We The Pet Owners of Gwinnett

Gwinnett Task Force - No Kill Discussion

2012-01-30T03:55:00.000-05:00

At a recent meeting of Gwinnett's Animal Task Force local "no kill expert" Valerie Hayes was asked why Tompkins SPCA was being labeled as an open admission no kill shelter when in fact recent news reports out of Ithaca seemed to suggest that do to overcrowding issues the shelter was "limiting" admissions based on available space at the shelter.

Hayes denied such claims and insisted that Tompkins is STILL the oldest no kill community since Winograd took over in 2001.

Here's a recent item in the Ithaca news.

Tompkins SPCA at capacity

Ithaca -- The SPCA of Tompkins County has reached capacity with 230 cats and kittens currently in the shelter, according to executive director Jim Bouderau.

Tompkins County residents who need to surrender a pet are asked to call to schedule an appointment. While it's unusual for all spaces in the shelter to be filled at this time of the year, according to Bouderau, reaching capacity means that the no-kill shelter can only accept pets based on the availability of space.

To make an appointment, Tompkins County residents should call 607-257-1822 ext. 237. Appointments are required year-round for the surrender of dogs or puppies. 12:17 PM, Aug. 2, 2011
Copyright © 2011 http://www.theithacajournal.com. All rights reserved.

While Hayes presentation of the "No Kill Equation" had some helpful discussions it was equally surprising when Hayes seemed to stumble over questions posed on how much it cost to implement the "NKE" at no kill communities like Austin's TLAC or Washoe County NV.

One would assume after studying no kill under Winograd for at least the last few years this information would be readily available during the presentation yet Hayes seemed baffled by the question. The facts are that Austin Tx budgets in excess of $6 million a year for animal control while Washoe County's budget is in excess of $4.2 for a community with half the population base as Gwinnett County.

Clearly while these programs are noble the real question is are they affordable to taxpayers during these budget crunching times?

How NOT to file an open records request

2012-01-24T14:40:00.000-05:00

In a blog posted on No Kill Revolution "No Kill Columbus (GA)" accuses the county of violating the "Open Records Act" by not complying with an open records request seeking information on Columbus County's Animal Shelter. Here's the link to that request:

The request filed by No Kill Columbus should serve as an example of how NOT to file an open records request that basically asks the county to provide "everything you know plus what you don't know" in that request. Since the law also allows the county to charge for the time and copy expenses of answering an open ended request like that it only surprises me that the county didn't respond with a quote for researching all of the information requested.

A much more practical and useful approach at obtaining open records is to be specific about the information you are seeking and limit each O.R.R. to specific information on each issue rather than such a "catch all" approach.

Lastly, creating an adversarial relationship with the county leaders that you will need to have support you in your reform efforts is a sure way not to have any of your concerns listened too. You might very well win the battle of showing up the other side but in the process you will also lose a much larger war in which only the animals suffer. The "no killers" simply don't get that.

Here are two examples of open records request that are effective in obtaining information from your shelter.

If seeking an individual pet's info

Open Records Request Form
December 26, 2011
Monica, Lt Respess,
Pursuant to Georgia Open Records Law (O.C.G.A 50-18-70) you are hereby requested to make available for review or copying all files, records, and other documents, notes, correspondence that refer, reflect or relate to:

Animal ID # is 20741
I am a FEMALE, PEN 129 - LABRADOR
The shelter thinks I am YOUNG
I will be available for adoption starting on 12/03/2011
FOUND STRAY ; LARGE ; FRIENDLY
This request includes all intake notes, all documents, correspondence and memoranda used in determine final disposition.

If this request is denied in whole or part, you are required by O.C.G.A. 50-18-72(h) to cite in writing the specific statutory exemption upon which you relied, as required by law. Please waive all costs associated with this request, or first inform of such costs as required by law.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

It is also a simple process to get monthly shelter numbers by simply storing a standard templete requesting that info and updating the dates as needed. Here's an example you can copy to obtain those numbers.

Open Records Request Form

January 3, 2012

Monica, Lt Respess,

Pursuant to Georgia Open Records Law (O.C.G.A 50-18-70) you are hereby requested to make available for review or copying all files, records, and other documents, notes, correspondence that refer, reflect or relate to:

End of month shelter (numbers) for months January 2011 through the month end December 2011.

Please provide the following:

Intake canines strays picked up
Intake felines strays picked up

Intake canine owner surrenders
Intake feline owner surrenders

Canines Euthanized
Felines Euthanized

Canines Handled
Felines Handled

Animals adopted
Animals rescued

Canines returned in the field
Felines returned in the field

Canines reclaimed from shelter
Felines reclaimed from shelter

Please mail report to

An open records request can provide insight into shelter issues. Keep it simple and respectful and you will be provided that information. Open Records Request are obviously not fruitful when asking for information that does not exist. Asking policy questions from clerical personnel is not an effective way to recieve that information either.

Gwinnett's Policy of Killing Owner Surrender's

2012-01-21T11:46:00.008-05:00

Killing Owner Surrender’s

Current policy at animal control is to immediately kill owner surrenders that do not include documented vaccination records when surrendered. It is unacceptable under any humane context to kill a pet simply because the surrendering owner did not or could not provide proof if such vaccinations.

The current management excuse for this abusive abhorrent policy is that unvaccinated pets pose a "disease" issue for the shelter. Fact is stray pets picked up in the field do not come with vaccination records either.

This issue of senselessly killing "undocumented" owner surrenders has been discussed numerous animal advisory meetings and yet the policy is still in effect. How we adopted such a foolish excuse for killing owner surrenders has never been clear.

One reason given for killing owner surrenders who were not current on vaccinations was "this (owner’s surrendering unvaccinated pets) is not allowed because the public started using this service as a "sick" pet drop off to avoid veterinary care".

So, in other words, our shelter is punishing irresponsible "dead beat" pet owners who are too cheap to vet their dogs by killing the dog?

I first became aware of shelter’s policy on killing owner surrenders a few years ago when a citizen shared a story of an old beagle that had been dropped off at the shelter by her owner. This poor old girl was dragged back to the euthanasia room howling in fear only minutes after her owner left.

I can only imagine how frightened she was. Sentencing a dog to death for the actions of an irresponsible owner solves nothing, the dog is now dead and the owner is still irresponsible. The only difference is OUR SHELTER is irresponsible for participating in that killing.

If the issue in our community is pet owners who can’t afford to take their dogs to the vet then shouldn’t that issue be addressed rather than implementing a program that kills the dog who is already victimized?

Since the county doesn’t want or need to accept the responsibility of placing these pets we must establish a policy of making ALL owner surrender’s available to rescue partners as a first option rather than simply taking them into the shelter. All owner surrenders need to be transferred to licensed rescue partners groups for fostering and placement OR the shelter must vaccinate these pets while providing the same vigilance in seeking new homes as the strays are afforded.

Through an outsourcing partnership with the rescue community pet owners could work closely in finding these pets new homes without costing taxpayers in the process. In practice, rescue groups are better prepared to conduct home inspections, hold off site adoptions, evaluate application options and match up pets to new owners then public shelters.

A progressive animal services unit should be able to offer pet retention alternatives to help aid owners surrendering their pets at the shelter. A trained volunteer staff with strong people and customer service skills is needed to answer calls and counsel pet owners surrendering pets at the shelter on resources and rescue partner options that might be available instead.

The road to "no kill" should always include making the necessary changes in policy that stops the senseless killing "one dog" at a time.

To read more on the issues facing advocates as we revitalizing our animal welfare policies;

http://by20hounds.blogspot.com/2011/11/breaking-with-tradition-to-revitalize.html

Death of innocence, lies, damn lies and statistics

2012-01-17T11:17:00.006-05:00

20741 Gone but not forgotten

Animal ID # is 20741 -- I am a FEMALE, PEN 129 - LABRADOR
The shelter thinks I am YOUNG
I will be available for adoption starting on 12/03/2011
FOUND STRAY ; LARGE ; FRIENDLY

Webster's dictionary describes "skittish" as 1. Nervously excitable;; 2. Shy, coy or timid; 3.a. Excessively lively or frivolous; 3.b. Undependable : fickle.

Killing a young, year old dog simply because it is "skittish" is reprehensible. What's missing from Webster's a definition which describes "skittish" dogs are the words "dangerous, not trainable or not adoptable".

Instead, even dogs that enter Gwinnett's "dysfunctional" Animal Shelter that are listed as "friendly" are being killed for picking up this deadly disease called being "skittish".

One such victim of this abusive shelter policy that lacks any credible reasoning that justify taking an animal's life is a sweet one year old female lab mix only who's destiny turned out to be two numbers - she was listed as "20741" and she was 1 of 116 dogs killed in Gwinnett's "dysfunctional" Animal Shelter.

Open Records for this poor dog are disturbing. They show a callous somewhat hateful nature of our animal control which allowed this poor dog and her running mate to be killed even though the shelter made little or no effort to seek alternatives which would have saved both of these precious animals. It was a blatant act of betrayal that we should all be ashamed of.

The facts on these two are clear, they were picked up a few days after Thanksgiving and would be dead less than a week later. They were deaths that didn't need to happen nor should have happened in a professionally run shelter. Sadly, this happens all the time at Gwinnett's dysfunctional shelter and we citizens must insist that this senseless killing be stopped.

According to the Open Records Request the following time line was reported;

(Sunday) Nov 27, 2011 11:54 PM - Call # P113312034

Nov 28, 2011 12:04 AM: Officer Ryan Banaham writes in his report;

On 11/27 at 23:14 I impounded two stray canines. Both canines are female lab mixes. The black lab mix limps with the rear right leg. Canine does not appear to be in any pain. Will have officer Velazquez follow up. Owner unknown. Negative scan #1727.

Dec 4, 2011 8:35 AM aid #20741 10-0 (killed) due to skittish behavior per 1707 1703

Dec 4, 2011 8:37 AM 10-0 (killed) aid #20740 due to possible URI per 1707 1703

Dec 5, 2011 1:57 PM Dispatch K Arrington took a phone call from a Jim Henley who thought AID20740 might be his dog. The dog had been euthanized (killed) the day prior, and the remains cremated. Mr Henley was hoping to know if the dog had spots on it's tongue. I contacted his wife 706-###-#### and advised her we had euthanized the dog and were not able to determine any further details. 1703

Two young one year old dogs alive when they were picked up, described as friendly according to their intake sheets were DEAD less than seven days later with no effort whatsoever being made to find their owners or to consult the rescue community for help.

