We’ve had a week or two of simmering down from the hyperbolic extremes of learning that SB 1329, the gas chamber ban bill, passed unanimously in the Senate only to find that, after years of hard work and horse trading by everyone with even a peripheral interest in the matter to construct a strong, useful bill, virtually everything was stripped from it.

On seeing the, and with apologies to Andy, as much as I’d like to say “streamlined” the only appropriate word is, gutting of the bill, my reaction was like most who had been working to get it passed, and with double apologies for using a vulgar text-world colloquialism, “WTF?!”  Rants were had all around.  In the end, we have what we have, and it is a rarity in some ways.  We have the purest of bills which does precisely one thing and one thing only: it bans the use of gas chambers for euthanasia in shelters, animal control facilities and vet offices in Pennsylvania.

We can bemoan it some more- and believe me, I did my share of moaning- or we can make the most of a bad situation.  And while we’re at it, we can put to the test the supposed “small government” convictions which have reportedly brought us to this version of the bill.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

The situation would seem pretty cut and dry.  Reportedly, the Governor’s office will not sign anything which requires additional fees or regulation, even when the industry being regulated is literally begging for it like the animal welfare community is.  That explains the stripping of all the well-crafted measures to allow for direct licensing of animal shelters so that shelters can directly purchase the correct euthanasia drugs, without needing to bow and scrape to a local vet if they don’t have one on staff, just like 17 other states allow.

I’m yet to see anyone go on the record supporting gas chambers.  That would explain the unanimous Senate passage of the “streamlined” bill.  Who in their right political mind wants to vote for gas chambers?   By voting it out of their chamber, the Senators have handed the hot potato to their House peers.

This is where it gets interesting.  We now have a bill which has nothing in it which the Governor or anyone else, except maybe the gas chamber manufacturing lobby, can object to.  No new fees.  No new regulations.  No DEA issues (even if the ones raised were utterly bogus).  Farmers can still do whatever they want.  The NRA can crow that they have protected the time honored tradition of being able to shoot your own dog (somebody cue the end of Old Yeller and raise the flag).  The only thing in this bill is a ban on gas chambers to euthanize pets in the remaining three or four places which use them in the entire state.  Who could possibly object to this?

For starters, I think a few people assumed people like me in the animal welfare community would.  As Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”  You will find no opposition from us.  For years there was concern by the sheltering community that a lack of access to the right euthanasia drugs might result in shelters with gas chambers simply closing their doors following a ban, causing a worse situation for animals.  Guess what? While we’d like to see a direct licensing option, the vast majority, if not all, in our community have been saying what I’ve been saying: We would like direct licensing but we demand a ban no matter what and no strings attached if it’s the best we can get.  No one can make the claim that we are stopping them from voting for a ban and getting it signed into law.  It is simply not true.

Better yet, there are several of us on the record saying we will personally and organizationally provide the resources and oversight to any shelter using a gas chamber and which has no alternative to allow them to switch to the right euthanasia techniques.  It will cost us money as a charity- and that’s the dirty little secret of all these cuts and “no new fees or taxes” rules, they just shift the cost to local government and charities- but we’ll get the money to do it.  Better yet, there are a few very clever ideas out there, and I know Senator Dinniman has them, which would not only address these concerns without spending a dime of public money, but might even be to the government’s benefit.

There is nothing in this bill which will violate agriculture rights or gun rights or any Grover Norquist anti-tax pledges. There is no reason not to pass this bill in the House.  None.  Unless the leadership in the House supports gas chambers.  If it passes in the House there is no reason for the Governor not to sign it.  Unless he supports gas chambers.

A couple weeks ago I questioned the courage of our elected officials in my anger and frustration.  Perhaps that was harsh.  They can demonstrate that courage right now by scheduling a vote in the House, passing the bill, and getting it signed into law.  They can show that they don’t stand behind an artifice of high minded governmental ethics which serves only to allow more pets to die in gas chambers.

Leaders of the House and Governor Corbett, Senator Dinniman did his part, along with the rest of the Senate who voted for this bill unanimously.  Schedule SB 1329 for a vote in the House now.  Pass SB 1329 now.  Sign SB 1329 into law now.

Please do it now.

Want your State Representative to vote for SB 3129 now?  Tell them so.  Click here to find your Representative’s contact information.

You may think the important election in Pennsylvania is the general election in November. You would be wrong. Thanks to the endless cycle of partisan carving up of districts, the vast majority of elections are decided in primary elections, not in the general election.

While you hear a lot about challenges to the electoral maps between the parties, don’t think these fights are about making races fairer or more competitive. The intent of redistricting is to first ensure the biggest margin for the majority party- and both parties do this when they get the chance. The second intent, and the way in which the party in power gets the votes it needs from the minority party to pass these new districts, is to preserve the existing seats of current legislators.

If you looked at the recent court overturned redistricting effort, you’ll note that while it would have improved the chances for Republicans across the board (they are, after all the majority so it is their turn to rig the game), they very carefully strengthened the election chances of several Democrats by consolidating Democratic strongholds in certain areas. Why would the party in power do this? Because it plays to the desire to maintain incumbency. If they do it in a place the Democrat would likely have won anyway, they lose nothing.

But they gain a vote in support of the redistricting plan. Want to make a wild guess which minority party legislators voted in support of the majority party’s redistricting plan? Just look at which minority legislators would find themselves with an easier election under the new plan. I think you’ll find a higher than normal vote in support for the other party. There may be two parties in Harrisburg but there is one big club: the incumbents. And they all want to make sure they get to stay in the clubhouse.

That is why, even in “landslide” turnover years, the incumbent election rates tend to be well over 80% in the past few decades. Once you’re in, you’re in. Once a district is controlled by a party, it tends to stay controlled by that party. So if you want to know who is going to win the election in your district, chances are it is the candidate already in office or at least of the party which most recently held the office.

That means that if you want to make a change in Harrisburg or Washington, you need to make it in the Primary Election. It is statistically the most likely time you will have any chance of actually impacting who will be elected (assuming you are also registered in the party which holds the election advantage in that district).

And that means if you care about animal welfare, you need to cast your vote very deliberately for the candidate of your choice on April 24th.

As a 501c3 non-profit organization, HSBC cannot (and doesn’t want to) endorse or oppose any candidate. There are other organizations which can do that and we encourage you to speak to candidates about the issues, research many sources, and make up your own mind (one source, another source, find your own source). What we can do and like to do is advocate for positions and legislation which will benefit the animals and people in Pennsylvania. We can also let you know when a legislator has made a good, bad, or ugly decision when it comes to animal welfare policy. All too frequently we are stuck with sharing the bad and the ugly because we do not have enough elected officials who either see the value of strong animal welfare laws or have too many who don’t have the courage to stand up against powerful anti-animal welfare lobbies. Some simply pander to us and won’t follow through after being elected.

On April 24th you can help change that. You can help get a sensible anti-tethering bill passed. You can help get the pigeon shoots banned. You can help restore funding to the Office of Dog Law Enforcement. You can help ensure that Dog Law enforces the few laws which were passed recently to make life better for animals. You can help ensure that a gas chamber ban passes without the cynical cuts included in the bill now.

