Why No Kill Matters In Animal Rights

Seeing Nathan Winograd speak and subsequently reading his new book Redemption was uplifting in a way we rarely experience in work to help animals. For the first time we’re hearing someone address a seemingly unsolvable problem, companion animal overpopulation and the endless killing that goes along with it, and he is saying “we can solve this, we can make a difference.”

One of the things I enjoyed most about this is that Nathan Winograd isn’t some kind of pie-in-the-sky optimist. He speaks of our horrible history with animals, from drowning masses of stray dogs to people who hurt animals for the joy of inflicting pain. He sees all the selfishness and cruelty around us today. But what he sees is more good people than bad, and tells us that good people can make a difference. With humor and humility he demonstrates that sometimes those good people might not know what to do, they might be misguided, misinformed, flat broke, or terribly confused. But with that proper help, they can step up to the plate and be part of the solution. They might not know how to help animals, but we can teach them how.

He breaks things down into simple manageable steps and then starts dismantling the road blocks. To apply this to my own community: we know that many of our neighbors are not going to get their own companion animals sterilized, much less the strays and ferals they feed. So we have to do it for them, and because we, Sean and I, are limited in our funding, time, and energy, we need help to accomplish it. So we reached out and found help.

Recently a fellow activist asked me if I ever felt like work on companion animal issues was sort of a waste of time considering how many more animals suffer terrible fates and are eventually slaughtered for food. I agree in essence that more animals are affected by animal agriculture and that is indeed the larger problem. That’s why I keep trying to promote veganism. However, I also know that many, many people love companion animals. These could be the only animals they have first hand experience with, the only animals they have learned to feel empathy for. So expanding their understanding of companion animal issues, and reaching out to them through that empathy can be a first step to expanding their understanding of all animal issues.

But there’s another important reason we can’t just ignore companion animal issues. In animal rights we are continuously trying to convince people that non-human animals are individuals, that they feel, love, and suffer. We want them to see chickens as fiercely protective, affectionate mothers, not egg machines. We want them to recognize the bond between cows as similar to the bonds within their own human families. So if we keep saying over and over that animals matter and are important, then we need to make sure our actions match our words. We can’t convincingly tell people it’s wrong to kill a cow because you like the taste of beef, but it’s ok for us to kill hundreds of dogs because they are inconvenient. We can’t tell people that chickens deserve a life not shut in dank barns, packed wing to beak, but then say it’s ok to exterminate feral cats. If we say that animals are individuals and their lives matter, then we can’t dispose of companion animals just because it’s difficult to come up with solutions or because their care is costly.

Of course their care is costly and there are more dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets, and every other type of companion animals than there are homes. Does that mean it’s ok for us to take them out of sight, kill them, and guiltily stuff the thousands of bodies into the trash? We rail against the people who abandon their animals, and accuse them of viewing living, feeling creatures as disposable. So we need to send the message that they are not disposable. And we need to make the communities see and understand the consequences of the current system and of their individual actions.

The only way to get ahead of the curve on this one is by paying for massive sterilization programs. We have to let go of the idea that people should be responsible and pay their own vet bills to get their cats and dogs spayed and neutered. Many already are responsible, but others just aren’t, and it only takes a few animals continually breeding over their lifetimes to flood us with unwanted kittens and puppies. So we need to do the sterilizing ourselves.

We also need to put breeders out of business. Breeders sell animals to anyone who has the money without regard to whether that person will care for the animal his or her entire life. Breeders promote the myth that shelter and rescue animals are inferior, therefore condemning more to die. Breeders glut certain areas with puppies and kittens for sale and then hand over the ones who don’t sell to the shelters. Breeders also sell inbred animals more prone to disease and hyperactivity, so they are distributing animals more likely to be abandoned or dropped off at shelters.

But as we work on the effort to reduce the new animals being born into homelessness, we also need to follow Nathan’s advice on being more aggressive with placing rescued companion animals. We need to do the PR to show people how truly wonderful they are. We need to dispel the myth that people with children need puppies; in fact an adult dog is often the best choice for young families. We also need to consider the image we project of ourselves as rescuers, shelter workers, etc. We need to show people we’re working with animals AND people to find good homes and help everyone. We can work with people to educate them.

Hopefully all this will bear fruit, not just in reducing the shameful numbers of healthy, adoptable animals we kill just for the crime of being born in the wrong place, but will also set an example for how compassionately solve seeming intractable issues involving animals. How can we ask people to not advocate killing deer in response to car accidents and Lyme disease if we ourselves kill kittens just because there are so many of them. How can we ask people not to promote kangaroo meat as an alternative to eating cows when we kill dogs just because their guardians got tired of them? How can we ask people to think of the feelings of a chicken if we ignore the feelings of entire bonded colonies of feral cats who are content and healthy where they are?

This is why “No Kill” matters to the entire animal advocacy movement and why all of should take a little time out and read Redemption.