If your local animal shelter is killing healthy/treatable pets, it’s failing. Here’s how the shelter director will explain the needless killing:
- Pet overpopulation: There are just too many pets and not enough homes for all of them.
- Lack of MSN: Because we don’t have a mandatory spay-neuter law here like they do in other places where they are able to save most of their shelter pets, we must continue killing the unwanted products of irresponsible breeding.
- It’s not me, it’s you: Malicious rescuers start terrible rumors about us on Facebook, causing the public to doubt the good work we do. This leads to a low adoption rate and decreased donations which hurts the animals.
Here’s why your shelter is actually failing: Your shelter director sucks.
The truth:
- Pet overpopulation: It’s a myth. There are enough homes for all the shelter pets in this country. Check the math.
- MSN: Most areas do not have MSN ordinances in place. The shelters saving more than 90% of their pets are doing it via the No Kill Equation, not MSN. Areas with MSN typically see no decrease in killing but rather an increase.
- It’s not you, it’s me: Internet rumors don’t kill pets, shelter directors who lack vision and a commitment to lifesaving do. Your shelter director is either lying about why the shelter kills animals or is willfully ignorant of the truth and incapable of accepting responsibility. In either case, replacement is needed – the sooner, the better.