Why does the no-kill cat shelter policy mean that 10% of the cats are killed?

You may have wondered why the much vaunted no-kill animal shelter and cat shelter policy results in 10% of the cats being killed. Surely "no-kill" means no killing whatsoever? I'm afraid not. 

What it does mean is that there is no killing i.e. euthanasia of healthy cats but exceptions are made for cats with severe medical conditions that cannot be treated causing significant pain and poor quality of life and cats with severe behavioural issues that pose a danger to life to humans or other animals and where rehabilitation efforts are unlikely to succeed.

These cats are euthanised. The term euthanasia would genuinely apply to a chronically ill and terminally ill cat but under any other circumstances it wouldn't really apply. We have to use the word "kill" under circumstances where the cat is euthanised because of behavioural issues.

There is a muddying of the waters in terms of the language used at cat shelters. However, the no-kill movement - which is the brainchild, as I understand it, of Nathan Winograd, American's greatest advocate of saving the lives of shelter animals in America - has reduced unnecessary euthanasia.

The no-kill philosophy focuses on saving all healthy and treatable animals and with that in mind it can dramatically reduce the number of animals euthanised due to the limits of space at shelter facilities and time limits.

The concept is there to focus the minds of managers and workers to use their best possible practices and imagination to find ways to save lives. And there's been a quite dramatic - I think it's fair to say - increase in the number of no-kill shelters in America over the past decade.

The euthanasia rate has dramatically dropped in America over the past decade too. It's still pretty high but much better. There is still work to do.

Some people decry the no-kill movement. I've read quite a lot about PETA but once again there is misleading language used against them in my view. But they seem to believe that killing feral cats is preferable to looking after them and putting them back on the street under TNR programs. 

I think that is a misleading idea about PETA. But ironically Nathan Winograd is in a running battle with PETA about saving cats and killing cats. Nathan Winograd hates PETA as he thinks that this very high-profile animal charity kills too many cats. Either they promote the idea of killing feral cats or they kill themselves and he consistently says this. It's a shame because both of great animal advocates. We don't want people on the same side fighting each other over policy decisions.

I'm told that in 2017 a milestone was reached when for the first time the total number of dogs and cats euthanised in US shelters fell below 1 million. The actual number is estimated at 800,000. I'm also told that it is difficult to obtain accurate data on the number of cats killed 10 years ago compared to the number of cats killed today at shelters. There's been a reduction though so no-kill has worked to a good extent but more work needs to be done.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Woman ran Chicago marathon (3:31) and rescued and rehomed a kitten at the same time!

This is a great little story on Facebook. A Boston resident, Sarah Bohan, was a participant in Chicago's marathon. She was running the charity for PAWS Chicago. This is one of the largest no-kill animal welfare organisations in America. There were 482 runners on the team running for PAWS. A wonderful effort.

Sarah Bohan rescues stray kitten during Chicago marathon. Image: FB.

That would have been great by itself but Sarah went a lot further. She was on a personal best time when she noticed a scared and dirty kitten under a bridge at the 21-mile mark. She was not that far from the finish line really.

This is what she said.

"I saw this white fluffy thing scurrying under a bridge and recognized it as a dirty, scared cat that was obviously a stray separated from its mother. At that point, my personal record was out the window and I knew what I had to do."

She rescued the kitten and then walked for about a mile asking spectators if they would take the kitten that she'd rescued and rehome her. She found a woman who is a cat caregiver who promised her that she would rehome the kitten. Or perhaps she's taken the kitten in. The picture above shows the moment of handover.

Then Sarah continued her race and finished in an impressive 3:31:35, which is a good time.

Sarah did an amazing job. The only question I have is that we have to hope that the woman who took the kitten is the right one meaning she is genuine and will do a good job in either looking after the kitten or rehoming her. She looks genuine to me. Well done, Sarah.

The kitten has a Turkish Van coat for anyone who's interested. A very Mediterranean appearance.

Here is the Facebook post:

Grand jury's scathing report of Orange County Animal Care, California rejected by BOS

A board of supervisors (BOS) is a group of elected officials responsible for overseeing county government. In Orange County a grand jury investigation of Orange County Animal Care (OCAC) in California has uncovered inhumane conditions but the BOS have rejected the findings.

They also revealed the killing of shelter animals despite there being empty cages and turning volunteers and adopters away by refusing to end pandemic-era closures. 

The OC Animal Care Shelter located in Tustin, California on June 17, 2023. Image: Hannah Okamoto / VOICE OF OC

That information comes from Nathan Winograd. In addition, I can report from the Voice of Orange County website which states that Orange County officials dispute the grand jury report on increased kill rate at the shelter.

The grand jury came to a majority finding that the county-run animal shelter needed to update policies such as increasing visits for residents.

And they found that the shelter has been euthanising animals at a higher rate than in previous years.

This latest report is part of an uncomfortable line of scathing reports; five over the past 24 years.

The latest report came out early on this summer and it echoes calls in the community to reopen OC Animal Care to the public, to reinstate trap neuter and release (TNR) programs and to reduce kill rates.

Nathan Winograd is critical of the BOS, whose role I mentioned in the opening sentence. I'm told by Nathan Winograd that the BOS passed a resolution disagreeing with almost all of the findings and recommendations. 

Among the many "breathtaking claims in its rebuttal, the BOS stated there is no link between refusing TNR and killing cats-even as OCAC does that very thing".

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, OC Animal Care suspended most of their walk-in services and introduced an appointment system in its place. And they also suspended the "catch-and-release" programme for community cats. I suspect that that is a reference to TNR programs for stray and feral cats in the county. Note that they suspended the program and didn't terminate or cancel it.

If it suspended then surely it can be reinstated?

