Channeling my inner Rodney King

Rodney King died recently, but his poignant question – “Can we all get along?” – lives on.

King was the African-American man whose vicious beating by Los Angeles police officers was captured on video in 1991.  His attackers were tried in 1992, but the all-white jury acquitted three and could not agree on the fourth.  The verdict sparked terrible riots in Los Angeles, leading to the deaths of 53 people.  In the midst of the violence, a distraught King went on television to plead for unity, or at least civility.

So what does this have to do with dog rescue?

Like every movement, animal rescue is divided in multiple ways.  I have been participating in social movements for a long time – since I was 14 and joined protests against the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons manufacturing plant near Denver.  (Yes, that dates me.)  Since that time I have worked for a number of groups, on a number of issues, as both paid staff and volunteer. I have also studied social movements as an academic for more than 20 years, beginning with undergraduate and graduate research on revolutionary movements in Central America.  Divisions in those movements were sometimes literally deadly.  A number of prominent leaders were assassinated by their former allies, as was Malcolm X in this country.

Fortunately, at least so far, dog rescuers do not seem inclined to go after each other in such lethal ways.  Still, our divisions can be destructive.  We spend time criticizing others who are working for the same goals – helping the dogs who need us.  To the extent that it focuses on direct service, ours is a less ideologically-driven movement than some, but it still suffers from divisions about all kinds of things, ranging from the mundane (should your dogs eat only raw food?) to the abstract (what kinds of rights do nonhuman animals have, anyway?)

Some divisions matter more than others, and they matter differently.  Lots of people have “deal breakers,” issues about which they will not or cannot compromise.  This can lead to single-issue politics, on a large scale – the citizen for whom a politician’s position on gun control, the environment, or abortion becomes the only thing that matters.  For others, a big picture view trumps any specific issue – they wish that politician had a different position on immigration, for example, but like everything else about her enough to overlook it. Personally, I like to keep my make-or-break issues few and far between, in order to keep the tent big and the conversation expansive.

Perhaps because I’m an academic, I think of these issues in relation to the split in philosophical ethics between deontological ethics (in which rules must be followed and principles adhered to regardless of the cost) and consequentialist ethics (in which the end result is much more important than the means used to achieve it).  Both of these approaches can be destructive when taken to extremes, and at least in my activist life, I prefer a pragmatic approach with multiple values and multiple approaches to achieving common goals

Against this big tent approach is the claim, as someone put it to me a while ago, that “we are more effective when we are all on the same page.”  The problem is that the people who say this often mean (sometimes without realizing it) that everyone should be on their page.  This kind of unity is domination, the subordination of alternative perspectives for the sake of a “greater good” that those in power have defined.  Again, there are parallels in other social movements, notably the ways that women have been told to put aside their own interests for the sake of other goals.

In addition to ideological issues and strategic issues, of course, we are divided by personal concerns, which can be just as compelling (or more so).  Asking people to set these aside for the greater good can be as hard – and as much of a power play – as asking someone to compromise a deeply held principle.

The problem is how to get along, as Rodney King would put it, without forcing some people to toe a line set by someone else.  How can we establish a unity that is more than skin deep but that respects diverse principles – and makes it possible for people who are personally divided to collaborate when our common goals demand it? 

  

Amazingly, I find myself thinking of the dense and obscure German social theorist Jurgen Habermas here.  I took a seminar on him in graduate school and spent the entire semester complaining about him (to the extent that a friend of mine thought his name was “stupid Habermas,” or, as she put it, “stupid Haagen-Dazs”).  However, Habermas left me with a take-home message about the central role of open communication in any group that aims to be democratic.  Free and open communication is impossible without proper conditions, which Habermas calls the “ideal speech situation.”  In this situation, every interested party has the opportunity to speak, be heard, and influence collective decisions.  No one is excluded from the dialogue and no one has the power to silence or overrule another.  The goal of the conversation is to reach consensus – not a final vote, because people who know they are in the majority have little motive to listen to minority points of view. 

