Thanks for taking on the task of disproving Clifton. I'm surprised anyone listens to him anymore. I stopped listening to him several years ago when he told me that I should feel lucky that Houston shelters kill "only" 80,000 animals per year, with kill rates ranging from 52% to 89%. He also claimed that this astromically high kill rate was the best that we could do---and this was at a time when there were already a dozen or more Open Admission, No Kill shelters that we knew of.

This is what I've been thinking for a long time. Calling themselves "humane" is false and deceptive advertising. It should be regulated like every other business.

People won't remember us if they read the "history" written by groups like HSUS or ASPCA etc. We've already seen their revisionist history in action as they claim to be leading the way, all the while fighting us every step of the way. Hopefully, our blogs and articles will still be around to tell people the truth. And hopefully Nathan's books will still be around (and in their ten billionth print). :-)

Awwwww I'm in cuteness overload!

AWESOME No Kill news from around the country. :-)

YesBiscuit, some No Kill naysayers argued with me last summer that Houston was different than any other city. (This is while the "shelter" where they volunteer is ignoring every single thing that Nathan Winograd told them to do to stop killing-196 pages worth). Seems like a common theme among the naysayers.

I agree and I'm glad to be counted among the unreasonable.

Thanks for the shout out, Brent! You're the bomb. :-) I think this is going to be a fabulous workshop and I hope your readers can join us.

Pacelle said "we are the big problem for animal abusers." Apparently, that is only true for those who don't donate $50,000 to HSUS. $50,000 earns you a pass and a proclamation by Pacelle that you will make a great pet owner.

Pacelle said "I have been around him a lot, and feel confident that he would do a good job as a pet owner," Are you KIDDING me? This man did not just "run" a dog fighting ring. This man electrocuted, shot, hung, and repeatedly slammed dogs to the ground to their deaths. This man forced animals to rip each other apart for his ENJOYMENT. This man threw other defenseless animals into the fighting ring to be ripped apart FOR HIS ENJOYMENT. And now he wants a dog and his kids are sad that they can't have one? Boo-freakin-hoo. In what universe would this ever, ever make sense? When armed robbers want to be rehabilitated, should we hand them guns and ski masks as part of the process? If a child pornographer wants to rehabilitate himself, should we let him have free reign a daycare center? Good grief. And yes, sometimes criminals are banned from having certain things or doing certain activities FOR LIFE. This should be one of those instances. If you ever had any doubts about where the HSUS' priorities lie, Pacelle's statement should tell you VERY CLEARLY i.e. This is all about money and celebrity. It has absolutely nothing to do with animal welfare. This is what is running our national "humane" organization. Pathetic. Pacelle is the biggest SELL OUT on the planet as far as animals are concerned. And Ingrid Newkirk says that PETA is a media whore. I think Pacelle is giving them a run for their money.

"Unfortunately, there are a large number who exist in taxpayer-funded shelters who are incompetent, and who do not care." There are a lot of people who do not care in the "non-profit" kill shelters as well and they kill just as many animals, or more, as the taxpayer funded shelters. (We have 3 non-profit kill shelters in Houston doing just that). I want to know what gives these people the right to kill thousands of animals .... because they have a 501(c)(3) designation? That shouldn't give them the right to kill? I didn't see the right to kill animals listed anywhere in our 501 documents. If individuals killed thousands of healthy and treatable pets, they would be charged with a crime. Having a "non-profit" designation or putting the word "shelter" behind their name, should NOT give these orgs the right to kill carte blanche.

This is just another way that animal control and politicians continue to blame the public instead of actually stepping up and doing what has been proven to stop the killing in shelters. Why are so many animal control directors and politicians so pigged headed and continally refuse to implement what we know works? Why continue following these medieval methods that have been proven to fail over and over and over? The insanity is mind boggling.

1) I think the thousands of volunteers volunteering for shelters or rescue groups is a different subject vs. the leaders running our animal shelters. Volunteers are the army of compassion that save thousands of lives and they should be appreciated. But the power to choose life or death and to stop inhumane treatment of animals lies with the shelter directors and politicians. That is what needs to be reformed. 2) There are a lot less shelters getting it right than the number that need serious reform. Houston's animal control is an example of a shelter that citizens and volunteers have been trying to "fix" for many years, but the shelters leaders have refused and fought us. Here is a short history of what has been going on: http://exm.nr/bKOTy2 Believe me I left A LOT of horrible stories out of this article. Also, I talk to adocates from all over the country who tell me stories that sound remarkable like Houston. We could just change the names of the shelter leaders and our stories would be the same. BTW: Houston has 5 kill shelters--3 of the 5 automatically kill Pit Bulls. Also on the HSUS site it said "A special “Laugh. Dance. Rescue” T-shirt, with the message contained in the shape of a dog, is being sold exclusively on DeGeneres’s website to benefit The HSUS’s Shelter Services work." The HSUS does not have any shelters. I wonder where this money is actually going?