The reason these two are now dead doesn't matter. Could that reason be the rumors of morale issues at the shelter on who was being scheduled to work the holiday weekend? I don't know. Could it be overcrowding - the answer to that is no. Could it be that either suffered from an illness or condition that wasn't easily treatable - the answer is again no. Could it be that the management practices at the shelter ALLOWS this killing to continue?

What is really sad is that while the shelter staff and management showed absolutely no concern about saving these two dogs the same can't be said by the rescue community.

In fact, with no help from Gwinnett's rescue coordinator several local rescue advocates were working frantically trying to find a suitable rescue group to take these two in but since the shelter only made them available for "rescue" for one day these two were killed when in all likelihood help was on the way.

Here's a thread that was posted during those critical 48 hours when our hopes for these two just suddenly disappeared do to the thoughtless actions of the shelter staff that killed these two for no reason.

What allows an officer employed by animal control to come back to work after celebrating their Thanksgiving Weekend with his family including his family of pets; to return to work a few days later and take the lives of two innocent dogs who could have simply been tossed a dog dish full of food and left alone in a half empty shelter defies common.

There is NO ROOM for the sadistic thought process that allowed these two dogs to be not only be killed but to be killed tow minutes apart while each were probably in the same room.

I can only imagine the fear that went through these tow dogs minds in their final moments and even though I never had the privilege to meet either my heart is broken nonetheless. I could not let them die in vain as if their lives were so insignificant that they were reduced to a statistic on the shelter's yearly shelter numbers.

They are listed as killed when they should have been listed as being "adopted" or "transferred to rescue". Instead of being alive living in a foster home and being taught to be well socialized pets they were killed and tossed into the incinerator.

That is but one of thousands of failures with our current management at the shelter that reeks a stench that goes all the way up the chain of command to the inept management of our shelter by the Gwinnett Police Department. If there ever was a reason to privatize our shelter and to bring in professional humane management this senseless slaughter of illness is an example.

Facebook help was on the way

On Facebook (a social networking tool that the shelter refuses to use) we find the following thread and comments on the picture included with this article;

Helping Animals at Gwinnett County Shelter. I like to watch my dogs sleeping, they look like angels.
December 1, 2011 at 12:23am ·

Kristin Bruns What's her status please??!!
I'm in in pensacola Fl. What GA Rescue can help me???
December 5, 2011 at 10:35pm ·

Carley Tigrett Omg this is the cutest thing I have ever seen! How old is this dog and male or female?

December 5, 2011 at 11:00pm

Kristin Bruns Female, young! I can find out tom am! Under a year for sure :) She's beautiful! :)
December 5, 2011 at 11:12pm

Carley Tigrett She is def beautiful! Can u find out if she is house trained, a chewer and stuff like that? U can email me at ctigrett@cs-law.com
December 5, 2011 at 11:29pm

Helping Animals at Gwinnett County Shelter. killed confirmed !!!!!!! :*(
December 6, 2011 at 1:19pm

Samantha End Bsl Lanata why has she been killed if theres ppl asking about her?
December 6, 2011 at 1:24pm

Kyle Bridgeman aw no way i would have had her she looks like my lab
December 6, 2011 at 1:35pm

Lisa Cacici are u kidding me?????? this beautiful girl was put down?????? why did they do it so fast if there were people trying to rescue her? she was only available for adoption for the last couple of days! i am sick over this. so sad
December 6, 2011 at 2:12pm

Kristin Bruns I can't stop crying!!! There has to be something we can do!
December 6, 2011 at 2:22pm

JennyLee Savingdogsandcats What a shame. I don't get it
December 6, 2011 at 9:25pm

Elizabeth Hanson WHAT!! OMG..:-(((( .. devastated...
December 6, 2011 at 9:31pm

Merrilee Bauman Why did they kill her? Don't the shelters get the messages that people are interested?
December 6, 2011 at 11:50pm

Sandi Kasmarsik she was only adoptable on the 3rd! I'm so sad...Why? this is Wrong! Ugh They didn't even give her a chance.
December 7, 2011 at 3:47am

Kristin Bruns She was actually only off her "hold" 3 days & was pts because they said she was "skiddish"?!?!!! Tell me that isn't aweful;(((( She was just scared....a puppy! :(
December 20, 2011 at 9:48pm

Even though I requested all the documentation centering around the death of 20741 I was not provided any behavioral analysis that was used to determine how the dogs temperament went from being "friendly" on the intake evaluation to "skittish" needs to be killed six days later. Nor can I find any documentation on which vet examined the other lab mix and determined that A) she had a "possible URI" and that the illness was not treatable with a prescription that costs less than a few dollars.

In my experience the reason this documentation isn't included in the file is because personnel who are not qualified to make these life ending decisions are doing so nonetheless. There is also no documentation on exactly who signed off on killing this pair despite that too being required as part of the shelters Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) as well.

We will continue to have innocent animals betrayed and killed until the rescue and pet loving community demands that change. That change will NOT come about if WE allow our leaders to hold the task force meetings under a veil of secrecy where citizens nor the media are allowed to participate in the meetings seeking to put an end to this senseless betrayal.

Please add your voice demanding change that while it won't bring back these two precious young vibrant dogs at least their senseless slaughter would not be in vain. We are tired of the excuses on why Gwinnett is one of the only county animal control agencies in the Atlanta area that does NOT promote pet placements on Facebook. We're tired of a rescue coordinator who works harder finding excuses to kill than she does finding suitable rescue places for these dogs to go. It's long past time this inept management is sent packing.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=271186872933658&set=a.275066992545646.82872.177022222350124&type=3&theater

No Kill - Is there anybody out there?

2012-01-15T12:26:00.093-05:00

One of the "experts" who has been extended an invitation to speak about "No Kill" is Valerie Hayes. Who is Valerie Hayes and what qualifies her as an expert on "no kill"?

Hayes includes in her resume her attendance at the national "No Kill Conference" given in Washington DC in 2010 and 2011. Valerie Hayes arranged a "Nathan Winograd" book signing to Douglasville in the spring of 2010.

Here locally, It was Winograd who prepared a shelter evaluation several years ago in Henry County. While Henry County has made significant progress in resolving many of the animal welfare issues it has faced Winograd failed to provide any oversight support that might have continued to move that progress forward.

Since taxpayers determine the amount of funding allocated for animal control budgets ultimately it is the taxpayers who share the blame for inadequately funding these shelters with enough resources to save all the pets dumped by those same irresponsible breeders and pet owners.

Winograd believes that since there is no pet overpopulation and that irresponsible breeder’s are not responsible for shelter killing because "it’s not the irresponsible breeders who kill these dogs – it’s the uncaring shelter directors who do the killing".

Winograd claims (in his book Redemption released in 2007) that pet overpopulation is a myth because there are over 17,000,000 people who will be in adding a family pet every year. He further reasons that if the shelter and humane community would only step up and loosen their adoption standards, drastically reduce their adoption fees or simply start giving these pets away we will become a nation that saves over 90% of our shelter pets.

Winograd places the rest of the burden on reaching the magical 90% "live save" rate on the rescue/humane community which simply must work harder to reach and maintain those numbers.

What is a "No Kill Expert"?
Aside from the extreme "No Kill" agenda that Hayes supports the real question Gwinnett’s task Force should consider are what are Valerie Hayes qualifications when it comes to shelter reform. Has she been successful or is she even working on shelter reform in her own community?

Valerie Hayes lives in Carroll County which has a "live save" rate of less than 20% while Cowetta County has long been a problematic shelter as well. There has been no improvement in either community’s kill rates since Winograd gave his presentation over twenty months ago.

Of course, there are No Kill "success" stories in Redemption that merit discussion. Three "No Kill" communities are Tompkins SPCA in Ithaca NY (where Hayes volunteered in the early 2000’s under Winograd); Austin Texas, which has the similar demographics as Gwinnett; and Washoe County (Reno) NV.

To be clear, it is noble that these communities have been successful in saving this 90% but the cost associated with these programs will not work in Gwinnett.

Tompkins SPCA

Tompkins SPCA is often cited as the one of the first "open admission" no kill shelters that has sustained that status ever since Winograd made the no kill transition in 2001. Tompkins SPCA derives some of it’s funding through public money but also funds the huge deficits with private donations.

Tompkins County NY has a population base of around 100,000 people or about fifteen % the size of Gwinnett. It’s animal control cost range from $800,000 to $1,000,000 each year. Since implementing it’s no kill plan the shelter has consistently battled an overcrowding problem that has on an average off over 250 dogs in it’s kennel alone.

This overcrowding issue resulted in the shelter implementing a "relief valve" policy in 2007 that turned away owners seeking to surrender a pet whenever the shelter was full. Tompkins SPCA has been operating as a "limited admission" no kill shelter since 2007.

Turning away pet owners seeking to surrender pets in communities like Gwinnett creates a variety of problems that no kill fails to address.

Washoe County NV

While the Washoe County NV no kill program is equally successful it suffers from the same problems only on a larger scale. Washoe County has a population base of around 400,000 citizens.

Washoe’s AC’s annual intake numbers are around 15,000 dogs/cats each year almost twice the number handled in Gwinnett. Washoe County allocates a annual budget of $4 to 4.5 million in public funding for animal control costs for a community half the size of Gwinnett. An equal or even greater of funding comes from the private "humane" community as well.

Austin Texas No Kill Model

Austin Texas is now the role model for success in No Kill. Austin TX has a population of 800,000, which is about the size of Gwinnett.

Austin has a huge shelter intake problem with a shelter that churns over 24,000 pets every year shelter at a cost of between $6 to $7 million a year in public funding along with an equal amount of private funding.

Gwinnett’s shelter intake numbers in 2011 were less than 8,000 dogs and cats entering our shelter. Yet, Austin’s policies still resulted in over 2,000 dogs and cats being killed in their "no kill" community compared to Gwinett’s number of 3,800 killed. These are all talking points that one would hope that the Animal Task Force needs answers too.