As a graduate student, I thought Habermas was overly abstract and idealist.  I have a feeling I am opening myself to the same criticisms now.  Perhaps the most charitable way to put it is that this thinking is a work in progress.  I am struggling to figure out how we can work together despite our differences – but that means figuring out what differences matter (and how much), when we can agree to disagree and work together for a common goal, and when the differences are so deep that there is not really a common goal.  We like to say that we are all in it for the animals and that our shared goal is to save lives.  There are many paths toward that goal and many tasks needed to reach it.  Even when we disagree about which is the most important task or the best way to pursue it, it may still be possible to acknowledge that the people on another path, or another page, have something valuable to offer.

Recently I was looking for pit bull advocacy groups in the San Diego area who might help someone moving there find an apartment where she can keep her dog.  I came across one called Just a Dog Rescue, which has this quotation (from the Dalai Lama) on its home page:  “Compassion is the radicalism of our time.”  I have seen this before and find it a fascinating political statement.  Today I thought about it in terms of our disagreements and judgments.  We are all motivated by compassion toward dogs.  I often find compassion toward people harder. It is so easy to suspect not just the conclusions but the motives of people with whom we disagree.  That suspicion weakens our work together, sometimes fatally.  The victims in this case are not movement leaders, but the dogs whose fate is determined by human decisions. 

In 1975, the Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton was assassinated by former comrades in that country's revolutionary movement.  Dalton’s most famous poem ends with a beautiful vision of solidarity, made more poignant by his tragic fate:

I believe the world is beautiful

and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me

but in the unanimous blood

of those who struggle for life,

love,

little things,

landscape and bread,

the poetry of everyone.

How to rescue a dog. Sometimes.

 










Jackson at the shelter (left) and at the Alachua County Humane Society (above). He was heartworm positive, but he had such a great disposition that shelter staff advocated for him. He has finished heartworm treatment and been adopted.


My college students like to start their essays with dictionary definitions of key words, like this:

            Rescue (vt): to free or save from danger, imprisonment, evil, etc. (n) The act or instance of rescuing; deliverance.

We hear the term “rescue” used a lot in regards to dogs and cats, sometimes in a very general way.  People who adopted an animal sometimes say that they rescued her or him, or (which is not quite the same thing) that their pet is a rescue.  I am interested here mainly in the more specific use of the word, as the direct act of “freeing or saving” a dog (or cat, but we'll stick to dogs here) who is in imminent danger.

This type of rescue starts with the identification of a dog in danger.  This can happen in many ways. Sometimes the dog is in direct danger due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment.  Rescue, in these cases, starts when a person who sees a dog in need does not simply hope that “someone” will help but decides to be the someone that dog needs. 

When the dog appears to have been abandoned, the first thing to do is try to find the owner, if there is one.  If there is no owner to be found, or they do not want the dog back, the dog needs a safe place to stay (and receive necessary veterinary care) while she is being rehomed.  We have lots of advice here.

It’s often more complicated when the dog is owned but abused or neglected.  If you see a dog whose life appears to be in immediate danger, e.g. due to starvation or physical abuse, don’t wait for someone else to help – call your Animal Services department right away.  In Alachua County, that number is 352-264-6870.  If the dog is not in immediate danger but clearly needs better care, e.g., because she is living on the end of a chain or in a pen, you may not need to involve Animal Services, at least right away.  Ideally you can help make things better for the dog at that home.  Because there are so many dogs already in shelters, it’s always better to keep a dog out of a shelter and with their owner, if possible.  Sometimes people don’t realize what dogs need in the way of company, socialization, and care.  If you’d like to help, contact a local animal rescue group or a national group, such as Dogs Deserve Better, which helps chained and penned dogs.  In such cases, rescuers will first try to improve the situation at the dog’s current home, often by offering training and help with fence-building.  If that doesn’t work, they request that the owner surrender the dog so they can rehome him.  And if that doesn’t work, they bring in Animal Services cruelty investigators when necessary.

