Archives for No-kill category
Ok…so when I wonder why Reno can save 94% of the animals that come through their doors, why Philly and Charlotte are making great strides toward becoming no-kill, why we can add Austin and Las Vegas and so many other cities to that list of places where no-kill is more of a reality than a dream, we have New York City…where Maddie’s Fund and the ASPCA have poured more than $20 million into making NYC No-kill, and Jane Hoffman hangs on by her fingernails to keep the Mayor’s Alliance deciding who will live or die needlessly while moving the goalposts of when New York will become No-Kill every year from 2008 to 2010 to 2012 now 2015.
The No-Kill Conference was overflowing with people who have actually DONE it…actually taken their major city or metropolitan area from killing animals to NOT killing animals. One of my favorite parts of the No-Kill Conference was Nathan Winograd (“New York doesn’t NEED a Nathan Winograd” – Jane Hoffman) asking speaker after speaker “After you decided not to kill animals anymore, how long did it take to become no kill.” This confused most of the people he asked. “Uh…it was instant.” “One day.” “That same day.”
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Filed in
Animal Rescue,
No-kill by Admnistrator on Aug 12, 2010. There are comments.
I”m home. After I velcro my dogs off me and take a shower I settle down in front of my computer to really go over the emails I have received while I was gone. While we’re away Kerry and I always have our BlackBerrys and our laptops, but we only answer the urgent and emergency emails and trust that Jenessa and Janet can handle the uglies that pop up back home.
I left the conference with the same familiar feeling…so honored and proud to have the privilege of working on this team and an overwhelming sense that we need to do more.
This time was no different, except that we arrived home with four cats from the DC shelter and a sweet, precious little girl with a shattered pelvis from the Baltimore shelter. She followed us home. Really. Kerry’s email to staff had me roaring…”Ok. Look. We’re coming home with four cats and a dog that needs rehab and/or medical attention. And one of the cats may be sick. None have heartworm tests and aren’t spayed or neutered. Before you say anything just shut up.” We are total saps. We arrived after hours and of course Janet and Jen and Juan stayed to make sure we got in and the animals got attention.
They will, of course, have all their tests and get altered and shake whatever they may have before they go on to their forever homes, happy and healthy.
Being at the conference allowed Kerry and I to talk with other people who do what we do, face the same problems we face, make the same mistakes we make. We love it. We love it when other shelters invite us in, other organizations ask to come see us, people who are starting sanctuaries ask for our advice. We learn from all of it, and if we take even ONE thing from the sessions and the one-on-one conversations we are thrilled. I know at one point I ran out of paper from taking notes, and my mind is still spinning from all the great stuff that was flying around in my head that whole time.
Advocating a no-kill position can be difficult and dangerous, and makes you a target for other people’s guilt, indifference and ignorance.
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No-kill by matt on Aug 08, 2010. There are comments.
So I’m here in Washington, DC at the No-Kill Conference put on by The No-Kill Advocacy group, and I’m listening and talking to mostly like-minded people. I, of course, have an overwhelming feeling of pride and feel fortunate that you all have given us the resources to be where we are at this point in time.
Oreo’s Law is a huge topic of conversation here, and we’ve learned a lot from it. “The Movement.” I didn’t realize I was part of the movement until Paul Berry used those words at Pets Alive in 2007, which seems so far in the past when I look at it now.
It’s never really been a “movement” to me. I’ve always seen it as a simple recognition of our moral responsibility toward companion animals. We have a moral obligation to each and every one, and we should not allow anything to get in the way of that. Pets Alive has been successful because that is the overriding tenet that controls everything we do.
There were four people speaking here today that really connected with me personally. Really touched me deeply and really helped me to understand that this is truly a movement in the purest sense. It’s a shift in ideas, in foundations, in manners of thinking and acting. And that’s what we’re witnessing.
We don’t have to kill adoptable animals. That is something that all of us respect, understand, and appreciate. Even the ASPCA, which has put itself out there as the kill shelter poster organization because of their words and actions, pays lip service to the idea that killing should be a last resort.