Is No Kill too divisive to be effective in Gwinnett?

As a die-hard Winograd supporter, Hayes promotes "No Kill" on various face book pages including the "Atlanta Animal Welfare Examiner" and "No Kill Revolution". Note: to date, Hayes has offered no information or solutions to Gwinnett's animal welfare issues in any of her articles she has written.

Among comment posted on Atlanta Welfare Examiner Hayes writes "One of my favorite bloggers, the indefatigable YesBiscuit just got a FB page. Head on over and 'like' her page!

Yesbiscuit is an ex-breeder named Shirley Thistlewaite, who is also a self proclaimed "no kill" expert.

To understand Shirley and her knowledge of the issues Gwinnett faces in solving OUR animal welfare issues one needs only read a blog "Yesbiscuit" recently wrote about the Georgia SPCA. In her blog Shirley writes;

"The Georgia SPCA describes itself on its web site as "a "no kill" organization". I’m not sure why they put the term no kill in quotes although perhaps some insight can be gained from reading the director’s comments in a CBS Atlanta piece this week"

Valerie Hayes provided the following comment in response to Yesbiscuit’s attack;

Atlanta Animal Advocate says:
October 6, 2011 at 11:33 am

"The Georgia SPCA is a tiny little organization with a big name. They get media attention because of their big name, but they are really just a very small rescue group that takes in less than $350,000 total a year including adoption fees and donations. Almost all the rescue groups in the Atlanta area charge similar fees to the GA SPCA, mainly because their vet bills are so high and because most people in the Atlanta area donate money to the Atlanta Humane Society instead of other animal groups even though AHS has tens of millions of dollars in the bank that they don’t use. And Atlanta Humane isn’t and doesn’t claim to be no kill, so you ought to be admonishing them or Atlanta Pet Rescue instead. Atlanta Pet Rescue is a bigger organization than GA SPCA (takes in over $1 million a year), but for the most part Atlanta Pet Rescue will ONLY take in the most highly adoptable creme-de-la-creme dogs – small dogs and purebreds and they charge between $275-$425 for their dogs."

See comments
While her views on local no kill and rescue groups are divisive, it is Hayes lack of knowledge on cost factors, political realities, shelter overcrowding and community safety that the task force should be concerned about.

Taxpayers can not pay for the cost of services needed to keep pace with saving over 90% without seriously addressing the intake issues that drive both costs and killing that result from pet overpopulation. Thoseresolved by focusing solutions on breeder licensing and providing citizens with more access to responsible animal services including low cost spay/neuter, pet retention programs and expanded partnerships in our community.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett have offered a plan that will continue with the progress we have witnessed in reducing both shelter intake, shelter killing and the costs associated with maintaining a quality animal services unit.

Our proposal "Breaking with tradition to revitalize animal services" lays out in detail the steps needed to we move our "animal sheltering" model to an "animal services" model where services are provided our community’s pet owners. It is this blueprint that becomes the road map for helping pet owners become not only responsible pet owners in the care of their pets but responsible citizens as well.

http://by20hounds.blogspot.com/2011/11/breaking-with-tradition-to-revitalize.html

Gwinnett's Animal Task Force to review animal policies

2011-12-23T20:58:00.000-05:00

From Gwinnett Animal Control’s web site:

A new Animal Task Force will soon start reviewing current animal-related ordinances and services, developing best practices, studying the role of the Animal Advisory Committee, and making recommendations to Gwinnett commissioners. The group will hold its first meeting on Tuesday, December 27 at 7:00pm at the Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center, 884 Winder Highway in Lawrenceville. Click here to see the agenda. Meetings will be open to the public with some designed to get input and comments.

Gwinnett has reduced the euthanasia rate at the shelter over the past few years, but the number of incoming animals has been rising in the economic downturn. The Board of Commissioners charged the 17-member task force with developing both short and long-term strategies to increase adoptions, improve animal welfare and protect human safety. The review and recommendation process will take about four months.

Task force members, appointed by commissioners, include members of cat, dog and large animal rescue groups and representatives of agricultural and animal-related businesses.

The group will develop strategies to increase adoptions, improve animal welfare and protect human safety. Its review will take about four months.
At the December 13^th BOC meeting three more appointments were announced. Chairman Charlotte Nash appointed Donald Bush to represent the chairman. Lynette Howard appointed Suzanne Pruitt to represent district 2 and Pattie Zsanti was appointed as Animal Related Business Representative. The Large Animal Rescue representative was tabled until the January 3^rd 2012 BOC meeting.

To read Gwinnett Animal Shelter’s 2011 report click here.

To read a task force overview along with a list of other appointees click here

Breaking with Tradition to Revitalize Animal Services

2011-11-14T23:16:00.070-05:00

Yours is a struggle on how you can build a classic animal services unit while controlling cost and developing long-term strategic planning that shrinks the government’s role in that vision.

The essential, straightforward process of “Breakthrough Thinking” involves a meaningful organization of purposes you seek to achieve and how to reach that point.

Breakthrough thinking offers an exceptionally productive approach to problem solving and problem prevention. Its basic premise is that anyone can break out of self-defeating, traditional modes of reasoning and break through to find revitalizing, consistent positive solutions to the problems that confront you.

Solutions put forth must adhere to community’s ideals yet remain revenue neutral In today’s economic environment solutions must work towards lowering the number of adoptable pets killed without raising the cost of animal control. These solutions identify wasteful spending and re-direct that funding into program investments that will reduce animal control costs long term.

Revitalizing Animal Services - A look into the future

Gwinnett Shelter Report

We can think of all the good things left undone yet there is good reason to believe the community can succeed in both goals of lowering shelter deaths and reducing the costs of animal services as well.

The policy of stray cats

One area of huge cost savings is in the area of picking up stray cats (ferals). Not only was/is this policy unnecessary (there isn’t a law that requires cats to be restrained) but the combination of manpower costs associated with rounding up stray cats along with the fact over 90% are killed once they reach our shelter exemplifies wasteful spending.

There can be no economical justification for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on a failed “catch and kill” policy for feral cats that simply does nothing towards lowering future feral cat population numbers.

In 2009, there were 2,836 stray cats picked up or over 230 cats each month,
In 2010 that number dropped to 1,318 stray cats picked up or 110 cats each month,
In the first nine months of 2011 only 324 stray cats have been picked up or a rate of 35 cats each month (our goal should be zero).

Reversing direction to kill less – spend less

In 2009 the shelter handled a total of over 5,100 cats of which 4,588 were killed.
In 2010 that number dropped to a total of 3,800 (1,300 less) were handled with 3.232 killed.
Projections for 2011 show the shelter handling around 2,900 cats with approximately 2,400 or 80% killed.

The policy change of no longer picking up stray cats has resulted in a two-year reduction of 2,200 cats entering the shelter and a reduced number of 2,100 killed.

The combined cost savings from running a shelter that no longer performs a “catch and kill” methodology saves both lives and taxpayer money. If we want to continue to see cost savings along with more lives saved we must develop policies that support trap/neuter/release on feral cats and proactively invest in low cost spay/neuter programs for the rest.

These policy changes working in tandem with renewed partnerships with local cat rescue coalitions will ultimately reverse the trend of killing far too many cats simply because the shelter lacks a cohesive plan that saves lives.

Recommendations

Clearly, dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to control feral cat populations by rounding up and killing them by the thousands has never been a workable solution. In fact, it is government waste at it’s worst.

Conventional thinking long has been that about 70% of the cats killed in shelters are feral, but studies suggest that could be true only if the overwhelming majority of unweaned kittens who are killed were believed to be from feral mothers. Neonatal kittens actually appear to account for more than half of the cats killed in shelters.

We strongly encourage the task force committee study the alternate Trap/Neuter/Return programs. We must embrace a trap/neuter/release policy because it saves LIVES and MONEY.

An Animal People survey found that only 20% of limited admission shelters and 55% of open admission (public) shelters acknowledged accepting feral cats, except in emergency cases. Yet, 56% of the cats occupying shelter space were kittens and only 14% of those from feral moms.

An astounding 45 of open admission public shelters mention promoting neuter return as an alternative to accepting feral cats, usually working in partnership with feral nonprofit trap/neuter/return organizations.

The goal should be to eliminate stray cats entering the shelter by outsourcing all feral cats complaints to a new “feral cat rescue coalition”. At best a partnership that helps fund spay/neuter of feral cats and maintains nuisance free feral colonies is a far more humane and cost effective solution.

Policies that “outsource” feral cat issues also eliminate the need to house the un adoptable feral cats in our shelter allowing the shelter to focus on finding adoption and rescue options for those domesticated cats that are adoptable.

Policies on stray dogs

In 2009, animal control picked up 3,823 stray dogs or 320 a month of which 885 dogs or 75 a month (less then 25%) were reclaimed by their owners..
In 2010 that number dropped to 3,455 stray dogs (about 10%) or 290 a month were picked up of which 936 or 80 per month were reclaimed.
Third quarter (2011) results have 2,683 strays dogs or around 300 dogs per month entering the shelter of which 845 or 90 a month were reclaimed. These numbers project out to 3,600 for 2011 with 1,080 reclaims.

One of the most overlooked areas for cost saving and reduced killing in animal control shelters is lost animal reclaims. Sadly, besides having pet owners fill out a lost pet report, very little effort other effort is made to reunite lost pets with their owners.

It costs the county taxpayers money for each dog picked up as a stray. It costs even more money when that dog enters the shelter. Each dog returned in the field represents immediate cost savings to the taxpayers.

The goal of animal control should always be to protect the community but it should also be to do so in the most efficient cost effective way possible.

It is simply too costly and ineffective to not proactively seek solutions that return pets to their owners rather then impounding them into our shelter system. Not only is this a tremendous waste of resources but it leads to far too many pets being needlessly killed as well.

There is technology available that would allow an animal control officer to take a picture of dogs picked up in the field that could be uploaded on the county animal control website. The solution might be as simple as rewriting the SOP’s written to address stray’s picked up in the field.

Pioneering work in this regard already has been done in North Carolina, where Wake County and the surrounding counties of Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Harnett, Johnston, Orange, and Person joined together to form TriangleLostPets.com. Individuals with lost and found pets input comprehensive information about them into this user-friendly system (i.e., name, breed, type, age, gender, location lost/found, colors, description, and date lost/found) along with the individual’s contact information and a photograph of the animal.