I'm told that the kennel areas at the shelter are still mainly off-limits to the public except for a 2.5-hour period on Wednesdays and Saturdays when certain kennel areas are in fact open to the public.

The grand jury claimed that the adoption appointment system is restricted and it prevents potential adopters from viewing the animals easily. The county disagrees with those claims.

Animal advocate Sharon Logan commented in saying that the "themes" of the grand jury reports are always the same namely "lack of leadership and high euthanasia rates".

Logan is a local animal rescuer who, remarkably, successfully sued the county shelter over the shelter's euthanasia practices in the past.

The shelter is open to the public for five hours a week since the Covid pandemic. An Orange County resident, Margot Boyer, has started a petition to urge the shelter to entirely reopen the kennels to the public. The petition has surpassed 23,000 signatures.

She is pessimistic about the grand jury report because she believes that nothing will happen but at least the report was made which is more than what the BOS are doing.

Some American communities place over 95% of rescue animals in new homes

In an email to me, Nathan Winograd, "The voice of America's displaced pets and the conscience of the animal sheltering industry" tells me that in a number of American communities they place over 95%, and as high as 99%, of rescue animals in their care at shelters. He says that they are following his no-kill policies and he has consistently said that it is possible to genuinely place far more animals than is currently the case in many shelters through good management and a progressive and imaginative approach to saving lives through increasing adoptions. This is my interpretation.

Shelter cats needing a quality home. Image in public domain.

He quotes three successful communities:

• Gunnison County, CO, reported a 99% placement rate for dogs, 98% for cats, and 100% for other small animals.

• Flat Rock, MI, reported a 97% placement rate for dogs and 99% for cats.

• Shiawassee County, MI, reported a 97% placement rate for dogs, 99% for cats, and 100% for other animals

He says that these communities prove that animals are not dying in pounds because there are too many rescue animals or too few homes in which to place them, or that people don't want the animals. He said that they are dying in many pounds because people are killing them. What he is saying is that when the focus is on euthanasia of shelter animals (a euphemism for killing) rather than on how to rehome them and a commitment to that second objective, you end up with a higher death rate.

He calls it his "No Kill Equation". He has an enemy in PETA. PETA claim that his thoughts are misplaced. PETA prefer to euthanise animal shelters as a means of dealing with them if there are too many as it is the humane way under tough circumstances. 

And they say that there are too many cats and too many killings at shelters because of bad cat management i.e. through informal breeding and carelessness et cetera. The problem is with people and their ownership of cats not with the volunteers and workers at shelters who are doing sterling work.

And they also say that if a shelter tries to implement Nathan Winograd's 'No Kill Equation' they can end up with big issues and problems. One problem that they seem to point out is that sometime shelters, in an effort to stop euthanising animals, stop taking them in and push the problem back on the general public which can lead to animal cruelty outside of the shelter. They provide examples of that. For example:

"A Virginia woman who was convicted of cruelty to animals in the shooting deaths of six puppies testified that “she was angry and frustrated that even though she tried to do the right thing, she wasn’t able to find a place for the animals.” She reportedly contacted two shelters, but one was full and the other wouldn’t take the puppies because they belonged to her son. The woman said that she then shot them to death and disposed of their bodies."

If that is true then the shelters it seems to me are not implementing Nathan Winograd's policies. I don't think his policies suggest that shelters should reject incoming cats and dogs. I think what he wants people to do is to use more progressive methods to rehome them and focus on that.

Arguably, it is PETA who have misplaced thoughts in this regard. It is possible - and I'm not sure - that PETA don't fully understand Nathan Winograd's no-kill policies. And that may be because he doesn't explain them clearly enough. And perhaps his policies demand a rigour and commitment in shelter workers which is perhaps beyond their capabilities.

Although I am an admirer of Nathan Winograd, I think one problem that he has is communicating through the written word. He is a lawyer and therefore a great legal communicator but his language is tangled up in complexity. I don't think he writes in a clear and concise way which would help to get his message across to the general public at large i.e. to everybody. This I feel is a failing and something which holds him back.

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.

RELATED: Only remaining cat at a shelter is finally adopted through a novel veterinary program.

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.

RELATED: The higher an animal shelter's live release rate the higher the rates of burnout in shelter staff?

California earmarks another $45,000,000 to reduce killing in animal shelters

This comes on the heels of a prior commitment of $10,000,000. Unfortunately, its allocation is a missed opportunity to maximize lifesaving according to Nathan Winograd who gave me the heads up in an email.

What no-kill means. Image: MikeB

In a Facebook post, Nathan Winograd reports on the signing by the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, of legislation that provides $45 million to help animal shelters reduce killing. You can read legislation if you wish by clicking the following link: https://bit.ly/3zMqJ8v

You got to be a bit of a nerd to read it but it is educational. Having read Winograd's Facebook post I was interested to read that initiatives like this one to save the lives of animals at shelters and to drive them to a no-kill status benefit the economy of the state, city or county concerned. 

They are 'revenue positive' as he calls it. He refers to a University of Denver study as an example which found that one city's no-kill initiative yielded over $157 million in a positive economic impact to the community over the first six years, which represented a more than 400% return on investment by the city.

He says that other studies have come to similar conclusions. There are direct cost savings apparently in not killing animals at shelters. In California a provision of the Animal Shelter Law 1998 saved 85,000 animals annually which corresponded with cost savings of over $3 million. These costs relate to the killing process and the destruction of the remains of the animals. Saving such as this have been backed up in the states of Florida, Michigan, Oklahoma and Minnesota.

Attaining statewide no-kill status in all shelters would appear to benefit the economy of that state as well as save countless thousands of lives of unwanted animals who become wanted and loved. That seems to be a win-win situation to me.