We all believe this. It is part of our core and flows logically from the stuff inside of us we call our morality. There can be no moral equivalence for death, which is a nice way of saying we don’t throw around the phrases “fate worse than death” or “better off dead.”
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No-kill,
Why we do this by matt on Aug 01, 2010. There are comments.
Just wanted to update everyone on what’s going on.
We are currently waiting for the vet from the Jersey Shore Animal Center to examine the kittens and determine if they are too sick to live.
Our attorney is going to get in touch with their attorney in the next day or so.
Other attorneys are getting involved and there will probably be a lawsuit.
Pat Wallace, their Executive Director, is a liar. My impression of their board is that they are weak and don’t challenge what Ms. Wallace says. Been there. It never ends well. Ms. Wallace is an arrogant tyrant who views animals as “her property.” Here’s what she said to one of our supporters:
“they are our property and we have rules.” I replied that considering them property may be the problem. She also said that the woman who found them should have done her research prior to dropping them off.
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Animal Rescue,
No-kill by Admnistrator on Jul 29, 2010. There are comments.
Here is the Jersey Shore Animal Center in Brick, New Jersey:
Looks like a nice place.
They kill innocent animals that other reputable organizations ask them for.
We’re all familiar with the story now…it’s the same one that 70% of the rescue groups surveyed are familiar with. Same thing the ASPCA did. Same thing that happens day after day after day in this business. In this case a mother cat and her 5 kittens are going to be killed when they could be here at Pets Alive lounging in a cat room or living comfortably in someone’s home.
Same old story. Ignorance and indifference on the part of the people who have a moral responsibility to those animals and were trusted by the people who brought them there. Here’s the full story:
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No-kill by Admnistrator on Jul 27, 2010. There are comments.
Independence Day is a day of great celebration at my house. In fact, it is the only party that I host all year. The party is today, and I’m expecting 50 to 60 people this evening.
Unlike certain people and Presidents, I do not apologize for being American. This is the day I celebrate with my friends and family the fact that this is the greatest country ever created. On July 2, 1776 (yes, it wasn’t actually July 4) the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution of independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. On July 4 they approved the formal Declaration we all know.
This was the document marking the birth of this nation. My den has many pictures and photos on the wall, but the one that hangs over the desk where I work and write and think has a large painting of George Washington addressing that Congress so that I always remember the toil and sacrifice those great men made so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Those words have been called the most potent and consequential words in American History.
Freedom. Freedom is the ability to make choices without constraint.
Liberty. Liberty is the right to behave according to one’s own personal responsibility and free will.
Have you ever considered that the root word of liberate is liberty? A few weeks ago we got a call from our friends at Best Friends. They had been contacted by Win Animal Rights (WAR), a New York City based organization that had gotten wind of an animal testing lab in New Jersey that had gone bankrupt. There were 120 Beagles and 55 monkeys that had been left there to die.
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Filed in
Animal Rescue,
No-kill by Admnistrator on Jul 03, 2010. There are comments.
Let me preface this blog with a disclaimer. I am technically NOT a New Yawka. I was born in Connecticut, New York’s bedroom state. I have worked in New York, owned businesses in New York, paid taxes in New York, and spent a lot of time here. I truly LOVE New York. I would live here if the taxes weren’t so high and the government wasn’t so
insane.
When I used to travel for business people used to ask me where I was from. When I said Connecticut they would say “where’s that?” So I just started saying New York. New Yorkers are different. We are tough, we are driven, and we are brash. We don’t sit on our front porches and sip sweet tea and fan ourselves with shell-shaped fans. We get stuff done. Competition is tough and fierce and if you make a mistake you get eaten alive. New Yorkers are very fair and have the most well defined bulls–t detector I have ever seen. Having spent a lot of time in other parts of the country it became obvious to me that as a New Yorker I could run rings around most of my competition, because truly, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
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No-kill by matt on Jun 29, 2010. There are comments.