Pet owners should be able use their smart phone to look for lost pets including if that pet has been picked up by animal control. Not only is this a service pet owners should expect from our county, ultimately it is a service pet that owner’s should demand because it saves the taxpayers money.

The issue of enforcing ordinances that requires pet owners to maintain control of their pets does not justify spending a tremendous amount of resources forcing pet owners to look for pets that clearly could be returned in the field.

Recommendations

The community must develop programs that encourage responsible pet owners to put both tags and/or microchips on their pets. Providing a ride home instead of a trip to the shelter helps return pets to their responsible pet owners. More importantly, it lowers shelter intake numbers, reduces the cost burden on taxpayers and allows the shelter staff to focus it’s resources on finding homes for the strays and owner surrenders that don’t have responsible owners.

Owner Surrenders – Turning problems into cost saving solutions

In 2009 pet owner’s surrendered 2,106 dogs at animal control. This represents 175 dogs each month needing shelter and new homes.
In 2010 that number dropped to 1,586 or 130 dogs a month. As in the case of stray dogs canine owner surrender’s dropped in 2010 as well. This drop represented a reduction of owner surrenders of 25%.
In 2011, the number of owner surrender’s stabilized with 1,168 owner surrenders or 130 dogs per month were surrendered at animal control. This projects out to about 1,500 for the year.

Recommendations

A progressive animal services unit should be able to offer pet retention alternatives to help aid owners surrendering their pets at the shelter. A trained volunteer staff with strong people and customer service skills is needed to answer calls and counsel pet owners surrendering pets at the shelter on resources and rescue partner options that might be available instead.

Partnering with rescue in finding life saving options

Over the last three years the combined result in canine intake numbers (strays and owner surrenders) dropped from 5,929 in 2010 to 5,041 in 2010. This represents a 15% reduction in dogs needing shelter services.

In 2011, the shelter is trending towards a total of slightly over 5,000 strays and owner surrenders entering the shelter. This becomes the baseline number of dogs that need new homes or rescue.

In 2009 there were 1,071 dogs and cats transferred to rescue partners.
In 2010 the number of dogs and cats transferred to rescue dropped to 1,016.
In 2011 the number of dogs and cats transferred to rescue partners is projected to be around 1,080.

These numbers represent a 40% drop in the number of pets sent to rescue from the 1,770 transferred to rescue in 2007 from the old shelter.

The number of pets sent to rescue continues to drop – adding to the shelter costs and killing.

Recommendations

The humane community must solidify a “rescue partners” coalition to immediately accept ownership transfer of surrendered dogs and cats though a shelter/rescue partners program.

The benefit to animal services is these pets no longer enter the shelter but instead are moved quickly into foster care where they can be placed back into the community.

Transferring dogs and cats to rescue is not only critical in the effort to improve the rate of dogs and cats saved but in cost savings as well. We must form the rescue partnerships needed to double the amount of dogs and cats saved by our rescue partners.

This rescue coalition in partnership with animal services must increase the exposure of our shelter pets to citizens and the rescue community through use of the social media networks including the use of Facebook and Twitter that highlight all of our adoptable pets.

Outsourcing Adoptions and Animal Services

The number of citizens visiting the shelter fell off in 2010 by 4,500 visits. That number is projected to climb slightly in 2011.

Citizens Visiting Shelter (2009) - 32,308
Citizens Visiting Shelter (2010) - 27,791
Citizens Visiting Shelter (2011) - 28.500 (projected)

The number of pets adopted from the shelter dropped as well. Adoptions fell by 25% from 2,093 in 2009 to 1,583 in 2010. This is disappointing as well.

In 2009, 3,164 dogs/cats or 260 a month were either adopted or transferred to rescue partners in the community.
In 2010 that number dropped to 2,599 dogs/cats or 210 a month were adopted or transferred to rescue.
In 2011, as of the end of September a total of 2,160 dogs/cats or 240 a month have been adopted or transferred to rescue. This number is up from 2010 but still trending down from the number adopted/rescued in 2009.

(Note – while the data is lumped together for dogs and cats data on these numbers should be specific for number of dogs and the number of dogs adopted and specific for the number of dogs transferred to rescue and the number of cats transferred to rescue.)

Recommendations

Outsourcing the adoption processes will not only improve the save rate but reduce shelter costs as well.

Shelter Euthanasia Policy

You can’t adopt your way out of shelter killing

Dogs killed 2009 3,020 or 250 per month,
Dogs killed 2010 2,475 or 200 per month,
Dogs killed 2011 1,422 or 160 per month (thru 9/30/2011)

Current policy at animal control is to immediately kill owner surrenders that do not include documented vaccination records when surrendered. It is unacceptable under any humane context to kill a pet simply because the surrendering owner did not or could not provide proof if such vaccinations.

The current management excuse for this abusive abhorrent policy is that unvaccinated pets pose a “disease” issue for the shelter. Fact is stray pets picked up in the field do not come with vaccination records either.

All owner surrenders need to be transferred to licensed rescue partners groups for fostering and placement OR the shelter must vaccinate these pets while providing the same vigilance in seeking new homes as the strays are afforded.

Through an outsourcing partnership with the rescue community pet owners could work closely in finding these pets new homes without costing taxpayers in the process. In practice, rescue groups are better prepared to conduct home inspections, hold off site adoptions, evaluate application options and match up pets to new owners then public shelters.

Solving the dilemma of the pit bull crisis

Dogs in shelters today have about a 60% to 70% chance of being adopted or transferred to rescue – unless they happen to be pit bulls, or close mixes.

A 2011 Animal People survey an increase of 120,000 in the number of pit bulls killed raising the number killed to 930,000 nationally. That represents the highest number in three years and represents 60% of the total number of dogs killed.in U.S. shelters. Pit bulls represent 3.3% of the U.S. dog population but account for 30% of the dogs surrendered or impounded by animal control.

Despite an extraordinary national rate of more then 16% of pit bulls being adopted or transferred to rescue over 75% of the remaining shelter pit bulls arriving at shelters are killed, either do to dangerous behavior or simply because the shelter is receiving pit bulls in an ever-escalating numbers.

The trust and honesty of the no kill movement itself is at risk when animal advocates deny the reality of the pit bull crisis.

The offense for which the humane community is most culpable is thinking all pit bulls in shelter are adoptable.

Pit bulls rarely arrive at the shelter as unwanted litters. Typically they come to shelters at twelve months or older; having already had at least three homes: their birth homes, the home they were sold to, and one or more pass along homes that took the dogs after problems developed in the first home into which they were purchased.

About two thirds or more of the pit bulls entering the shelter are surrendered by their primary caretakers, many of whom are not voluntary caretakers. These caretakers simply end up with an unwanted pit bull after a family member or friend abandoned the dog or left it behind after moving. Many are picked up as strays as their previous owners/caretakers dump them in our neighborhoods.

Humane Societies and breed rescue promote what wonderful family pets pit bulls make but shelter dogs of any breed have a reputation perpetrated by a virtually unregulated breeding industry as “damaged” goods.

With the ever-increasing numbers of pit bull incidents in the press the public has grown weary of adopting a pit bull of unknown history, but the public tends to believe that pit bulls can be good pets if “raised right” from puppy hood.

Shelters typically do not have pit bull puppies. Pit bull puppies are in hot demand in backyard breeder markets; it isn’t until these puppies outgrow that cute puppy stage that they end up as confused dogs in our shelters.

Of critical importance is to realize that few pit bull births are accidental. Instead, almost every pit bull who contributes to this surplus of shelter pit bulls is the product of deliberate breeding, sometimes by dog fighters, but most often just someone engaging in speculative backyard breeding, capitalizing on a perceived value for pit bulls created at least in part by the physical mystique of the breed.

Pit bulls who are surrendered tend to be the more fortunate ones. Since 2000 over 5,000 pit bulls have been seized in dog fighting raids, a mere fraction of the numbers killed either in dog fights and as we learned in the Michael Vick case “culled” for losing fights or who show little promise of becoming success. Pit bull thefts by dog fighters looking for “bait dogs” are believed to be one of the major reasons why 20% of the dogs reported stolen since 2005, many from responsible pit bull owners, have been pit bulls. There is nothing good that comes out of an unlicensed unregulated backyard breeder business selling pit bulls.

The end result is that even though the number of dogs killed in shelters continues to drop nationally the number of pit bulls killed continues to rise. Meanwhile, with all the factors related to pit bulls, the vigorous pit bull promotions of pit bull rescue groups appears to have hit it’s limits on just how many of one type of breed can be successfully adopted out.

Even if every pit bull had the positive qualities, and no problematic behavior, there are only so many families who want and can safely handle a big potentially powerful dog.

Fact is with all the negative new stories about problematic pit bulls even those families inclined to purchase a pit bull are lead to believe that the best source for “pet quality” pit bull puppies is from an unlicensed backyard breeder.

So, persuaded by ads from our humane shelters promoting pits as wonderful family pets, those seeking a pit bull puppy end up supporting backyard breeders who are not only not licensed but also do not pay any types of fees or taxes either. The community must close down the loopholes that allow unlicensed breeders to fill this market void.

Despite a record number of local humane licensed pit bull rescue groups throughout the greater Atlanta metro area there is no chance that the humane community can oversea and execute responsible placement or adopt it’s way out of killing pit bulls in what has historically been high volume until the numbers of pit bulls who are surrendered to shelters or are impounded, throughout the greater Atlanta and surrounding areas drop by at least 80%.

Licensing Breeders – a community and consumer safety issue

It is simply indefensible for the community to allow people to breed dogs that can be used as weapons. The risk of raising and selling aggressive dogs that could endanger other citizens in the community is also indefensible.

Since pit bulls can be more dangerous to humans and other animals, and more difficult to handle then most dogs and more importantly since they attract “owners” who may want to exploit them – breeding pit bulls must be tightly regulated at a county level.

Gwinnett should lead the way on responsible oversight in the area of pet overpopulation by requiring all breeders be licensed, that licensing requirements include a criminal background check, that breeder’s maintain a city business license and have yearly inspections from animal control. These requirements should be across the board for breeding and selling of companion animals and not breed specific.

