Dogged Blog

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."

The spay/neuter vs adoption debate, and why we should stop having it

It never fails. A horrible story hits the Internet, detailing how some "shelter" is killing pretty much every animal who comes in its doors, and often neglecting the pets who were in their care.  The director of the facility is interviewed, and blames it all on the irresponsible public, wrapping it up with the tagline, "Spay and neuter your pets!"

At this point, some no-kill advocate -- frequently me -- leaps into the fray with all the statistics about how most owned dogs and cats are already altered, and how the only segment of the population where there are low rates of spay/neuter is among the pets of low-income people -- most of whom indicate they want to alter their pets, but either can't afford it or can't get to the clinic.

Then someone else starts yammering about how that's not true and they know it because at the "shelter" in their town, kazillions of pets come in every day, and I must be insane to think spay/neuter isn't the answer.

And then I come back with statistics on adoption, and how in most communities adoption, not spay/neuter, is the silver bullet for saving lives, and how spay/neuter will not save the life of one single pet who is already born, and how not one of the dogs and cats in their community's shelter right now can be saved by spay/neuter, and how by focusing endlessly on spay/neuter instead of adoption, all we're doing is giving up on the pets in our shelters today, who we can and must save.

An argument that has the merit of being true, but has nontheless never, ever convinced a single person.

So, I'm really sick of this whole argument. Yes, it's very possible that someone lurking in the threads where these debates take place has his or her eyes opened to the truth, but most likely we're all just in our own echo chamber, singing lustily to our respective choirs.

So instead of singing, let's consider this:

The No-Kill Equation is comprised of 11 proven programs for ending the killing of homeless pets, and has been implemented successfully in more than 80 communities across the country. The No-Kill Equation includes low cost/free, accessible spay/neuter.

For no-kill advocates, all that happens when we frame our pro-adoption message in terms of competing with spay/neuter advocacy is we get labeled "anti-spay/neuter," which is not -- assuming we actually believe it when we say the No-Kill Equation is the answer -- the truth.

And to those individual advocates and pet owners on the "other side" -- by which I mean to exclude those with organizational agendas and vested interests -- you, too, need to stop framing this as being "spay/neuter vs adoption."

Because you say you want to see animals live, right? You tell us you do. It's the whole premise of your advocacy. So when you realize that you don't have to wait until the fairy tale future when all the pets are spayed and neutered to see that day, but you can do it right now by stepping up the adoption game, you should be happy, not pissed off.

Yes, there are people who advocate spay/neuter not to save animal lives, but in order to end pet ownership. They are a tiny minority, and most of them are in leadership roles of organizations and advocacy groups. Many of their supporters who parrot the "spay/neuter is the answer to everything always!" line do not share that view, and while they may not have really thought the whole thing through, truly do want to continue having companion animals in their lives.

And whether or not we want to try to bring these folks into the No-Kill movement, we should at least stop letting our opponents define us and our position. The NKE includes spay/neuter, it is not in opposition to it.

Therefore, the only correct response to a passionate "Spay and neuter!" plea by a sincere animal advocate (not an anti-no-kill troll) is: "Spay/neuter is a tool to reduce future shelter intake, and that's why the No-Kill Equation includes it. But better adoption, pet retention, and return-to-owner practices will save these animals now. Isn't that what you want, too?"

 

Incrementalism, access, and the politics of cupcakes

You say you want a no-kill revolution? Don't assume it won't involve baked goods.

Yes, I'm going to talk about cupcakes, cookies, and donuts -- but in the context of a discussion of incrementalism, and access to decision-makers, and the problems that arise when we get to know people we're trying to influence (or investigate, in the case of journalists).

A couple of months ago, Shirley Thistlewaite of shelter reform watchdog blog Yes Biscuit posted about the immorality of using gifts of baked goods to make nice with the staff at a gassing "shelter."

I don't know anything about the specific situation beyond what I read in Shirley's post, but based on that information, I agree with her completely that this is terrible, pointless advice.  Suggesting someone bring donuts or cookies to a gassing facility would be like telling abolitionists to bring a nice coffee cake to slave traders to try to convince them to explore a different line of work.

But as someone who works with no-kill supporters all the time on how to be more effective in their advocacy, that shouldn't mean we never consider deploying the power of sugar and flour to advance our cause.

I frequently suggest that no-kill advocates take care to appear credible and legitimate to elected officials, government employees, and the media. When appropriate, we need to be able to dress, speak, write, and behave like everyone else who comes before the town council or tries to get an appointment with an agency director or elected official.

