Dogged Blog

The poison pill of changing stray hold periods for cats

What do I think of the Michigan Humane Society's insistence that there is no legal stray hold period for cats in the state now, and that there shouldn't be? 

I am absolutely in favor of sheltering cats in a different way than dogs.

I'm also in favor of completely revolutionizing our sheltering practices and creating a different paradigm for cats than dogs.

And I'm in favor of new approaches and throwing out all the old ways if they're not working.

What I am not in favor of is codifying approaches that create second class citizenship for cats, nor that disrespect the cat-human bond.

And I'm definitely not in favor of reducing the legal stray hold for cats if it gives animal control agencies and shelters the right to kill those cats sooner.

Fortunately, you don't need to abolish hold periods to do better by cats who encounter our shelter system.

For example, I agree shelters are terrible places for cats -- even the best shelters. So stop taking them in if you can't care for them well, and if they are healthy and in good weight.

If you do take them in, photograph them and scan for a microchip. If they seem social and healthy, but have no ID, put them immediately into a foster home and get the photo up on your website and social media as a found cat instantly -- while the cat is still in the field, if at all possible.

Better yet, have your animal control officers post flyers and go door to door in the area where the cat was found, to increase the chances their family will find them.

And if the cat is clearly not social but is healthy and in good weight, then alter him or her and return the cat from whence it came -- where clearly, shelter and food were sufficient to keep the cat healthy and in good weight.

Giving away microchips and breakaway collars with ID on them is good, too.

Just don't institute the half-measure of abolishing the hold period and call it saving cats' lives. It's a tiny little fragment, totally out of context, that carries massive consequences on public perception and policy -- and furthermore, gives comfort and cover to shelters that have no interest in moving these cats out onto the adoption floor, but will instead use the lack of a stray hold as a one-way ticket to the kill room.

Can animal rescue groups survive without adoption fees?

I thought I'd heard all the reasons people object to the idea of free pet adoptions -- but I was wrong.

After I wrote a post about the marketing power of free adoptions, and explained why I think charging adoption fees is an obstacle to our pet adoption mission, I started hearing from many, many rescue groups all over the U.S. that they can't possibly survive as an organization without revenue from adoption fees. Some have gone so far as to accuse larger shelters and foundations like Maddie's Fund of trying to "drive rescue groups out of business."

I'll be honest, I understand their feelings. A change in your revenue model can be a big paradigm change for a small nonprofit, especially one that doesn't have anyone on the team who is interested in marketing, fundraising, and development.

I think, however, that the benefits far outweigh the pain of change.

Let's step back and look at the big picture for a minute. Most nonprofits outside the rescue world don't have a fee-based revenue model. They raise money by cultivating relationships with individual and business supporters, with fundraising events, with retail operations such as thrift stores, and with development of grants, bequests, endowments, etc.

Of course, just thinking about that is exhausting for a small group made up of people who are mostly working in direct animal care rather than organizational work. In fact, we've created a culture where the less effort a nonprofit puts into anything other than direct services the more we praise them.

The problem is, that model is truly not sustainable. It leaves groups without a structure to rely on when market realities change.

For example, the adoption fee model might really go away as more groups realize the huge marketing benefit of fee-waived adoption promotions. Then you'll be competing with groups who adopt out pets for free or for "name your own fee" donations, and you'll be forced to change overnight instead of doing it strategically.

There are easy options to getting all or most of our revenue through adoption fees and tapping into the marketing power of fee-waived adoptions.

For example, what if you went to a local business, shopping center, nursery, big pet supply or farm store, and asked them to do a "We'll pay your adoption fees this weekend!" event in the parking lot? They get tons of customers flocking in, you get your adoptions paid for (plus donations if you play your cards right), the pets get the benefit of the marketing buzz, and everyone wins!

Additionally, you need to think outside the animal welfare bubble. I'm on the board of an animal organization that receives funding from a non-animal welfare foundation that supports charitable endeavors in our region. They give us money because we're local and meet their standards of sustainability, accountability, etc. As far as I know, we're the only animal organization they support at all!