Without laws and programs that severely reduce the number of pit bulls entering the shelter; especially those bred by an irresponsible backyard breeder market, adopting out enough pit bulls to dramatically reduce the number being killed only risk placing pits with behavioral issues or lowering the standards of pet owners who can and would care for their pits as pets.

Public policy of breeder licensing should NOT be set by breeders and fanciers, and certainly not by dog fighters who pose as breeders and even pretend to be rescuers. When so-called pit bull lovers and rescuers use language like “it is the right of every American to buy or breed whatever kind of dog they want” then they are obviously not animal advocates. Breeding, buying, and/or selling pit bulls are all inconsistent with ending pit bull exploitation. .

An effective response to pit bull overpopulation is to target irresponsible unlicensed pit bull breeders and this must be done mandated legislatively by our county government, since the high profitability of the pit bull market has proved that pit bull breeders are resistant or opposed to any and all forms of gentle persuasion.

Only if these standards are achieved is there hope of achieving a no-kill sheltering model for all dogs regardless of breed. Unfortunately, behavioral issues cannot be ignored – whether the focus is the behavioral traits of pit bulls or the attitudes and behavior of the people who tend to keep pit bulls.

The community can no longer ignore or condone irresponsible breeding or ownership of pit bulls. Thus forming a coalition of responsible pit bull rescue partners to overlook placement and adoption criteria for all pit bulls is crucial in protecting not only the community but the breed as well.

Breed Specific Legislation is not the answer

Opponents of breed specific legislation (BSL) often argue that disproportional high rates of fatal and disfiguring pit bull attacks on humans and other animals are the fault of the pet owners of those particular pit bulls, and not representative of typical pit bulls.

This shortsighted thinking overlooks that pit bulls, like other breed s produced for a specific purposes, have been often times bred with a mindset and inclination to tear other animals to pieces. This has in turn made pit bulls attractive to the sort of people who have made them the dogs most likely to be violent abused and/or neglected: sadists, people with drugs and alcohol addiction, those involved in criminal activity, and people seeking to toughen their image to compensate for their own perceived negative self image issues.

The central behavioral issue involving pit bulls is not a matter of natural genetics per se but rather a product of inherently problematic dogs being acquired by inherently problematic people, who keep, train and often times neglect and abandon in a manner which multiplies the community’s risk factors.

It is the actions of the dog that makes a dog vicious, not the breed line. BSL does not work and will not work because the target of the laws – those irresponsible pit bull owners are often times the criminals, the drug dealers, the gangbanger’s, and those inclined to fight their dogs – these type of dog exploiters definitely would not be registering their dogs with any police agency that might stumble on their criminal activity or previous outstanding warrants.

Criminals will continue to own pit bulls irresponsibly and responsible pit bull owners who were role models in the community but feared registering would be outlaws as well. The cost of enforcing breed specific legislation and sorting out the new criminal element would be enormous.

Breed Specific Legislation, is not the answer, it does not solve the human issues involved and actually does more harm than good in accomplishing the cultural shift needed to encourage responsible ownership of pit bulls.

Investing in spay/neuter solutions

A unique opportunity for the county presents itself to selectively invest in programs that will continually lower our intake numbers moving us closer to ending all the needless killing of dogs and cats in our shelter.

The natural follow up to the crisis of “pit bull” pet over population would be the passage of a responsible pit bull owner resolution encouraging all pit bull pet owners to spay/neuter their pet.

Reducing the pit bull populations to a level kept safely in stable homes would require a responsible sterilization rate of 90%. Making those spay/neuter services available through low cost clinics or even free to income qualified pet owners has been successful in increasing the numbers of pit bulls who can not reproduce further adding to our already overpopulation issues on pit bulls throughout the Atlanta area.

Setting aside behavioral issues that should be minimized through responsible breeder licensing requirements, just looking at the numbers, a 90% sterilization rate is necessary if no kill sheltering for pit bulls is to become a theoretical possibility.

Spay/Neuter Policy Recommendations

Responsible citizens can all agree that pet owners need to be responsible to the community by spay/neutering their pets as a quality of life issue. Our community is a village of responsible pet owners; studies suggest that 90% of responsible pet owners are altered to prevent them from adding to to the community’s pet overpopulation issues.

Focus on spay/neuter funding should be on the two largest contributors to shelter intake numbers – pit bulls and cats. The community should adopt a policy of providing low cost or free spay/neuter for pit bull owners seeking to alter their pets.

Promoting investments in low cost spay neuter and release of feral cats in partnership with the feral cat rescue community will work towards investing in long-term reductions and control of feral cat populations as well.

Partnering with non-profits spay/neuter organizations that provide and promote affordable low cost spay/neuter services for all responsible pet owners is a quality of life solution. Promoting and educating our citizens on the critical importance of spay/neuter as a solution to reducing our shelter intake numbers is the mechanism for long-term success.

However, focused attention on the irresponsible ten percent of pet owners who fail to alter their pets is also critical to a community’s long-term success as well.

In order to target irresponsible pet owners who not only fail to alter their pets but also fail to comply with the county’s animal ordinances as well is to “mandate” that all pets that enter the publicly funded animal shelter must be altered prior to being reclaimed by their owners.

This type of selective enforcement of a “mandatory spay/neuter” law would exempt all responsible pet owners who maintain control of their pets and comply with all the ordinances as they pertain to being responsible. It also avoids the

Excessive costs of trying to enforce a spay/neuter mandate through door-to-door enforcement that in itself raises constitutional and moral arguments to the issue.

The issue is simple – those pet owners who can’t or won’t maintain control of their pets add to our community’s animal welfare problems. They need not be rewarded or ignored for those contributions to our shelter issues.

Task Force transformation in ideology takes root

We have compelling reasons for following in the footsteps of other progressive communities that have successfully implemented progressive sheltering parameters. We have seen the depths of frustration that our current shelter model delivers. Yet, there are reasons to be optimistic about the immensely productive changes that lie ahead.

To reach that goal communities much determine what problems exist and focus resources on solving those issues.

With the recent announcement of Gwinnett’s “Animal Task Force”, the mechanism has been created for dramatically reducing the number of adoptable pets being killed in our shelter while developing a long term strategic plan to reduce governments role in that process.

The Gwinnett Animal Task Force builds the foundation for developing a compassionate but effective animal welfare policy that will serve the entire communities needs. It removes all obstacles that prevent responsible citizens from having oversight and participating in this process.

More importantly, it gives a huge voice to all of our community’s animals whose entire future rests in the balance. Simply talking about change, the future and emerging dreams does not ensure results. Everyone agrees that change is constant, that today’s choices create tomorrow’s future, and that we have many options in developing solutions to fulfill that dream.

There could not be a better time for this county to reach out to it’s citizens for help in attaining our shared goals. Our county commissioners bold decision to tackle these issues with our newly formed “Animal Task Force” is a stepping-stone to that success. It is certainly is a better approach then to continue squandering the community’s trust instead.

Privatization, funding and investing in our future

One thing is certain, if we continue using the same failed practices we can predict a future of more failed results. What we can’t predict, however, is the escalating cost of these failures.

Government is not the solution for all of society’s problems. Running a successful animal services unit requires both; governmental oversight and control in providing animal services that protect the community and an animal services unit that promotes animal welfare policies including services offered pet owners that promotes responsible pet ownership and helps to rehome the community’s homeless pets.

Long Term Reform of our Animal Advisory Council

Much has changed in the field of humane animal services. We know how to end the killing of all healthy adoptable dogs and cats. We know how to implement cost effective, community supported feral cat programs, low cost spay/neuter services and proactive adoption and pet retention programs.

After an exhaustive study of the county’s animal advisory council it became apparent how this dysfunctional advisory system was broken. Detailed documents extracted through detailed documents of Animal Advisory Meetings show an alarming with issues that plaque our shelter.

It became apparent that the community not only needed to reform it’s animal welfare policies but more importantly how it develops animal welfare policies that best serve the citizens and pet owners in the community.

The current system of having a closed off dysfunctional animal advisory council which for years either acted in secrecy or closely guarded it's activity does NOT reflect the will of citizen pet owners in Gwinnett. The current animal advisory council is heavily weighted and controlled by local animal control and should be immediately disbanded and replaced by a group of advisors that reflects ALL pet owning constituents; including those who breed responsibly, rescue respoonsibly or are responsible pet owners in the community.

A newly appointed animal advisory council must be balenced and reflect the views and values of Gwinnett's pet owners. The board should represent all neighborhoods of the county, the general public and the stakeholders in Gwinnett's animal services programs.

The “Animal Advisory Council Reform Resolution” tackles that difficult process of how expert advise enters into our policy process in developing a long-term animal welfare program that not only meets the expectations of the community but more importantly looks at programs that will reduce the cots of animal control and services while reducing or putting an end to the killing of healthy dogs and cats that the shelter is supposed to protect.

The credit to this resolution goes to AAC members Carla Brown and Dr Tim Montgomery who worked diligently in finding common ground. This resolution should be up for consideration through the task force as a solution towards providing long-term quality advice to our county’s leadership.

The “Animal Advisory Reform Resolution” builds a foundation for developing a compassionate but effective animal welfare policy that will serve the entire community. It removes the obstacles that prevent responsible citizens from having oversight and participating in this process.

Successfully implementing life saving procedures will make us feel good about ourselves – both as a community of compassionate pet owners and as people who respect all life as sacred.

Collectively as a community, we have talented and compassionate citizens that when provided the bricks, tools and mortar necessary to build the bridge to a compassionate, responsive animal services unit we can all be proud of. Once provided with facts and meaningful solutions our political leadership and courage will lead the way.

The Pet Owners of Gwinnett is committed to walking down the path towards the light as we seek to find our way out of the darkness by building a responsible community of pet owners and empowering our citizens to do the right thing for not only their pets but the neighborhood and community as well.

Gwinnett Task Force Overview

2011-11-08T09:40:00.001-05:00

In an effort to better understand the changes needed to reduce the number of pets killed at our shelter and strengthen animal services, Gwinnett has instituted a process to identify and implement short and long-term strategies that will include programs which promote good behavior from pet owners; evaluation of the structure and policies of the Gwinnett Animal Welfare and Enforcement Unit; promote collaboration between local agencies, non-profit organizations and citizens; and strengthening of current enforcement tools and practices.