Bringing gifts of food to the people who serve as gatekeepers for those individuals is a proven tactic for getting access to them. Everyone does it, from drug company sales reps who bring cupcakes to the secretary of the hospital procurement officer, to the guy who wants the planning commission to approve his condo development and says it with peanut brittle.

Because "everyone does it," it conveys a message that has nothing to do with giving someone a cookie because you approve of what they're doing. It serves as a subtle signal, one they're probably unaware of receiving, that you're legitimate. It puts you in their comfort zone.

There are many ways to do that, and the no-kill movement needs to use them all. Like any other advocate for a cause, we need to figure out the best approach to a given situation, try it, and, if it fails us, try something else. We need to do that as many times as it takes for us to get it right.

We need to look at those who have succeeded in advocating to our target, and adopt their methods.

We also need to do multiple things at the same time -- in other words, taking a good-cop, bad-cop approach, so the nice, friendly advocate with the donuts seems like a much better person to talk to than the 500 certified crazy cat ladies protesting with signs outside the pound.

We need to get our calls answered by the city council, and our stories covered by local media. And to make that happen, we need to be able to lobby professionally when needed, and protest effectively when needed, and do both at the same when needed. Which means we need watchdogs like Shirley to make pound directors cry, and we also need lawyers like FixAustin's Ryan Clinton to put on a suit and talk to the press.

I could wrap this up now with a nice little bow, a pretty package of good advice on how to be a better advocate using both picket signs and donuts, but I'm not going to. Because Shirley's objection to lobbying with baked goods shines a big, bright spotlight on a huge problem all movements for social change, including ours, share, and I want to talk about that even more than I want to talk about deep-fried sugar and flour.

Look back up at the headline on this post: "Incrementalism, access, and the politics of cupcakes."

In public policy terms, "incrementalism" is when we sacrifice big, systemic reforms in favor of smaller, non-systemic reforms or changes. Sometimes we're forced to accept less than we want because we lose a popular vote or are out-politicked. Other times, advocates and activists deliberately choose to seek incremental change, because it's easier and often occurs under the radar, thus not triggering opposition.

Incrementalism is used by both the left and the right in America politics. It's why the religious right focuses on regulating parental consent, tax dollar funding, and third-trimester abortion instead of overturning Roe v. Wade, and it's also why the LGBT movement fought for civil unions instead of marriage equality for so long.

Incrementalism can work, but when it's utilized non-strategically, it carries a poison payload. (I suppose you can tell I'm not a fan.) For instance, take the case of the big mainstream LGBT organizations lobbying for "separate but equal" civil unions. A movement for civil rights should never advocate for inequality; it may be politically expedient, but it's immoral and profoundly confusing. It also damages your credibility in the larger political and social community in which you operate.

However, the real danger is not incremental change itself, which is probably inevitable and can work, but the replacement of a systemic goal with scurrying around putting a bunch of band-aids on a broken system. It's when we drop a concrete, measurable goal like "providing children with a hot lunch at school every day of the year," and replace it with an intangible one, like "fighting poverty" or "empowering the poor."

Don't get me wrong; change usually does happen in increments. If you look at Austin's journey to becoming no-kill, it was done in segments over several years. Ryan Clinton of FixAustin.org spearheaded a political and PR campaign that involved changing the entire make-up of local government, while Austin Pets Alive's Dr. Ellen Jefferson coordinated a step-by-step, data-driven program to save different segments of the population of pets being killed in the city pound.

But at no time were nebulous concepts like "reducing euthanasia" or "making Austin more humane" the goal of the movement. Each incremental change was a well-defined, planned part of a strategy working toward the very specific, system goal of ending the killing of healthy and treatable pets in the city. In other words, as long as you don't confuse the means with the end,  you should be okay.

The other word I used was "access," and this is one I, as a journalist, have had a lot of first-hand experience with.

It's a simple fact of human nature that we find it harder to expose, or oppose, people we have come to know as fellow human beings.

Don't get me wrong; people turn on their friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances all the time. I am not saying it's impossible. It's just that knowing the names of someone's grandkids does usually make it harder to take them down publicly.

That's why access to the powerful is such a dangerous thing for journalists and activists: We have to fight a very normal human desire to put ourselves in their shoes and see their side of things on an emotional level.

This of course makes for a more civil society, and is probably some kind of evolutionary advantage. But it doesn't make for good investigative journalism, and it can derail a reform movement overnight.

