The Future of Dogs in an Animal Rights America
by Walt Hutchens



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Shelter Euthanasia

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The Interest Groups: Many groups will have viewpoints on pet animal policy but none can be counted on to be sufficiently free of bias to be a dependable single source. Decision makers must of course hear all views but it will be necessary to form independent judgements of the best course(s) of action. It is common for the right answers not to be among those most strongly argued.

Immigrant communities: Localities with a substantial immigrant community need to give their policies a very careful examination from the immigrant client viewpoint. If illegal immigrants are a significant factor, policies that require giving names and addresses will fail. Punitive and legalistic approaches will build resentment and noncompliance even more quickly than among poorer citizens communities and are guaranteed to fail. Some immigrants come from parts of the world where animal control consists of sending out teams to kill all visible pets when there are an 'excessive' number of human rabies cases; simply hiding pets is a familiar reaction.

Animal control in these communities should:

1. Emphasize public safety and health over simple legalistic/compliance issues. Keeping streets clear of free ranging dogs should be the first priority, rabies vaccinations should be second. Population control (if true overpopulation exists) is critical for the long term but third in immediate priority.

2. So far as possible adopt a professional and businesslike approach, minimize looking like government, avoid looking like an extension of the legal system.

Some animal control establishments will not easily adopt this approach and specific attention needs to be given to obtaining the client view of the system on an ongoing basis.

No-Kill Shelters: The shortest possible description of this idea is 'fraud.'

Any society that has pets will in the course of a year have some that are unsuitable to continue as pets and others that become ill or injured and whose owners (if known) won't or can't afford to take them to a vet for euthanasia. These animals will die somewhere and public safety as well as common decency demands that they be given a 'good death.'

It is both wise and good policy to strive to minimize euthanasias of adoptable animals but promoting 'no kill' hides and denigrates an essential public function. In some cases the promotion is flatly dishonest: a 'no kill' public facility may be paired with one or more other shelters and pets deemed unadoptable or less likely to be adopted are simply shipped out of town to be put down. In other cases as noted above, statistics and/or adoptability criteria are manipulated to give the appearance of 'no kill' at a shelter that may even have a high rate of euthanasias.

The 'no kill' urge should be resisted. Shelters perform an important public function. They should be funded appropriately, encoraged to do all of their jobs well and supported when they do so. Substandard performance should be handled exactly as in any other function.

Shelter Funding: "Follow the money ..." Whatever policy is formally adopted will be at least substantially adjusted according to the formula by which publicly supported shelters are funded. For example if it is desired to reduce euthanasia rates, then a policy of paying shelters significantly on a per-euthanasia basis should be changed.

Conflicts of interest: It's common for a veterinarian to sit on a shelter board of directors or even to chair such a board. It's also common for a veterinarian to be paid for performing euthanasia services. Policy should forbid the same veterinarian (or two with financial ties) doing both functions.

Walt Hutchens
Virginia