This is why finding a volunteer with an interest in marketing and/or development is critically important for small rescue groups. You really can't survive long just caring for the animals and cramming in the bare minimum of organizational support and development while you have one hand on a kitten bottle and the other holding your eyelids open.

The whole point of finding people to help with this end of things is to free up each volunteer to focus on what she or he does best, whatever it is. After all, direct animal care is necessary! But so is organizational work such as marketing and development. Animal organizations need it all, or they won't be able to survive losing, say, their founder or core group of volunteers, or economic or market shifts.

I feel very strongly that rescue groups are mostly locked into an unsustainable model of helping animals, and I would really like to see us step back from how we are currently doing things and broaden our revenue streams and free ourselves to use the fee-waived adoption marketing model and any other innovations that come along when they're appropriate or helpful. 

The animals need our best, not just in TLC, but in organizational professionalism.

The false debate about 'open' vs 'managed' admission animal shelters

A shelter or animal control agency that responsibly manages its intake flow is still an open admission shelter.

Whether you are for or against managed admission, or an apologist for a so-called shelter that proudly calls itself "open admission" as it marches pets from the admission desk to the kill room, or an avid no-kill advocate, it's still highly likely that you speak as if  "open admission" and "managed admission" shelters are, by definition, two different things.

But that's not true. Shelters that fulfill the legal or contractual requirements of their municipality as to what animals they are required to admit, and that additionally have provisions for emergency intake for animals in immediate need, are open admission shelters.

That doesn't change if they work with pet owners to delay intake until the shelter has room, the animal has had vaccinations, or a foster home opens up. Nor does it change if they instead work with the pet owner to try to help them keep the pet, or to find a home for the pet themselves.

Evidence is mounting that the long list of policies and programs we term "managed" open admission save lives, help pet owners in need, get pets needed veterinary and basic care, and do so without increasing pet abandonment nor diverting intake to other facilities.

That's why those of us who support this sea change in animal sheltering should stop letting advocates of outdated sheltering practices choose the terms that describe it.

Managed open admission works. Unmanaged open admission is irresponsible and inhumane. They are both open admission.

 

Two cats walked into a bar... and immediately had 420,000 kittens

Once upon a time, when I was blogging at Pet Connection before it shut down, I had a large fan base who liked nothing more than to see my head explode.

If you've missed it, you might want to check out a rant I posted on the blog at Connected By Pets Friday morning:

Dear cat advocates: Stop. Just stop.

I am begging you to stop trotting out utterly made-up numbers about the forty gazingazillion offspring that are produced within a few generations by just two unaltered cats.

Read it here.

Liveblogging update

RIP beloved 4-year-old Netbook. So sorry I will not be able to blog the second day of the No Kill Conference as planned.

I will write up my thoughts and impressions afterward.

Feral Nerd Guy's Guide to Community Cat Activism: Peter Wolf at the 2013 No Kill Conference

The scariest feral cat in a trap doesn't get him down, and neither did the failed batteries in the room mic when Peter Wolf of the great blog Vox Felina and, more recently, Best Friends Animal Society, talked about community cat advocacy at the 2013 No Kill Conference in Washington DC.

What follows is a real-time summary of Peter's presentation. If something is in quotes, he said it; otherwise, it's a paraphrase.

How does your community handle community cats? What are the relevant ordincances? How do those things impact our behavior as advocates, and what do we do about it?

And the gray area: What won't we get caught doing?

Of course, it depends on where you are. Some communities are more or less permissive or restrictive. So your first step is identifying where on the spectrum your community lies.

He used several different communities to walk the audience through how that process works.

For example, how do they define "owner" when it comes to cat? Maricopa, AZ, defines it as six days of "maintaining" the animal -- does that include feeding? Do you just have to skip a day every week and start the clock over?

In some communities (he uses example of Phoenix which is not at all restrictive), it's a mistake to try to change ordinances. If you can do what you need to do within the existing regulatory and enforcement environment, you are better off leaving it alone. You could open it up and end up stirring up opposition and getting worse regulations and more enforcement.