You can do these things by ensuring that whatever candidate you vote for in either or any party in this primary election is a strong animal welfare candidate. You can help to ensure that in the general election, no matter which party will win the district thanks to the electoral rigging, both candidates are strong animal welfare candidates. That way the animals win no matter who wins.

Finally, once you have helped elect a candidate, hold him or her accountable. If a candidate says he will do things and he doesn’t, demand answers and if you don’t get them, remember the betrayal of your trust in the next primary election in two or four years.

On April 25th we’ll know what animals can expect in Harrisburg because the general election winners will already have been chosen. You must make sure that it’s a win for animals.

If you made it through high school, there’s a good chance you took a Miller’s Analogies test. It required you to select from a list of pairs of words which bear the best relation to another pair of words. A is to B as X is to _____. For example:

CLUMSY : BOTCH
A. wicked : insinuate
B. strict : pamper
C. willful : heed
D. clever : eradicate
E. lazy : shirk

The answer is E. This is not a test of antonym or synonym recognition. It requires thought, not a mental list of definitions, because it requires an analysis of context, meaning and relationship.
This test came to mind today because I noted that two words which on some levels can be analogous have started to become synonymous and that led me to reflect on ways in which that has occurred in my professional world of animal welfare. The two words were “humanism” and “atheism”. Humanism and atheism are not synonymous one their face, yet they are increasingly so in their expression and perception, even to the point of being able to find contextually vastly different definitions.

Humanism’s most ubiquitous definition is that it is a system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values, and dignity are taken to be of primary importance and is unrelated and independent of religion or deity. We should do right (or wrong or anything) because of our own choices, thoughts, or ethics, not because of the intervention or edicts of religion or a deity. This is an affirmative belief system which can exist regardless of any other belief system.

However, various other definitions offer a subtle but profound skewing of this and refer to humanism as a denial of the divine. That is, of course, the exact definition of atheism and it is a negative belief system which calls for the negation of any belief in the divine. Atheists seek to deny the undeniable just as deists seeks to affirm the unaffirmable.

This conflating of the two definitions is seen in the advertising campaigns of the American Humanist Association’s advertising campaigns which employ slogans such as “Why believe in God? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” But dragging that conflict into an arena which does not require it is a highjacking the analogous in an effort to create the synonymous.

This is exactly where things started to seem very familiar in an animal context. They do not say, “You don’t have to believe in God to be good,” or “My good is just as good as your good.” They are advocating that the belief in God is in itself a problem, as if the good end has been tainted by the means by which it was attained, even if the attained good ends are identical. This is the perversity of requiring synonymity to define intent. I have on more than one occasion attended fundraising workshops and classes and heard a variation of this question: Does it matter if a donor makes a gift for a tax write off or a because of a deep, true belief in our mission? The answer, if the sole end is the good the donation will do, is that it does not matter at all.

Nevertheless, I can always count on at least one person who will make an agitated case that it does matter and that the pure hearted donation is somehow inherently superior. It even generally possible to steer that person into a corner at which they will actually say a strictly profit motivated donation should be refused. Granted, these are not always deep thinkers. But there is a tendency to suspect motives other than the ones we believe should be driving a decision, even if the result is the same.

I believe this is the reason that so many people very nearly plead with me to say HSBC is “No Kill”. I certainly could- God knows places with much worse save rates than our routinely do. We regularly hit the very qualified target of 90% save rates from month to month. Functionally, we have attained the end sought by “No Kill” acolytes. These same masters of lemma will applaud the “No Kill” intent of agencies which are patently failing at the reaching the end, but which are failing to get there via a preferred theological avenue. Our organization on the other hand tends to be viewed with suspicion for not laying claim to both the end and the means.

Why don’t we? We don’t because in this case we are, if you’ll forgive the cobbling of concepts, “Animal Welfare Humanists”. We are arriving at the desired end not through a religious zeal to get here or by commandment of a prophet, we have made conscious choices based on our values and ethics which can exist outside the narrow constraints of the “No Kill” meme.

As importantly, we know that our success rides on the back of the struggles of others and of others’ choices. We have decreased euthanasia of feral cats by essentially refusing to accept them knowing that we will euthanize them and instead refer the public to feral cat advocacy groups. This limits the options available to the public. It’s good for the cats, but there is more to it than simply saying, “We succeed in not killing feral cats”. Our ability to hold animals for extended periods of time without facing a space crisis is the result of us dropping our dog catching and municipal euthanasia contracts and other groups having made the decision to take them on, along with thousands of animals which used to come to us.

The end result is that we hover right around “No Kill” rates despite not being strictly limited admission. While we can claim more than a little credit for having made strong decisions which are ethically defensible, we must also recognize that some of our good fortune is as much our doing as my fortune to be born white in modern America rather than Cambodian under the Khmer Rouge was due to some cleverness of my own and not sheer luck. Yes, we’ve made the most of the situation and made more of it than most but we started with a leg up. To pretend otherwise is like Donald Trump leaving out the part about being born to a real estate tycoon worth $200,000,000. It’s the little omissions which allow the camel through the eye of the needle with greater ease than us.

We got where we are though a lot of hard work, serious thought, and a little luck. Not because we are “chosen” or followed the hallowed path. And that is where this whole thing ties itself up in a neat little bow. Atheistic Humanism would devalue goodness derived from belief in deity. “No Kill” purists often devalue goodness attained via an animal welfare world view other than their own. The end may be identical and the means similar or analogous- especially to an outsider- but each side places a lower value on the identical results of the other.

“Yes, you may have tended to the sick because you thought it was the right thing to do, but I did it because my Holy book told me so, so I’m going to Heaven and you’re not.” Or, conversely, “I tended the sick of my own free will and you did it because you were compelled by your fake deity, making you a puppet to your faith.” Is it the problem of being compelled which causes the denialism of some?

There is a classic science fiction story, The Giving Plague, about a virus which makes everyone altruistic and the protagonist is a horrible human being who chooses to sacrifice himself to save others, despite being free of the virus, simply to prove he acts of his own free will and has not been compelled by an outside influence. In the end, it only mattered to him.

There is a middle way, they way of saying we don’t care why you do what you do, as long as it’s the right thing. Make a donation for the love of animals, for a tax break, or to curry a date with cute, single Development Director. It might matter to your everlasting soul, if there is one, but the good deed is the same. Hell, we’ll even help you to find whatever reason you need to do that good deed. We’re like philosophical honey badgers: we don’t care.

By the same token, “No Kill” fundamentalist claims which can be explicitly proven to be false, devious, or puerile should be presented as faith, not fact. We know that faith allows for belief in the unbelievable and even the utterly ridiculous. I will allow any Bible literalist to pick and choose which passages they want to accept literally while ignoring the admonitions against eating pork or shellfish or the designation of a man who offers up his daughters for mob rape being deemed “righteous”. Hey, it’s your belief system, think what you want. But don’t expect me to think it too because your book or belief in animals’ rights leads you to embrace not only the unaffirmable but the patently false.

Again, the why doesn’t matter at all. Who really has skin in a game of telling anyone that he can’t do good as well as she can because the good wasn’t done with a pure heart, or was done believing something stupid, or because we used different language or are a different color or a different political party? There are plenty of ways to devalue the good done by others. They are all beside the point. We need to do good because good needs to be done. Ends is to Why as Good is to Who the Hell Cares?

