For those of you who have not kept score over the last few years, Alabama has been through an incredible battle related to the otherwise simple issue of nonprofit spay and neuter clinics. There are four such clinics in our state and we are fortunate to have one right here in Huntsville. It was no always so. The clinic here has been alternatively open and closed a number of times due to political issues related to the legality of nonprofit clinics in our state. Most people are confused as to why this is such a big issue and we won’t get into the details here other than to say that we are very pleased that our local clinic has weathered the storm and is now open for business. We cannot speak to the future of the other nonprofit clinics in our state, but are hopeful that the reopening of our clinic signals a change of attitude by the members of the state veterinary board which oversee all veterinary practices in the state.
As we explain in our information here about no kill philosophies, having high-volume/low-cost spay neuter alternatives are key to any community being able to reduce the number of animals destroyed in municipal shelters. By having low cost options which are not based on income or geographic area, we simply make it easy for people to do the right thing by having their pets spayed and neutered. From a community standpoint, the benefits of having animals altered are simple: fewer animals in any community leads to reduced shelter intake leads to increased life-saving. From a personal standpoint, having animals spayed and neutered can help them live years longer than pets who are not sterilized, helps them avoid many diseases and cancers and keeps them from roaming. We hope you will share the great news about the reopening of the North Alabama Spay and Neuter Clinic. It is a wonderful resource for pet caregivers, rescuers and good Samaritans.
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We are often asked if Huntsville is a no kill community. The short answer is, "no. Not yet." There are two schools of thought regarding recognized status as a no kill community, both of which originate from a time in this social movement when norms were being developed in terms of performance. There was a time when a community was considered a no kill community after having gone twelve full months with a "live release" or "save" rate of above 90%. The percentage benchmark was based on norms at the time which said that if a community was saving more than 90% of the shelter animals, it most likely was not destroying healthy and treatable animals. Times have changed. There are communities where the lives of more than 95% of shelter animals are being saved. Some communities save 98% of shelter animals. This means that the 90% benchmark is no longer the consistently recognized standard for becoming a no kill community and the new benchmark is one not of math, but of method. It is our position that a community is a no kill community when healthy and treatable shelter animals are not at risk under any circumstances because a line has been drawn in the sand which will not be crossed. This may mean that the save rate is 97% in a given month. It may also mean that the save rate in another month is 87% if there were truly a number of animals entering the shelter who were suffering or so irremediably ill that euthanasia was the only responsible course of action. Getting back to the question, ours is not yet a no kill community simply because the city has yet to make a public declaration of intent that it will no longer destroy healthy and treatable animals at Huntsville Animal Services. We are hopeful a time will come when the city does just that. We think that enough progress has been made in the last year to put the city in a good position to make a public declaration and be able to keep that commitment with the help of the public. There is a website called Saving 90 which tracks communities where the lives of more than 90% of shelter animals are being saved. This same website tracks communities where the lives of more than 80% of shelter animals are being saved. We contacted the site last week to inquire about having Huntsville listed on the site in the Saving 80 Category. We did so in spite of our position on what the phrase "no kill community" means simply as a way of asking that Huntsville be put on the map of places making great progress. As we have said many times before, the city has come a very long way from the way things were when we first took this subject to the public in 2013 and we think it is important to acknowledge that. We were told that Huntsville does not yet make the grade to be put on the website. In order for a community to be listed as a Saving 80 community, it must have saved more than 80% of shelter animals in the last year for both species - meaning that the numbers must be calculated separately for dogs and cats. We do not yet have the shelter statistics for the month of December of 2015. This chart shows the save rates for dogs and cats for the last 12 months. It is very possible that Huntsville will be able to be added on the Saving 90 website as a Saving 80 community in the very near future. We will continue our requests for, an analysis of, the shelter statistics so we can keep you informed of the city's progress and so we can ask that Huntsville be added to the website once it has met the criteria to be added.
For those of you who have come to our website and are wondering if we still exist, yes. We are still here.
Late last year we made a collective decision to change our engagement in the community as a result of the fact that Huntsville Animal Services had made quite a bit of progress in saving animals. Although we still have some concerns regarding program development and sustainability, there is little to be gained by repeating ourselves for the sake of emphasis. We have made a number of recommendations regarding our concerns and have been told that the city "is and will continue to engage with industry experts in shaping the policies and procedures used in the shelter. We are extremely pleased with the progress. . .over the last couple years and confident that conditions are being set to continue that progress." We are essentially in a holding pattern while we wait to see what happens in the months to come. A recent post by the Huntsville Animal Services on Facebook indicated that during 2015, the shelter "housed right at 3,218 dogs and 1,973 cats (5,191) releasing alive right at 2,738 dogs and 1,812 cats (4,550) and having still 287 pets in our shelter and foster home program." We have requested statistics for the year and have requested copies of records related to dogs destroyed in the last three months of the year so we can continue our analysis of the reasons why dogs are destroyed. Once we have those records, we will post them on our website. We understand that there are many people in our community who are still angered by or unhappy with our advocacy. Some of them are with local rescue groups, some of them are shelter volunteers and some of them have chosen to go on the attack against us personally for our advocacy. As much as we find this type of behavior unproductive (and in many cases libelous) there is little we can do to stop it and we simply will not be baited by it. We have much better ways to spend our time than to try to engage in discourse with people who attack the messenger while completely losing sight of the message. We did not relish having to come together to seek better for our community in the first place. We are all incredibly busy and advocacy takes a toll in terms of time, money and emotional energy. There are no days off. We have no regrets for having been the boat rockers for the sake of the lives of companion animals and the people who live and work here. We would ask those who find our advocacy too outspoken to consider this one fact: if local officials had chosen to embrace no kill philosophies years ago and on their own after having been introduced to those philosophies, our coalition never would have been necessary in the first place. As the saying goes, "we didn't start the fire." We hope you will stay tuned in the months to come as we sit back, watch what happens and continue in our role of keeping the city honest. Will we become a no kill community in 2016? We certainly hope so.
