On February 1, Rescue Network’s 10th Annual Chat Week invited Nathan Winograd, author of Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America to discuss his views with the animal welfare community.

Nathan Winograd espouses and promotes the no-kill philosophy based on a growing number of successes across the U.S.

In Tompkins County, the death rate was reduced by 75 percent, and they were able to cut expenses in the process. When Winograd inherited that shelter, it had a $124,000 annual deficit. By the time they had finished reducing the death rate to only 7 percent of all impounded animals, they finished the year with a $23,000 surplus.

In Philadelphia, they went from an 88 percent killing rate to 61 percent save rate without a single dollar increase in their animal control budget. In Washoe County, they have actually been able to reduce the deficit at the same time they are reducing killing by over 50 percent.

The reason for that is that most of the programs of the No Kill Equation are more cost-effective than programs to impound and kill animals. For example, it is cheaper to neuter and release a feral cat to a volunteer caretaker than it is to impound that cat, hold that cat for the stray period, and kill that cat and dispose of the body. And the savings for neutering that cat are exponential, because of the savings of not having to care for the offspring that are never born.

The other no-kill programs are no different. Volunteers do a lot of the work of lifesaving in communities that have embraced the no-kill philosophy. Adoptions bring in revenue, while killing, while disposing of bodies costs money. At the end of the day, shelters can reduce the number of animals that are killed, and actually run a more cost-effective operation.

But it’s an effort to overcome the old-school animal control politics.

Just go read the chat transcript.

More about the No Kill Revolution at Nathan’s blog

See more folk art from Nick Herrera. That’s his Dogcatchers piece above.

With the debacle at the Rushville, Indiana animal shelter, it’s high time a few folks took a look through Nathan Winograd’s new book, “Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America”.

Winograd has all the credentials any shelter professional could ask for. He left a lucrative career as a prosecuting attorney to devote himself to helping animals. He has spearheaded the No Kill Advocacy Center, a national organization aimed at ending the killing of pets in animal shelters. While director of operations at the San Francisco SPCA, he worked with then-president Richard Avanzino to implement a wide variety of animal livesaving programs, and then went on to achieve similar success as director of a rural shelter in upstate New York.

His book challenges the very foundation of nearly every principle of shelter management: The idea that there are more pets dying in shelters each year than homes available for those pets.

New York City offered Bergh’s ASPCA money to run the dog pound… Henry Bergh [Founder of the ASPCA] refused.

He believed that the ASPCA was a tool to champion and protect life, not to end it. He believed that its role to protect animals from people was fundamentally at odds with that of a pound. Bergh understood implicitly that animal welfare and animal control were two separate and distinct movements, each opposing the other on fundamental issues of life and death.

~~ Redemption, p.11

Why are so many animals ending up in shelters in the first place?

Conventional wisdom tells us it’s because of irresponsible pet owners who aren’t willing to work to keep their pets in their homes. It’s a failure of commitment, of caring, and of the human/animal bond. If fewer pets were born, there would be fewer coming into shelters. If people cared more about their pets, they wouldn’t give them up so easily, would spay and neuter them so they wouldn’t reproduce, and wouldn’t let them stray.

Winograd’s argument is simply this: Based on data from the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, the Pet Food Manufacturers Association, and the latest census, there are more than enough homes for every dog and cat being killed in shelters every year. There aren’t just enough homes for the dogs and cats being killed in shelters. There are more homes for cats and dogs opening each year than there are cats and dogs even entering shelters.

This means that the problem is not insurmountable and it does mean that we can do something short of killing for all savable animals today.

There is probably nothing Winograd could say that would more inflame the shelter and humane society establishment than calling pet overpopulation a myth. But Winograd doesn’t just stop there. In “Redemption,” Winograd lays the lion’s share of the blame for shelter deaths not on pet owners and communities, but on the management, staff, and boards of directors of the shelters themselves.