I’m not sure that analogy actually works but please take my intended meaning on faith.

The next time you balk at hearing a politician say that he or she voted for a crappy bit of legislation because it was better than nothing, remember the Gas Chamber ban and have a little sympathy.

Swallowing the gutted SB 1329 may be about as palatable as those semi-incubated duck eggs they make people eat for TV ratings but it is better than nothing.  Our legislators had a chance to pass a bill which would elevate the welfare of animals in Pennsylvania.  Instead, thanks reportedly to a Governor who thinks the only good government is a dead government, we have to make a decision.  Is it better to have shelters face turning animals away to face a potentially worse death on the street or to continue to allow gas chambers?

The answer is, of course, obvious.  We must ban gas chambers.  Now is the time since we have a bunch of freaked out legislators who are uncertain of the political winds and who all need a win which will let them crow about helping pets and get their picture taken with dogs.  Like the Puppy Mill bill, it has a chance to pass overwhelmingly because few, if any, will want to be on the wrong side of this landslide.  Since it is a law which will cost the government nothing and once again places all the cost and burden on charities, the Governor should sign it with glee.

The various factions will probably even get their way and avoid any explicit language stating that this law applies to commercial kennels.  They say that wording in other laws makes it “unnecessary”.  Of course, that never stops them from demanding such wording if they think it will pose a risk to hunting, guns, or food production, even when the same wording should make it unnecessary then, too.  If the clarification is such a non-issue, why the opposition to it?  I guess what is good for shooting the goose isn’t good for saving the gander.  We’ll wait and see how long it takes Joe Puppy Farmer to gas or shoot a dog and point to this in his defense.

However, passing it doesn’t mean we need to be happy about how we got here or the fact that we elect politicians to do hard work and make hard decisions, not kick the can down the road for the next class to pay for or the one after that.  Like most “no cost” options, the cost will simply get passed along to county and local government and to us.  Harrisburg has been making plenty of cuts lately.  Have your taxes gone down?

It’s always been easy for the Humane Society of Berks County to support this ban, even in its current bad form.  We have veterinarians, we have access to the right drugs, and we don’t have animal control contracts so we aren’t drowning in animals that will face euthanasia simply because there is no more room at the inn.  But we also have empathy and we know that we can’t just support things that are easy or good for us without making sure we help those who are not as fortunate.

Harrisburg had the chance to do that and they failed.  So, go ahead, pass SB 1329 and pass it swiftly.  But don’t expect a pat on the back for doing the very least you could have done for animals instead of the most.

No, legislators, we won’t balk when you say it’s the best you could get. We know what a limited commodity courage is these days. You have our deepest sympathies for your loss.

I call Harrisburg’s bluff.

I’ve seen enough of politics to know that demonstrations of legislative bravery on the part of politicians are more likely a sign that there was no real danger in the first place. Like a courageous vote in support of “freedom” or loving our grandmas. When we see unanimity, it’s all too often a sign of bipartisan collusion to support something which has 100% public approval or has 100% no chance of actually passing for one reason or another.

So when the Gas Chamber Bill, SB 1329, was bravely passed by a unanimous Senate vote this week, I had a sense something wasn’t right. When I read the gutted bill, I knew something stunk to high heaven. The bill which passed was a shell of the bill which had been introduced. And its utter lack of content explained exactly how it passed with no opposition.

The original SB 1329 did not just ban gas chamber euthanasia. It did the heavy lifting of addressing the reasons that there are still any animal shelters and animal control facilities using this antiquated and inhumane method.

The Brave Face of Small Government in the Face of Animal Cruelty

Gas chambers are rarely used in shelters by choice. They are used because some shelters don’t have access to the veterinary license required to obtain the industry standard drugs used to perform humane lethal injection. Not every shelter is fortunate enough to have a vet on staff. Many are in rural communities where local vets are few and far between, and not always willing to simply “give” a shelter access to their license for a variety of reasons, such as liability concerns. These shelters feel that using gas chambers, which are unbelievably not, I repeat, are not, considered inhumane by the American Veterinary Medical Society, are better than no option at all.

While I personally feel that if you can’t use the best industry practice, humane lethal injection, for euthanasia you should close your doors, I also know that very good and humane animal welfare professionals have a moral conviction that a less desirable method of euthanasia is preferable to starving, freezing, being shot, or being hit by cars. I also know that most would absolutely prefer to make use of the best, most modern means of euthanasia and decommission those antiquated death chambers.

The original SB 1329, which had gone through years of horse trading between the veterinary lobby, the agriculture lobby, the animal sheltering lobby, the anti-gas chamber advocates, finally cobbled together the elements of an effective and smart bill. It banned the use of gas chamber euthanasia in most cases. Animal shelters, animal control facilities and private vet practices would be banned from using them. However, a system of direct drug licensing, used in 17 other states, for shelters and animal control facilities would be created. The state pharmacy board would create guidelines for drugs and their purchase, along with training requirements for non-veterinarian euthanasia technicians, to allow those few currently non-licensed facilities to purchase and safely use the appropriate drugs and techniques to euthanize animals.

It appeared that everyone could be on the same page. All the parties even offered up some wiggle room here and there to ensure that a good bill didn’t fail because it wasn’t perfect to all. This was the chance for bravery and unanimity.

As is so often the case, 1329 faced a death of a thousand amendments. Maybe private vets should be exempted (although not a single vet was asking for that to my knowledge). Maybe “aggressive” animals should be exempt (as if it’s easier to get Cujo into a little metal box than walk up behind him and stick in him the butt with a tranquilizer). Maybe this, maybe that. But it seemed like maybe these unneeded amendments might be handled and the good version voted on. Well, they were dealt with all right. They weren’t included at all.

And neither was anything else.

The final version, voted 48-0, banned gas chambers. But it left out the direct licensing provision. It included an exemption making it clear that anyone, you, me, Joe Puppy Mill, could shoot their animals. It exempts “normal agricultural activities” from the ban. This creates an interesting legal dilemma. Since the Puppy Mill Law requires breeders to use a vet to euthanize dogs but this bill says anyone may shoot their animal, which law would trump? Since it exempts agriculture, and puppy farms are considered to be agriculture in Pennsylvania, does this mean they can also now start using gas chambers if they all decide its “normal”?

This ambiguity makes it clear what is really be going on here and why this is a huge bluff being directed at those of us in animal welfare. The original bill posed a major philosophical problem for the Governor and the conservatives in Harrisburg. It actually created a new government bureaucracy to be in charge of direct licensing. It would require more oversight and enforcement by the Bureau- sorry- Office of Dog Law Enforcement. This runs counter to Corbett’s seeming effort to shrink the government through a death of a thousand incompetenties and to protect our citizens from government by stripping us of all our protections from everything else. Just look at the utterly unqualified people being selected for key positions. Look at the game of chicken being played with the budget of Dog Law and other agencies. Look at how even when he does appoint competent people to state positions, he ensures their ineffectiveness by not actually holding meetings and letting them do their appointed job. Look at how he refuses to enforce regulations on the books which would protect people and animals.