So Best Friends said this, in the recent backlash they are getting over Oreo’s Law:
>>In 2007, Best Friends rescued a failed and dilapidated Pets Alive sanctuary by investing over a million dollars and 8 months of a rotating cadre of Best Friends staff to get the organization back on its feet. Best Friends has spent millions of dollars and countless hours of staff and volunteer time in the past few years bailing out or cleaning up after 501c3s and rescues that have gotten in over their head with animals they can’t handle. These include Pets Alive, Gabbs, Nevada, FLOCK in Las Vegas, Oasis Sanctuary in New York….
…In fact, a number of dogs from Pets Alive, to whom the current management did not feel they could do justice, and who had languished there in squalid conditions prior to our intervention in 2007, were taken in at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah.<<
Yes, Best Friends, this is true. Well MOST of it. It wasn’t a million dollars you spent here. We know, because we got the bill from you that your past CEO, Paul Berry eventually waived, when he saw how great we were doing and how we would become a force for animals in this area. That bill, before it was waived, was just under $500,000. A minor point, but please, no need to inflate it. Let’s stick to the facts here. We have not bad mouthed you or beaten you up – in fact when people were saying they were going to withdraw support from you, we said “DON’T DO THAT”! We have stressed how we disagree with your opinion on being neutral about this and how critical we needed your support on this bill. That’s it. Others have run with it and it has gone viral but to attack us isn’t really necessary. We didn’t…we COULD. Remember all the things that happened in those eight months? Ouch. We all know each others secrets, don’t we? Secrets that are better left between us, yes?
WE – Pets Alive – don’t really have any secrets. Our bad history has been all over the web (and we include it on our website). In fact, we make no secret about it at all – I am the one that called you when I saw Pets Alive, and how bad it was. I was the one that personally begged you to come down and save all the animals. WE, the people here now, are NOT the people that were here THEN when the situation was so bad. YOU put us here, YOU trained us, WE are YOU. We follow all your protocols, and all your job descriptions and indeed use YOUR adoption contract, and YOUR surrender forms, and your hiring methods – we are you. We are what you trained us to be. And you trained us to always be on the side of animals and speak out and help where we see wrong.
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Filed in
Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on Jun 29, 2010. There are comments.
We are still reeling from the trouncing we took in the New York Assembly Agriculture Committee over Oreo’s Law. Now we’re watching Nathan Winograd and the No Kill Advocacy Center take Best Friends Animal Society to task over Best Friend’s “neutrality” (read lack of support) for the bill, and Best Friends’ subsequent trashing of Nathan over it.
Pets Alive has been part of Oreo’s Law since the beginning. As you recall it was us who asked the ASPCA of New York to give us Oreo instead of killing her, and it was the ASPCA and its President Ed Sayres who killed her instead. We have been intimately involved with this process, and we have first hand, behind-the-scenes knowledge of what has transpired. Kerry and/or I have been on many phone calls and in many meetings. Assembly Member Micah Kellner, who with his legislative aide Ilyana worked tirelessly to write Oreo’s Law and try to get it passed, was honored at our Hudson Valley Fur Ball. He sat at my table and we had a great conversation. We regret that we weren’t more personally active in helping to get this law passed, but you can be absolutely certain that come January when we try again we will be much more involved. Hopefully at that time the Agriculture Committee will have a new chairman.
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No-kill by matt on Jun 27, 2010. There are comments.
There are so many forces at work with trying to get Oreo’s Law passed.
The ASPCA and the Mayor’s Alliance, both charged with saving animals and
given millions of dollars to do so, are pouring money and resources into
defeating the bill, ensuring that they continue to control which animals
live and die in New York City and throughout the state.
It’s a classic David versus Goliath proposition, and Goliath is winning.
They’ve convinced the chairman of the Agriculture Committee (Robert
Magee) to table the bill because the “language isn’t clear.” What part
of “if a qualified rescue requests an animal that would otherwise be
euthanized the request must be fulfilled” don’t they understand?
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Filed in
Legislation,
No-kill by kerry on Jun 14, 2010. There are comments.