In Sydney seventeen years ago, there was an excitement in the air. RSPCA staff had visited the United States and seen first hand how a major organisation had reached No Kill goals. Later the 1996 Urban Animal Management Conference, the solution to shelter killing was presented to our animal management and animal welfare leaders. It should have been a changing moment for animals sheltering in our country.
The presenter was Richard Avanzino the then President of The San Francisco SPCA. In the time that he had lead their organisation he has transformed it into one of the premier No Kill shelters in the United States. According to his speaker bio, the crowning achievement of Mr Avanzino’s administration was the Adoption Pact signed in 1994 between The SF/SPCA and the city shelter. Under the terms of the pact every adoptable cat or dog in San Francisco is guaranteed a home. In the first year (1995) the pact achieved a 88% live release rate.
“All cats and dogs who were healthy and of reasonably good temperament – even if they were old, blind, deaf, missing limbs or disfigured – were placed in loving homes, rather than killed.”
They intended that the following year, 1996, they would further push the boundaries of ‘treatable’ and save even more pets;
“Demonstrating that cats and dogs with treatable medical/or behavioural problems can be saved and successfully pleased if you just make the effort.”
While the approach had not yet been distilled into what would become the ‘No Kill Equation’, the Adoption Pact documents did outline the programs and services which they had used to achieve success…
Contributing to the success of the Adoption Pact are many SF/SPCA programs and services which generate opportunities for adoption and encourage the timely placement of pets with responsible and committed new owners.
- Our animal shelter is open for adoptions 7 days a week, with extended hours of operation to make it convenient for the public to adopt.
- The Society’s Adoption Outreach program takes shelter pets to neighbourhoods, shopping centres, business districts and various community events so the animals can be seen by more potential adopters.
- The Dial-a-Cat program provides over-the-phone cat selection, free home delivery and free in-home consultation to those responsible care givers who are eager to adopt a cat, but who are unable to come to the Shelter due to advanced age or limited mobility.
- The SF/SPCA Grooming College provides beauty make-overs for our shelter animals so they can look their absolute best. Services include: scissor trimming and clipper cutting, skin, eye and ear care, brushing and bathing and pedicures.
- Our Open Door Program provides incentive-based assistance to landlords and ‘how to’ information to tenants to increase rental housing opportunities for people with companion animals and those interested in adopting pets.
- Public awareness campaigns and advertising spread the word about SF/SPCA animals available for adoption. Regular ‘Pet of the Week’ television appearances, public service announcements on radio and TV, weekly newspaper columns and bus shelter posters are some of the ways people are informed and encouraged to adopt a homeless pet from our Shelter.
Having Richard bring the solution to the killing to our shores, should have been the start of an amazing transformation in our animal welfare circles. Nearly two decades ago we were given the answer which could have been summed up thusly:
Not only did we now have a case study from someone who wasn’t just proclaiming themselves to be an animal sheltering ‘expert’, but who had the chops and stats to prove that what they were saying had merit. We could take solace in the fact that it didn’t require an overnight transformation in the behaviour of our public. Sure, desexing clinics, education and decreases in ‘irresponsible’ pet ownership behaviours would only go on to make our lives easier – but the solution to shelter killing was clearly adoptions, adoptions, adoptions…
Having returned from the G2Z conference I was hit by a realisation.
Not a single presentation was focused on increasing adoptions. Some of the international speakers touched on it as part of an overall picture to their work, but our local speakers presented on advancing legislation like mandatory desexing, working together and collaborating and collecting data.
And not one of them had demonstrable evidence that their ‘key’ approach to ‘getting to zero’ had resulted in reaching No Kill goals. A lot of people were quipping ‘we can’t adopt our way to success’, but these same people were not presenting a proven, alternative path to success.
So why could Richard adopt his way to success back in 1996, and yet we haven’t attempted it here? Where was the multi-channeled, multi-million dollar adoption campaign being run by our major animal groups to place pets in homes? Where is the history of multiple agency adoption events. Where are our adoption-lead shelters driving their adoption buses to shopping centres? Where are our hundreds of in-store adoption promotions and dozens of shop fronts in each state? What are we doing to combat the fact that just 11% of people acquiring pets are choosing to adopt dogs, and 22% of people are choosing to adopt cats?*
Why, two decades on, are we still ignoring the one path we know leads to shelters not killing pets, in favour of other unproven and disproven approaches?
Why are we still choosing to kill pets?
In 1996 we had the chance to embrace the knowledge of someone who had achieved what we were working to achieve. But we did not.
In 1997 we had the chance to do the same thing.
1998 could have been the year.
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006 could and should have been the ‘ten year’ mark where we all said to ourselves, ‘Actually, our approaches still haven’t taken us where we need to go. Let’s swallow our pride, follow in the footsteps of someone who has a proven model, and start saving lives.” Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be.
2007
2008
2009 Nathan Winograd visited our shores to demonstrate the now clarified steps to No Kill. These 11 programs and services now boast hundreds of communities representing about 500 cities and towns across America, including those in Kentucky, Virginia, Indiana, Utah, California, New York, Texas and elsewhere, are saving roughly 90%* of all animals and as high as 99%.
2010 and we’re still killing pets.
2011
2012
Which brings us to 2013. And we are still seeing shelters cling to the same beliefs, the same behaviours and the same approaches as we saw back in 1996. And we’re still killing pets, just as we did back then.
How many years more are we happy to grant our shelters and pounds permission to continue to use killing to manage our companion animals? How many more hundreds of thousands of pets are we happy for them to kill, before we demand that they implement the same No Kill strategies that worked back in the 1990’s? How many shelter directors are going to continue to kill 30%, 40%, 50% or up to 60% of intakes and still be held as ‘experts’ in animal sheltering in this country? When are we going to stop following the lead of people who have no idea how to achieve success.
All of the years above, when we could have seen a new, compassionate sheltering system developed for our companion animals, and our animal welfare leaders simply chose not to – should make you angry. It should make your despair. It should make you question who you get your information from and whether they are working on the side of the pets, or the side of keeping their jobs and their positions of authority.
It should make you want to act. To face whatever opposition there is to the achievement of No Kill in your own community, and to fight it. Because we cannot wait a moment longer for a ‘collaboration’ between groups who have failed and continued to fail pets, to suddenly and unexpectedly result in a success. Because it is never going to happen.
We need new leaders. And it can and should be you.
*’Where do pets come from?’ – Pawsey 2005
So why wasn’t this suggestion brought into practice? Why is it so hard? Why do shelters and pounds find it easier to kill our pets? It is shameful! I am so angry about this and so sad.