Why endanger that effort with a bill which creates a bureaucracy just to prevent a little cruelty? There was a better option in this game of poker. Bluff.

Strip is all away. Keep the vets happy. Keep the farmers happy. Keep the conservatives happy by not growing the government. Keep the liberals happy by allowing them to vote on a puppy hugging, feel good, so-stripped-as-to-be-meaningless gas chamber ban. Who cares what the animal shelters think? Corbett’s already screwed them over (after Rendell robbed the Dog Law budget) by cutting the tiny amount of funding provided to shelters by the state to do the state’s own job of dog control. Better yet, count on us to demand the bill be scuttled because it’s such a bad one and then they can all shrug and say, “We tried, but they shot it down.” SB 1329 simply became a way for everyone in Harrisburg to express their effectiveness at getting something, blocking something- whatever the personal political agenda may call for- and wrap it up with a bow in a bill which wouldn’t be signed even if it did pass both chambers.  Such bravery. Such unanimity. Such crap.

I say we call their bluff. Let’s demand passage now. Let’s force them to pass it and give them none of the credit for being courageous or bi-partisan. Give us our ban; we’ll give you no new “burdensome regulations” in exchange. We will know what they did. We’ll know how they put their tails between their legs and lived up to every negative impression the public has about our elected government. That is can’t be effective, that it plays games with our lives and livelihoods. That it puts dogma and ideology ahead of safety and need. Pass SB 1329 in the House. Get it signed by the Governor.

You may ask, “What about the problems with it? What will the shelters do?” The answer is simple. Let’s give shelters what they need to do it right. You and me. I will commit right now to joining with other qualified animal welfare professionals to create a non-profit management services organization (MSO), to be up and running by the effective date of the law, which will provide euthanasia by injection training by veterinarians and experts in the field. This MSO will provide access to DEA site licenses, oversight and insurance. This MSO will provide management assistance and audit support to ensure both the proper use of the drugs and techniques and compliance with all state and federal law, and will do it affordably for any who ask. The sheltering community in Pennsylvania has the capacity to do this. People like you have the financial capacity to make it a reality.  And it’s people like you who can help make sure the appropriate legal challenges are mounted when the next puppy farmer shoots all his dogs and points to this intentionally contradictory law as a justification.

We can embrace this ridiculous farce of a bill even while recognizing its shortcomings and the battles to come. We can bring an end to gas chamber euthanasia, no thanks to the brave men and women in Harrisburg. We can call their shameful bluff.

Governor Corbett and the Democratic and Republican leadership in Harrisburg: We see your bet. And we go all in. Now let’s see your cards.

We received some great news that the gas chamber euthanasia ban passed 48 to 0 in the Senate!  Well, I actually haven’t had the chance to read the final language, so 100% satisfaction might be premature.  I’ll get back to you.  However, before I do, I wanted to respond to an opinion piece defending gunshot euthanasia which appeared in the Morning Call on January 17, 2012.  It also made me out to be a zealot.  With another, “I know, right?  Me?”, I am wrapping up my month moving from having been accused by one person as being Mr. Status Quo to Mr. Carpenter calling me a mumble mouthed Zealot.  March came in like an annoyance and went out like an insult.  Below is my email response to the Mr. Carpenter.  I tried to talk real good in it (although I have here vainly corrected a couple of rushed typos sent to him) and I climbed out of my tree long enough not to appear too wild-eyed, praise be to our ape overlords.

Hi, Mr. Carpenter, I just stumbled upon an opinion piece you did in January about the gun shot euthanasia exclusion in SB 1329.  I’ll try to keep my syntax in check since I’d hate for a poorly constructed verbal quote over the phone or a quickly typed email to provide you with a snarky means of implying my idiotry.  It may make a case for my mouth occasionally running slower or faster than my head, but please do me the favor of limiting your slings and arrows intended to make me appear a mild dunce to my actual positions, with which I’m sure you will find yourself  amply armed. 

I’m contacting you because I believe you misrepresented my position somewhat by failing to include the entirety of the context of my thoughts. My position is that given the overwhelming opinion of the veterinary medical community, the animal welfare community, and the “best practices” of virtually every organization euthanizing companion animals that proper lethal injection is the best method of euthanasia for pets, gunshot euthanasia no longer has a place in the process.  I was not advocating a “guns are icky and I’m a nut” position.  Gunshot euthanasia, practiced perfectly, is as humane and instantaneous as any.  However, it is easily practiced incorrectly, especially by the average Joe Dog Breeder who is interested in this exemption (in my opinion) more due to its convenience and low cost than any humane reason. 

We can all drag out examples from our past of things that have gone well for us, as you did with your unfortunate cat incident.  I can trot out my experiences with the results of well-intentioned owners and police officers who have used a gun to try to put an animal out of its misery and only succeeded in further wounding and inflicting great pain on the animal.  In fact, I’ll trot out the very experience you cite of someone clearly trying to kill that cat with a gun and failing.  By comparison, even a botched attempt at appropriate, “industry standard”- and I am talking about a very specific use of drugs and technique, not necessarily any needle, full of any fatal juice, stuck anywhere- will in all likelihood lead only to tranquilization and sedation rather than death.  I for one would prefer that a failed attempt lead to an animal merely falling asleep, as opposed to a failed gunshot merely dislodging the back of an animal’s head or spine without killing it. 

Additionally, it is nearly impossible to accidentally seriously injure or kill the humans in the vicinity of a lethal injection euthanasia, unlike the use of a gun.  As a final argument of zealotry, I’d offer that some consideration of modernity and cultural mores be considered.  Firing squads may also be humane for humans but, in a culture where we still employ capital punishment, we have largely moved to lethal injection for our murderers, too.  While the technique and drugs employed are actually far less humane than those generally used for pets, we have recognized that the risk of error and pain are far less, as is the emotional trauma for those doing or witnessing the killing.  We have left many things in the past because as a culture we have decided that we have a new, preferred method.  Gunshot euthanasia should be one of those left behind. 

These all seem like perfectly rational arguments to me, not that I would recognize my own nuttiness perhaps.  I must think that you did not take the time to read any of the volumes I have written on animal welfare and my opinions and positions on them.  I am anything but a zealot, as you mistakenly imply.  I am also very definitely not in the animal rights camp, I am in the animal welfare world, an entirely different universe.  While both may seek similar outcomes in most cases, those goals are hardly synonymous.  Using one over the other is either a not so subtle linguistic jab or indicates a lack of awareness of the divide.  In fact, I am routinely faulted as a speciesist, apologist, and shill by “my” side for not drinking the animal rights Kool-Aid and instead taking very carefully thought out, intellectually defensible, fact and research based, and generally moderate positions on animal welfare.  Since I believe a poll would find the majority of the public agreeing with me on the antiquation of gunshot euthanasia in commercial kennels, I believe that is exactly what I did when reaching my conclusion on that topic.  By my accounting that would put you outside the mainstream on this. 

The fact that I hear I am both an extremist by people like you and not extreme enough by others tells me I am probably just about in the right place.  It would seem to defy the definition of zealotry.  Thanks again for taking the time to cover the issue of the gas euthanasia bill.  While we apparently won’t agree on the merits of puppy millers being able to shoot their tired breeding bitches to save a few bucks, I hope we can both support passage in the House now that the Senate has voted unanimously to pass it.