The large animal welfare organizations are all dedicated incrementalists, and they have become emotionally embedded with the people who maintain the status quo. They have been trying to "improve" sheltering for decades now, and in the process have become the biggest enablers of a failed model of animal control, one that cannot help but be dependent on killing the very animals they claim to be trying to help.

The no-kill movement, on the other hand, is not an insider movement, and it's not a movement seeking incremental change. It's like Roosevelt's New Deal or Reagan's "New Morning," a movement for big, fundamental, systemic change. And one of the most effective ways to break that type of movement is to subvert it. To get you inside the system you're trying to change, to make you feel sympathy for the people in that system, and to distract you with little victories that don't add up to the kind of change you were originally working for.

To go back to our original example, that is is why it's both wrong and a mistake to bring cookies to someone who makes a living stuffing living animals into a gas chamber and killing them. You don't want to know that person's grandkids' names; you want to take them down. You can do that more effectively as their enemy than as their friend.

On the other hand, you may very well want to bring donuts to that person's boss at City Hall. That's because you want them to think you're a smart political advocate with a power base, so when you present your 10-point plan for reforming animal control (point 1 of which is firing the pound director's ass), they'll take you seriously.

And that is why donuts can be a good thing, just like wearing a suit and tie, getting your printed materials bound, and creating an organization with a website and mission statement: They buy you credibility and lower the defenses of the people you need to influence.

But you can't forget, as I promise you the guy pitching his condo project to the planning commission never forgets, that your mayor or the head of the department of environmental services is not your friend, nor is she  part of your constituency.

And that's why, even though I don't like seeing the political power of pastry being denigrated, I also recognize it has its problems.

Baked goods, suits and ties, and professional websites are simply tools to gain access to decision-makers, and get them to listen to you. The relationship with that person also is a tool, a tool to achieve your goal. That's why you can't let yourself by compromised by that access, whether through sympathy or something darker that's also part of human nature: a love of power.

In other words, it's fine to bring cupcakes. Just don't drink the kool-aid.

Should we stop charging pet adoption fees?

Shelters and rescue groups typically give two reasons why they need to charge adoption fees for pets: A revenue stream, and to serve as a sort of filter to ensure better, more lasting adoptions by requiring people to cough up some money to bring the pet into their home. Are they right?

Let's look at the two reasons separately.

Revenue

It's true that most shelters and virtually all rescue groups are dependent on adoption fees, in some cases almost exclusively.

But while that's "how it is" in the animal adoption world, it's important to realize that very few non-profits and causes have a retail or fee-style revenue stream. They instead rely on development -- the competent solicitation of donations, bequests, grants, and endowments -- to fund their efforts.

Animal sheltering is a very messy "cause" these days, with a truly chaotic mess of animal control services being provided by both municipal and private organizations, along with a hodgepodge of private shelters that range from chronically starved of funds to wealthy, and rescue groups that run mostly on volunteer power out of foster homes (although a few maintain some sort of kennel or shelter facility).

In the case of municipal shelters, whose mission is not the welfare of animals but public health and safety, it's easy to see why adoption fees are popular. Their success isn't dependent on getting animals adopted; in fact, it's often impeded by adoptions.

Many such agencies don't even operate an adoption program, and either kill the vast majority of the ufortunate pets who come in or, in progressive communities, transfer them to rescue and private shelter partners. (Of course, some municipal agencies are themselves very progressive and run great adoption programs on their own; I'm just taking a look at the spectrum.)

But private organizations that have become dependent on adoption fee revenue are not helping their mission; they're impeding it. If your mission is to get pets adopted, an adoption fee serves as both a financial and a psychological/marketing barrier to success.

In the practical sense, adoption fees take money that an adopter might spend on pet food, grooming, vet services, or supplies and turns it into an up-front cash outlay that might stretch the family's budget to the point where they decide not to adopt.

I know that's going to get the "if you can't afford a pet you shouldn't adopt one" crowd into a frenzy, but hold that thought for the second part of this post.

In the marketing sense, charging money for adoptions, especially anything more than a very small application or processing fee, taints the whole process, and turns it into a retail transaction. It erodes the "feel good" aspect of adoption over other methods of acquiring a pet.

It also perpetuates bad operational practices in the organization itself. Instead of doing what other causes and non-profits do, and raising funds from philanthropic sources, they expect every adoption to pay for itself and even expect some adoptions -- like those of puppies, kittens, and purebred animals -- to subsidize the costs of other pets.