The objectives of the Animal Task Force include:

Developing an Existing Conditions Report that will review all services Gwinnett County currently provides or promotes that address the care of animals. This should include a review of Gwinnett County versus comparable peer agencies in the areas of operations, administrative activities, animal care, adoption rates, and the investigation rates of animal neglect or cruelty.

Developing a Best Practices Report consisting of recommendations based on, in part the Existing Conditions Report. Recommendations will discuss organizational structure and service offerings that promote life saving programs including adoptions, fees, spay/neuter services, pet-retention, and responsible pet ownership.

Developing recommendations on how to provide care to animals in the future that are currently, or which may become, the responsibility of the Gwinnett County Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center. Recommendations may explore opportunities for efficiencies, which include, but are not limited to, partnerships, programs, recommended policies or methods as identified in the Best Practices Report.

Creating a public relations campaign to encourage animal rescue, adoption, spay/neuter programs, and responsible pet ownership.

Recommending changes in current code and policies used to promote preservation of life, quality of life, and the humane treatment of animals. During this process, issues determined to be long-term or outside the scope of this task Force will be identified for further study.

Recommend changes in the current organizational structure and/or mission of the Gwinnett County Animal Advisory Council.

Developing recommendations concerning the management of the Animal Welfare Enforcement Center, potential partnerships with private organizations or entities.

It is anticipated that during this four-month period that Task Force members will assist Gwinnett County in implementing recommending modifications to the Code of Ordinances and policies concerning animals, recommending organizational structure and activities for the Gwinnett County Animal Welfare and Enforcement Unit, recommended changes to current operating procedures, recommended organizational structure and activities of the Gwinnett County Animal Advisory Council, and/or initiating relationships determined to have an immediate impact on animal issues in Gwinnett County.

Public Meetings

All meetings will be open to the public. Schedule to be announced.

Task Force Structure

The Task Force will be made up of 3 members who represent rescue groups (1 each for dog, cat and large animal rescue), 1 member who is a veterinarian, 1 ag rep, 1 animal related business rep and 1 rep for the Gwinnett Municipal Association. The remaining ten members shall be private citizens with each commissioner having two appointments. Task Force members shall not be individuals serving on the Gwinnett Animal Advisory Council.

A group of advisors will serve as support to the Animal Service Task Force. Advisors may be staff, individuals, committees, or institutions that bring important knowledge or expertise and will assist the Task Force in the successful development and/or implementation of this study’s findings. Members of the current Animal Advisory Council may serve, at their pleasure and in the discretion of the Task Force.

The Policy Subcommittee will make recommendations on how Gwinnett County should modify current code and polices used to preserve and enhance the quality of life of animals.

The Structure Committee will be tasked with identifying and making recommendations on the future structure of the Gwinnett County Animal Welfare and Enforcement Unit.

The Program Subcommittee will address how to modify current County policy and practices to better promote good health and well-being for animals that have been received by the Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center; facilitate adoptions; encourage visitors to the Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center; encourage and increase volunteers at the Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center; and review and make recommendations for modifications to the fees charged for animal services provided by Gwinnett County

The Partnership Subcommittee will identify and create strategies which promote key intra/inter-governmental relationships to facilitate effectiveness and efficiency and determine how to best connect with key agencies and organizations in order to promote the health and well-being of companion animals.

Final Report

The Final Report will be used as a map to implement short and long-term strategies which maximize the organizational effectiveness of the Gwinnett County Animal Welfare and Enforcement Unit and the Animal Advisory Council; promote the quality of life for animals; propose approaches to reduce the rate of euthanized healthy or treatable animals; and promote responsible pet ownership. The following items will be included in this document;

1. Executive Summary
2. Review of Existing Practices
3. Best Practices Review
4. Animal Welfare and Enforcement Unit Structure Recommendations
5. Animal Advisory Council Structure Recommendations
6. Marketing Strategy
7. Prioritized Short-Term Work Plan
8. Prioritized Long-Term Work Plan
9. Compiled Monthly Status Report

Implementation requirements; time frame; and estimated costs will be provided for each issue identified.

Unofficial Task Force Members

2011 0698 Chair Nash                Wayne Wallis
2011 0699 Chair Nash                Tabled 11/15
2011-0700 District 1 Lasseter     Elizabeth Burgner
2011 0701 District 1 Lasseter      Jane Stewart
2011 0702 District 2 Howard      Tabled 11/15
2011 0703 District 2 Howard      Solveign Evans
2011 0704 District 3 Beaudreau   Joel Taylor (Chairman)
2011 0705 District 3 Beaudreau   Jon Richards
2011-0708 District 4 Heard         James Freeman
2011 0899 District 4 Heard          Dr Cathy Fish
2011 0709 Large Animal              Tabled 11/15
2011 0710 Cat Rescue                 Tati Romeo
2011 0711 Dog Rescue                Wanda Johnson
2011 0712 Veterinarian Rep         Tabled 11/15
2011 0739 Agriculture Rep           Angie Peavy (not confirmed)
2011 0741 Animal Related Business Tabled 11/15
2011 0742 Gwinnett Municipal Tabled 11/15

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett encourages the citizens of Gwinnett to support and get behind our Animal Task Forceth in it’s bold effort at bringing about real change to revitalize the way we view our animal services unit and the role pets play in helping make Gwinnett a beacon for responsible pet ownership.

Are our shelter leaders confused on shelter policies?

2011-11-01T10:48:00.001-04:00

In an article printed in the Gwinnett Daily Post "Outlook brighter for shelter animals" writer Josh Green included this quote from shelter management trying to explain the shift that ended Gwinnett's policy of rounding up and killing thousands of feral cats each year since Lt Respess took over as shelter manager in late 2007.

The article states "Adoptions are up 16 percent, and 28 percent more owners have come back to reclaim pets. The inflow of animals is down by 167 dogs and 1,000 cats. (The cat data is skewed because animal control has ceased picking up feral cats, which county ordinances restrict from being adopted)."

This article appears to be part of a public relations campaign seeking to justify our dysfunctional animal advisory council's and shelter management's role on improving shelter policies and "live save" rates at Gwinnett's Animal Shelter. The above statement was issued on the role Shelter Manager Respess had in stopping the policy of picking up strays cats.

There is NO ordinance which restricts or prohibits "feral cats" from being adopted, that is a "shelter policy" procedure not an ordinance. In fact, there also isn't an ordinance that prohibits cats from "roaming" off leash or for owners to maintain control of cats on their property - yet since Lt. Respess took over in the fall of 2007 over 6,500 feral cats have been rounded up and killed.

Despite having this issue raised at numerous animal advisory meetings and despite personally delivering a message on more then one occasion to our BOC this policy continued up until August of last year when Respess finally stopped picking up "most" of the strays as ferals.

Fact is, Respess has still picked up and killed over 300 cats as strays THIS year despite their not being an ordinance which still prohibits cats as being strays in our community.

Lt Respess seems confused on the basic difference in our community passing responsible ordinances pertaining to pet ownership and shelter policies she enforces that come from the Gwinnett Police Department which is tasked with running the shelter. Part of that confusion comes from her lack of any previous experience in running a high volume open admission public shelter - a position she is clearly not qualified to hold.

These policies include the shelter policy that immediately kills all owner surrenders that enter the shelter without vaccination records - there is NO ORDINANCE which requires her to kill these dogs - she is instead simply enforcing a failed policy decision that comes from the Gwinnett Police Department - a policy I have been a longtime opponent of.

There is also no county ordinance which PROHIBITS the use of social networking to improve the chances for many of the dogs and cats facing death from being promoted in the community either yet, Lt Respess repeatedly uses "policy decisions" coming from GSP management as an excuse for killing even more dogs and cats that quite possibly could be saved if an effort was made to promote them.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett continue to suggest that for real change in the cultural shift in how we view the role of animal controls transformation into a role of providing animal services to our pet owners in addition to enforcing our animal control ordinances will require new management that understands the differences and concepts needed to be successful.

Georgia Shelters that network shelter pets on Facebook

2011-10-31T19:11:00.000-04:00

Counties in (GA) currently posting their animals on facebook:

Hall County AC (Gainesville, GA)
Barrow County AC (Winder,GA)
Bulloch County Animal Shelter (Statesboro, GA)
LibertyCounty AC (Hinesville, GA)
Douglas County AC (Douglasville, GA)
Barnesville AC (Barnsville, GA)
Cherokee County AC (Canton, GA)
Floyd County AC (Rome, GA)
Hall County Animal Shelter Animals & Volunteers (Gainesville, GA)
Henry County AC (McDonough, GA)
Heard County AC (Franklin, GA)
Hazlehurst Animal Shelter (Hazlehurst, GA)
Paulding County Animal Shelter Pets (Dallas, GA)
Jeff DavisCountyAnimal Shelter (Hazlehurst, GA)
Athens-Clarke County AC (Athens, GA)
Cobb County AC (Marietta, GA)
Carroll County Animal Shelter (Carrollton, GA)
Catoosa County Animal Shelter (Ringgold, GA)
Gilmer County AC (Ellijay, GA)
Chattooga County AC (Summerville, GA)
Habersham County AC (Clarkesville, GA)
Butts County AC (Jackson, GA)
Barnesville Pound Pups (Barnesville, GA)
Spalding County AC (Griffin, GA)
Meriwether Animal Shelter (Greenville, GA)
Murray CountyAC (Chatsworth, GA)
Clayton County Police Dept. AC Unit (Jonesboro, GA)
Dekalb County Animal Services (Decatur, GA)
Savannah-Chatham County AC (Savannah, GA)
Ware County/Okefenokee Humane Society (Waycross, GA)

County NOT posting their animals on Facebook - GWINNETT.

Laberge and Respess have used the excuse that Gwinnett County does not allow departments to use Facebook even if that use would save the taxpayers the expense of keeping pets longer than needed, killing them or preventing pet owners from finding their lost pets on Facebook. However, Gwinnett's Sheriff Department has two face book pages - one for the Detention center and the other for the Jail Dog program.