Karel I. Minor
Executive Director
Humane Society of Berks County

When those espousing the No Kill vision make their case, they often employ a phrase which is subtle in its linguistic misdirection. They say, “Any shelter can become No Kill,” and then list examples. This sleight of words is intended to draw your attention away from the reality you might have right in front of you and make you think that “Every shelter can become No Kill.” It is the same misdirection used by many politicians when they say, “Anyone can succeed in America,” and then list themselves as examples as a means of getting you to vote against your own interests.

There is a tremendous divide between the meaning a statement and the likelihood of it coming to be when “any” is replaced with “every”. It is telling that the examples used to prove the case of “any” tend to be singular in nature. This shelter and that shelter chose to become No Kill. Often the claim will follow that this community (itself a suspect generalization) or that community chose it but, even with the implied broadness of that word, it represents a limited profile and geography.

You don’t hear any claim that this state or this region or this nation succeeded. That would be the factored leap in outcomes which would be required to make the case that every shelter can become No Kill. Everywhere. At once.

Let me remove the spear from the spleen of some reading this by repeating my well-worn reminder that I believe half the people in sheltering should retire or be fired and half of the other half should be reprogrammed in order to allow them to do a vastly better job. Sheltering is broken, we should strive for a civilizational construct which allows for the achievement of a No Kill world (whatever that might actually mean), and I’m sure there’s something wrong with me and what I do that you can hold against me. With that out of the way….

This is not about the goal, which is noble. It’s not about the outcome, which may be possible. It’s about the language and the tactic of hiding behind extremely carefully, well-crafted phrases. We are in good company. The sides in the abortion debate didn’t choose “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Choice” by accident. Each side intends to frame the argument to its advantage and start with the words.

Yes, any shelter can become No Kill. Over time, enough of those shelters choosing to do it may reshape the needs, expectations, resources, and attention given to the entire issue. This is very much in the way of what is happening in Pennsylvania right now as more and more shelters choose to drop animal control contracts, forcing government to finally make some hard decisions.

But what No Kill advocates want is to have every shelter choose to be No Kill. OK, what if they did? Everywhere. At once. Now. I know, you know, they know it can’t actually happen everywhere, at once, now. No more than everyone, at once, now, can go to college, or choose to become a millionaire. Yes, anyone can choose to become a millionaire or go to college- and we know even these are too broad a generalization because even these aren’t true- but everyone can’t, right now, at once.

Language can certainly alter our perception of reality and what is possible. I am not willing to grant that it actually changes the physical world. Although it may make it possible, simply saying it does not make it so.

So let’s stop crafting sentences which are Olympiads of semantics. Even our friends hate to hear us descend into negotiating what the definition of “is” is. And stop telling us that if we don’t take you at your words, we “don’t get it”. We get it. You just might be saying it wrong.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about all the hand wringing recently in the media about name calling. Rush Limbaugh, in a world where comparing someone to Hitler or saying someone wants to “pull the plug on Grandma” gets a pass, was nearly universally vilified for going over the line recently. Saying someone is a slut, not like a slut, especially when it’s not a celebrity or politician, seemed to fit nearly everyone’s definition of “going over the line”.

But this really seems to be a distinction without a difference. People say mean, vicious, and vulgar things all the time. It can be bruising, it can be painful, but most of the time it is of little or no actual consequence. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words are usually just insulting.

For example, just this morning I received an email from someone I have served with on a non-profit board announcing that I am a “F***ING idiot” because of my opinion, a long time in coming and well-reasoned opinion shared by several State legislators and many in my field I must note, that the Office of Dog Law should be moved out of the PA Department of Agriculture and placed under the control of the State Police. Some have suggested it be moved to the PA Department of Health, and I can live with that. Many people have also suggested I am an idiot, and I learned to live with that long ago.

Mere vulgarity rarely results in much damage and that’s one of the reasons that it is an exempted form of speech from libel and slander suits. Vulgarity has its place and can make a precise and perfect point when well deserved. I’ve notably chosen on rare occasion, quite deliberately and with great care, to use utter vulgarity when an action or statement truly deserved it. I’m sure we all have. There are times when vulgarity just perfectly states what we feel. Perfectly. Just ask Cee Lo Green. That song wasn’t funny just because it was vulgar. It was funny because the vulgarity was the perfect expression.

I’m sure this person thought calling me an “F***ING idiot” felt it was warranted and who am I to judge? I know that it does no harm to me. Any more than the vulgarities cited by pro-Rush folks as being hurled at Sarah Palin hurt the former Governor. They are vulgar, yes, and they are harsh, but they say nothing about her. They say more about the person choosing to use the vulgarity. This is why I have always been very selective about directing vulgarity at someone.

But calling someone a slut is saying something about a person, about who they are and about what they do. When it’s directed at a private citizen who doesn’t share your political views and wasn’t being paid tens of millions of dollars to express those views, you should expect a bit more blow back than if a millionaire comedian says something nasty about a millionaire politician.

However, even among the potty mouthed one percenters and politicians (so often the same group these days), there are limits. I’ve been pretty vocal with people on “my side” about what I think is crossing the line when it comes to commentary on “the opposition”. While corruption exists in politics, it’s not universal enough to declare that any politician who opposes an animal welfare bill or doesn’t choose to prosecute someone is “corrupt” or in the pocket of a donor. Those are pretty serious allegations and they go beyond the merits of a law or a prosecution. They say something about the person they are directed at in a very specific and insidious way. Not that I don’t think these people shouldn’t be allowed to say these things. There is also a libel exemption for saying crazy, nasty things about public figures, and for good reason. The speakers just need to accept that not everyone will agree with the tactic, even if we agree with the sentiment.

And there is also usually another way to say the same thing. It may take longer than the one or two short hand words of vulgarity or shrill personal insults but it can usually be far more effective. When you can do it with some humor or irony, it can be devastating. Just ask Mark Twain. When one uses humor effectively, the truth can be presented in a way which even the target can acknowledge. It often allows for a dissection of the accused faults into little bite sized morsels, none of which are big enough to make the faulted choke on the attack. It allows the target to recognize flaws in himself and perhaps- if the person isn’t utterly humorless- laugh along in recognition of his or her own foibles.

It’s why so many politicians go on Saturday Night Live despite being satirically boiled alive in the past. Keith Olbermann called Palin an idiot. SNL just used her own traits and even own words to make the same case. Yet Palin makes an appearance on the show because she either recognized a little in the portrayal or at least wanted to prove she could be a good sport. No one expects anyone to be a good sport after being called a slut or “the C word”.

It’s why I make my feeble attempts at “funnying” up my idiotic opinion pieces. There are not many people out there who I really think rise to the level of Hitler in their motivations so, to be fair, I’d rather not use language which defines them as evil, corrupt, bad, or morally bankrupt. If I do, I paint them into a corner which they can’t get out of and they probably don’t really deserve to be in. And those sorts of direct, personal, “existential” attacks can do real personal harm and real world harm.

