No Kill – can’t we just call it something else?

The community is realising that there are many skills needed in driving change for animals. The contribution of a marketer, or a researcher, or a foster carer or political advocate, can be just as vital as that made by someone who works directly with animals in the shelter, or a shelter CEO. We all have a role to play in creating a better future for the community’s displaced companion animals.

However, while the No Kill philosophy and No Kill equation makes perfect sense to the community who want to see the lives of pets saved – and new No Kill advocates quickly move towards a single, important goal ‘how can we get these life-saving programs up and running tomorrow‘ – what is noticed pretty quickly by these same advocates, is that the shelters themselves often don’t like the programs being called ‘No Kill’.

“We don’t like that term,” they gripe. “We won’t work with you if you call it that.”

Then they’ll often wax lyrical about the pet loving public being too stupid to understand the term, or that they’ll want to be allowed a ‘transition’ period of still using killing as a tool so they can’t be ‘No Kill’, or that their community is different; “they’re too irresponsible”, “the pets are unadoptable”, “that there is a lack of compassion” or “that only new laws can stop the killing”. They cross their arms and close their minds and maintain that there’s nothing they can do to stop the killing pets in their shelter – No Kill is simply impossible until their community learns to behave itself.

So animal advocates trying to make change in their community face a roadblock – shelter management won’t negotiate with them until they drop the ‘No Kill’ term, which puts the responsibility for killing firmly on the shoulders of the shelters who won’t implement the programs which would save lives – meaning the programs which would save lives fail to be implemented and the killing continues.

That’s when these advocates come to me with a single question; can’t we just call it ‘something else’?

Their thinking is sound; maybe if the terminology was rebranded into something that the shelter management found more acceptable, maybe if we just conceded this one detail we could get our foot in the door and start the process of change, maybe if we allowed shelters to maintain their belief that they and the animals are victims of a ‘throwaway society’ and that they are simply doing the dirty work of a ‘irresponsible public’… maybe that’s not so bad if it gets us a seat at their table so we can show them just how these programs can help. If the leaders want to make themselves feel better by calling it something else, then who cares as long and the programs get off the ground… right?

Why No Kill works

Christie Keith wrote a fantastic piece back in 2008 called ‘Don’t Surrender the Power of No Kill’. It told the story of how one of her friends found a litter of kittens and asked Christie to give her the contact details of the local ‘No Kill’ shelter – not because she followed Nathan Winograd or had ever heard of the No Kill movement, but simply because she cared and wanted to see those kittens saved:

… all my friend knows is these kittens she saved need shelter and help. She knows that “no-kill” is good. It’s what she wants for those kittens. And she’s willing to wait, and to drive for hours, if I can just tell her where to go.

She knows she wants those kittens to live, not die. She knows she doesn’t want them killed. It’s really that simple. And that powerful.

To suggest that this animal lover would be ‘too stupid’ to understand that if these kittens were untreatably ill and suffering that a No Kill shelter would euthanse them on compassionate grounds is simply setting up a straw-man argument of community objections that don’t exist in reality. Given this person is compassionate enough to pluck these kittens from her backyard and care where they end up, it would be reasonable to assume she wouldn’t allow her own pet to suffer irremediably. Why then would we think she would want this forced on other pets?

What she wants to know that these kittens won’t be killed for convenience. That they will be given every chance to find new homes; even if that means they go into foster care, or are transferred to rescue, or their pictures are circulated on social media sites or bows are tied around their necks and the local media asked to come take pictures of them. The community understands the difference between ‘killing for convenience’ and true euthanasia, much more completely than we give them credit for.

So that takes us back to our shelter manager, who rejects No Kill. If the real issue is not the ‘stupidity’ of the public, what is really going on? And what happens when we ‘rebrand’ No Kill to appease their sensibilities?

First is to understand the nature of ‘Resistance’ – I wrote a whole piece on the topic here:

Shelters can’t openly reject the notion that pets should be offered foster care instead of death, that pets should be given a chance with a rescue group rather than be killed, that pets should be kept healthy instead of allowed to have their health and behaviour deteriorate whilst in care, that pets should be promoted off-site, online and in the local media rather than summarily killed, or that pets should be allowed to go into new homes rather than have potential families turned away by uncaring or bureaucratic staff… because if they reject these notions then they put themselves firmly in the firing line of their community.

