May 7, 2008Comments are closed.attitude, shelter procedure
A guy with a serious medical condition is admitted to the hospital. The doctor presents him with his options.
We can give you a modern treatment that has succeeded every time we have used it, he says. Or we can use a treatment developed in the 19th century. It never has succeeded, but it’s very popular.
Which one do you choose?
The 19th century treatment in that allegory is the approach employed by most other animal control shelters. Adopt out what animals you can within your own walls, kill the rest, blame it on bad pet owners and claim you’re doing the best you can.
This approach has the support of all the nation’s major animal welfare organizations, but if the goal is to reduce the population of unwanted dogs and cats – it’s not working.
(They’re not killing, they’re taking lives – Bill White)
Much time is spent hand-wringing about how best to punish “bad” owners – time that could be spent trying to attract great ones.
Much effort is put into ensuring owners aren’t making impulse decisions - leaving less effort to put into marketing ourselves so that we’re accessible by the wider community.
We can’t fear our public. We can’t keep them from making bad decisions. All we can do is give them good information time and time again. Play the oppressor or a tyrant and they’ll just avoid us and make stupid mistakes regardless – and we will have lost our chance to influence them for good.
Sure they always come to us for help eventually, but usually it’s much too late. Why is that?