I hope you’ll forgive a detour into a discussion using myself as the example. I promise it will meander to a point. I’ve been in animal welfare for a while now and I’ve said and done many, many, many things which have severely pissed off those both within and without animal welfare. Being older and wiser now I can reflect on how well deserved some of that annoyance with me has been. I’ve always recognized that while I am certain my opinions are the right ones, not everyone agrees. At least until I’ve railed them into the ground with my superior reasoning and they finally wave the white flag, just to shut me up. I have never minded a good fight on the issues or even over the tactics. I will even embrace the occasional charge of “F***ING idiot” because it does me no harm.

What I have never learned to accept is the creative meanness of some who can’t seem to engage on the issue or tactic and don’t simply resort to vulgarity, but instead make a conscious choice to try to damage. In politics it would be the whisper campaigners who called around about John McCain’s “black daughter” in the 2008 primaries. We know that daughter was adopted. We also know what they were trying to say. There were plenty of real issues they could have attacked McCain on, yet they tried to damage him with the implied and totally false charge that he was a philanderer and, worse, philandered with someone of another race…oooooohhhh…he’s a bad, bad man.

It’s the same method which has inspired people who have I have annoyed for whatever reason to question not just my beliefs or opinion or even actions, but to attempt to create the image of me as a bad, bad man. Just like in McCain’s case where the rumors were spread by those in his own party, the people who have used this tactic against me and many others in animal welfare are others in animal welfare. Puppy millers don’t resort to the vile attacks which spout from the pie holes of those who are supposed to be on our side.

The more novice of the attacks are almost funny. “He never hugs puppies.” Not too far off the mark in reality. What most people don’t know is that I’m allergic to dogs. If I pet a dog and touch my face it turns red, starts to itch, and as I’ve gotten older starts to swell up. So I don’t do a lot of puppy hugging. That doesn’t stop me from petting my family dog, Treetop. I just wash my hands. It didn’t stop me from holding my first dog, Thumper, who I had adopted ten years earlier at my first job in animal welfare and who finally had reached the end of his fight with debilitating terminal cancer, as he lay in my arms in a puddle of his urine from the incontinence which came with his disease dying from the lethal injection I personally administered to end his suffering as I wept, as I want to do right now simply remembering that cold, Spring night.

I didn’t worry about allergies then as I felt his slowing heart beat and I reflect on that whenever I hear that someonein animal welfare with an axe to grind goes out in public and tells people I like killing animals. These people who are in the “humane movement” yet try to inflict suffering on humans whenever possible. I’m not among those who outwardly gush and cry over every animal, it’s not my nature. But those people don’t know what is inside me or anyone else.

They don’t know that on the third day I worked at my first animal shelter as an office person my boss insisted I join her in the euthanasia room to watch a pit bull be euthanized so I’d know “the reality” of working there. They don’t know that I almost passed out in the room, watching the dog stumble and fall from the tranquilizer and then gasp its last breath following the intravenous lethal injection. They don’t know that I spent that evening with a friend downing two big bottles of Beaujolais as I shared with him the experience of watching an animal be selected randomly because the shelter had run out of space and then being put to death by a manager who, despite what I know were the best intentions and a good heart, had been suckered into the notion of the inevitability of that death and the need for my “rite of passage” into the world of animal welfare. Or that I puked the wine and my guts up half the night. And then went back to work the next day, determined to help other animals and on the road to utterly changing what I think is inevitable or acceptable in animal sheltering.  A road which has still required me to take personal responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of animals which I couldn’t save in the past two decades.

And these are among the least of what some of these people will say in an effort to damage or undermine me and others at the organization I’ve devoted myself to for the past seven years and the mission I’ve devoted myself to for the past twenty. Nasty comments about my wife and children. Rumors that my success comes from sleeping with my board chair, which came as quite a surprise to both of us. How humane of them.

This is the line. This is where “all’s fair” turns into assassination. I’m not just wrong, I’m bad and I’m evil, and so is anyone else who is associated with me. I am painted into my corner and I’m constitutionally incapable from responding in kind because I can’t return the favor without demeaning myself.

This they also don’t know. HSBC has a policy, punishable potentially by firing, against publicly speaking ill or deriding any client, associate, employee, or any other organization or person in animal welfare. Thinking it is fine. But we operate under our version of the golden rule wrongly attributed to Reagan: Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow animal welfare worker.  Sometimes we want to, but we don’t.

I know that these people often fall into two groups. One group are the fanatics. One cannot disagree with a fanatic because it is proof positive for them that you are, in point of fact, evil. You can’t win an argument with a fanatic or expect to have a reasoned discussion. The other group tends to be the terrified and ill equipped, and there are so many of them. They may be devoted to the cause, they may be passionate, they may be quite genuine in their belief that a disagreement warrants such a vitriolic response or even lack the ability to see the patent falseness in the claims they make. They tend to be those who are not successful in their field or at a struggling organization. They snap and snarl out of fear, like an injured dog on a control pole. One can understand why the dog is snapping and snarling, one knows that there is no way to reason the dog out of attacking, but that knowledge does nothing to render the attack less painful or damaging.

The question always come back to whether any battle is truly won by or against such people? Whether they know not what they do or not, their own victories employing these tactics would seem to be quite tiny and pyric. The fact that I choose not to retaliate against their impotent snarling and snapping must certainly only render them more rageful against the chain holding them back and keeping them just out of reach of landing a real bite. Their attacks serve only to render me cold and hostile, not change me or make me reflect.

This is why humor and satire can be so much more effective. Despite my weepy martyring above, I am quite a flawed person and a fairly self-reflective one. Why let me off the hook? Why not stick effective pins in me, pins that make me squirm because the placement is so accurate I cannot help but recognize the truth in them. I know that among the most laughable characters in our “industry’s” cast of ego-maniacs, easily wounded petty martyrs, and know-it-alls is me. Why not make me grapple with that reality? If they can’t do it seriously on substance, at least try for a funny way to get to the heart of their problems with me and others they seem to loath.

As Peter Ustinov said, humor is simply a funny way of being serious. Making a joke of something doesn’t necessarily mean that thing is a joke. And nothing is funny for long if the only thing off limits is you. It’s for that reason that when I get the not so occasional direct or oblique personal insults or attacks on me or my motives and intents, my annoyance is now more from disappointment than insult. In this world of, as I mentioned earlier, ego-maniacs, easily wounded petty martyrs, and know-it-alls, I certainly have earned my place near the top and should inspire craftier insult than the usual, “Not only does he hate puppies, he’s a too clever by half, unfunny jerk, who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room.” I mean, really, couldn’t that apply to pretty much anyone in this- or any- business? It’s also just kind of mean and doesn’t give me, as an easily wounded petty martyr, any room for self-reflection or acknowledgement that maybe there is some underlying truth to it.

How about something more like this? He’s so egotistical he starts the day saying to the mirror, “Neo, you are the one.” He’s so ambitious he thinks Sauron was a touch lazy. He’s such a know it all he thinks Wikipedia should run all their facts by him. He so self-important he thinks his own flatulence is the herald of angels. See, that’s all funny because it’s kind of true, and it makes me reflect on things I should be aware of in a way that just calling me a heartless jerk doesn’t. And even when it’s directed at me it keeps me engaged.