If your mission is to rescue, medically treat, and re-home pets, that mission is good enough that people will donate to support it. And if you want to do retail to support your mission, well... that's why so many organizations run thrift stores, gift shops, galleries, and cafes.

There's nothing wrong with funding your organization through retail (although you need to consult your tax advisor if you go that route), but your mission shouldn't also be a retail operation. Your mission is adoption. Charging for that mission is exactly as if the Red Cross charged people to enter its shelters during a natural disaster, from a marketing or psychological point of view.

People who adopt see themselves as doing a good deed, and they are. From a marketing perspective, we should be able to capitalize on that, not put a price tag on it.

Ensuring better adoptions

Do people who get their pets for free love them less, or return them to the shelter more easily or frequently?

The data we have says no to both. (You can look at some of that data here and here.)

But that's not good enough for many animal advocates. In the last few months, in discussions of fee-waived pet adoptions, I've seen a total rejection of the data on the basis that they simply can't believe it's true, as well as more specific objections based on scenarios not looked at in the studies that might have a different outcome.

While we should always question data, and there's a difference between "nit-picking" and fact-checking, the main thrust of these objections is always that we need to protect animals from suffering and harm by gatekeeping adoptions with a fee.

The obections usually fall into three areas:

1. What if the pet is adopted for free, and because the process doesn't cost money, dog fighters and vivisectionists use it as a free and easy source of animals?
2. What if the pet is adopted for free by a person too poor to pay an adoption fee, and the pet gets sick? If they can't pay the fee, how can they pay the vet bills?
3. And last, we live in a materialistic society, where the value of things is dependent on their cost. Doesn't that automatically mean people won't value their pets if they got them for free?

Let's start with number one: People getting free pets to do bad things to them.

First, no one has suggested doing away with the adoption counseling/screening process. It is simply cost-prohibitive for anyone interested in large numbers of disposable animals to go through all that time to obtain one single pet.

If your municpal agency is handing pets over without screening or in bulk for laboratory experimentation, or selling them out the back door to dogfighters -- yes, these things happen -- then that is not an adoption fee problem. It's a deep, systemic problem that requires reform at the local political level. Charging or not charging an adoption fee will have no impact on those problems, and any attempt to link the two is either misguided or disingenuous.

Let's look at number two: Poor people who can't afford an adoption fee won't be able to care properly for the pet.

This is probably not true in most cases. Poor people are just the same as wealthy people in their capacity for love and empathy, and will often do extraordinary things for an actual animal they have come to love, even if they have trouble finding the money for a hypothetical animal they have never met.

But let's say it was true. I don't think it matters in a society where half of all dogs and cats who come into shelters are killed because of homelessness. Isn't it better to let the pet have a chance, than condemn that pet (or some other pet further back in the pipeline) to death?

Sure, maybe the pet would be put to sleep later anyway, if he or she has an illness the owner can't afford to treat. But maybe the pet won't get sick. Maybe he or she will be extremely old when they do.

And maybe that rich couple with the late model SUV who adopted a pet from you last year is in bankruptcy this year. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that economic forces are powerful and unpredictable, both on a societal and individual level.

Is this really a rational reason to deny a lifesaving adoption?

Finally, let's look at the idea that people don't value pets they haven't paid for.

We know this is not true because of the data that exists on this topic, looking at pets acquired for free at special adoption events.

We also know it's not true because the single category of pet least likely to end up in a shelter is a pet given as a gift.

And every one of us involved in rescue should know it's not true because we have houses full of pets we got for free, who we'd do anything for. I certainly never loved my free pets less than my adoption-fee or breeder-obtained pets. I never spent less money on them, treated them less well, or fought less fiercely to save them from illness and injury.

And really, by that logic, pets from puppy mill outlets should be considered the most precious of all, as they cost the most to obtain. Do you believe that to be true? I didn't think so.

What I'm saying is this: Organizations should seriously question whether or not adoption fees are interfering with the fulfillment of their mission.

They should ask themselves if they've become so dependent on an adoption-fee revenue stream that they've overlooked other, more appropriate, methods of obtaining funds for their work.

And they should absolutely look into their hearts and ask if the size of someone's bank account, or the price tag on the pet, is really what they think should and does define "value" in the human-pet relationship, or if they are letting economic prejudice cloud their judgment.

 

Why shelter killing has nothing to do with 'pet over-population'

Dear No-Kill opponents and skeptics: Please look up the word "tautology" before you trot out the "since we are killing millions of pets in shelters, it proves the existence of pet over-population" argument.