“If a community is still killing the majority of shelter animals, it is because the local SPCA, humane society, or animal control shelter has fundamentally failed in its mission,” he writes. “And this failure is nothing more than a failure of leadership. The buck stops with the shelter’s director.”

Redemption makes the case that bad shelter management leads to overcrowding, which is then confused with pet overpopulation. Instead of warehousing and killing animals, shelters, he says, should be using proven, innovative programs to find those homes he says are out there. They should wholeheartedly adopt the movement known as No Kill, and stop using killing as a form of population control.

“Let’s just look at various animals dying in shelters around the nation today. If … motherless kittens are killed because the shelter doesn’t have a comprehensive foster care program, that’s not pet overpopulation. That’s the lack of a foster care program.”

“If adoptions are low because people are getting those dogs and cats from other places, because the shelter isn’t doing outside adoptions (adoptions done off the shelter premises), that’s a failure to do outside adoptions, not pet overpopulation.”

“And you can go down the list. If animals are killed because working with rescue groups is discouraged, again, that’s not pet overpopulation. If dogs are going cage-crazy because volunteers and staff aren’t allowed to socialize them, and then those dogs are killed because they’re “cage crazy,” because the shelter doesn’t have a behavior rehabilitation program in place, once again, that’s not pet overpopulation; that’s the lack of programs and services that save lives.”

“And you can say that about feral cats being killed because a shelter doesn’t have a trap-neuter-return program. You can say that about shy or scared dogs because the shelter is doing this bogus temperament testing that’s killing shy dogs and claiming they are unadoptable. It goes on and on and on.”

Winograd’s not just talking about something that could happen, but something that has already happened many times in a number of American communities — including San Francisco, which in 1994 became the first city in the United States to end the killing of healthy dogs and cats.

Of course, the San Francisco SPCA was not the first no-kill shelter in the United States. There have always been individual shelters and rescue groups that have not used population control killing. What San Francisco did was to institutionalize No Kill on a county-wide basis, guaranteeing that animals would not be killed simply for lack of shelter space. The SFSPCA promised to take all adoptable, treatable, and rehabilitatable pets that came into San Francisco’s municipal shelter, and find homes for them if the city shelter could not.

“If you look at what San Francisco did between 1993 and 1994, the number of deaths…of healthy animals…declined 100 percent. In the case of sick and injured animals it declined by about 50 percent.”

No Kill has worked in a wide variety of communities. Winograd later left California and took over the SPCA in Tompkins County, N.Y., which held the animal control contract for the region and has an open admissions policy. One of the most compelling sections of “Redemption” tells how Winograd walked into the shelter and, literally overnight, ended the practice of killing for shelter space:

“The day after my arrival, my staff informed me that our dog kennels were full and since a litter of six puppies had come in, I needed to decide who was going to be killed in order to make space. I asked for ‘Plan B’; there was none. I asked for suggestions; there were none.”

He spoke directly to his staff, telling them that they were paid to save lives. “If a paid member of staff throws up her hands and says, ‘There’s nothing that can be done,’ I may as well eliminate her position and use the money that goes for her salary in a more constructive manner. So what are we going to do with the puppies that doesn’t involve killing?”

The story of how Tompkins County stopped killing for population control and started sending more than 90 percent of the animals that come into its animal control system out alive may be one of the greatest success stories of the humane movement. It’s certainly one of the most compelling parts of the argument laid out in “Redemption.”

Because, although it wasn’t always easy, these programs worked, and not only in San Francisco or Tompkins County. “In Tompkins County, we reduced the death rate 75 percent in two years. In Charlottesville, Va., they reduced it by over 50 percent in one year. And Reno, Nev. … has reduced the death rate by over 50 percent,” Winograd said.

“If all shelters not only have the desire and embrace the No Kill philosophy, but comprehensively put into play all those programs and services that … I … collectively call the no-kill equation, then we would achieve success.”