When I try to get to the heart of something in an opinion piece using humor, even when it is pretty pointed and tough, I hope that the target person reading- see there I go with the self-centered thing of assuming much more important people than me are actually reading the joking tripe I write- feels a balance of “Ouch,” and, “Yeah, that’s little right.” Maybe that moment of pause, a pause not allowed by outright insult or attack, might lead to reflection and reconsideration. Maybe I can get the person to think that while I may be an unfunny jerk, I might not be entirely wrong. And maybe that’s just wishful thinking and me hoping that my written chuckle fests aren’t just a more subtle version of a nasty personal attack. I think I may toe over that line on occasion myself.

Not too long ago I ran into Jessie Smith, former Dog Law Czar at a conference. I’ve written some pretty direct stuff about her being, in my opinion, a faithless partner to those of us in animal welfare, politically driven, and being generally untrustworthy. I’ve also written some pretty funny stuff about her and what I think was the largely terrible job she did while at dog law. Funny to the point of reaching the line and sometimes written with the conscious effort to get as close to it as I could without going over. Beware of trying not to cross a line of your own drawing. Chances are you’ve drawn it well over the line everyone else considers the real line.

Anyway, I saw Jessie at a conference. We smiled, said hello, she pulled me aside to talk and led with something along the lines of, “So, I read your blog.” It gave me pause. Here was a very real person who had been on the receiving end of cleverness and I had the distinct feeling that I had wounded her a little. I’m not a totally heartless guy and I felt a bit bad, especially since she had just been bounced out of her job and, while I called for it often, it’s tough to see someone in defeat. So I hemmed and hawed a little as we got to chatting about what was happening at Dog Law and she started offering up what was, in my mind, utter revisionist history which served to make her look like a saint.

In that moment I went from thinking maybe I had gone a little overboard in writing at her expense to realizing I had been dead on with most of my fault finding in her professionally. And I told her so, very directly, and we had a discussion which was animated enough to make at least one person standing there start backing slowly away.

Ultimately, I think that is the truest determination of what is acceptable to say about someone. Would you say it to her face? Say it to her face in public, surrounded by other people? Nothing I had ever written about Jessie Smith or her job was something which I wouldn’t say to her in a crowd, feel justified, and know I wasn’t going to get ejected by security. She responded to me in kind. And when it was all over we shook hands, parted ways, and thought no less (or more) of one another. That’s what grown-ups do.

Rush Limbaugh would never stand at a cocktail party and call that woman a slut and a prostitute to her face. He’d likely get a drink in his and be asked to leave by the hosts. Jessie and I could have had that animated discussion at a cocktail party and it may have raised some eyebrows but it would have, at most, resulted in our hosts taking us each by the arm and leading us into different rooms. Half the people would have remembered her as the boor, the other half would have remembered be as that guy who thinks he’s funny, but everyone would be sure to return when the next invitation arrived in the mail.

What if the Governor or a legislator was at the party and someone said they were corrupt or had been bribed by a lobby? That’s pretty damn insulting. What if someone was there and told me I like killing animals? That would likely be prima facie evidence of too much to drink and a cab would be called. What if that person accused me of having an affair with my boss and said nasty things about my family? That one might be remembered as the party where the person should have had drinks cut off sooner before he said something that resulted in getting punched in the face. OK, I’m not a puncher. I’d rely on vulgarity.

Enough with all the hand wringing about what people say about each other. We should all say what we want but we better accept the consequences, whether it is losing radio sponsors, elections, market share, donors, credibility or a few teeth. We all say mean things in private. When it’s said in public, we’d all do well to ask ourselves, would I say it to his or her face?

And then get ready to duck.

Berks Representative Tom Caltagirone has been right before on animal welfare.  Notably, when he shepherded through the Puppy Mill Bill II, which closed the stunning loophole in Pennsylvania law allowing any idiot with a scalpel to perform surgery on his own dog.  Tom has just proposed an amendment to the Humane Law Enforcement Act which is long overdue.  It would transfer the Office of Dog law Enforcement out of the Department of Agriculture and into the State Police.

This move is needed because of the structural conflict of having the Department of Agriculture be responsible for both promoting farming and agriculture in Pennsylvania and also in enforcing and regulating the conditions in kennels and the wellbeing of dogs.  These two competing imperatives bump heads regularly as Wardens face either doing their enforcement job or protecting farmers from the negative consequences of that very enforcement.  They can’t win either way.

If this suggestion sounds familiar, it may be because Humane Society of Berks County has been promoting the idea for several years behind the scenes and for the last couple of years very publicly.  We agree entirely with Rep. Caltagirone and wholeheartedly support his proposals.

I would suggest he go one step further, however.  He should also seek to amend the law to strip private police officers of their cruelty enforcement powers completely.  The reality is that there are Humane Society Police Officers only because the state wouldn’t do its job.  So they created a private police force to do it for them, bearing all the costs and receiving none of the protections of “real” police.  Just as we wouldn’t have private citizens running around enforcing sections of PA law with the blessing of the courts and accountable to no one, we shouldn’t let humane officers do it either.  We should force the state to do the job only it can do well: enforce the laws on the books.

This is not a popular view among animal welfare agencies.  Some fear a lack of enforcement.  Others may simply fear losing power and authority.  But we should give up this “power” now and demand that the police don’t pick and choose the laws they want to enforce and stick charities with the ones they don’t think are important.

Tom Caltagirone’s proposal to move the Office of Dog Law to the State Police is a great step.  Taken along with judicial reform, we could make more progress to help animals than we have in decades.

My wife, a Principal, was recently telling me about a tabletop exercise her district puts employment candidates through.  The applicant is asked how he or she would handle having to schedule students for the various levels of math class by the required March deadline when the test results for the students’ individual levels are not available until April.  Apparently, most applicants try to work their way through this Catch 22.

Kim said she’d hire the first person who would simply ask, “Why is March the required deadline?”  And I said, “Oh, you are giving applicants the Kobayashi Maru and you want to hire Captain Kirk.”  This got me thinking about two things.

First, that there is hope of marriage for the Star Trek geeks out there (take heart, boys).  The second thing which occurred to me is that the Humane Society of Berks County has been taking, and beating, the Kobayashi Maru repeatedly for the past eight years.

For those of you who had better things to do than immerse yourself in Star Trek multiverses, the Kobayashi Maru is a test given to command track cadets in Star Fleet which can’t be beat.  Cadets must face a no win situation.  They must either leave all the people aboard a space ship, the Kobayashi Maru, to be destroyed by Klingons, or attempt to rescue the ship and be destroyed themselves and start a war.  The point of the test is not to win, since it is created to be unwinnable.  The point of the test is to see how the cadet reacts to the certain death scenario.

Only one cadet ever successfully beat the test:  James Tiberius Kirk.  And he did it by cheating.  After failing twice, he reprogrammed the computer running the test to change the rules, allowing him to beat the test and save the ship and himself.  He was the first one to ask, “Why is March the required deadline?”

