A no-kill animal shelter sounds great
to animal lovers at first blush. Then they ask, "Doesn't
the pound have to kill when
all the cages are full?" This is the question most often asked.
The
objective of no-kill is to prevent filling animal pounds to capacity.
How this is accomplished encompasses everything that the no-kill movement is
about.
We can stop looking for that easy one-step
solution to overpopulation. We've already had a quick-fix for the last 150 years. It
has been
killing. Today our society is ready for a more sophisticated and
humane response.
No-kill requires a collaboration between:
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No-kill means cultivating
foster networks. This relieves pound overcrowding while giving strays and
abandoned animals an opportunity to be socialized in a home atmosphere instead
of cold concrete floors and wire cages. Foster homes also give adoptive families a
place to go besides the 'catch and kill' pound that many won't walk in to.
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No-kill means implementing
aggressive
spay and neuter programs at the local level with specific goals and
measurable results.
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No-kill means increasing
pound adoptions exponentially through regularly-scheduled media blitzes
designed to motivate the public into taking adoption action.
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No-kill means creating
personal placement plans for every impounded animal commencing on the
day of entry that addresses his or her specific needs, behavior, personality and
health along with a target adoption strategy.
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No-kill means employing
marketing and promotion specialists to work at pounds to ensure every animal
has a chance to be optimally showcased to the public for adoption.
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No-kill means executing
written contracts with shelter employees and administrators that clearly
define the shelter’s standard of care for animals, that set specific adoption
goals and offer rewards or non-renewal based on frequent performance reviews.
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No-kill means seeking
licensing fees and moratoriums that restrict breeders and
puppy-mills because they contribute to overpopulation, health problems and pound deaths by
taking away available homes. Rarely are buyers screened and selected because
they would provide the best home for the animal. When pets are sold unspayed to
unqualified homes it means more strays and shelter impounds in future years.
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No-kill means requiring
frequent
house-to-house canvassing programs by municipalities to detect unlicensed
breeders, animal abuse and to collect license fees that will be used to fund
no-kill programs.
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No-kill means prioritizing
public education that teaches the benefits of spay and neuter, respect
for animals and the importance of life-time commitments to adopted
companions.
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No-kill means recognizing that
rescues are essential to making no-kill work and encourages cooperation
between rescues and pounds.
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No-kill means discouraging
owners from relinquishing animals through programs, fees and fines and
offering rewarding alternatives. Owner turn-ins should be documented in a
statewide database available to all pounds and rescues.
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No-kill means calling for the
abolition of 'no-pet' rental housing. Moving is the number one reason why
families give up their companion animals and a landlord's refusal to take pets
is number two.
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No-kill means resolving perhaps the
biggest problem of all, the attitude that pets are a disposable
commodity. An NCPPSP study showed that 50% of pets that were in homes the
previous year were not in those homes the following year. When the
government kills an estimated 250,000,000 companion animals a decade because of
'oversupply', it sends a loud and clear message to its citizens that animals
have no value and are expendable.
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No-kill means establishing
minimum adoption standards for shelters and rescues including a required
home check and thorough history of what happened to previous animal companions.
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No-kill means authorizing
trap, neuter and release programs to reduce cat overpopulation and to slash
the 90% kill-rate of kittens and cats at many pounds.
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No-kill means building a
'living' shelter where students, teachers, classes, businesses, families and
volunteers joyfully congregate and where animals reap the benefits of
interaction and adoptions.
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No-kill means addressing
animal abuse, neglect, chaining (tethering), junk-yard and watch dogs and
cruelty - all which lead to recycling of animals into pounds and which infect a
community with a non-caring attitude towards animals.
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No-kill means forming a
Citizen Advisory Committee to oversee 'open-door' shelter operations and
encourage public interest in its activities.
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No-kill means easing
restrictions on the number of neutered animals per household, especially for fosters,
rescues and their 'deputies' working to end pound killing. Too many animals in
the household is the number 3 reason for owner relinquishment.
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No-Kill means reuniting lost animals with their guardians through affordable
micro chipping and a centralized ‘lost and found’ bulletin board accessible to everyone and sufficiently promoted so that it is
widely used.
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No-Kill means reducing
lost pets by eliminating the use of fireworks and gun
shooting
into the air in residential neighborhoods and encouraging minimum
fence and gate standards for animal guardians.
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No-kill means requiring the
publication of all pertinent pound statistics both on the internet and in
a conspicuous place at the animal control facility so the results of the no-kill
objectives are available for review by the entire community.
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No-kill means obtaining
funding from public, private and government sectors to support its goals.
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No-kill is possible.
While it
doesn't require every measure mentioned here, it does take an alliance of people who care enough to make it work.
So, what is No-Kill? It is
not an administrator, a building or a contract. It's a
community, working together.
Vikki Shore is founding director of
No Kill NOW!,
a 501(c)(3) advocacy group devoted to the national no-kill shelter movement
to end the slaughter of millions of adoptable dogs and cats in animal
control facilities.