The REAL reason we don't at least try to post our soon to be killed URGENT pets on Facebook is two things - the Gwinnett Police Department's inept management of the shelter (see privatize) and the lazy, inept shelter management that refuses to provide reliable information to the PUBLIC volunteers who have offered to network this life saving information.

County's that care enough about not killing their shelter pets - see above list

County that doesn't care - Gwinnett

Please call or email your commissioner and ask why don't WE care about networking our URGENT pets?

Gwinnett's Dysfunctional Animal Advisory Council's Meeting Minutes

2011-10-31T17:20:00.000-04:00

For those who wonder what wonderful work on dysfunctional animal advisory council offers our county commissioners - here's the minutes to October's Animal Advisory Councils meeting.

Keep in mind with all the issues we have with Gwinnett's current shelter policies this same advisory council chaired by AKC legislative liason Gail Laberge cancelled July's meeting for a lack of anything meaningful to discuss. With a shelter still killing 80% of it's cats one would think adopting out afew more at the local Petco is hardly going to make any difference for the hundreds of cats who will be killed because both the animal advisory council and shelter director Lt Respess have stone walled repeated request for the shelter to support a local volunteer Facebook page that could have helped promote these cats and the dogs being killed at the shelter if only Respess and Laberge greeted meaningful suggestions with anything but excuses and the word NO.

With all the hundreds of cats being slaughtered every week the current advisory cound has no one from feline rescue on the advisory council since the previous advisory resiigned last December. As we have repeatedly discussed for three years now the current advisory council is not only dysfunctional but in fact negligent in tending the basic issues the board has been tasked with in favor of promoting the special interests of gail Laberge in her role as AKC legislative representative.

Pet owners deserve a real voice for pets moving Gwinnett forward in solving our pet overpopulation issues including those voices who understand one of the critical issues that MUST be addressed in breeder licensing which would differiente between responsible breeders who are allies in our war on pet overpopulation with irresponsible breeders who are clearly part of the problem.

http://www.gwinnettcounty.com/static/departments/police/pdf/GAAC_Minutes_10182011.pdf

Animal Task Forced to take up shelter's cultural shift

2011-10-31T10:50:00.000-04:00

"I think there is a culture shift in the way the shelter is perceived, and it is a good thing," said Gail LaBerge, chairperson for Gwinnett's Animal Advisory Council, which studies animal-related issues.

Yes, Gail there is a cultural shift the way the shelter is perceived and that cultural shift began when our group "We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett" proactively worked first on repealing her Animal Advisory Council's draconian dog barking ordinance that was being misused to intimidate even responsible pet owners out of their pets.

Our cultural shift continued when We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett lobbied for and pressured Gwinnett's Animal Shelter is stopping it's abusive long standing policy of rounding up and killing feral cats despite the fact there was never a law passed that prohibited stray cats and with full knowledge that these cats would be wholesale slaughter at our shelter.

It was under Lt. Respess's leadership that over 4,800 stray cats were killed in 2009 alone - and over 11,000 cats have been killed since Respess took over as shelter director. Yet, Laberge's control of the animal advisory council for years ignored advocates pleas that Gwinnett incorporate a life saving Trap/Neuter/Release program in partnership with the feral cat rescue community.

To be clear, Gwinnett's Animal Advisory Council chair Laberge is not supportive of Gwinnett's newly established Animal Task Force that will study many of the animal welfare issues that the dysfunctional animal advisory council has ignored for years, including shelter policy operations and the future makeup of an animal advisory council that includes pet owner voices instead of a Laberge lead advisory council that was only interested in protecting the special interest of life long appointee's to that council.

We believe that Laberge shares responsibility for long ignoring the cultural problems created by poor leadership in Gwinnett's shelter operations and in the dysfunctional advise from our failed animal advisory council as well. We must continue to push for cultural change that prohibits animal control from immediately killing owner surrenders merely because they lack documentation vaccination records.

We must continue to demand that the shelter proactively promote adoptions and transfers to licensed rescue partners through the use of a shelter Facebook page that is currently prohibited by shelter management.

We must change the culture of how we help pet owners with pet retention programs, including programs that help struggling pet owners with assess to low cost spay/neuter and low cost vaccination programs.

We must reach out to the pit bull community and seek real solutions that end our communities pet overpopulation issues that lead to far too many pit bulls being irresponsibly bred and killed by seeking breeder licensing laws that require all breeders to be licensed, pass a criminal background check, maintain a business license and to submit to yearly inspections by animal control.

We must provide low cost or even free spay/neuter for responsible pit bull owners to cut down on the number of pit bulls that end up at our shelter. We must focus our enforcement protocols on those irresponsible pet owners who allow unaltered animals to roam by mandating spay/neuter for all pets picked up by animal control before allowing irresponsible owner's to reclaim these pets.

These are all the policy decisions that have been ignored under Laberge's regime as chair for our failed animal advisory council which speaks volumes for the need for serious change in how we go about offering responsible advise to our county commissioners.

We need YOUR voiced demanding that this cultural shift spirited by the responsible pet owners in Gwinnett continues as we move forward towards building a more humane community for our family pets.

You can follow the progress of Gwinnett's Animal Task Force on our blog - We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett which remains the only real voice for change for our community's homeless pets.

Gwinnett's Animal Task Force Overview

2011-10-28T11:34:00.000-04:00

With the announcement of Gwinnett's "Animal Task Force" a number of citizens have raised questions on what the purpose and objectives the task force would address. Here is a brief overview.

Gwinnett County has instituted a process to identify and implement short and long term strategies that will improve quality of life and reduce the number of euthanized healthy or treatable pets.

Strategies will include programs which promote good behavior from pet owners ; evaluation the structure and policies of the Gwinnett County Animal Welfare and Enforcement Unit ; promote collaboration between local agencies, non-profit organizations and citizens ; and strengthening of current enforcement tools and practices.

The Gwinnett Animal Task Force is created as part of an effort designed to develop and implement ideas and strategies which reduce the number of animals euthanized and promote responsible pet owner practices. Objectives of the Task Force include:

Developing an Existing Conditions Report which will review all services Gwinnett County currently provides or promotes that address the care of animals. This should include a review of Gwinnett County versus comparable peer agencies in the area of operations, administrative activities, animal care, adoption rates, and the investigation rates of animal neglect or cruelty;

Developing a Best Practices Report consisting of recommendations based, in part, on the Existing Conditions Report. Recommendations will discuss organizational structure and service offerings that promote lifesaving programs including adoptions, fees, spay/neuter services, pet retention, and responsible pet ownership;

Developing recommendations on how to provide care to animals in the future that are currently, or which may become, the responsibility of the Gwinnett County Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center. Recommendations may explore opportunities for efficiencies, which include, but are not limited to, partnerships, programs, recommended policies or other methods as identified in the Best Practices Report;

Creating a public relations campaign to encourage animal rescue, adoption, spay/neuter programs, and responsible pet ownership;

Recommending changes in current code and policies used to promote preservation of life, quality of life, and the humane treatment of animals. During this process, issues determined to be long-term or outside the scope of this Task Force will be identified for further study; and

Recommending changes in the current organizational structure and/or mission of the Gwinnett County Animal Advisory Council.

Developing recommendations concerning the management of the Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center; including potential partnerships with private organizations or entities.

It is anticipated that during the approximate four-month period that Task Force members will assist Gwinnett County in implementing recommended modifications to the Gwinnett County Code of Ordinances and policies concerning animals, recommended organizational structure and activities for the Gwinnett County Animal Welfare and Enforcement Unit, recommended organizational structure and activities of the Gwinnett County Animal Advisory Council, and/or initiating relationships determined to have an immediate impact on animal issues in Gwinnett County

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett commend our county commissioners for establishing through the Task Force the expertise leadership needed to be the vehicle for changing our culture on animal welfare issues for years to come.

Gwinnett's Animal Services Task Force

2011-10-06T10:49:00.000-04:00

Gwinnett's Animal Task Force inched closer to becoming a quorum with the appointment of Jon Richards to represent District 3. Thus far eight local citizens have been appointed to fill a panel. Thus far the following positions have been filled:

Chairman Nash named Dr Wayne Wallis (2011-0698) as one of her Chairman's appointment - her appointment (2011-0699) has been tabled until the October 18th BOC meeting.

Commissioner Lasseter named Elizabeth Burger (2011-0700) to represent District 1 - her appointment (2011-0701) has been tabled until October 25th.

Commissioner Howard named Solveign Evans (2011-0701) to represent District 2 - her appointment (2011-0702) has been tabled until October 25th.

Commissioner Beaudreau has named Joel Taylor (2011-0704) and Jon Richards (2011-0705) to represent District 3. Joel Taylor will also serve as the Chairman for the Animal Services Task Force.

Commissioner Heard has named Wanda Johnson (2011-0707) and James Freeman (2011-0708) to represent District 4. Note; at the 9/20 BOC meeting Wanda Johnson was also appointed to represent Dog Rescue (2011-0711).

Also appointed, Angie Peevy (2011-0739) as Agricultural Representative.

In addition to commission appointments for Chairman Nash and Commissioners Howard and Lasseter the following appointments remain unfilled. These positions have been tabled until the October 18th BOC meeting. NOTE: Additionally there is a duplication in appointing Wanda Johnson to both represent both Commissioner Heard’s District and as Dog Rescue Representative.

Large Animal Representative (2011-0709)
Cat Rescue Representative ( (2011-0710)
Veterinarian Representative (2011-0712)
Animal Related Business Representative (2011-0741)
Gwinnett Municipal Association (2011-0742)

It is critically important that the position representing the cat rescue community is filled with an advocate experienced in TNR. Likewise, the task force presents the dog rescue community with an opportunity to build the required partnerships in the rescue community that help transfer more pets to rescue.
We would encourage anyone interesting in volunteering to represent any of the still open positions to contact their commissioner.

Commissioner Beaudreau "Create Animal Welfare Task Force"

2011-01-19T08:58:00.005-05:00

Commissioner Beaudreau has issued a statement on the animal welfare issues facing his county in his January "A Note from Mike" newsletter. The newsletter inself addresses a number of important issues in our district - here is the section that relates to animal welfare issues.

