describing it. Some are so fed up with the status quo that their contempt drips from the pages of their books like wet ink. Nathan J. Winograd, in Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America, argues that some of America’s publicly funded shelters have quite simply become places where quick “mercy killing” is now standard operating procedure. He claims that killing dogs like Blue is nothing more than an excuse used by shelter workers who are too underfunded, too exhausted, or too plain lazy to even try to find homes for the majority of dogs left in their care.
While Winograd’s tone is less measured than that in some of his colleagues’ books, I couldn’t help but notice that his underlying facts appeared to be the same—and I gave him some extra attention because Michele Armstrong at Lulu’s Rescue had told me that he is one of her heroes. Winograd doesn’t stop at the statistics the way other activists do, saying that if only more people would adopt, the problem could be solved. While he does say that the public should make a greater effort to spay and neuter their dogs, he doesn’t draw the larger curtain of blame down over the general public itself. He instead points a wagging finger at every shelter director whose salary is paid by taxpayers, whose facility is funded by tax dollars, and who continues to kill more healthy, adoptable dogs than are saved. He talks about professional animal-control workers who insist they simply cannot do what the rescue groups like Lulu’s are able to do as volunteers, that they’re not equipped or staffed for it, and that it is instead the rescue groups—not the shelters themselves—failing to do enough to save dogs like Blue.
“Imagine hypothetically a Department of Social Services director attacking a private soup kitchen or homeless shelter for not having enough beds or serving enough meals, meaning the department itself has to feed or house the remainder,” Winograd writes. “As a private agency, the soup kitchen or homeless shelter does what it can. The mandate to care for homeless people, by contrast, belongs with the city department.”
“The mandate to care” is a noteworthy phrase. While I understand that every issue has its many sides, along with its institutionalized personalities and intricate politics, I also began to realize that every book and article I was reading contained shared points that seemed to underpin everything I knew so far about Blue’s life story. He was a perfectly wonderful, adoptable dog about to be killed for no discernable reason other than space. To the best of my knowledge, nobody from taxpayer-funded Person County Animal Control so much as took his picture and uploaded it to an adoption website before scheduling his death. It was volunteers in North Carolina working together with volunteers all the way up in Pennsylvania who kept Blue safe, provided basic veterinary care, and made an effort to get him into the home of a willing adopter like me.
I couldn’t help but wonder why the tax dollars being spent at the Person County facility didn’t simply pay for that handful of things in the first place. We’re talking about curing a common rash, giving a puppy food and a clean place to sleep, and publishing his digital photograph online. None of this sounded particularly colossal in scope to me, and not nearly so vigorous that a cross-country network of volunteers should have to exist to get it accomplished. The more I read, the more puzzled I felt.
And the bigger question, I pondered, is how many of the billion dollars doled out to American shelters each year are being spent on gas chambers instead of digital photographs? How many shelters are there in the United States with operations like the one that nearly claimed Blue’s life? How widespread is this problem of gas chambers, in a nation where more than half the pet owners surveyed say they call themselves Mommy and Daddy?
The complete
While Winograd’s tone is less measured than that in some of his colleagues’ books, I couldn’t help but notice that his underlying facts appeared to be the same—and I gave him some extra attention because Michele Armstrong at Lulu’s Rescue had told me that he is one of her heroes. Winograd doesn’t stop at the statistics the way other activists do, saying that if only more people would adopt, the problem could be solved. While he does say that the public should make a greater effort to spay and neuter their dogs, he doesn’t draw the larger curtain of blame down over the general public itself. He instead points a wagging finger at every shelter director whose salary is paid by taxpayers, whose facility is funded by tax dollars, and who continues to kill more healthy, adoptable dogs than are saved. He talks about professional animal-control workers who insist they simply cannot do what the rescue groups like Lulu’s are able to do as volunteers, that they’re not equipped or staffed for it, and that it is instead the rescue groups—not the shelters themselves—failing to do enough to save dogs like Blue.
“Imagine hypothetically a Department of Social Services director attacking a private soup kitchen or homeless shelter for not having enough beds or serving enough meals, meaning the department itself has to feed or house the remainder,” Winograd writes. “As a private agency, the soup kitchen or homeless shelter does what it can. The mandate to care for homeless people, by contrast, belongs with the city department.”
“The mandate to care” is a noteworthy phrase. While I understand that every issue has its many sides, along with its institutionalized personalities and intricate politics, I also began to realize that every book and article I was reading contained shared points that seemed to underpin everything I knew so far about Blue’s life story. He was a perfectly wonderful, adoptable dog about to be killed for no discernable reason other than space. To the best of my knowledge, nobody from taxpayer-funded Person County Animal Control so much as took his picture and uploaded it to an adoption website before scheduling his death. It was volunteers in North Carolina working together with volunteers all the way up in Pennsylvania who kept Blue safe, provided basic veterinary care, and made an effort to get him into the home of a willing adopter like me.
I couldn’t help but wonder why the tax dollars being spent at the Person County facility didn’t simply pay for that handful of things in the first place. We’re talking about curing a common rash, giving a puppy food and a clean place to sleep, and publishing his digital photograph online. None of this sounded particularly colossal in scope to me, and not nearly so vigorous that a cross-country network of volunteers should have to exist to get it accomplished. The more I read, the more puzzled I felt.
And the bigger question, I pondered, is how many of the billion dollars doled out to American shelters each year are being spent on gas chambers instead of digital photographs? How many shelters are there in the United States with operations like the one that nearly claimed Blue’s life? How widespread is this problem of gas chambers, in a nation where more than half the pet owners surveyed say they call themselves Mommy and Daddy?
The complete
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