Who says the public doesn't care!

In the works of Nathan Winograd a recurring theme is the excuse given by kill-shelters that there are not enough people who care, not enough people willing to adopt, not enough people willing to foster, and therefore animals must be killed. Nathan Winograd argues against this vehemently. I just thought today I would share an experience that supports Winograd rather than the excuse makers. 

flyer posted on PRN's Facebook page
 

Recently, a speckled coonhound was surrendered to a vet’s office by the owner who claimed a history of food aggression and snapping or biting from this dog. An employee at the vet's office who received the dog sent out an e-mail stating that they had seen no evidence of this, but, unfortunately, they would be unable to keep the dog more than a few days. If they were unable to find the dog a home by Sunday, 11 November 2012 the dog would have to be euthanized as requested by the owner. Pet Rescue North, a local no kill shelter in Jacksonville Florida, unable to save the dog directly because their kennels were full, posted this information on their Facebook page seeking help.  

Pet Rescue North is a small organization with only just over 400 likes on Facebook, but the response was overwhelming. The post resulted in over 700 shares and almost 200 comments. Ultimately, the result was that a forever home was found for this dog. It is worth noting that comments were posted from as far away as South Africa. The forever home that was found was in Daytona, Florida, almost 100 miles away. Now the only problem is arranging transportation. This is a minor problem, but the most important thing is that this dog has been saved. 

The question has to be how can anybody claim that the public is not supportive of no-kill policies when a tiny pet rescue organization can put a simple request on Facebook and more than twice the number of people that they should reach shares the request in such a positive manner? 

The mission of no kill shelters is to save animals, whether those animals are in the care of that shelter or not. However, their efforts are being hindered by this belief of the kill shelters that the public does not care. When one small shelter can reach so many who care what could happen if kill shelters adopted policies of communicating with the public rather than just bureaucratically killing animals because they believe no one will care! All they need to do is give us time. 

Just as a final thought, this experience showed some of the limitations of Facebook, and will no doubt provide the basis for many posts on this blog to come. However, as far as the concern that the public may not care about the unnecessary killing of animals goes this experience blows that argument out of the water! So if you live in an area where the pound or the local shelter claims that there are not enough adopters out there, tell them that they are not working hard enough!