Talk:No-kill shelter/Archive 1

Non-Objective - Candidate for Delete?
I believe that this article is not only blatantly non-NPOV, but also uses loaded language and terminology to evoke a sense of argument beyond the scope that the text supports (for example, 'Puppies' and 'Kittens' in leiu of the more encylopedic terminology). As such, I'm going to put this forward as being either non-notable (and easily absorbible by other animal rights pages) or at the very least a candidate for deletion.

Thoughts? -SteveG

Bellemichelle / Wikifying
I did a basic wikification of the article. It was very un-NPOV, so I tried to remove a lot of the biased language and be more descriptive. It still needs work though, esp. with citing sources. Bellemichelle 14:48, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

TNR
i believe TNR actually stands for "trap, neuter, and return" as opposed to "trap, neuter, and release". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.12.100.241 (talk • contribs)

Resources
For some resources that are based on the opposite POV of this article (to balance it out) see:

& (from the Best Friends Animal Society) 70.53.2.176 19:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

No kill community
The concept of the entire community being treated as "no kill" is a new one for me. It's OK to define it, but do such communities exist? Are there references for their success? Also, the no-kill community information should probably be in a separate section or even a separate article. Bob98133 21:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of no-kill communities in the United States. San Francisco was one of the first. San Francisco SPCA and the Department of Animal Care and Control have a legal contract since 1994 to become a no-kill community www.sfspca.org/pact.shtml. Another example is Tompkins SPCA which turned Tompkins county into a no-kill community literally overnight in 2001. They went from saving about 55% of the animals to around 93%.(The 7% of animals euthanized were either terminally and painfully sick animals or dogs deemed dangerous by professional tests performed by animal behavioral experts at Cornell University). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.82.9.54 (talk) 18:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * So Tompklins county would be a low-kill community, since healthy dogs are killed based on their perceived ability to be adopted. Admittedly fewer are killed, which is a good thing, but defining low kill or limited admission shelters as no kill seems odd. Bob98133 14:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Tompkins does not kill healthy dogs. Every killed dog was either aggressive(by tests administered by experts from Cornell University) or had non-curable terminal conditions.  According to http://www.maddiesfund.org/news/news_pdfs/sept04.pdf, in this open-admissions/animal control shelter 812 dogs were taken in, 13 dogs had terminal painful non-curable diseases and were euthanized, 66 were killed for being aggressive(not arbitrarily declared aggressive, but found aggressive by multiple tests conducted by experts from Cornell University).   Every one of the other dogs found homes.  That clearly qualifies as a no-kill community under most definitions.

No kill shelter web pages - External Links
A couple of links to web pages for no kill shelters have been added lately to the external links section. While these shelters are no-kill, their web pages don't really add much to information about no-kill shelters, so I question the point of posting them as external links. Perhaps a list of known no-kill shelters within the article would make more sense - each could be linked to its website. Either something like that or these links should be removed as linkspam. Thoughts?Bob98133 13:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

You are right —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.186.169.33 (talk) 02:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Update - Check Refs - New Info
Notes: reference #1 was truncated to remove mention of euthanasia.

reference #2 – Copyright infringement: direct plagiarism from Maddies Fund page cited. Definition may be correct, but stealing text is not.

change 6million animals killed to 3-4 million per year per HSUS estimates

change “huge boost” to Financial boost” – huge is weasel word

removed “Huge boost” for online declaration and changed to “also promoted by”

consolidated redundant items in techniques section

San Francisco – changed “healthy” to “adoptable” Reference clearly states that “treatable” and “non-rehabilitatable” animals, though healthy, may be euthanized. Changed “originated” the trend to “popularized” – since there have been other no-kill shelters

Changed “some no-kill refuse animals” to most – since most will not take feral cats – may need reference

Removed Thompson as open admission since they won’t respond to calls about cats, added needs reference

Removed: “In addition no-kill shelters work to reduce the number of animals having to be killed in the first place.” – all shelters do this, not just no kill

Changed “many” shelters moving towards open housing to “some” – since there are very few of these. No kill declaration signed by groups AND individuals, not 10,000 groups as stated.