When our coalition first formed in January of 2012, we had one goal in mind: to speak with one voice toward making ours a no kill community - a place where healthy and treatable shelter animals are not at risk and are not destroyed using our tax dollars. We developed a Facebook presence in April of 2012 in order to reach more people in the community and share our vision of Huntsville as a no kill community. We have always sought to become irrelevant not because of lack of interest, but because we simply are no longer needed in this particular advocacy role.
The City of Huntsville is nearing the end of the most successful year of animal sheltering in the history of the city. The numbers for the entire year have yet to be calculated; we presume that the live release rate will be near 90% and may even exceed that percentage. The city has openly stated that it hopes to do even better in the coming year and city leaders are clearly energized about the public’s response to calls for community involvement in saving shelter pets. As we begin the new year, we have moved away from Facebook and reverted to our primary means of communication which is our fully developed website. We will be blogging from our website periodically in order to keep supporters posted on news of interest and the latest local developments. We remain hopeful that the progress achieved by city officials to date can be sustained. We look forward to a time when the city makes a public declaration that it plans to become a genuine no kill community and that healthy and treatable shelter animals are no longer at risk in our municipal shelter under any circumstances. We still have some concerns about program development, but we can envision no circumstances under which the city would revert back to the old ways of functioning. We hope you will stay tuned as we begin a new and exciting chapter in the history of Huntsville and Madison County and as this community demonstrates to the entire region what can happen when we have faith in the compassion of the animal-loving public. The next logical step following a public declaration of intent is for the city to codify the manner in which the municipal shelter operates so that progress can be sustained not just for the short-term, but for years to come by enacting a Companion Animal Protection Act. More information on this and other programs that sustain the progress and can better serve the animals and the public can be found on our website. Will 2016 be "the" year we become a no kill community? We have faith in those who lead us and in our community to do just that. When city officials were first introduced to the no kill programs we promote in equation form in late 2008, the live release rate at our municipal shelter was 25%. Three out of every 4 animals were destroyed regardless of health or disposition. When we formed our coalition in early 2012, the live release rate had risen to 34%. We consider this a dismal number and are truly glad it is now just part of the past
The live release rate at the municipal shelter was over 96% in the month of October and we suspect the November numbers will be similar, This is a stellar achievement and one which should be a great source of pride for local elected and appointed officials, city employees, rescuers, volunteers and the animal-loving public. Just a few short years ago, many in our community felt we just could not do better for whatever reason. Time has proven that position to be wrong. As has been the case in many communities brave enough to try something new, time has proven that we are, in fact, capable of change and that our community is, in fact, compassionate enough to make better choices. More than 100 shelter animals were adopted out in a single day on November 30th. When a bed drive was launched to help shelter dogs, the goal of 80 beds was met in less than 4 business days. Those facts alone say a lot about our community and the capacity for greatness. The road to change is never easy. It comes with conflict, lost sleep, hurt feelings and in the case of the no kill movement, it often results in a great deal of opposition. This may seem illogical to many of you. As we were asked at our no kill workshop in the summer of 2013 at the downtown library, "who could possibly object to saving the lives of homeless pets?" Exactly. If someone had told the members of our group in January of 2012 that Huntsville would achieve live release rates above 95% but that it would take us being made out to be the bad guys in the process, each and every one of us would have signed on for those terms. Because, you see, this has never, ever been about us as individuals and has always been about pushing for better for our homeless pets and our community. Whether you think our coalition has had anything to do with change here or not, the reality is that we are now a much different community than we were four years ago in terms of how many shelter pets are saved. As we near the end of 2015, we remain hopeful the shelter progress achieved to date can be sustained. We challenge city officials not only to keep the live release rates close to those achieved in recent months, but also to make that final push and commitment to make ours a no kill community by publicly declaring that healthy and treatable shelter pets are no longer at risk under any circumstances. We invite all of you to learn more about what is taking place in our community related to the municipal animal shelter, about your your own behavior affects what happens in the community and about what you can do personally to be part of making ours the no kill community we know we can be. |
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