Given the loss of support, donors and resources is crippling, they find themselves left with two choices; change or resist. And often, entrenched in the status quo, offended that people are criticising their performance and scared of being forced into transparency and accountability, they choose to resist.

We know this resistance exists because this information on how to run these life saving programs successfully has been around for decades; shelter dog rehabilitation, outreach desexing, working with volunteers, saving lives through foster care, relationships with the community and foster groups, good media interactions and adoption promotions, conferences, magazines, volunteer train-the-trainer programs, have all been available to groups who wanted to move away from killing. While for the last five to ten years the internet has allowed the immediate access of the best of sheltering practices, and connection to specialists from around the world running effective programs. No Kill hasn’t created this information; it’s been around (and could have been used) for as long as most shelter managers have been in their positions. And yet in 2011 we are still have trouble getting shelters and pounds to invest in, and fully implement, those programs and practices which save lives.

Until now

Why is it, that groups are now falling over themselves to do things other than run down their community and lament high kill rates, and to be seen to be ‘life-savers’ where just two years ago, they were still defending killing and bagging the community for being ‘irresponsible’? Why is it all changing?

Because of No Kill. Because despite shelter manager’s resistance, the community aren’t too stupid to understand it. In fact they thought No Kill programs were what shelters had been doing all along and frankly, they’re pissed off to find out that the tens of millions of dollars they have been contributing annually has often been invested in making groups rich and powerful, not saving lives.

The same shelter managers who arrogantly proclaimed that they ‘had’ to kill 90%+ of cat intakes, or that pit bulls should be wiped out, or that we need mandatory desexing laws and pet ownership licences to save lives… are all suddenly floundering, as an educated community pushes back on the myths and mantras and bullshit from the industry. And the public doesn’t care whether shelter managers ‘feel good’ or comfortable with these changes – they don’t care whether egos are bruised or whether these ‘sheltering professionals’ would rather we were kinder to them, or gave them more credit. They don’t care because the public see it’s about the animals – not appealing to the sensibilities of puffy, self-important CEO’s who have been ignoring all this good information for all this time, in favour of killing.

No Kill advocates need to value this change

When we think about calling No Kill something else, what we’re really considering is whether rather than continue this momentum, we should agree the term ‘No Kill’ is too controversial and appease those very same CEO’s who have failed animals, by diluting the message that got them to start making changes in the first place. Why on earth would we do that?

No Kill is a movement for the people. Programs which call No Kill by another name, may be an attractive ‘baby step’ for advocates stymied by unwilling shelter management, but getting a resistant shelter onside by agreeing to their terms, is dangerous. Because they can then use the language of No Kill, use the power of No Kill and create double-speak like ‘working towards saving pets’ to appease their supporters… all the while keeping their belief that they know best, the community shouldn’t say anything contrary to their ‘expert’ opinion, and that killing is simply an unavoidable part of animal sheltering.

To think you’ll get compliance from those groups who’ve come out saying ‘we don’t support No Kill because we don’t like the name of it’ by pandering to their egos in designing a less confronting, more stealthy program is unrealistic. While it would be nice to think all we have to do is give the blueprint to shelter management in a palatable format; the truth is the system is presently so monopolised and self-serving that the only way to bring about change is to target those who continue to champion killing head on, by showing the public how their attitude and their failures continues to kill animals unnecessarily.

They could have already implemented the programs to stop killing if they thought saving lives was their goal (calling it whatever they like in the process), but they haven’t. They could already be lobbying against the laws which mandate killing here in Oz, but they aren’t. They genuinely believe killing is a necessary part of their job, and to now admit that it isn’t, is a blow to their authority that most will never submit to. Waiting five, ten years while they pretend to be on board, dithering about the name and detail, while finding every reason in the book for ‘resistance’ is simply time wasted. We need to continue to shake the thrones of these kings from the outside in – through public awareness of No Kill programs and grass roots advocacy for change.

No Kill – can’t we just call it something else?

We could, but we shouldn’t. We should be about is what gets results, not what makes the defenders of killing feel the most comfortable. Claiming the No Kill movement as our own in Australia is a vital step to bringing about change in a system which is failing; by contrast, giving up the power of the No Kill movement accepts the excuses and the allows the unnecessary killing of shelter pets to continue.

“Mark my words, there will be an end to needless killing of healthy/treatable shelter pets. And when that happens, which side will history put you on? Will you have been an advocate for no kill or will you have remained a loyal enabler to those who needlessly killed untold millions of pets in shelters?”
~ YesBiscuit