Animals have a right to life and rescue
Vulnerable animals can be sheltered and provided with loving, new homes
A new study reveals a heartening truth about the Western public, including the United States, Europe, and Israel. While many of us wish to see the community cat population reduced, a staggering 90% are firmly against the idea of killing them. This research underscores that compassion for free-roaming cats coexists with concern about increasing numbers.
Unfortunately, the reason cat numbers appear to be growing, at least in the United States, is because some national groups, notably Maddie’s Fund, Best Friends, and Austin Pets Alive, have encouraged “shelters” to turn away friendly cats and kittens through a program called “Human Animal Support Services” (HASS). Under HASS or “community sheltering,” care for homeless and stray animals is left to chance: people who find animals are told to take them into their own homes until their families are located, and, if they cannot, to leave them or re-abandon them on the street. According to HASS, the “hope” is that the lost animal “finds its way back home.” Such hope is misplaced. Indeed, some animals have ended up dead. And things may get worse with the launch of Maddie’s Fund’s “Million Pet Challenge.”
The Million Pet Challenge may do for dogs what has been done to cats: increasingly close the “shelter” doors to animals in need. Modeled after the Million Cat Challenge, where friendly cats and kittens are left on streets, the Million Pet Challenge program claims abandoned, lost, and other needy animals have four “rights”: the right care, the right place, the right time, and the right outcome. These are not rights; they are suggestions and very subjective. In the decision of pound staff, “the right outcome” might mean killing. And “the right care in the right place” might mean telling a finder to release a lost dog back to the street.
Like the Million Cat Challenge, a program that turned kitten and cat abandonment into “shelter” policy, the Million Pet Challenge may likewise be a euphemism for no sheltering — a dangerous bait and switch meant to redefine failure and the abandonment of animals as success and to defy the public’s humane expectation that their tax and philanthropically-funded animal shelters have a moral duty to provide care for the neediest and most vulnerable dogs, cats, and other animal companions in our communities.
The Million Pet Challenge also violates the real rights of animals — specifically, the right to life and the right to rescue. The right to live is not just the most important right for animals; it’s the foundation on which all other rights stand. How can an animal have any rights when any or all of them can simply be taken away by killing? And closing one’s door to an animal in need ignores an animal’s right of rescue — and renders animals who die on the streets invisible.
By contrast, the No Kill Equation’s success at eliminating the killing of healthy and treatable animals means the choice need not be to leave them on the street where they face a myriad of potential harms or to bring them into the shelter where they risk being killed. Vulnerable animals can be sheltered and provided with loving, new homes.
Learn more about HASS by clicking here.
Learn more about a community cat program where cats who are not social with people are sterilized and returned to their habitats, while social cats and kittens are found new homes, by clicking here.
Learn more about the No Kill Equation by watching the video below:
Together, we will create a future where every animal is respected and cherished, and every individual life is protected and revered.