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The public believes all shelters furnish medical care, loving attention and  only puts pets down for resons they can understand but that isn’t the case. Many thriving shelters put down animals that are black because they have too many black pets, too many large pets, too many of a specific breed as if they were sorting beans and peas in the canned goods dept.  To be considered a no kill shelter does not mean you never put down a pet,  A few months ago K Fox chastised me without a chance to defend myself against a disgruntled employee for putting down 18 of over 300 dogs that we had worked with for over 2 years in each case.  We had lost the use of the kennel where the benefactor withdrew financial support and the use of the kennel without notice after five and a half years.  We took a caravan of pets around Tx giving away market ready pets all spayed and neutered finding homes for about 150 in the process. We had money and veterinary expenes invested in the pets and it cost us money to make the runs.

They wanted us out in 45 days but a reasonable judge got us about 4 months  in the interim our computer records were destroyed and  a man who had been a L. A. gang banger had full control of the kennel and office and staff. It was very difficult. We had to find a suitable place and drove for hundreds of miles to look at possible kennel locations finally buying a foreclosure and remodeling it.  If you were to ask me to describe the owner of the kennel and ask why she did this I think it was planned to study how I did it, put someone in charge as we adopted hundreds of dogs and to her it looked easy.  She was not informed and believed she owned the dogs and my organization and all along had avoided talking to me unless necessary.

My best description of her would be very mean spirited.  She left me to pay $20,000 a month in salaries her manager had hired mostly to do nothing withdrawing any financial support to us without any notice at all. I was trying to find people who might help us so I turned to PETA. What I found was while PETA wants to save the lives of chickens and pigs, sheep and goats, seals and whales they are not interested in cats and dogs and routinely tell people trying to save lives in a no kill shelter to put them down.  I was really stunned but got an education in a hurry.  Everyone wanting to save pets should read REDEMPTION  by Nathan J. Winograd and it will tell you stories of how PETA sought out veterinarians asking to take spay neutered pets to rehome and then taking them out to the car and  putting them to sleep dumping their lifeless bodies in the dumpster.  These pets were not feral they were simply pets left at the vets and not picked up or given to the vets by people who could not  keep them.

When I asked them to suggest agencies to help by taking some of the pets they told me to put them down.  If people paid attention to how PETA spends their money and what their attitude is they’d think twice about donations.  In fact there is so much need in your own city and state it is a sin to send your money to far away places where it goes into salaries and no pet in  your neighborhood benefits.  It isn’t uncommon for us to be unable to take a pet as we are full, the person on the phone is furious and when I ask where they donate it is often PETA who does nothing to help rehome local pets.  People are blown away by big time television shows and names.  What does it mean to be no kill?  No kill does not mean  never kill, agencies that have limited means sometimes try very hard to rehibilate difficult pets but eventually must put them down as they have no ‘little boiling pot’ churning out money.  Places like Dog Town have an endless supply of funds and rehibilates many pets but at a cost per pet (which may never be normal or adopted) which is great. The main reason pets cannot be rehomed are aggression and sickness and it is not responsible to put a dog or cat into a home where it could easily kill a child or another dog or elderly person.

I keep a clipping on my desk which says “Humane Society Pet of the Week kills child” which was not the local humane society.  The people took the dog home which had been there about 3 days, not long enough to assess any pet for disposition.  I have to read that often when I have a pet that is   between ‘good pet, possible ‘bad pet’ I feel I cannot put out a pet that can kill or badly damage a child.  Sometimes it is with tears we put these animals down.  Everyone should watch the Houston ASPCA and others on Animal Planet, even if dog is snarly when eating it is put down.  We try and work with them to stop this but that day in March of 09 our time ran out.  18 dogs were put down and K Fox interviewed a disgruntled employee who had no driver’s licence and warrants a mile long and she said “Martha puts down dogs whe doesn’t have to”. These 18 were all we had ever put down in 5 1/2 years and when I went to our benefactor begging for food her answer was the kennel was not run well when it was run by her very own choice of men she hired and paid to run it.  By then she is wanting us to leave without any discussion.  When people ask me to describe her I have to think she was very mean spirited and cruel.  She had put down troubled dogs herself.  Reasons agencies put down dogs are aggression, sickness, old age to where people are not likely to adopt or take care of the needs of an older dog, habits which are disgusting which we have been unable to break with our limited resources such as eating feces, humping, being very destructive, (my son had a dog in his  kennel which chewed its way from outside in. He destroyed all his living room furniture) , dogs that cannot be contained in any enclosure, and a few other reasons.  Each euthanasia is a failure and we do not take it lightly and as with the  18 out of 300 they had been kept 2 years and in our case we were out of space, time and money.  It took fired employees and a tv station which loved drama but not truth to put it to the public.  No puppies were put down even though though they showed fabricated photos of puppies which were not ours.   When people ask me how I feel about it I say ‘the greatest man who ever lived they nailed to a cross why should I expect better?’  Every time a business bypasses an agency or the newspaper picks and chooses someone over another dogs and cats die. Every time an event which is news worthy is deliberately over looked by a tv station while picking favorites, they hurt the pets because agencies like ours do the adoption numbers.  Many good but less aggressive agencies are in it for a hobby.

There is nothing wrong with hobby work but tv and media stations should think about saving lives not cherry picking people who do the hobby work.  If a hobbiest does 1-3 pets a month it is great but agencies like ours in bad times do over 40 to 45 on bad times so those pets are really greatful to us and we use our own money not that of a benefactor.  That should count for sincerity.  I also got a real awakening when I called Pedigree Co asking if we could get any free food.  We feed only Pedigree here and true to their ad the poop is perfect and when you have a good pooper you have a healthy dog.  The first question I was asked was “are you a no kill shelter” and I said “yes” and “how many dogs and cats do you do?” and I said we were turning over a hundred animals a month out of 300 and she practically hung up on me telling me they are not interested in no kill shelters where pets eat and hang on for long periods they want the dog into a home eating their product.  “So sorry try again in a year but if you rank your kennel as no kill then it will be the same answer, good bye”,  So I found what drives the big companies, Hills and others to donate free food to assist the nonprofits.  It is not having a no kill shelter and doing large numbers compared to the number in your kennel.  If you are humanitarian, ah..forget it, if you have 14 mothers and puppies who will take space and time, forget it.

All these fancy programs really do little to help agencies like ours.  We work 9 to 12 hours some days and do all the good stuff saving sick pets, ones hit by cars if possible the one chewed up by a roving dog but that will never qualify us for anything free.  Be sure to read the book REDEMPTION because many unwanted pets can be saved it is a case of being lazy and doing it strictly for the money.  Those are the ones that get the most publicity.  Those are the ones which get free food.  PETA has resorted to rather risque tv ads where nude  women in various situations make a point.  It is my feeling these ads do nothing to stop mistreatment of pets.  Please, before you donate money to a nonprofit, all of which is tax deductible, be sure what you believe is their cause is actually their cause, consider donating in your own home town!  And remember, local groups appreciate it more and are generally more likely to be careful in how that money is spent.  God bless those who care for the pets.  Martha Williams Director.