In Akron, Ohio, cats are specifically mentioned as not being allowed to "run at large" off their owners' property.

What does that mean for a cat without owner? Well, in Akron, the law says it's the "duty" of the City Animal Control Wardens to apprehend animals, specifically including cats, who are "at large." Since 2003 in Akrgon, "free-roaming cats are simply not permitted."

What does enforcement look like?

He took some time to discuss the community cats online panel I moderated for Maddie's Fund earlier in the week, then introduced what's going on in Jacksonville, Florida, which was discussed during that panel.

He quotes the Jacksonville ordinance, which, for example, discusses managed cat colonies but doesn't have language requiring all community cats be in a managed colony. But they do set guidelines for such colonies when they are in place.

The ordinance says "sterilized, vaccinated, ear-tipped community cats are exempt from licensing, stray, at-large and possibly other provisions of this ordinance that apply to owned animals." Why does this matter?

Too often, opponents of TNR describe it as "abandonment." If you keep using the language (think "death panels"), people start to question. Hmmm, maybe this isn't good for cats after all. It's like anti-cat advocates trying to re-brand TNR as "trap, neuter, abandon."

Ordinance also says there is no stray holding period for feral animals, but EXCLUDES those cats that qualify "for a community cat management program established by the City." Doesn't micromanage that in the ordinance.

Wherever you live, whether a bad or great ordinance, never fail to look at what's REALLY happening. Are bad provisions being enforced? Are good ordinances being honored?  Example Prince George's County, MD, where some fo the language sounds good, but what's really happening is not so good. He also reviewed a proposal that was just amazingly bad for cats and clueless.

Then he said something to the effect that if you think THAT was bad, wait til you see what was proposed in Hillsborough County, Florida, this year.

Some veterinarians in that county are fighting TNR fiercely -- it's cruelty, it's abandonment, it's rabies, it's toxo -- and since people think they are there to help animals, that "DVM" gives a lot of crediblity.

The proposal was called AWAKE -- "Animal welfare, Adoption, Kids and Education" -- and was proposed by the Hillsborough County Veterinary Medical Society and Hillsborough Animal Health Foundation.

Under proposal, there would be no new colonies allowed. Existing colonies have to test, have to keep rabies "current," each colony and cat has to be registered, have to be treated ANNUALLY for internal parasites!

None of this is required for PET cats, "but the ones we can't touch, we have to do it."

Only permitted a mile and a half from various business including food stores, schools, etc. "You map it out, there's nothing left of Hillsborough County."

Newcomers would have had to be removed.

Even though proposals like this would essentially eliminate the lifesaving their supposedly intended to promote, they often sound very reasonable to lawmakers and are promoted as GOOD for the community, for caretakers, and for cats!

Looked great to the press, too.

In Salt Lake City, they found that designated caretaker requirements were "almost like a deterrent" and diverted resources from spay/neuter.

So, don't unowned free-romaing cats NEED designated caretakers?

First, most already have someone caring for them. Even if we don't know who they are.

Second, most of these cats are doing well, healthy, thriving. Data from Jon Cicirelli in San Jose, some studies by Dr. Julie Levy.

Third, concern over reuniting lost pets with their owners? What if we TNR an owned cat? "As long as cats are returned to their original location, their chances of being reunited are surprisingly good."

"In one study, lost cats are more than 13 times more likely to be reunited with their owners if there is no shelter intervention." About two-thirds of cats just come back one day.

None of this is to say we don't want cats to have caretakers, Peter said. And in fact, they probably do. There are benefits to the cats and the caretakers. Guidelines, networks, financial assistance.

Registered COLONIES, however, not a good idea. The wrong people shouldn't know where the cats are. Can also generate bad media. If licensed/registered, subject to public records laws.

Requiring caretakers to do TNR reduces likelihood of positive outcome.