The issue of pet overpopulation is only one piece of the story told in “Redemption.” Within its pages, readers and animal lovers can find the blueprint not so much for our failure to save the animals in our communities, but for our ability to start doing so today. It challenges us to demand more of our shelters than the status quo, to insist on an end to the use of killing as a form of animal population control, and tells us to stop allowing our tax dollars and donations to support shelters and animal control agencies that refuse to implement programs that have been proven in communities across America to work to end the killing.

Excerpted from Christy Keith, SFGate

SF Gate article

Nathan Winograd’s blog

It would be any animal shelter worker’s worst nightmare.

Imagine going to a walk-in freezer filled with animals that are supposed to be dead after being euthanized and seeing a dog, alive, pop up.

Now, imagine it’s happened twice before.

So begins the saga of an ongoing investigation at the Rushville Animal Shelter, an explosive situation canvassing community, state and cyberspace forums worldwide.

This “kill shelter” is a contradiction in terms. The kill rate is 93%, and the average time an animal spends here before being euthanized is 5 days.

According to whistle blower and assistant animal control officer Jamie Glandon, the problem started Aug. 8. In a formal complaint delivered to Mayor Bob Bridges Monday, Glandon related that Rushville Animal Control Officer Jack Hill euthanized a number of animals, one of which was a 7-year-old Border Collie.

“After putting the animals down, [Jack] put them in the freezer and went on with his day. On August 9, upon arriving at the shelter at 8 .m., I started my daily routine,” Glandon’s typed statement reads. “When Jack got back he informed me he heard a dog howling in the freezer. So at 8:20 a.m. he went into the freezer and found out it was the Border Collie. He went and got the medicine he used to euthanize, opened the freezer door and injected the dog and closed the door back. At 8:47 a.m. the dog was still howling. At 9 a.m. he injected the dog again and closed the door. That was the last we heard from her.”

According to Glandon, she verbally made Mayor Bridges aware of the situation that day.

On Oct. 25, according to the formal complaint, Hill again euthanized several dogs before Jamie began her shift.

“I arrived at work at 8 a.m. and heard whining from the freezer. I opened the door and found three lab puppies on the top of a pile in the freezer still alive. Jack was pulling up to the shelter when I went in. I told him what was going on. I started to pull the puppies out and he told me to leave them be. He went in and got his medicine and injected the dogs again while still in the freezer. That was the last I heard from them. I verbally made my city council representative aware of the situation on Oct. 25, who then made Mayor Bridges aware.

“I spoke with Jack and asked him what the procedures were and if there were any things that were needed in place to be sure that incidents like this do not happen again in the future,” Bridges said. “Two items needed were a scale and a stethoscope. I donated the stethoscope and told Jack to order the scales that day.” Funds from a shelter fundraiser held earlier in the month were used for the scales, which weigh the dogs correctly so that the proper euthanasia dosage can be administered. Bridges also contacted local veterinarian Rob Jackman so that training on administering the serum could be utilized. The shelter employees travelled to Jackman’s clinic that day and watched as Jackman demonstrated how to find a vein on an animal while administering an IV to a dog.

On that Monday, one day before taking vacation time, Hill put down another group of animals as the shelter was again at capacity. Two German Shepherd-Mastiff mix puppies were on the list for euthanasia that day as pleas for adoption went unanswered and postings on petfinder.com were ignored.

Nov. 16, an elderly woman brought a cat in to be disposed of. Glandon went to the freezer to place the dead animal in it.

“When I opened the freezer door, a puppy popped her head up out of the barrel,” Glandon said. Glandon immediately pulled the dog from the freezer.

“She was buried under other dogs up to her chest,” Glandon said. “She smelled like death, which is the worst possible smell you could imagine, and couldn’t walk. Her back half-end was slightly swollen, and she just started wailing. I placed her in the dog crate outside of the freezer to give us both a time-out because I needed to go to the restroom and throw up.”

