the pets who enter its shelter system, and No-Kill opponents could still go, "It's all a lie because STRAYS!"

Are they right? No.

First, by their own admission and the best estimates of both feral cat advocates and enemies, the vast majority of unowned, unsheltered pets in this country are feral cats.

Feral cats are not "strays" and they're not "homeless." They are no more or less a matter for shelters to deal with than racoons are, and that is a simple fact we have to grasp if we're ever going to have a reasonable conversation about a humane approach to free-living, unowned cats in our communities.

Second, while there are a few areas with a "feral dog" problem, that's all there are: a few. I live in the Detroit metro area, where there are an estimated 20-50,000 free-roaming dogs on the streets. This is widely acknowledged to be the greatest density of such dogs in the United States. Detroit Dog Rescue fonder Dan "Hush" Carlisle estimates that 80-90 percent of them are recently abandoned pet dogs rather than feral dogs.

Nor are all these dogs homeless; many are currently owned dogs being allowed to run loose by their owners. That's also true in rural areas where dogs run loose. They are also not homeless.

Yes, there are pockets of truly feral dogs in junkyards, remote areas, and abandoned urban neighborhoods, usually running in mixed packs with free-roaming owned dogs. And while no one knows the exact number of truly homeless, free-living, feral dogs in the United States, no credible source contends the number is so large that it significantly alters the bigger picture of canine homelessness and sheltering.

Which is to say, it can be addressed by the No-Kill Equation, ie, targeted spay/neuter, rehabilitation, sanctuary, and adoption when the dog can be safely housed, or killing for the safety of society when the dog cannot be safely housed.

Of course, these facts won't do one damn thing to convince a "THINK OF THE STRAYS!!!!!" devotee to change his or her mind. That's because they didn't come up with it because of facts, they don't post it on Facebook dicussions because of facts, and they aren't even interested in facts. (Which is painfully clear, since they haven't got any.)

This is nothing, really, but baseless goal-post moving, and a reassuring (to us) sign that we have pretty much proven our contention that there are enough homes, and that communities that adopt the No Kill Equation can adopt, return-to-owner, spay/neuter, TNR, and embrace our fellow humans out of shelter killing.

Which is good news for the animals, even if the No-Kill nay-sayers will never admit it.

Know the opposition: Anatomy of a distraction

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.

Know the opposition: 'Why are you blaming the shelters?'

Lately I've been seeing a number of distinct and similarly-worded objections to the No-Kill movement appearing with predictable regularity on public discussions. This is the first in a series of posts examining these messages for their underlying meanings.

Remember the old joke, "Why did you rob a bank?"

The answer is, "Because that's where the money is."

So the next time you see someone post on Facebook or a website about how the No-Kill movement should be targeting sources of shelter animals rather than shelters where the animals are killed, tell them this:

We pressure shelters to reform because that's where pets are being killed.

There is nothing wrong with developing a comprehensive analysis of how pets end up in shelters in the first place, nor a plan to reduce that intake. Indeed, without doing those two things, you create more work for your shelters and rescue groups and more stress and anxiety for the pets you want to help. That's why affordable and accessible spay/neuter, TNR for community cats, pet retention, and return-to-owner programs are all part of the No-Kill Equation.

But to draw a line in the sand and say that until all those efforts outside the shelter have been fully implemented and the entire community has been re-educated to treat their pets exactly how we'd like them to be treated, we're not going to reform our shelters and animal control agencies, is one of the most bizarre and unworkable forms of denial imaginable.

Animals are being killed by shelters, so that's where we must focus our most intense efforts. Those other efforts are important in the long run, but they will not save the lives of pets in shelters right this minute.

It's also a false choice. Can you find a single shelter in the country that does a great job of adoption, return-to-owner, and pet retention that doesn't also do a great job with intake-reduction programs? I can't.

That's because what we're really advocating for here is not to "trash shelters," as I hear all the time from kill-shelter apologists, but for good sheltering practices. All of them, from intake reduction to adoption to pet retention and more. 

While some of the messages being wielded against the No-Kill movement are pretty convoluted, this one is both basic and well-worn. It's simply being re-framed a little to be, "Why are you blaming shelters when they're not causing the problem?" instead of some of its previous iterations about the irresponsible public.

Why did they re-frame? A few reasons. One, we've done a really good job pointing out that most members of the public are responsible.

Two, while blaming the irresponsible public plays well with shelter apologists and those who run bad shelters, it doesn't play well with the public itself. This is about public messaging, not insider enabling.

Three, they're feeling attacked and are getting defensive; in fact, I'd go so far as to say they're getting whiny. (By the way, that means we're winning.)

So the next time someone asks, "Why are you blaming the shelters?" tell them, "Because that's who's killing the animals."