Three take-aways:

1. "They don't need us." (ie, animal control to intervene) -Jon Cicirelli
2. TNR oridinances: "Less can sometimes be more." -Alley Cat Allies
3. "Support existing caretakers and recruit more." -Peter Wolf

 

Liveblogging the No Kill Conference 2013

It's that time again -- the annual No Kill Conference in Washington DC.

I'll be doing some blogging from the event, starting shortly with Peter Wolf of Vox Felina's session on community cats.

My own presentation is at 3:15 PM Eastern, and I haven't yet figure out how to liveblog while giving a talk.

Thoughts and impressions later -- see you soon! 

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.

Three rationalizations for gas chambers in shelters – and why they're all false

It's hard to believe many shelters are still using the gas chamber to kill pets. It seems like something out of the Dark Ages, or a horror movie.

Gas chamber defenders have a predictable set of defenses they trot out whenever their right to gas pets is challenged. Let's take a look at them.

1. The AVMA says it's okay.

While the American Veterinary Medical Association continues to stand on the wrong side of history on this one, the fact is, if you actually look at what the AVMA says in its supposed "defense" of the gas chamber, you'll find that they've put so many qualifications on that seal of approval virtually no shelter could possibly comply with their guidelines for its use – certainly not the backwards, poorly-performing shelters most likely to be clinging to the gas chamber:

In previous editions of the guidelines, the use of carbon monoxide (CO) or carbon dioxide (CO2) gas was considered ‘acceptable’ for euthanasia of dogs and cats. In the 2013 Guidelines, the classification for use of these gases has been changed to ‘acceptable with conditions’….  The use of these techniques requires that specific conditions be met to ensure that death is achieved in a humane way. When ALL of the conditions are met, ‘acceptable with conditions’ methods are equivalent to ‘acceptable’ methods. And, if all conditions are not met, they are not considered ‘acceptable.’

Some of those conditions include:

• High standards of training for those operating the gas chamber
• Gas chamber must be located in a well-ventilated place, preferably outdoors
• Careful adherence to proper technique, flow, and concentration of gas during use, as well as use of a high-quality product
• High-quality construction of gas chambers
• Animals should be gassed individually
• Chambers should be cleaned between each use to prevent causing distress to animals killed afterward
• Chambers should be well-lit and easily observed

The AVMA statement concludes, "Gas chambers are not recommended for routine euthanasia of cats and dogs in shelters and animal control operations."

So if a shelter truly wants to live and die by the AVMA's blessing on the gas chamber, they'd better be prepared to meet all the standards for its use. They might also want to take a look at the raging debate about this on the AVMA website, where you'll find that the organization itself knows its position is not popular with its member veterinarians, who haven't been shy about letting them know.

2. We can't afford to kill animals individually.

Guess what? Killing pets by injection is actually less expensive than gassing them to death. Even if there are some costs associated with making the transition, the gas chamber is so unpopular with average Americans that raising those funds should be a snap for any organization with enough operational savvy to hold a bake sale or make a Facebook post. (Fakkema D. Euthanasia By Injection Training Guide, American Humane 2009)

3. Killing animals individually is too hard on our staff.

If you want to make the job easier on your staff, don't rely on the gas chamber. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians has this to say:

Use of carbon monoxide cannot be justified as a means to… distance staff emotionally and physically from the euthanasia process. Studies have shown that carbon monoxide…. has not been shown to provide emotional benefits for staff. Some shelter workers have reported being distressed by hearing animals vocalizing, scratching and howling in the chamber, and by having to repeat the process when animals survived the first procedure

Additionally, exposure to carbon monoxide is dangerous to human shelter staff; at least one shelter worker was killed on the job by the odorless, tasteless gas. (Gilbert, Kathy; "Humane Society Cited in Death of Employee." The Times & Free Press, Chattanooga, TN, July 25, 2000)

There are reasons the AVMA has put so many conditions on its oft-cited "approval" of gas chambers in shelters, and why the Association of Shelter Veterinarians is unequivocal in its opposition to the practice.

And there are no reasons at all to keep doing it.