 

Perhaps the most common way dogs end up in need of rescue is because they are at risk of being killed in a public shelter, either because of health or behavior issues that make them “unadoptable” or because the shelter is full.  Lots of very nice dogs end up on the euthanasia or PTS (“put to sleep”) list at public shelters.  There is an ongoing debate among animal advocates about whether or not public shelters must (or should) kill animals in order to relieve overcrowding.  Some people believe that there is no alternative, until the supply of dogs and cats is reduced, which will happen primarily because more animals are spayed or neutered.  On the other side, “no kill” advocates believe that shelters can decrease or end euthanasia by implementing a set of practices, which include low-cost spay/neuter to reduce the supply of homeless pets, as well as increasing “demand” for adoptable pets.

Merlin came to the shelter with demodex mange.  

Shelter staff loved his sweet personality and reached out to rescue groups.

Regardless of where you stand on these issues, the fact remains that millions of dogs are put on “the list” every year and can be rescued only when a lot of different pieces fit together.  This is often a very confusing process and it works out slightly differently every time, but here are the main things the dog needs.

First, people need to find out that the dog is at risk.  Good shelters – like the one we have in Alachua County – do their best to connect these animals with private rescue/adoption organizations. They send out information about the animals who are on “the list” and work with rescue groups who want to take in (“pull”) them.  Often shelter staff will give an animal a “hold” for 24 hours or even more, so that the rescue group can make arrangements.  Some of the dogs at risk have been available for adoption for a while and have simply “run out of time.”  Some adoptable dogs are put on the list because they develop a health or behavior problem that makes them no longer adoptable.  And some never make it to “adoptables,” because they have a health or behavior problem that is treatable or manageable but that requires care that cannot be given at the shelter.  In our area, this happens most often with underage animals (especially kittens, who come in by the dozens every week in spring and summer), animals with health problems such as heartworm disease or demodex mange, and animals who are too shy or anxious to do well in a kennel.  These animals often cannot be adopted out directly to “the public” and can be removed (“pulled”) only by a rescue organization.

In some areas, pit bulls are among the animals who can be pulled by rescue groups but not adopted.  This is true of Miami/Dade County, Denver, and, until recently, the entire state of Ohio.  Breed discriminatory laws in these areas create a huge burden for rescue groups in surrounding areas and lead to the deaths of thousands of even-tempered, affectionate dogs every year.

                    Francesca was pulled from Animal Services in Miami, where she would 
                          otherwise have been automatically killed as a "pit bull" type dog.

While many public shelters have staff who actively seek the help of rescue groups, some either do not have staff who can do this or actively discourage collaboration with rescue groups. This is true of several shelters in north central Florida.  (The Florida Animal Rescue Act would require greater cooperation.)   In such cases, the animals’ fate depends on volunteers.  This is a heavy burden and often the work is heartbreaking.  Often the best solution is to move the dogs out of the area, to foster homes and rescue groups in another county or even another state.  Oddly enough, there are areas, mostly in the Northeast, where the shelters are not overflowing and rescue groups can take in dogs from out of state. And even within a generally overpopulated region -- like the South -- communities like Gainesville have many more resources and opportunities than many other towns and counties. Sometimes we take in dogs from other areas, and perhaps even more often, we send our adoptable dogs to other communities.  It's not  a zero-sum game but rather a complex, zigzagging process in which the right dog finds the right spot at the right time -- sometimes.

Hazel came to a foster home in Gainesville from Clewiston Animal Control in south Florida 

After you (we are talking about you, right?) have identified a dog who is at risk and whom you want to help, the dog needs two more things: a safe place to stay and a process for finding a new home.  Sometimes, the same organization can provide both, when the rescue/adoption group has its own facility for housing animals.  In Gainesville, the only organization that has a facility like this is the Alachua County Humane Society, which takes the largest number of dogs and cats who are at risk at our local shelter.  Some counties have no private no kill adoption facility, while some large cities have a number of them.  Such facilities sometimes have extensive programs for education and advocacy, in addition to adoption services.  The San Francisco SPCA is a model in this respect.