Removed that SF 2nd to Thompkins – reference did not support this claim.

Thompkins transition to no kill was not “instant” – reference clearly details two year long transition period.

Thompkins new shelter – reference doesn’t support 100% no kill of cats and dogs, nor does it claim that there was any relation between policy and building new shelter.

Thompkins – remove 2003 stats, not supported by reference. Lowest no kill community, not supported by reference.

1998 California law – reference states to reduce suffering, no mention of no kill

Hayden law does NOT say it supports no-kill goals as stated. It attempts to reduce high animal death rate in shelters.

5 year period Best Friends reduction not supported by reference – citation needed.

Hermitage – reference states 400 cats not 500

Added: reference to Thompkins being overcrowded

Added: abuse incident when shelter was full

changed most no-kill believe no overpopulation problem to Nathan Winograd believes…

changed kill shelter to open admission shelter

added several additional techniques

removed comfortable life – weasel words - no reference Bob98133 19:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

overpopulation
Winograd's claim according to the sfgate article is that "there are more than enough homes for every dog and cat being killed in shelters every year.", not that "there are enough homes for all the homeless animals" as the current article falsely claims in the beggining. It then goes on to state his actual claim and confirm that he is right, before saying that he is wrong because he did not take into account homeless animals.

Later in the sfgate article, it was mentioned that "in fact... ...there aren't just enough homes for the dogs and cats being killed in shelters. There are more homes for cats and dogs opening each year than there are cats and dogs even entering shelters." This more impressive claim also does not include all homeless animals.

Straw man much?

Also the citations are only used to back up some statistics. No reference for who or what organizations are making those arguments against him.

--165.21.154.92 (talk) 10:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * A lot of these anonymous edits don't make any sense. You have removed some material that should stay, and sections, like the entire defintion section from the Hayden law was already referenced in the article, so what's the point of repeating it as unreferenced? Also


 * 1) since this is an article about how many animals are or are not killed in shelters, why was the referenced number of animals killed removed. HSUS is a credible source for this info. They have collected it for years. But most other sources give approximately the same number.
 * 2) Have you left anything out that wasn’t covered by “volunteerism”? Dog walkers, shelter cleaners, evnvelop stuffers…? Saying volunteerism is a concise way of saying that volunteers are used, I don’t think there is a need to list every single thing they do.
 * 3) You removed showing animals at the shelter as a means to increased adoptions. Is this not done?
 * 4) working with breed rescue groups…is sufficient. No need to go into the fact that these groups target specific people interested in breeds. A link to breed rescue groups would explain this if someone wasn’t aware
 * 5) showing animals at Petsmart/Petco – is the purpose to increase outreach or increase adoptions? What does saying “to increase outreach” do to help explain anything?
 * 6) Changing “Enrolling the help of Local Merchants” to “**Partnering with veterinarians, veterinary colleges or other local businesses willing to support funding” indicates that these partnerships are to aid fundraising not animals being cared for, or is fundraising the issue? Realistically, how many no-kill shelters are close enough to partner with a veterinary colege? This would certainly need a reference.
 * 7) If Winograd is really saying that there are ONLY enough homes available for all animals killed in shelters, then it is relevant to point out that this leaves some two million animals (those being intentionally bred, homeless, feral and at large) not being taken into consideration in the no-kill system. This seems like a serious omission if the effort is for every animal to have a home. If this is not the case, it should state that no-kill is has nothing to do with these millions of animals.Bob98133 (talk) 15:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 1.The numbers are not used purely as statistical info but used to counter winograd's falsely represented claim.
 * 2.I think it helps to list what the volunteers are used as.
 * 3.I would imagine that is a given.
 * 4.Doesn't hurt to have a little more info.
 * 5.The more people you target, the better the chance of finding an adopter?
 * 6.The funding was referring to businesses only. Vets and vet colleges would be help with veterinarian care. could be reword. :[http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:vW68IKrHq8UJ:www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/pdf/Working%2520with%2520Vets.pdf+no+kill+veterinarians+veterinary+colleges&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=sg&client=firefox-a
 * 7.Reworded without the strawman. "If the effort is for every animal to have a home". another strawman. --165.21.155.109 (talk) 05:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So I noticed that you removed, without discussion, charging fees and refusing to accept owner-surrendered animals as strategies to help shelters in being no-kill. Do you believe that these are not part of the strategy of no-kill? If so, why do no-kill shelters refuse owner-surrendered animals and charge fees to accept animals? Why do so few not have municipal contracts to accept stray animals? Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That was another IP editor not me. --165.21.155.114 (talk) 21:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Review of links
I went to each of these links, deleted a couple and added more description to some others. Explanation below:
 * No Kill Advocacy web site

