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Health & Fitness

So, Just What IS "No Kill"?

"No Kill" is a term that is used for a movement to reform animal shelter attitudes and policies, and thereby improve outcomes for the animals.

Before getting into the details of the movement, its beginnings, and progress, specific attitudes and policies, etc. let's first define some terms.  These terms are very carefully used because they have specific meanings among No Kill advocates.

First of all euthanasia --
 - (Wikipedia) the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering.
 - (American Heritage College Dictionary) The act or practice of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition.
 - (OxfordDictionaries.com) The painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma.

Although the dictionaries give slightly different definitions, they all include the element of pain and suffering.  Absent suffering, the use of the term euthanasia is not appropriate.

A more general term for the ending of a life, in which there is no element of suffering is ...
kill --
 - (American Heritage College Dictionary) 1. a. To put to death. b. To deprive of life.
 - (OxfordDictionaries.com) 1. cause the death of (a person, animal, or other living thing)

No Kill advocates reserve the term euthanasia for only those cases in which it is necessary to end the life of an animal which is suffering and there is no hope of recovery.  Ending the life of a healthy, treatable, or rehabilitatable animal is referred to as killing.

Does a No Kill shelter euthanize?  Absolutely.  Statistics from No Kill shelters indicate that a small percentage of animals that are taken in are severely sick or injured, suffering, and can not be saved.  The number of animals in this category is approximately 3% of the total intake.  These require euthanasia and all No Kill shelters take in some animals that must be euthanized.

The word Kill, however, sounds so harsh, and substituting the word Euthanize makes it sound better.  The use of the term euthanize where kill is appropriate is a ...

euphemism --
 - (American Heritage College Dictionary) The act or example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for a harsh, blunt, or offensive one.

The Beginnings

The No Kill movement began in the late 1990s in the western metropolis of San Francisco.  The attitudes and policies were consolidated by Nathan Winograd.  In 2001, Nathan Winograd moved to the eastern rural neighborhood of Tompkins County NY and repeated the life-saving results.  In 2005, Susanne Kogut learned about the attitudes and principles of No Kill and took the position of Director of the Charlottesville/Albemarle County VA SPCA.  The C/ASPCA had a contract for shelter services for both the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and achieved No Kill very quickly.

What does it Mean to be No Kill?

The term No Kill, as it is used in the No Kill Movement to describe shelters, is only applied to those which have certain specific characteristics.

1)  First of all, the organization must be an open admission shelter.  In other words, they must take all animals that are presented to them.  (Rescue Groups do great work, to be sure.  However, because they may choose which animals they take in, or take in none at all if they are full, and, even though they do not kill animals, the term No Kill is not applied to them.)  This means that the No Kill shelter must be either a government-run, open admission municipal shelter, or be a non-profit organization with a contract with the government to run their open admission municipal shelter.

2)  They must save the lives of at least 90% of all animals taken in.  This must be sustained.

3)  They must post their statistics on the web or make them publicly available.

Increasing Momentum

By mid-2009 there were about a dozen No Kill shelters in the US.  That was also the year that the first annual No Kill Conference, co-sponsored by the No Kill Advocacy Center and the George Washington School of Law, was held in Washington DC.  In 2010, there were 29 communities that had achieved No Kill Status.  In 2011, there were about 50.  In 2012, the number had grown to about 90.  The theme of the Conference in 2012 was "Reaching Higher" because the consensus was that the 90% save rate should not be considered a target, but only a milestone, as many of them had achieved 97%, even 98% and more.  At the 2013 conference last month, it was announced that there are now about 150 No Kill Communities.

Why Not in Prince George's County?

The most common excuse that is given here, as elsewhere, is that there are "Too Many Pets and Not Enough Homes".

(Although residents of Prince George's County have animal companions that are dogs, cats, ferrets, birds, horses, fish, rodents, etc., rather than list all of the species names, and because dogs and cats make up 90% of all companion animals, I'm using the data for dogs and cats, and the term "pet" to refer to those two species.)

I first looked at the Census data for Prince George's County and the Pet Products Marketing Statistics for Pet Ownership in 2009.  The latest Census at that time was the year 2000.  The latest marketing survey was likely done in 2008.

At that time, the survey data indicated that 37.2% of households owned 1.7 dogs.  About five years later, the current statistics are that 36.5% (a decrease of 0.7%) of households own 1.6 (a decrease of 0.1%) dogs.  The data for cats has trended similarly.  The 2009 data indicated that 32.4% of households owned 2.2 cats.  The current survey data indicates that 30.4% (a decline of 2%) of households own 2.1 (a decline of 0.1%).

Since the 2009 survey data was probably collected before the economic downturn in late 2008, this very modest decline in pet ownership is likely the result of the very tight economy which followed.  Some people were finding that they could not afford to maintain a pet, no matter now much they might want to.

On the other hand, in 2009 the Census data indicated that there were 286,610 households in the county.  The current number is 302,091 (an increase of 15,481 or 5.4%).  The increase in the number of households nearly offsets the decrease in the percentage of households owning pets.

Doing the math, we can see that in 2009, there were 383,548 dogs and cats in Prince George's County households.  According to the current data, that number has declined only very slightly to 369,276 dogs and cats (a decline of only 3.8%).  This is in spite of having endured the worst economic downturn since the great depression.

In 2009, when factoring in the estimates of lifespan, it was computed that 28,404 pets would need to be replaced each year.  Now that number is 27,394.

As the economy slowly improves, I would expect that pet ownership will also return to a higher level, as before, when people regain the financial ability to support a companion animal.  The data shows, however that even when there is an economic down-turn, pet ownership remains relatively constant, with only minor fluctuations of a few percentage points. 

In 2012, there was a demand for about 27,394 dogs and cats by residents of Prince George's County.  Although some of them may not replace their companions immediately, others will take a companion into their household for the first time.  You can be sure that, on average, the pet population in Prince George's County will remain relatively constant.

In spite of the demand for about 27,000 pets, why did the Prince George's County Animal Services Facility only adopt about 1,000 animals?  County households will take in about 27,- 28,000 pets in 2013, as well, but unless there are some significant changes in trends, they will not come from the PG ASF.  It is obvious by the data and some arithmetic, that it's not because there are too few households.  It's because those households will go elsewhere to look for their pets.

Clearing the Obstacles

There are many reasons why this is the way it is.  We can not identify them, however, until we set aside some common excuses.  "Too Many Pets, Not Enough Homes" does not stand up to history or mathematics.

Since we have defined some terms, we will look at another excuse next time.

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Tim Saffell is the President of Prince Georges Feral Friends, SPCA, www.PGFerals.org, which sponsors No Kill Prince George’s County MD www.NoKillPrinceGeorgesCountyMD.org .

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