Why Won’t Animal Shelters Support a Petition to End Convenience Killing?
On the hollow promise of “socially conscious sheltering”
In February this year, the brief reprieve between the bushfires and the global pandemic, I found out that a beautiful greyhound that I’d fostered through a large animal shelter was killed for treatable anxiety.
My grief and guilt slowly turned to anger when the shelter justified its decision by pointing to the time and resources that would be necessary to rehabilitate a dog like Dash, who had been traumatised by the racing industry.
Until this experience, I had no idea about the way that pounds and shelters operate in Australia — and how horrifying the statistics are. It is estimated that up to 100,000 cats and dogs are euthanised each year, many of them healthy and capable of rehabilitation (given, of course, the necessary time and resources).
I began a petition to put an end to the practice of “convenience killing”, by mandating transparent euthanasia reporting and giving qualified rescue groups the legal right to save animals scheduled to be killed by Victorian pounds and shelters. Due to be tabled in three weeks, it has almost 20,000 signatures — a record-breaking achievement in this state.
What it does not have, however, is the support of animal shelters.
Last week, I attended an advocacy forum run by the shelter that killed Dash, and listened to them speak about their intention to become a “socially conscious shelter.” It sounds wonderful — in theory. But what exactly is it?
According to the website, “A Socially Conscious Animal Community’s fundamental goal is to create best outcomes for all animals.” What this amounts to is a shared set of principles to abide by. Here are a few of the tenets listed and how they compare to the case of my foster greyhound Dash:
“Place every healthy and safe animal. Every single one. Healthy means either having no signs of clinical disease or evidence of disease that has a good or excellent prognosis for a comfortable life.”
By the shelter’s own acknowledgement, Dash’s anxiety was a treatable health issue and he exhibited no aggression to humans or animals.
“Assess the medical and behavioral needs of homeless animals and ensure these needs are thoughtfully addressed... including enrichment sufficient to make them comfortable and to prevent self-destructive, obsessive-compulsive coping behaviors.
The shelter could not confirm that a behaviourist had ever met Dash in person (ie not even once) to either assess or meet his behavioural needs. Staff lied to us, claiming that he was working with a behaviourist.
“Enhance the human-animal bond through safe placements and post-adoption support… including behavior advice, classes for new pet caregivers, and addressing shelter-related medical needs.”
The shelter took four weeks to respond to our requests for behavioural support for Dash and their only advice was to return him to the facility, promising he wouldn’t be euthanised. As new pet caregivers, we received no training aside from a 10 minute handover.
“Foster a culture of transparency, ethical decision-making, mutual respect, continual learning and collaboration. Conscious Shelters are committed to full transparency, including reporting accurate statistics, sharing policies and fully and quickly admitting when mistakes are made.”
Shelter staff directly lied to me in writing about Dash’s death, claiming he was still alive and “doing well!” after he had already been euthanised.
“Alleviate suffering and make appropriate euthanasia decisions. Compassionate euthanasia is a gift. It is not acceptable to let a terminally ill, suffering animal languish in a cage until it dies naturally.”
Anxiety is not a terminal illness. Dash’s killing was NOT a gift.
Clearly, the shelter is not currently abiding by the principles of the Socially Conscious Animal Community.
So what changes does a shelter have to make, in order to declare itself “socially conscious?”
In the US, Socially Conscious Sheltering seems to have emerged in response to growing public support for the No Kill Movement. Even a quick look at the two websites exposes an almost laughably poor design, over-simplistic wording, and lack of detail by comparison.
It has subsequently been adopted by shelters with high kill rates in order to disguise their practices and claim an ethical model. Nathan Winograd, Director of the No Kill Advocacy Center, writes:
“Socially Conscious Animal Sheltering” is a new name for an old concept: a poorly run pound that kills animals in the face of common-sense, cost-effective, readily-available alternatives it simply refuses to implement. Because it excuses killing and overlooks neglect and cruelty which often precede it, it is not surprisingly embraced by regressive pounds. ‘Socially Conscious Animal Sheltering’ is designed for one reason and one reason only: to legitimize killing.”
What’s more, there does not appear to be any level of accountability for organisations that declare themselves part of the movement. Simply by entering my name into the website and ticking a box — a 10 second process at most — I was provided with a brand logo and a press release that I could use to announce to the world that I am now a socially conscious animal shelter.
I do not run an animal shelter. This is a fact that nobody even checked.
Surely a socially conscious shelter would support legislation to end convenience killing?
Two of the largest animal shelters in Victoria claim to “publicly report” on their euthanasia statistics —as per the first demand on my petition.
However, these are presented in their annual reports as pie charts with no raw figures, rendering them essentially meaningless. One of these shelters doesn’t even bother to spell out the word, instead using the shortened “euth’d”. How can anyone pretend that a pie chart is a transparent method of reporting?
Aware of the groundswell of community support, the shelter that killed Dash is attempting to shift the focus away from their own practices —responding to the second demand on my petition with a call for tighter regulation of rescue groups. The shelter’s position sets up a false dichotomy, as though rescue group regulation and access are mutually exclusive propositions.
The fact is that if animal shelters — with their millions of dollars in donations — were doing their job, then volunteer-run rescue groups lacking those kinds of funds should not even need to exist.
And yet most of the rescue groups I have spoken with said they are in favour of greater regulation if it would allow them access to the animals on death row in pounds and shelters — which can be (and frequently are) killed even when there is a rescue group willing and able to take them.
If shelters are concerned about the quality of care provided by certain rescue groups, they have literally over a hundred others in Victoria to choose from. The shelter that killed Dash has relationships with multiple greyhound rescue groups in Melbourne — yet it decided not to offer Dash to any of them.
The irony is that this shelter is pushing for “minimum standards” for rescue groups while advocating “socially conscious sheltering” for themselves — a loose framework that sets out vague principles and then does not even enforce them, as though this is a satisfactory substitute for legislation.
So what is the alternative?
Thanks to the success of the No Kill Movement in the US, the Companion Animal Protection Act (CAPA) has been introduced in numerous states and counties. While this does not mandate a no-kill policy, it implements measures that have effectively driven down kill rates — among other proven benefits.
This legislation ensures that pounds and shelters cannot kill a healthy or treatable animal without offering it to rescue groups first. Because its provisions are common sense, most people assume this is how animal shelters already operate — I certainly did. Sadly, this is often not the case.
After my experience with Dash, I met with shelter staff and asked them to implement key changes. They agreed to review my recommendations but came to the conclusion that they were satisfied with their practices and thus could not firmly commit to a single one of my suggested changes.
Similarly, “socially conscious sheltering” is a hollow promise and offers no assurance that convenience killing will come to an end. We must not be blinded by a logo and a press release.
If you are a Victorian resident, please sign the petition: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council/petitions/electronic-petitions/view-e-petitions/details/12/192
If you are not, please consider lobbying your state and local leaders to introduce CAPA where you live. Animals’ lives depend upon it.
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