April 3, 2010Comments are closed.No Kill
From Yes Biscuit;
Some animal advocates are very keen on blaming the public for the killing of shelter pets. I disagree with this entirely but if you are determined to blame the public for the so-called necessity of shelter killing, is this truly the approach you want to take when asking the public for support? Does this sound at all like a successful sales pitch?: You horrible people are the ones to blame for all the pets killed in shelters. Therefore we are asking you to give us money, support our causes at the ballot box and follow our pet care advice so that we can continue killing our communities’ pets.
Even if I agreed with the idea of blaming the public for shelter killing (I don’t), I’d have to admit it’s a tactic which has failed to end the killing. And it has failed because animal advocates have wasted time, resources and effort to maintain a culture of acceptance of death for healthy/treatable shelter pets. Many people in this country, including some of the shelter workers doing the killing, actually believe it is humane to kill healthy/treatable pets because of this culture of acceptable death.
Please read the whole post here and take the time to read the comments too: it’s really good stuff.
Shelters perpetuate the myth that there are “people out there” in MASSIVE numbers who are irresponsible – but this is only partly true. The people who are irresponsible are in the minority…
They also perpetuate a sense of elitism about animal care – ie there are those that care (us) and then there are the great, sweltering, ignorant masses who are simply just stupid and bad (them).
So when they call for donations, they are appealing to their targetted (mythological) “us” by telling stories about the ignorant “them”.
It is typical in welfare circles to regard others as being outside the “elite” carers… no-one cares about animals as much as I do….