See, here's the thing. I believe I can make the case with data alone that "pet over-population" doesn't exist, let alone serve as a justification for anything, but that's irrelevant in this particular discussion. The reason? Because there's an intrinsic logical problem with the "shelter killing proves pet over-population" argument.

To demonstrate that flaw of reasoning, I'm going to walk you through an example.

Take a hypothetical town that has 10,000 pets entering its shelter system each year, where, except for the 100 who are reclaimed by their owners, they all die because the "shelter" does not do adoptions, resulting in a save rate of 1 percent and a kill rate of 99 percent.

Are those pets all dying because of "pet over-population," or because the shelter has no adoption program?

Say the shelter decides to try one day a month where it does adoptions, on Tuesdays from 11 AM - 2 PM. They manage in the first year to adopt out 100 pets. Their save rate is now 2 percent, with a 98 percent kill rate.

Did they kill 100 fewer pets because of a reduction in "pet over-population," or because they started doing some adoptions?

Now, imagine the shelter decides to try to improve its pathetic 1 percent return-to-owner rate, and manages to increase it to 500 pets being reclaimed by their owners each year. They also participate in a regional adoption event four times a year, and do 400 more adoptions than the year before. Now they're saving 10 percent of their pets, and killing 90 percent.

Did they save 900 more pets because of a reduction in "pet over-population," or because they improved their adoption effort and return-to-owner program?

A few years pass, and they get a little better. They do adoptions every weekday afternoon until 5 PM, and their return-to-owner rate is stable at 10 percent. Since they're not killing all the pets after the mandatory holding period anymore, they're starting to lose some to illness, but overall, they're now saving 35 percent of those 10,000 animals.

Reduction in "pet over-population"? Or improvement in shelter management practices?

One day, they hire a new shelter director, who is a committed animal lover as well as a veterinarian. She implements a small shelter medicine program, starts vaccinating on intake, and recruits a few friends to foster some of the orphaned kittens and puppies who come into the shelter. She gets their save rate to 65 percent in her first year.

Did she do that by reducing "pet over-population," or by implementing the bare-bones-basics of a shelter medicine program?

The next year, she decides to try to get more foster homes and volunteers, and also starts a fundraising campaign to build a new shelter where disease control won't be so difficult.

Within two years, they have a new shelter, and have also improved their return-to-owner and adoption numbers, raising their save rate to 88 percent.

The vet is now hired to run a failing shelter in another community, and to the horror of all the shiny new shelter volunteers and foster homes, the new director isn't committed to maintaining the changes she made.

The next year, with their volunteer and foster programs in tatters, their save rate drops to 70 percent.

Did "pet over-population" get worse, or did their sheltering practices get worse?

The following year, a group of former shelter volunteers mounts an effective public advocacy campaign, and gets the director replaced by an ex-Marine who has run a no-kill animal control agency in a similarly-sized town. He restores the volunteer and foster programs, then expands them, and hires a marketing whiz to run the shelter's adoption, outreach, media, and fundraising departments.

That year, they save 94 percent of the pets who come into their shelter, officially joining the ranks of the nation's no-kill communities.

Did they reduce "pet over-population," or did they become a no-kill community by implementing modern, proven, progressive sheltering practices?

Maybe you deny that any community can do what this hypothetical one did. Maybe you've investigated every one of the communities that has documentation that they save more than 90 percent of their homeless pets, and determined it's all lies.

That still wouldn't change the fact that on the basis of logic alone, your argument is a tautology, "a series of self-reinforcing statements that cannot be disproved because they depend on the assumption that they are already correct."

That's because it's plainly absurd to suggest that this hypothetical community's starting point couldn't be improved on by implementing better sheltering practices. No one, no matter how opposed to no-kill, could deny that.

So where is the "line in the sand" past which you would claim that improving sheltering practices wouldn't be enough to save all our healthy and treatable homeless pets?

And if you don't contend, or can't demonstrate, that those communities haven't really accomplished that, then what? If they have crossed that line without waiting for some magic future day when their shelter intake goes down to zero -- indeed, in some communities that were particularly hard-hit by the recession, where it has even gone up -- doesn't that fact alone disprove that shelters kill because of pet over-population, while proving that they do so because  of a failure to adopt successful sheltering practices?*

Because that's the true sticking point, isn't it? If there is no "pet over-population" to blame, why the hell are the shelters killing? It's either due to a lack of innovation, leadership, and adaptability -- which certainly no one wants to believe about themselves or their management skills -- and/or denial due to fear, grief, and shame that they've been killing pets unnecessarily.