There is no info about who does this page, simply advocacy info.
 * No Kill NOW - Advocacy web site

Deleted – link spam – goes to full page picture of a dog, cite proper reference if relevant:
 * Maddies Fund - Has funded communities moving towards no-kill goals

Changed page description to accurately reflect reference:
 * Tompkins SPCA's statement of how they became no-kill over a two year period.

Deleted – goes to home page of some shelter, not stated ref Bob98133 (talk) 17:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Coalition of no-kill organizations in Utah that have reduced the number of animals killed in Utah Shelters

Brestrup article
I changed the wording of this since your text (165.21.155.117) misrepresented the actual quote. You said:

Many find the term "no-kill" misleading as animals do get euthanised. The term has also caused divide in the animal welfare community as it inadvertently implies other shelters to be "kill" shelters, an accusation that traditional shelters don't take too kindly to.[21]

The Brestrup article stated that the term "no-kill" is "problematic." He did NOT state that many people find this misleading. He made no mention of the term dividing any community and did not mention how kindly or not traditional shelters take to this. I have changed the text to reflect what this reference actually said. Bob98133 (talk) 16:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

several changes
Hi - some edits to new material that was added and some others as noted:

Bob98133 (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Replaced external link with wikilink – Best Friends
 * 2) The first city in the world to be no-kill for dogs was Mumbai – added “for dogs” since article only mentions dogs not cats or other companion animals.
 * 3) Removed comment about PETA employees animal cruelty charges. Wrong article, that is addressed in other articles.
 * 4) Removed sentence: In the five-year period from 2001-2005 they were able to double the number of adoptions, increase the number of spay-neuters and dramatically reduce the number of pets killed in Utah animal shelters from about 22 animals killed for every 1000 people to about 12. – there is no mention of this in the source cited.

e-matrics
I was uncomfortable with statistics being reported in this way. I did a web search and could not find that this is an accepted way of reporting statistics. On the cited web page, it states that this organization made up this system of reporting stats. I don't object to the system, it makes sense, but other statistics in this article are reported using conventional statistics and mixing these in an article is very confusing. Since the e-metrics is a made-up system only in use at this shelter/organization, it seemed best to drop the reference to it. Funny that the actual numbers of animals euthanized aren't given. I wonder if the number of euthanasias actually increased? If someone can find the raw data and wants to post it with a reference, that would be great.Bob98133 (talk) 19:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see a need for a consistent way to present the statistics as the point is not to compare which shelter is more efficient but to show an individual shelter's before and after numbers. A live release rate(which is the current "conventional" statistics used) by itself makes less sense than when compared to an average shelter release rate or the "before no-kill" release rate. And, there ARE actual numbers on the site:
 * 2006 Statewide Adoptions
 * 1999 = 18,137
 * 2006 = 25,197
 * A 39% INCREASE!


 * 2006 Statewide Euthanasia
 * 1999 = 46,010
 * 2006 = 32,225
 * A 30% DECREASE!
 * I've added them accordingly. --Dodo bird (talk) 04:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)