I've heard these statements too. I heard it a few years ago from someone I "thought" was a great animal advocate in our community... someone who ran one of the low cost s/n clinics in town. He was advocating for mandatory s/n laws. Several of us told him that these laws were causing kill rates to go up. He said he thought that the kill rates would go up here for awhile after the laws were passed, but "thought" that they would eventually go down. How can someone advocate for passing a law when you are fairly certain that it will cause killing to go up, even if it's temporary? I lost respect for him that day. I also love Jennifer's statement. If we had an abundance of homeless people, would we consider killing as an option to solve the problem? Of course not. Our human ingenuity finds other options. We should be thinking about homeless animals in the same way.

MichellD, that is my question too. Ft. Worth is a fairly large city, I'm finding it a little hard to believe that opening just one more adoption center could cause them to not kill any "healthy" animals unless that definition was narrowed quite a bit, as we know shelters are prone to do. It could happen, and I hope that it is, but color me skeptical. Just wondering if anyone has raw statistics from this shelter to get a true idea of what is really happening?

Cute photos! It wasn't so long ago that the HSUS opposed TNR too, now they advocate for it. I guess it's baby steps with HSUS. No Kill advocates keep advocating for the elements in the No Kill Equation that will stop the killing of healthy and treatable animals and one by one, inch by inch, the HSUS stops fighting us on these life saving issues. Just curious, did HSUS collect donations on this group of dogs like they have in the past, even when they do not take part in their care?

Excellent article. It not only makes sense from a compassionate standpoint, but a financial standpoint as well.

I live in Houston and when the story about the dog attack on the homeless woman was announced on a local TV station, it was "3 Pitbulls maul a woman". I always cringe when I hear these announcements because I know that most people couldn't actually pick a Pitbull out of a line up (including myself; I took the online test and it took me 5 or 6 tries to pick out the Pitbull). Also, the TV station showed a scene of some dogs on chains, then some dogs barking in a kennel. But I don't think either set of dogs were the ones that attacked the woman. They just pick random photos of dogs that look like Pitbulls to show along with the story. It really is inflammatory.

This is the comment I think is yours "Someone says that they think we’re really rushing into this “guardian” thing. Sometimes due process is the ONLY THING that keeps dogs, esp pit bulls, from being confiscated from homes and KILLED IN SHELTERS. There are really legit reasons people, breeders, rescuers, pit bull advocates, are hanging onto “owner” and “property,” not because they don’t care about animals."

I'll be there and live updating as well. See you all tomorrow! FYI: There is a no kill hashtag being used on Twitter i.e. #NoKill

PetDocsOnCall09, I know media mostly want the sensationalistic stories, but even when I provide these stories regarding our local animal control facility (BARC), it seems that they mostly only report what the city's spin doctor says---most of the time this information is FAR from the truth. For instance, I sent out a press release regarding a dog that entered BARC with a severe head/eye injuries. Rescuers were BEGGING to take her out of BARC to get her to a specialist. BARC would not let her leave and instead planned surgery to remove her eyes even though they did not have proper equipment. A reporter read my press release on air (I recognized my words) but did not contact me for more information. They instead interviewed the city's PR person who lied, and some other woman who had absolutely nothing to do with the story other than seeing it online. (BTW: The dog died after surgery--and the 3 rescuers who tried to save her were banned from BARC). The same thing happened when we got the media involved in the story about the pet adoption facility that the city plans to waste $12 million on (in a remote location--bad for adoptions; also in a flood plain; next to a sewer treatment facility; on land where protected birds live--it will destroy their nesting grounds; and a city council member was lying and threatening people in the neighborhood). The reporter didn't show any of my interview and only showed the city's dog and pony show. Ugh. This is why I started writing for Examiner.com. At least I can write the entire truth about what is really going on here.

Excellent article. This makes a lot of sense. However, I've also found I can hand them all the the "whys" on a silver platter and still sometimes can't get them to report the entire truth.

This is just another way for bureaucrats to blame someone else instead of taking responsibility and doing what has been proven to save animals. When San Francisco was no kill, their offsite adoptions were so successful that the pet stores couldn't compete and went out of business. If every shelter functioned the same way this shelter was, we'd get a "2-fer"... shelters would adopt out all healthy and treatable pets and pet stores would stop selling animals... and therefore putting puppymills out of business too. So really a "3-fer".

Last night on Nighline, they did a "story" on Mel Gibson's fights with his baby momma. Although Gibson came out sounding like a wingnut, is this really journalism worthy of Nightline? The next story was about Sarah Palin's daughter's plans to marry her baby daddy. Again, this is journalism? Seems the only thing newsworthy these days are children born out of wedlock. Perhaps we can somehow work thought into the "pet overpopulation" theme and get some media coverage that way? ;-)

Pai, I agree. When I watch what is supposed to be the news, I am constantly amazed at the fluff and celebrity bs that they talk about. Recently, a program on one of our local news broadcasts was "how to get the perfect bangs". This is why I am glad I get to write for Examiner.com. Since I can't get the media to do animal stories that matter or are even remotely accurate, I can write about it myself. I'm not a journalist, but at least I try to fact check before I publish something.