This is why the assertion of the no-kill movement that there is no "pet over-population" is so threatening. It's why no-kill opponents keep coming up with argument after argument, including but by no means limited to the tautological "pet over-population must exist because shelters kill millions of pets every year," because accepting there are enough homes for our nation's homeless pets means those millions of pets are not being killed because of some huge, insurmountable "pet over-population" that can only be solved in some distant future time, but for no good reason at all.

 

Was shutdown of Genesee County animal control volunteer program illegal retaliation?

The head of Michigan's Genesee County animal control department, Walt Rodabaugh, may have violated the civil rights of the shelter's volunteers when he disbanded the volunteer program after they complained to his superiors about a recent raid some claim was both unwarranted and bungled.

Apparently Rodabaugh has never read the First Amendment and didn't realize that citizens have the constitutionally guaranteed right to petition the government for redress of grievances, because he actually told reporters that volunteers complaining about the raid is the reason he was shutting down the program. From MILive:

Rodabaugh said he knows shelter volunteers complained about the raid to his bosses -- the county Board of Commissioners -- and said they should be more loyal to the organization they help by giving of their time.

"My thing is, if you're going to volunteer for an organization, you support that organization," he said. "You don't (fight) that group, you work with them."

Rodabaugh told two volunteer groups Thursday that he was suspending a program in which members walk dogs and work with shelter animals.

Because of course, Rodabaugh being a big whiny baby trumps the volunteers' constitutional rights any day, right? Wrong. From attorney Sheldon Eisenberg's "Section 1983 to the Rescue," a discussion of how a federal civil rights statute protects volunteers at shelters from being banned from volunteering because they exercised their rights:

There can be no dispute that complaining about abuses or violations of law at shelters is a constitutionally protected right. A rescuer not only has the First Amendment right to speak out against abuses and violations of law committed by a governmental entity, he or she also has a constitutionally protected right to demand that the government correct the wrongs that are identified. This includes the right to threaten to sue or to actually file suit against the shelter.

Government officials rarely admit that they have intentionally meted out punishment beyond the scope of their legal power; therefore, the law allows plaintiffs to use direct or circumstantial evidence to establish that punishing protected conduct was the government’s motive in an action such as suspending adoption rights. Circumstantial evidence may include showing that the rescuer’s privileges were withdrawn within a narrow time frame around the time he or she engaged in protected conduct, and that no other explanation or reason was given for the rescuer’s punishment.

The last element of the Section 1983 claim, actual injury, can be demonstrated merely by showing that the rescuer has suffered a loss of any governmental benefit or privilege.  It is important to emphasize that the loss of a common benefit counts as injury; a rescuer need not establish a legal right to adopt animals or take advantage of any other benefits afforded by a shelter. As the Supreme Court has stated, a government entity “may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests—especially, his interest in freedom of speech.” Therefore, it should be enough to show, for example, that a person has been deprived of his or her ability to volunteer at, or to adopt animals from, a shelter.

A question may arise as to whether a volunteer or rescuer needs to wait for a government official to follow through on a threat to retaliate before filing a claim under Section 1983 or whether a threat of retaliation alone is sufficient to trigger one. For example, some volunteers have been told by officials that publicly speaking about a shelter will result in the volunteer being banned. Since the whole point of a Section 1983 retaliation claim is to prevent the “chilling” (discouragement) of constitutionally protected rights, it seems clear enough that a threat of retaliation for exercising those rights, which is specifically designed to obstruct the exercise of those rights, should be sufficient to satisfy the actual injury element of a Section 1983 claim.

Ivory tower theory that has no chance of surviving in a court of law? Not hardly. From the No Kill Advocacy Center's Nathan Winograd:

In 2008, Los Angeles rescuers teamed up with the No Kill Advocacy Center to file a lawsuit which alleged that the civil rights of volunteers and rescuers were being violated as retaliation for going public with their observations of inhumane conditions and neglectful treatment at the shelter. The court agreed.

In applying a federal civil rights statute to this area, the court gave animal activists a powerful weapon to reform the nation’s broken animal shelter system. Volunteers and rescuers no longer have to choose between remaining silent about abuses or risk losing their ability to help some animals by volunteering or rescuing them from death row.

Eisenberg was the attorney who brought that lawsuit.

There will be a county Board of Commissioners' meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 12, at 9 AM at the Genesee County Administration Building at 1101 Beach Street in Flint, Michigan. More details, including directions, are here.