Most rescue/adoption groups in Gainesville and many other places are run by volunteers and rely on foster homes to house the majority of their animals.  The number of animals they can take from euthanasia lists is limited, first, by the number of committed foster homes available.  By “committed,” we mean people who agree to keep the animal until adoption and to work through behavior issues and take care of health problems in the meantime.  When a rescue group pulls a dog to place in a particular foster home, there is no back-up.  Usually a short-term relief foster home can be found when a foster family travels, but a foster who backs out permanently before their dog (or cat) is adopted creates a crisis for the rescue group and the animal, who may face being returned to the shelter in such cases.

Bandit came to Alachua County Animal Services as a stray.

He was heartworm positive and could not go to adoptables.

Shelter staff and volunteers fell in love and advocated for him,

and a rescue group in Orlando took him in.  

Assuming the foster home is a good one, committed to keeping the animal until he or she is adopted, the dog needs a process for getting adopted.  Sometimes this process can start immediately, when the animal has no serious health or behavior issues.  Other times, the dog may need to undergo treatment for a medical condition (in our area, the most common ones are heartworm disease or skin problems).  In such cases, rescue groups need donations to pay for treatment.  They also rely on the generosity of many veterinarians, who often offer services at reduced costs for rescued animals.

Some homeless dogs have behavior issues that need addressing.  Sometimes, just getting into a safe and loving foster home is all it takes, e.g. for dogs who are anxious or timid at the shelter.  Foster homes make dogs more adoptable by teaching them how to live in a family, including everything from house-training to trusting new people to basic manners and obedience.  Foster homes also provide information about energy level, temperament, and likes/dislikes that can help match the dog with the right permanent home.

The rescue, we like to say, does not end with the pull.  Once a dog is safely in a no-kill adoption facility or foster home, she needs to be marketed.  Most rescue/adoption groups advertise the dog on Petfinder.com or similar sites and those that do not have their own facility hold regular adoption events at places like Petsmart, where potential adopters can find the right dog.  This process can take a couple of weeks or many months, depending on many factors.

Viggo was abandoned after being shot during a police raid.

This is already too long, but there is still much more to say.  Every rescue is a little different.  There are more failures than successes.  Maybe the most important thing to say is our same old refrain: rescue takes a village.  Many different people with many different skills and resources are necessary, including staff and volunteers who identify at-risk dogs at public shelters; private rescue groups (mostly run by volunteers) who rehabilitate and rehome dogs; foster families; and individual good Samaritans who do not wait for someone else to help an animal in need.

Viggo in his foster home.

No kill nation?

Mainstream animal welfare practitioners and theorists generally condemn (or ignore) Nathan Winograd, who wrote the book that has largely defined the "no kill” movement.

The attacks on Winograd come not from people who dislike animals or who believe animal welfare is an unimportant cause. Instead, they come from people who spend a lot of time working in the field and thinking about it. Winograd has earned their hostility with two basic assertions. First, the killing of millions of dogs and cats in American animal shelters every year is unnecessary. Second, the primary reason for the killings is not, as mainstream, "pet overpopulation." Instead, according to Winograd, shelter killing "is the result of shelter managers who find it easier to kill animals than to save them.”

In sum, Winograd attacks two of animal welfare’s most fundamental claims: first, that “there aren’t enough homes for them all,” and second, that the primary problem is “irresponsible” owners who let their dogs and cats make babies.

No wonder they don’t like him.

Because so many people I respect dismiss Winograd’s work, I avoided reading it until recently. He is worth taking seriously, both for his serious contributions to a better shelter system and for a broader understanding of the theory and practice of the animal rescue movement.

The most common complaints from within the animal welfare movement are that Winograd is unrealistic, radical, and divisive. It’s worth reflecting on each of these terms.

If Winograd is unrealistic, he is in good company. The same belief that the U.S. can virtually end the killing of shelter animals within a few years is at the heart of the mission of the largest animal charity in the world, Maddie’s Fund. Last summer, I met with Richard Avanzino, the president of Maddie’s Fund, who is patently neither a fluffy-headed sentimentalist nor a wild-eyed lunatic. However, he believes that by 2015, the U.S. can stop killing healthy companion animals.

