What's up guys?
Today, I wanted to make a video about a term I hear thrown around a lot.
And that term is "kill shelter."
This is a term usually used by well-meaning people,
To describe animal shelters that kill healthy or treatable animals.
Some of the common sentiments I hear are things like,
"I would never adopt from a kill shelter!"
"I'd never volunteer for a kill shelter!"
"I'd never give money to a kill sheter!"
"I won't even step foot in a kill shelter!"
This is often said with a self-righteous tone,
Looking down on people who work in or work with "kill shelters."
So today I wanted to make a video about what a "kill shelter" really is,
And why it's important not to show them hate, but to shower them with love.
So let's talk about it!
There are a few different models of animal shelters,
And it's important that if we're gonna talk about animal shelters,
We know what types of shelters exist, and how they operate.
So let's start by defining the structure of the organization.
In general, there are two kinds of shelters,
Municipal shelters and private shelters.
A municipal shelter is one that's run by the local government,
Usually a city or county.
So these facilities are actually part of the government,
Just like the police department, or public health, or the zoning department.
As part of a govermental body, these organizations are given a budget by the municipality.
And they're contractually obligated to serve the public as a whole.
That means they have to take in every single animal that's brought to them within their contrated region.
No matter what.
So that includes every owner-surrendered cat, dog, snake, and guinea pig,
That includes animals from hoarding situations or cruelty cases,
It includes strays and free-roaming animals from outside.
It even includes sick and dying animals.
And yes, lots and lots of neonatal kittens who are too young to be adopted.
When an animal shelter is contractually obligated to take in every animal no matter what,
That's called being an "open admission" shelter.
Then, there are private shelters.
Private shelters are nonprofit organizations and they're not run by the government.
Private animal shelters can be open admission, but more commonly they're what's called "limited admission."
A limited admission animal shelter is one that is not contractually obligated to take in every animal.
This means that if they're full, they can say, "sorry, we're full."
If someone brings them an orphan kitten, they can say, "sorry, we don't take orphan kittens."
A private animal shelter could even say, "sorry, we don't accept animals from the public at all."
Because a limited admission animal shelter doesn't have to take on more than they can handle,
They're very often going to be no kill.
That makes sense, right?
Rather than taking an animal they don't have the ability to help, they just say, "sorry, we can't help."
That's the great thing about being a private, limited admission shelter.
You can determine what you have the budget, space, and man-power to do,
And then you can set out to do it, without having to take on more than you can handle.
It's worth mentioning that there are some private, nonprofit organizations that are open admission.
That's what happens when these organizations are contracted with the local government.
In a public-private partnership, the nonprofit organization is actually paid by the local government,
And contracted to do community service.
So if that happens, then a private animal shelter can be open admission, just like a municipal shelter would be.
Remember that the difference between an open admission animal shelter,
And a limited admission animal shelter,
Is that an open admission animal shelter has to take in every animal that comes through the door,
And a limited admission shelter does not.
Okay, I know that this is a lot of information, and you might be asking yourself,
"Okay, so, which one is better?"
The answer is that both are really important!
Open admission animal shelters are important because without them,
There's no where else for the animals to go.
These shelters have to exist, because it's a community service,
Just like anything else the government provides.
Limited admission shelters are obviously very important too.
These animal shelters often take in overflow animals from municipal shelters, so they can save their lives.
They also have the flexibility to choose which populations they want to focus on.
For instance, some private animal shelters might have huge neonatal kitten nurseries,
Or others might focus on special needs animals.
So these are fantastic groups that are really essential for saving animal's lives.
The problem is when we start talking about "kill shelters" versus "no kill shelters."
Because then we get into a judgement zone.
So now that we've established what an animal shelter does and why,
I want to talk about "no kill."
A no kill animal shelter is one where no healthy, adoptable or treatable animal is killed.
Most people in animal welfare consider a shelter to be no kill once they've reached a 90% live release rate.
Meaning that 90% or more of the animals have a live outcome,
Like adoption, TNR, or transfer to rescue.
Now like I said, limited admission shelters are very likely to be no kill, but guess what?
Those open admission shelters we talked about, they can be no kill too!
If they have enough support from the community to be able to save every life.
So I want to be clear that when we talk about about building a no kill nation,
What we mean is that we have to get every open admission municipal shelter
To be able to save every single life.
So how do we get these organizations to be no kill?
Here's the thing, no kill is not something you can vote into reality.
No kill isn't something you can demand with angry fists and strongly worded letters.
You can't force it to happen, it takes effort.
There are two essential components to achieve no kill.
Programs and participants.
The first thing is programs.
Animal shelters have to create programs that serve every population.
That means they have to have not just an adoption program for adoptable animals,
But also things like a TNR program for community cats,
Or a foster program for neonatal kittens who are too young to be adopted.
They have to create a medical program,
And have enough funding to be able to take on those medical cases.
So they have to have programs that serve each population.
And that is on the shelters.
But the second thing is on us!
They have to have participants.
Y'all, we have to remember that programs don't exist without participation.
A foster program is absolutely nothing without foster parents.
A TNR program doesn't exist if there's no trappers.
A lot of shelters do have these programs in place already, and yet they're still killing a lot of animals.
But that's not on the shelter!
That's on us, because if the program exists, we have to participate in it in order to achieve no kill.
So I hope if you start to look at it like this, you can see that it's not on the shelter.
It's the responsibility of the shelter to build the programs,
And it's the responsibility of cat lovers like me and you to participate in those programs and make them sucessful.
I see so many comments from people who I know mean well,
And that's why I wanted to make this video.
So here's a comment I got just yesterday.
"It's hard for me to respect shelters that euthanize homeless animals that can be saved or given treatment,
"It's inhumane, heartless, and cruel.
"These kill shelters need to change their old ways, and learn from the no kill ones."
Ugh! Guys, again, a "kill shelter" is just an open admission shelter that needs our help!
You don't get them to save lives by speaking badly about them.
If you're being disparaging of your local, open admission shelter,
You're actually helping to create the problem that you're complaining about.
If you don't like that animals in your community are dying,
You should be the first one at the door, asking "how can I help? What animal can I foster?"
"What donations do you need?"
You should be standing in the center of that place, and helping to make the changes.
It might be easier to point a finger, but it's more effective to lend a hand.
The last thing that I want to say is that there's a high rate of depression, burnout, and even suicide
Among shelter employees.
When we speak so badly about "kill shelters" and people who work in them,
We're contributing to the suffering of humans too.
When we buy into the rhetoric that people who work in open admission shelters "enjoy killing animals,"
We are spitting in the faces of some of the bravest people in the movement.
Willingness to work in an open admission animal shelter means making yourself vulnerable
To suffering that you might not be able to prevent.
These people put their emotional and mental health on the line every single day to try to be part of the solution,
So that they can help move the needle forward one click at a time towards a safer world.
Listen guys, I've had people come up to me at my events crying,
And tellig me that they've had to euthanize hundreds of kittens at their job.
Do you really believe that anybody wants to do that?
No! They want to help.
And when kittens are pouring through the doors in boxes and buckets,
The decision of whether they get to live is not in the hands of the shelter employee.
It's in your hands.
If your name is on the list, if you're signed up to foster,
You literally make the difference between life and death for those animals.
If you're there to help, you create the solution!
Together, all of us create the solution that gets us to no kill.
So I just want to say, I have so much respect for the courageous people who work in animal shelters,
Of any kind.
And that we have to work together.
We have to recognize that when we all work together,
The animals win.