I'm going; if you're anywhere nearby, I hope you'll show up, too. You can also let the Board know your thoughts by faxing them at (810) 257-3008.

Tell Shelby County No-Kill Mission we have their backs

Those pet-slaughterers at PETA sent cookies to Shelby County, KY, legislators to reward them for proposing killing shelter pets after four years of being the number one no-kill community in the country. Fortunately, Shelby County No-Kill Mission made sure that didn't happen, just as they have been doing every day since 2008.

Let's thank them by sending something better than cookies: Cash.

I just donated $100 to their organization and told them animal advocates all over the country have their backs. Please join me, and prove it's true.

Donate to Shelby County No-Kill Mission.

 

When bad shelters have good PR

Why are so many high kill shelters so damn good at PR? Because they have to be, to bring in donations in the face of their operational failure.

I find it so frustrating when shelters I know have horrible adoption policies and high kill rates also do a great job on their PR and promotions. I believe in "click-treat" for a  job well done, but I don't want to give bad shelters good press. And I don't want to help them use PR to whitewash their killing machine.

And I most particularly don't want to help them fool their donors into thinking they're doing a good job when they're not.

So if you're wondering if better PR can help your local high-kill shelter, my suggestion is this: Use your communications skills and resources to bring about fundamental change in how your shelter operates first. Work with a shelter reform group to get local media and your community on board with a no kill mission.

In the meantime, you can help save the lives of pets in the shelter by networking with (or creating, if necessary) a rescue group to find foster homes to move the pets into. Then you can market them for adoption in the name of the rescue organization, not the failed shelter.

Because while I want my tips and suggestions to be used to find animals homes, I don't want it to be at the expense of all the animals who find only a needle and a body bag from the people who claim to be "sheltering" them.

Liveblogging the 2012 No-Kill Conference: John Sibley on advocacy blogging

 

Want to change the world? Blogging may be a great place to start. I'm at the 2012 No Kill Conference in Washington, D.C., listening to a presentation on Advocacy Blogging by John Sibley of In Dog We Trust.

I am blogging this live; hit "refresh" periodically to see new material. Since this is live, there will be typos. And only things in quotation marks are direct quotes. Everything else is a paraphrase.

My presentation on getting media for your cause or organization was right before this,so I missed the very beginning as I was in the hall answering questions. So jumping in mid-stream...

John reviewed a few blogging platforms like Blogger and Wordpress, and recommended against Examiner. (I agree!)

He said advocacy bloggers need to be always gathering information. Google alerts, follow other advocates on Facebook, RSS readers (blog readers), Be active in your chosen community -- attend board meetings, lectures, protests. Personal contact means a log.

Get tips from readers through email, Twitter, Facebook.

FOIA (Freedom of Information) requests. Gave huge props to Shirley Thistlewaite at Yes Biscuit for doing a great job of advocacy blogging in general and with FOIA requests specifically.

If you see something important on the web, take a screen shot in case it's scrubbed!

John Says, "Blogging is not journalism!" (I don't agree, but I think he means, it's not "neutral" in viewpoint. I agree with that.

John says, "Think about your style." Read other bloggers... cited me (thank you!), Brent Toellner of KC Dog Blog, Shirley again, Kathy Pobloskie at Wisconsin Watchdog, Valerie Hayes at Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World... will fill in later with links etc, falling behind.

Avoid these common pitballs:

• "Spewing" constant negativity. Frothing at the mouth? Stop blogging. Get it out, but don't publish it.
• Reliance on shock/graphic photos and techniques.
• Spelling/grammar mistakes -- draft in Word if you need to
• Too much unnecessary detail; Boil down to essence.
• Anonymity

Know your target audience. Each post should stand on its own.

Stalkers, psychos, and Pat Dunaway: Managing the Comments Section (Inside joke)

He says this is how it works for him, other people may handle differently. But think about it before you start blogging.

"I prefer and advocate an open but moderated forum. Exchange of ideas is always allowed, but personal attacks are deleted and disruption, bullying, or thread-jacking will get you banned."

Blogging software has ability to block specific IP addresses. use it. "You are under no obligation to provide a forum for crazy."

Expect pressure -- it's a sign of succness.

HSUS objected to something he wrote in 2009, and his boss told him to take it down or he was fired. He linked to a video of a news story about the organization. They were only able to reach me because his former employer was connected to HSUS, now he's in a different field and if HSUS called his boss, they wouldn't care.

So know you will get threats, pressure, cease and desist letters, if you continue this and annoy enough people.