Glandon immediately called Jackman’s Animal Clinic to schedule an emergency appointment for the dog who she named “Gabby” and was told they would get back with her. “I gave her a bath while I was waiting for the clinic to call me back because the smell was unlike anything you could imagine,” Glandon said. “Jackman’s took her in around noon.

Afterwards, she shipped the dog out to rescue, and it has been checked by the rescue’s own veterinarian.

According to Bridges, “I received the formal complaint on my desk Monday morning. I told Jamie she had to understand that the investigation will be done, but it will not be done tomorrow. These things take time.”

“I had no idea about the stuff on the Internet until I got a phone call from someone locally saying that they had seen something on a web site, and was it true,” Bridges said. “I had no idea what they were talking about.” A petition on another site already has thousands of signatures from people from France to Bosnia, and calls for no more euthanization.

Glandon hopes this situation will raise awareness among the community about the conditions at the shelter.

“I hope that the shelter changes its policies on euthanization and the treatment of the deceased animals,” she said. “I hope that people realize that animals aren’t trash. A life is a life. I hope that people in Rushville become aware of the problems that the shelter is facing and will step up and help so that stuff like this doesn’t happen again. This is where taxpayer dollars are going. I want people to understand that I have been working very hard at this shelter for almost two years trying to make things better. Had I kept this quiet for the third time, that would basically have been like saying I approve of what’s going on, and that’s not who I am.”

Friday evening, Jamie Glandon was placed on administrative leave with pay.

In the meantime, a hodgepodge of individuals, including Mayor Bob Bridges, city councilman Darrin McGowan, assistant chief of police Tim Williams and Dr. Fred Phillips and staff have been manning the day-to-day operations of the shelter, which has been at a standstill since last week. The team have been feeding and watering animals, cleaning kennels and scooping litterboxes.

Since the shelter’s closing, Glandon reports that calls have been received from rescue groups all over the United States, offering to pull every animal that is in the shelter now to keep the police department from having to use their time and energy to care for the animals, but the city is reportedly refusing.

Eslynn Davis of the Liberty and Cincinnati area organized a protest outside Council Chambers on Wednesday. As a volunteer for numerous animal welfare groups, including CARE (Companion Animal Rescue Effort), Davis took offense to the events at the local shelter.

“The euthanization of healthy animals in the United States must end, and this is just another prime example,” she said. “People must buy into the philosophy of spaying and neutering their animals so that situations like this do not continue to happen.”

“It seemed we had more support for the evening rally then we did for the afternoon. When someone driving by, or stopped at the red light honked we began to chant “THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU”. One woman who joined us was getting ready to leave and I told her how much we appreciated her coming out, I asked what rescue she was with. She said, “I’m just from Rushville, I live here”. I said “You know, you are the very first resident to come out and join us today”. She looked absolutely stricken and said “You have got to be kidding me”. I said “No, in fact, I’m from Cincinnati and have been volunteering at the shelter for almost 3 years and it hasn’t been until this past summer that we got our first Rushville volunteer”. She absolutely couldn’t believe it. She thanked us for coming and doing this for the town. I thanked her again, shook her hand. We had people stopping at the traffic light asking what was going on, when told, they would just lay on the horn. About 8 more residents came forward to join us, we gave them all buttons, cards, exchanged emails so we could organize for the next rally. One man, a Rushville resident, thanked us and went to the Shell Station and bought us all hot coffee, which was much appreciated. Those are the people that give me hope.”

The City, which was going to deliver a pronouncement on Jamie’s fate that day, had removed the shelter issue from the agenda. Apparently, closure on the investigation was postponed because of further formal complaints about Mr. Hill. Jamie Glandon continues to be locked out of shelter premises by the mayor, however, Jack Hill now appears to have been quietly reinstated as a driver for the streets department.

How the animals in the deteriorating Rushville Shelter are faring is anyone’s guess.

For an update on this story and the rallies in support of Jamie and Gabby, read Rally for Reason.

Rushville Republican

Justice for Gabby

Sign the petition!

Watch the video on Indy Channel News

Rushville Shelter