3 kinds of animal shelter in the USA (according to Nathan Winograd)

I receive a newsletter from Nathan Winograd for which I am very grateful because he is an incredibly knowledgeable man about the animal rescue network in the US and he is, I believe, instrumental in instigating and driving forward the concept of no-kill animal shelters. His basic attitude is that with effort and imagination and with the right attitude managers of animal shelters in America can rehome all their animals except those that are genuinely unsuited for rehoming. And therefore, he has saved millions of lives.

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Animal shelter. Image by Daga_Roszkowska from Pixabay 

So, what he says goes and he divides up animal shelters into these three categories and I will use his words verbatim for the sake of clarity and certainty:

1. 'Those that embrace the No Kill Equation achieving placement rates of 99%'. Comment: these shelters rehome almost 100% of the animals that are in their care. They are the ones he considers to be doing good work;
2. 'Those that routinely kill animals because they find killing easier than doing what is necessary to stop it'. Comment: this, I believe, is a strong hint at the fact that some managers of some shelters don't commit to rehoming the animals that pass through their organisation in using their imagination, commitment and good business practices. It is, he thinks, a form of laziness in this sector of the animal shelter operation;
3. 'Those that close the door to animals in need and tell people who find animals that if they don't want to ignore the animals, they have to take care of themselves'. Comment: I believe that this is a reference to some shelters who argue that in respect of feral cats it is best to leave them where they are even if they are semi-domesticated and can be rehomed or perhaps this attitude also relates to stray cats. They might argue that the stray, homeless domestic cats have learned to live outside of the human home and therefore because they have a limited amount of space at the shelter, they have decided that these cats should stay where they are but if their customers object to that process, they, themselves, can look after these homeless cats. That is my interpretation and if I am incorrect, please tell me in a comment.

There is nothing more than I can add because although I subscribe to his emails, I do not subscribe to his blog nor to his podcast where I will probably learn a bit more. I don't subscribe to his other outlets because I have enough on my plate already and I have enough subscriptions and associations with other websites which already make my life a little overcomplicated.

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