It seems as if every single thing we do in animal sheltering is a version of this test. Want to save this one?  OK, then this one will die.  Want to do this?  That’s not allowed.  Every action, idea, and response is subject to strict rules and parameters which seem almost designed- usually by us in the sheltering world- to ensure our failure.  And our failure is life and death in reality, not in a computer simulation.  Most of us have never simply asked ourselves why we can’t break the rules.  I, and HSBC, was as guilty of that as any for years.  Now, the first thing we ask when given “the rules of the game” is, “Why?”

I remember when we first figured out we could reprogram the rules.  It was early 2005 and the cat and kitten season was rapidly approaching.  We knew that very soon we would be killing cats by the hundreds just to make space for the next round of cats to come to us.  Our staff was brainstorming ways we could avoid the no win situation we faced. At some point someone, I like to think it was me, said, “Why don’t we just give them away?” and the response was, “If only we could do that, but we can’t.”  Why not?

Why not?  Why couldn’t we just give them away? Because it was against the rules.  Our rules.  Because they’d be terrible adoptions and people wouldn’t appreciate the animal if they didn’t pay.  Says who?  Don’t we screen our adopters?  Because no one else is doing it and someone else would be doing it if it was something we could do.  By that logic we wouldn’t have the light bulb.  Why not?  Let’s reprogram the computer and decide the rules now allow us to give them away.  Let’s see if we can beat the test in the summer of 2005.

This may not seem like much now, when everyone, and I mean everyone, has some sort of free, two for one, reduced price, free to seniors, black cats free on Friday the 13^th, type program.  But in 2005 we could not find a single “establishment” shelter in our region or even nationally which had a full blown, public, heavily promoted program of giving animals away.  It was taboo.  We all did it on a case by case basis or had some tepid little thing or another, but it was like sneaking cigarettes behind the barn.  We weren’t puffing away out there in public for the whole world to see.  What we put in place was like walking in to church, breaking out a cigar, and lighting up in front of the choir.

We received hate mail from the public.  We received hate mail from other shelters.  Hell, I got hate mail from some of my staff, who just couldn’t accept that we were doing it.  It probably didn’t help that we went 100% and called the program “Free To A Good Home”, the most dreaded of newspaper ads.

But you know what we didn’t do?  We didn’t kill a single cat for space that summer.  Or the next summer, the year we won our first national award from AHA for Best Industry Practice for Innovative Adoption Programs.  Even at the award presentation, while the crowd stood and applauded our success, a co-presenter jeered us from the podium for breaking the rules.  Of course that simply spurred us to continue and expand the program.  In 2007 we began expanding the program to include every older animal, every animal with a health problem, and every animal with us longer than 60 days.

That’s why we haven’t euthanized any animal strictly for space since 2007 (and for those keeping track, that was before we dropped our animal control contracts and, yes, we still euthanize animals for other reasons).  Interestingly, if you look around now you will have trouble finding a shelter which does not have some version of this program.  We changed the rules of the test not just for us, but for everyone. When it came to space driven euthanasia, we beat the Kobayashi Maru.  And we did it by cheating.

Now I know I cart out this well-worn chestnut fairly often to describe how awesome HSBC and our brilliant staff are.  That’s still the case, but this time it also describes the moment we became serial cheaters on the Kobayashi Maru.

Trap/Neuter/Release Programs, 2006:  You can’t do that, those people are crazy, we have to kill ferals.  Why?  We became the first shelter in the region (though surely not the first anywhere, but we were early adopters) to have an open TNR partnership, the Feral Cat Initiative, and we even paid for the non-profit status application by the group of “crazies” we partnered with to help them be more effective.  We save lives we did not save before.  Now this sort of program is the norm.

Dropping Animal Control, 2007:  You can’t do that, we’ve always done that, everyone does that, killing strays is just what we have to do.  Why?  We looked to the few models out there- PSPCA and ASPCA’s New York shelter- and decided that signing up to be dog catcher didn’t mean we signed up to be dog killer.  When local and State government wouldn’t work with us to find ways to save animals we invited them to take their euthanasia contracts elsewhere, and they did.  Since then Delaware County SPCA, Humane League of Lancaster County, and PSPCA (which had along the way gotten back into the dog catching business) either fully divested or are moving away from animal control, along with others across the state.  We save lives we did not save before.  Oh, and the State just screwed over everyone who was doing animal control by cutting off all funding to their “partners”.  Nice job, Harrisburg.

Vet Services to the Public, 2008: You can’t do that, area vets will go insane and burn us down, we can’t afford it, it’s just not done (literally, this one was just not done anywhere by an organization our size).  Why?  We became the first shelter our size in the nation and only one of about 25 of any size out of 5,000 nationwide, to offer a public veterinary practice.  We save lives we did not save before.  Now virtually every shelter in the region is opening a practice, planning one, or considering doing the same.  HSBC is asked to speak about it at national conferences and receives national press coverage for this “cheat”.

From how we have designed our facilities to deciding what services we offer, what staff we hire, what policies we put in place, how many facilities we can have and how we get them, and how we can survive a recession in a world without the “usual suspects” of funding for animal shelters like wills and bequests, we’ve been cheating over and over.  We haven’t solved every problem and not every great idea has been entirely ours  but I am very proud of the fact that few, if any, places can say they have done more than we have in the past eight years to change the rules of the game for the better.  Every time we face a no win test, we ask, “Why?” and try to reprogram the test.  We don’t always succeed completely, but we rarely fail completely either.

Finally, the last rule that we have learned to break is the one which prevented collaboration.  We now view any partnership which will help animals as always trumping any ideology, any history, or any grudge we may think is insurmountable.  Just as HSUS (no relation) partners with the meat industry, which would seem to be mortal enemies, in order to help animals today and in the future, HSBC has learned that don’t have the luxury of letting ego (which we have plenty) or the past wrongs of others (of which they have plenty) stand in the way of a good, working partnership.  After all, if Kirk can find his way to the undiscovered country or bring himself- in the interests of diplomacy, of course- to fraternize with alien ladies, we certainly can.

We took a grant from the Philadelphia Eagles which helped create our VetMobile and Mobile Adoption Unit (Adoptimus Prime), when everyone else was spitting on the ground at Lincoln Field.  Now those organizations are lining up for grant money.  We’ve been at odds, seriously, profoundly at odds, with people like Bill Smith from MLAR and Steve Hindi from SHARK over policy and tactics, but we’ve also worked together when it served the interests of animals and out of respect for their genuine, and mutual, concern.  Even while we railed about the Department of Agriculture and Dog Law, we worked with them to take in dogs which needed help and homes.

That’s because the biggest barrier we face in our Kobayashi Maru scenarios is the barrier we create for ourselves.  I can’t work with him/her/them.  Because of what I think they did me, I won’t allow us to partner.  I, me, mine are the biggest hurdles we face in making a difference for animals. But they are the easiest to overcome because we can reprogram ourselves whenever we want.  That’s why the HSBC and I will work with anyone and any group which wants to make a difference for animals together.  Hell, lots of people work with us despite my well established credentials of being a complete jack ass half (most?) of the time.  That’s because no matter how big the divide, there’s common ground and a solution to the Kobayashi Maru to be found if we just try to find it.

Now please excuse me, I have to go find my gold command tunic, wait for the green paint and metallic silver body suit to arrive in the mail and hope that Kim has been practicing her lines: (Quizzically) “Captain, what is this thing you call love?…”