Both Avanzino and Winograd have specific strategies for achieving this goal. Maddie’s Fund focuses on low-cost, high-volume spay/neuter, investing in university shelter medicine programs, community collaborations, and data collection and dissemination, aiming for transparency and accountability. Winograd takes a slightly different, though not conflicting, approach, which he calls the “no-kill equation.” This model has many different facets, but its core elements center on changes in shelters themselves, which he says should
* become more proactive in reuniting stray pets with their owners
* become more proactive in seeking adoptive homes for shelter pets, by offering off-site adoption centers, expanded operating hours, and more customer-friendly service
* offer help with behavior issues and counseling to prevent owner surrenders
* initiative feral cat trap-neuter-release programs
* collaborate with private rescue groups and individual volunteers (e.g., enabling fostering directly from the shelter)

These strategies have been implemented and succeeded in many places, from San Francisco (which almost 20 years ago became the first declared “no kill” city in the US while Avanzino as director of the SF SPCA) to rural and small-town shelters in many regions, including those – the south and southwest – that mainstream animal welfare advocates usually write off. The numbers are impressive, and I don’t think either Winograd or Avanzino have cooked them. (In our area, both TNR and low-cost spay/neuter programs have been very effective; there has not been as much effort at some of the other initiatives.)
Many shelter directors and other animal welfare professionals complain that “no kill” shelters are possible only because nearby open-admission shelters take in the leftovers. However, Winograd gives numerous examples (and more have been added since his book was published) of shelters that are open-admission and still refuse to kill animals in order to make space.

So maybe Winograd and Avanzino are not entirely unrealistic, but are they sentimental? Avanzino clearly loves animals deeply (he had his elderly dog in the office with him when we talked) but he is a hard-headed lawyer and executive. His belief that we can stop killing healthy animals in shelters is not the result of rose-colored glasses. He has analyzed the data, seen the reports, and decided that they add up.

(It is also worth pointing out that “sentimental” and similar adjectives like naive or immature have long been used to trivialize serious challenges to the status quo: Don’t like the way things are going? You’ll grow out of it.)

The last negative adjective associated with the no kill movement, “divisive,” is tricky. In one sense, it is absolutely true. As Winograd himself puts it, “We are not, and have never been, a united movement.” No social movement ever has been, including the most effective ones, such as the civil rights and feminist movements. Too often, the accusation of “divisiveness” is used by one faction to tell their challengers to shut up and join the program. Even those who sincerely believe they are following the best possible approach are condescending, at best, when they assert that all the hard thinking has been done and that the rest of us should just write checks, follow instructions, and stay “on the same page.”

Winograd puts people off, in part, because there is an impression that he wants to shift all the blame away from ordinary folks and place it on the people who work in shelters. In fact, he never blames shelter workers but only their directors and the city or county agencies that supervise them. Most of all, he attacks an institutional culture that fails to see the possibility of doing things differently.

Winograd may downplay the problems of irresponsibility and downright cruelty, but his argument is interesting: animal welfare professionals overplay these problems because they see only the worst, and thus can ignore the vast majority of pet owners who love their animals and take good care of them and who, further, would like to help other animals.

While Winograd surely is mistaken on some points, he deserves to be taken seriously. This is true, first, for practical reasons: he offers concrete, not very difficult or expensive strategies to reach the goal we say we all share: reducing the killing. If he can show us some ways to do this, why not listen to him, regardless of how he says it?

Even more, Winograd is worth reading for his philosophical and moral challenge:

“It is an inherent contradiction to use ‘killing’ as a means to ‘not killing.’”

As Martin Luther King Jr and countless other activists have reminded us, a complete divorce between the means and the ends, in any social movement, has never worked out very well. (Remember that war to end all wars?)

Winograd asks what happens if we take killing off the table as an option for all but the most seriously ill or injured animals. In that situation, he says, people will find other solutions, which do not seem possible at present because mass killing is not only allowed but encouraged. Many social movements have made progress only when they took seriously an option that the conventional wisdom called unrealistic.