In college, I volunteered at a small animal shelter in Ohio. I never thought much about the shelter's policies. Only later did I realize how much suffering its limited admission policy caused. All "no kill" animal shelters—big or small—are limited-admission facilities.
The dogs no one wanted sat for years (yes, years) in solitary concrete and metal cages. The only bright spot in their day was when a volunteer would walk them for 15 minutes and give them a bit of time to wander in a dirt pen outdoors. Otherwise, they spent their days and nights confined to cages. On weekends, when everyone else was in the park or at the movies … on holidays, when everyone else was with their families and opening presents … 365 days a year, they sat in a cage. Occasionally, a puppy would be brought in and quickly adopted, but many of the older, bigger dogs sat hopelessly month after month.
I befriended a dog named Tigger, who probably weighed 80 pounds, was very cute, and had a wonderful personality. He was one of the sweetest dogs. (I suspect that he wasn't adopted because of his size, because he was a mutt, and because he didn't look like a dog you'd see in a magazine. I would have adopted him without hesitation, but animals weren't allowed in my dorm.) It broke my heart to leave him after our walks because I could see how lonely he was and how our walks were all that he looked forward to each day.
Looking back, I think of all the Tiggers languishing in limited-admission shelters and all the animals who are turned away from those shelters only to suffer on the streets or in abusive households. I wonder why people think those fates are preferable to giving animals a chance to be adopted at an open-admission shelter and, if no home can be found, a peaceful, dignified, painless exit in a loving person's arms. I sympathize with the folks who run limited-admission shelters—as I saw, many of them really do care about animals. But they often have such a fanatical fear of euthanasia that they will let an animal's spirit die for lack of joy or love or a home, just to keep them breathing for breathing's sake. The limited-admission model has proved over and over again that it isn't the answer—it's just sweeping the problem under the rug.
I have so much gratitude for people who work in open-admission shelters and have the thankless task of having to euthanize the animals they have fed, walked, cared for, and loved while constantly dealing with the question "Why aren't you 'no kill'?" We all need to speak out in support of shelters that accept every animal in need and support aggressive spay-and-neuter and "adopt—don't buy" campaigns. And next time you are chatting with staffers or volunteers at an open-admission shelter, thank them for their courage and compassion.
3 comments:
Well said.
For those people who wonder why No Kill scammers like Nathan Winograd, Brenda Barnette, and the rest are involved with the AKC, there is a blogger called Terrierman who has posted one of the best exposes about the AKC puppy mill trade.
This guy has the cojones to tell the truth that Winograd & Barnette and their dog torturing AKC industry hides (in cahoots with Rick Berman, the pro animal torture lobbyist)
And it's ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!
Here is just one informative page detailing how the AKC is a puppy mill business (it's from 2009 but every detail is as true today, and WORSE.)
http://
terriermandotcom.
blogspot.com/2009/
10/akc-
returns-to-
petland-to-
sell-puppy.html
You can see related links after the article to other pages with information on this AKC puppy mill business.
The puppy mill industry supports this No Kill SCAM because when they get crooks like Brenda Barnette into a shelter, then cruelty investigations stop, animal control law enforcement stops or slows, and there is oppostion to spay neuter laws because then breeders would have to get licensed (and most of these breeders are tax cheats and criminals in many ways, and they want to operate in the dark with no public paper trail)
Dogs and cats are tortured and allowed to die painfully, given to animal abusers or hoarders or dog fighters so that the No Kill scam can FAKE THE PAPERWORK and claim false success at "lowering euthanasia." Then the breeders can keep telling the FAKE tale that there is no overpopulation, which of course, there is. But the breeders can pretend to be blameless, which they AREN'T. They play a big role in creating and maintaining this hideous overpopulation peroblem.
The breeders just don't want to take responsibility or give up a cent of their bloody profit. So they use the No Kill SCAM to oppose the laws that would help animals (and the taxpayer) but cost breeders some of their blood money.
This is how corrupt these No Kill SCAMMERS are. They kill pets so they can score some of that puppy mill blood money.
And some CORRUPT legislators help them do it.
The No Kill Scam knows that their crimes become public when information about their warehousing and overcrowding of pets, disease outbreaks, pets killing each other in cages, cruelty to animals, leaks out.
So the latest ploy by crooks like Winograd is to get the No Kill scam shelters to hide their crimes even more by unloading and shipping animals out to killer hoarders, dog fighters, animal torturers, and pet dealers to sell, torture, and kill OFF THE BOOKS and out of sight.
Then the No Kill SCAM shelters lie to the public and their donors and falsely claim that they found "good homes" for these pets. LIARS! It's a con game. They are even shipping off pets to animal torturers in CANADA to hide the animal abuse! In many ways, these No Kill SCAM shelters are even worse than the puppy mills!
Of course, the AKC and the breeders have always been open about the fact that they think that shelter pets are garbage that should die. The AKC breeders have been telling people for years and writing in their books that shelter pets have "problems" and that people should buy purebreds instead (so that the AKC can keep making blood money!)
Now through No Kill, the breeders like AKC lobbyist Barnette are doing what they wanted- killing and torturing these shelter pets.
All so the puppy mills and AKC can make more money and not be regulated.
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