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Quick note:
This post originally appeared on my Substack a month ago. If you like this type of thoughtful inquiry into an animal welfare topic, plus some other personal updates I don’t share here, sign up for my emails! Plus, when you do, you’ll gain access to a subscribers-only folder that includes a full-length ebook about positive reinforcement training and lots of fun printables. Now, onto the repost:
Please stop calling them “kill” shelters. Same goes for “no kill” — here’s why.
How many shelter workers got into animal rescue because they were hoping to euthanize a bunch of dogs and cats?
What a dumb question, right?
The hours are bad. The pay is low. You deal with poop and pee a thousand times a day. It’s physically and emotionally intense.
You get yelled at by the public for your adoption fees, for not having puppies, for the audacity of an adoption application.
You get yelled at by the guy coming to pick up his lost cat who is horrified that he has to pay a fine to get the cat back and then decides she’s not worth the $30 and leaves. (True story.)
At the end of the day, the budgets are tight, the community pantry is empty—again— and another litter of kittens is dumped in a beer box in the parking lot.
Meanwhile, every time you open social media, you see your shelter referred to as a “kill shelter.”
As if any of those euthanasias are because of YOU.
They’re not.
They’re because of the rest of us, even the ones extolling the value of “no kill.”
The reasons are different in every community: not enough donations or a big enough tax support. People are afraid to adopt bully breeds. No one wants the old dogs or disabled cats. And then when you make pet adoptions free to clear the shelters, people are furious that you’re giving away animals to dog fighters or poor people. (For real. Read the comments on this post or on this one. It’s unbelievable.)
Maybe some are relinquished because of a bite history because the people didn’t manage or train the dog appropriately or because of poor breeding or because they were kept on a chain in a yard and left alone for too long.
Or the cat is handed over for not using the litter box or for scratching the new sofa.
And the shelter runs out of money, time, space.
Then what?
Open-admission shelters can’t turn any animal away, even the sick ones or the injured ones or the dog bite ones. So, they are labeled as “kill shelters” because they are forced to euthanize.
A limited-admission shelter can turn animals away and so can turn away animals for lack of space, health, behavior, and so on. These are labeled “no kill.”
Just the other day, I saw a series of comments on a post about a dog desperate to get out of an animal shelter, and the comments were along the vein of: This poor baby. Someone needs to get him fast. He’s stuck in a kill shelter. Adopt him before they kill him.
How do you think those shelter volunteers feel? They’re working furiously reaching out to rescues, to transports, creating social media posts, photographing the dogs, writing up profiles, doing all the things to help that dog find a home. And the response is: Someone do something before they kill this dog.
Language matters.
No one is out to kill shelter dogs and cats.
Everyone is doing their absolute best.
Instead of saying “don’t donate to a kill shelter!” or “support no kill!” pull that thread, unravel it all the way backwards until you land on the systemic issues that force shelters to euthanize.
Contribute YOUR time, talent, and money to advocate for bully breeds, for seniors, for disabled animals. Donate to community pet pantries. Volunteer to walk dogs to get them out in public to meet potential adopters or play with cats to help socialize them to humans.
But stop calling them kill shelters. The simplest thing you can do is shift your terminology from a “kill shelter” to an “open admission shelter,” from “no kill” to “limited admission.”
That’s it. Have compassion for the workers toiling away cleaning cages a thousand times a day, trying desperately to find homes for animals no one wants.
We can do better, and it can start by simply changing how you speak about these shelters.
BTW, if you appreciate discussions about animal rescue and the role we humans play in animal welfare, check out chapter two in my book, FOR THE LOVE OF DOG. On sale now everywhere you love to buy books!
This post brought to you by my absolute ire at a recent Facebook thread. Stepping down off this soapbox now…
Hug your pets, friends.
P.S. Reminder to sign up for Subtack for free. (: It really helps support my work!