At the time it was very traumatic for him, but now he says if HSUS filed a lawsuit against him,he'd be overjoyed. "Wow, I've got material to write about for months!"

I'm not saying you'll be sued, but there will be some degree of pressure, people trying to get you to shut up. Don't.

I told my boss my ability to speak was very important to me and I wouldn't take it down, and I wasn't fired.

Spreading the word: Now that you've written it, how do you get people to read it?

These rules are changing all the time.

Facebook is King, Twitter a close second.

FB drives more traffic to his site than anyone.

Still worth having RSS feed, but not as important as it used to be.

Use FB to reach people directly and Twitter to reach power users who will spread the word.

Participate in FB/Twitter communities, not just when you have something to promote.

Many people find email annoying. He does. Contact him through FB.

Don't bother with G+. We got into interesting discussion on this, and agreed you should have an account and use it enough to keep it active, but don't consider it as a traffic source. I agree.

Make sure your posts are Facebook-friendly. Make sure when you share a link on FB a good image and good copy accompany the link. Manually edit within the blog software's meta data! if what it defaults to isn't right!!!!!

It doesn't matter when you post your blog posts, but you DO need to time when you announce it. Don't share it on FB and Twitter in the middle of the night... share it the next day during peak hours.

Use utilities that allow your readers to share posts on FB and Twitter on EVERY SINGLE POST. (Which I don't do because I suck.) He uses and recommends Sociable.

Post title: "Be the New York Post, not the Wall St. Journal."

Recent Weiner People puff piece trying to rehab his image:

WSJ: Weiner Won't Rule Out a Run

NYPost: "Weiner shows off his little one" (with photo of his baby)

Other networking

Maintain relationships with other writers, bloggers, power users, others who can help "seed" your story and help you out -- tech expertise, sources, tips.

Link the posts of other bloggers, comment, participate.

Always make time to talk to reporters. Be a source.

First case study:

Gloria. Cat left at ASPCA Mobile Clinic, and brought to ACC. Found out when someone emailed him photo of her cage card.

Key factors:

Rock solid info starting with reader tip and first hand observations and medical ifnormation

Great photos

The involvement of the ASPCA

Second case study: ACC's new computer system that doesn't work

Was sent records, internal records, by ACC staff member that showed agency knew the computer system was messed up, even though publicly denied it.

Turned into big story on New York Post. Next day, he got email from Daily Mail in the UK. Told John they needed photos of cats involved -- in 45 minutes. He did it.

NBC 4 in NYC picks it up.

 Key factors:

Rock solid info , inside info, great photos.

Case study 3: Killing the Quick Kill Bill

Blog became a clearninghouse for information that turned into an online AND offline campaign.

Went to the heart of donor base for the Paulin, legislator behind bill. Drove so much attention to sponsors and legislators.

Because John branded it so quickly and well, it caught on -- EVERYONE, even legislative staffers, called it "Quick Kill Bill."

Key factors:

Branding, repitition, good visuals

A community of activists playingg off of each other and contributing theri skills

Legwork: scouring NYS Assembly site for updates

Crossover into mass mmedia

Persistence

Superior speed -- NO MEETINGS!

Note: You can see earlier liveblogging here.

Live from the 2012 No-Kill Conference: Thoughts over lunch

What's new at this year's No Kill Conference in Washington, D.C.? Most of the people.

For the last three years, this conference was limited to 300 attendees. This year, it was expanded to accomodate 800, and as a consequence, around 70 percent of the people here are at their first conference.

Some of that has been bad, because people are reacting to some of the most basic concepts of the No Kill Movement with shock and disbelief, making a lot of "grumpy old-timers" mutter things under our breath about "Why are you reinventing the wheel?" and "Have you even read Redemption"?

But it's also exciting to see so many newcomers, and get fresh perspectives. It's even good, I think, to be challenged on our basics, as it helps us understand how we're doing with our movement communications.

It also led me to make some last minute revisions to my presentation, which I'll be giving right after lunch today -- in an hour, in fact. I'm talking about how we can get the media to take our cause seriously, with a focus on activism but also on how rescue groups and shelters can get media attention for the fundraising and other traditional events and initiatives.

So I missed the first session this morning, and instead holed up at the Starbucks next door, working on my presentation. Nothing like a  little last minute revision to keep you sharp, if by "sharp" you mean "on edge."

So I won't be live-blogging until 3 PM Eastern, when I'll be covering John Sibley's " session on "Advocacy Blogging." See you then!

Note: You can see yesterday's liveblogging here.