Mike writes: "I spent some time during the holidays thinking about my 2011 goals, and I would like to share them with you:

"The county should create an Animal Welfare Task Force that would make recommendations to improve the way our animal shelter operates and to make any needed modifications to the animal control ordinance. This would include looking at how animal control is handled in peer counties, the composition and reporting responsibility of the Animal Advisory Board and the possibility of involving more volunteers at the shelter."

The task force itself will follow the path taken by "Engage Gwinnett" with the focus on animal welfare issues. We appreciate Mike efforts in bringing these important discussions forward. We support any transparent discussion that brings about positive change at our shelter, is inclusive and gives pet owners a voice in this process.

We look forward to continuing our discussion with the county commissioners, it is through this collaboration that all of our voices will be heard.

2010 - Animal Advisory Reform Resolution

2011-01-18T10:46:00.002-05:00

Today, I will go in front of the BOC once again to ask for an Up or Down vote on this proposal. All of the talking points are in this recently written article that discusses the changes built into the Animal Advisory Reform Resolution.

Here's a link to a complete analysis and talking points for Animal Advisory Reform Resolution proposed.

We need letters supporting this resolution to be sent to the board of commissioners and Glenn Stephens, the county administrator. To put it simply, this resolution gives YOU - the pet owners in our community - a VOICE in making recommendations and giving advise on animal issues to our commissioners.

Allowing or blocking this resolution from an Up or Down vote will be viewed as an attempt to block citizen involvement in our animal welfare issues.

In the event that the BOC "chooses" to take this action "We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett" is prepared to challenge the legality of any advisory commission that EXCLUDES voter input.

This issue isn't one that is up to negotiation - we want and demand that our voices are part of the political process. I would encourage our commissioners to understand the will of pet owners in our community and to expedite this important issue to a public hearing on the commissioner's calendar.

We are prepared to organize a citizens advisory council which will circumvent any not recognized advisory council by submitting our issues, questions and proposals directly TOO the elected officials WE voted for to protect our interests This might not be the most effective way of governing but we'll leave that choice to the commissioners themselves. Like I said, this isn't open for negotiation.

Citizens are encouraged to email, call their commissioner supporting our resolution. Contact info as follows:

District 1 Commissioner: Shirley Lasseter
(R); 2012
770.822.7001
Shirley.Lasseter@gwinnettcounty.com

District 2 Commissioner: Lynette Howard
(R); 2014
770.822.7002
Lynette.Howard@gwinnettcounty.com

District 3 Commissioner: Mike Beaudreau
(R); 2012
770.822.7003
Mike.Beaudreau@gwinnettcounty.com

District 4 Commissioner: John Heard
(R); 2014
770.822.7004
John.Heard@gwinnettcounty.com

Glenn Stephens - County Administrator
Glenn.Stephens@gwinnettcounty.com

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We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett - Shelter Report 2010

2011-01-17T15:21:00.010-05:00

A sand so white and sea so blue

Can’t match our tear stained eyes

How many moons and many June’s

Before we let them leave alive

The following spreadsheets are a compilation of six years of shelter statistics – including three years from the old shelter (2005-2007) and three years with our new shelter. The data represents only the live animals that entered the shelter. Since the shelter officially opened in the last quarter of 2007 some of the numbers for 2007 were skewed upwards

                            **********OLD SHELTER********* **NEW SHELTER***
                             **2005** **2006** **2007** **2008** **2009** **2010**

Felines Handled
Felines Strays            1707       1771        1981         2487         2836       1318
Felines Surrendered   2642       2257        2051         2343         2298       2486
Felines Total Incoming 4349    4028        4032         4830         5134       3804
Felines Killed                3084    3079        3169         4025         4588      3232
Felines Picked Up Owner 57      28            43             18           108              32

Total Canine/Feline In    9,868    9,107     9,174      10,437     11,063       8,845
Total Out Alive              4609      4136     4660          4049        4157        3567
Total Out Dead              5229      5399    5842          6991        7608        5707

After three years of a steady increase in “stray cats” the number of stray cats picked up in 2010 went from 2,836 in 2009 to 1,318 in 2010. While the number of cats surrendered at the shelter increased slightly from 2,298 in 2009 to 2,486 in 2010 the overall effect was a cat intake number of 5,134 in 2009 dropping to 3,804 in 2010 or a net decrease of 1,330.

That number mirrors the drop in cats killed from 4,588 in 2009 to 3,232 in 2010 or 1,356 that were saved by simply leaving them alone.

That in itself might be a feel good statement, but for taxpayers the “potential savings is in the range of between $120,000 and $150,000 (*** see note) in animal control costs.

Potential, because in order to capture those savings a management team familiar with the concept of changing with the communities needs is needed. Now, if that gets your attention read on, we CAN save more.

One might suggest not picking up strays cats placed the community or cats at risk thus justifying the huge yearly expenditures for the “catch and kill” enforcement model, yet, there isn’t any statistical data to support that.

***cost figures based on manpower, equipment needed for catch/impound, cost of intake handling, cost of care and manpower during housing, costs of killing and cost of disposing of waste.****

One would think that the “excess” cats would find their way to the highways as “road kill” yet, in 2010 the number of dead cats picked up off the road dropped as well from 263 in 2009 to 153 in 2010.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett applaud this policy change and encourage the county to adopt a “Trap/Neuter/Release” program in partnership with the “Feral Cat Rescue Community” completely outsourcing forever the issue of feral cats in our county.

The goal should be zero for the number of stray cats picked up by animal control in 2011. Attaining that goal alone would result in another 1,300 cats not entering the shelter allowing the shelter to focus on providing shelter and top notch adoption/rescue opportunity thus relieving the county of the cost and negative stigma of simply killing these cats as well.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett strongly encourages a task force committee study the alternate Trap/Neuter/Return programs. Madison County (GA) embraces a trap/neuter/release policy because it SAVES MONEY.

This “task force committee” approach is hallmark too success in business. There could not be a better time for this county to reach out to it’s citizens for help in attaining our shared goals. It certainly is a better approach then to continue squandering this trust instead.

Note: There wasn’t any increase in 2010 in the number of cats that were adopted or that went to rescue. That would have been another cost savings as well.

FACT - Despite killing 98 cats in December 2010 there were only SEVEN cats available for adoption when I visited the shelter on January 6th 2011.

I am also disappointed that ANY cats were killed in December of 2010 since little effort was made trying to promote adopting/rescuing these cats out AND there was plenty of empty cage space. It should be appalling to all citizens that our leadership in animal control places so little value with these cat’s lives.

No cat should be killed as long as there is ONE space available to keep it’s alive – that’s not providing shelter – that’s slaughtering an innocent cat.

Shelter numbers for dogs

                                                 Gwinnett Shelter Stats 2005 thru 2010
                           **********OLD SHELTER********* **NEW SHELTER***
                          **2005** **2006** **2007** **2008** **2009** **2010**

Canines Handled
Canines Strays       3026         3068         3095         3539         3823          3455
Canines Surrendered 2493     2011         2047         2068         2106          1586
Canines Total Incoming 5519 5079        5142         5607         5929           5041
Canines Killed         2145         2320        2673         2966         3020          2475
Canines Picked Up Owner 891   860          865          924           885            936

The number of dogs picked up as strays picked up from 3,823 in 2009 to 3,455 or a drop of over 10%. Likewise, owner surrender’s dropped from 2,106 in 2009 to 1,586 in 2010 or close to 25%. The combined result was a drop in canine intake numbers from 5,929 in 2010 to 5,041 in 2010.

Dogs killed 2009     3,020
Dogs killed 2010     2,475

Dead dogs picked up from the road 2009     320
Dead dogs picked up from the road 2010     249

We like to think that these numbers are the result is from the responsible pet owners feeling less intimidated into surrendering their responsibility under the threatening guidelines of the old animal “nuisance” ordinance that the county had the courage to correct.

We recommend offering low cost retention services like microchipping where pet owners would be guaranteed at least one “free ride home” for any pets picked up that whose owner can easily be identified.

We encourage the county to investigate expanding cost saving programs offering low cost spay/neuter services, low cost vaccination programs and pet retention consulting under a revamped and retooled animal services unit.

Partnering with the Rescue Community – A Dismal Failure

                           *********OLD SHELTER***** **NEW SHELTER***
                         **2005** **2006** **2007** **2008** **2009** **2010**

Animals Adopted   2326       1756         1982         1906         2093          1583
Animals Rescued    1335       1492        1770          1201         1071          1016

Citizens Visiting Shelter (2009)     32,308
Citizens Visiting Shelter (2010)     27,791

The number of citizens visiting the shelter fell off in 2010 by 4,500 visits. The number of pets sent to rescue continues to drop – adding to the cost of running the shelter.

The number of pets adopted from our new shelter dropped as well. Adoptions fell by 25% from 2,093 in 2009 to 1,583 in 2010. This is disappointing as well.

Clearly, we have not fully utilized or promoted our new shelter for the reasons it was built. The shelter was NOT built as a more efficient detention, disposal operation – it was built to service the needs of pet owners in our community.

Innovative shelter managers realize that moving a pet to rescue or finding a family to adopt ends the county’s responsibility and expense in handling that pet. .

It simply COST money to kill a pet and COST NOTHING to save it..

We call on the county to replace the current “Rescue/Adoptions Coordinator” with a qualified civilian applicant with the experience and motivation needed to build this partnership.

We encourage the county to expand on promoting shelter pets through the many social networks that other progressive shelters are using. Posting pets on Facebook saves lives and provides the rescue community with accurate information on URGENT pets. It also results in more pets being adopted and more going to rescue. That saves money.

Shelters competing for market share with other kill shelters in the region – Gwinnett chooses to NOT compete. This policy cost the taxpayers money.

When you look at the number of dogs and cats that still are being killed, you realize that if only we were “doing our best” we would reach goals on adoption/rescue that were our best efforts in the past. Those best numbers combined with fall into the 4,000 to 4,500 dogs and cats saved.

Simply by doing our best we would save from 1,500 to 2,000 pets are currently being killed by NOT doing our best.

When you add that number to the number of 1,300 stray cats that shouldn’t be being picked up in the first place and we now reduce the killing by 3,000 or more in 2011.

That is our goal. That is our target for saving lives.

Enforcement issues and warning Signs for 2011

There are warning signs from 2010 shelter report that are concerning as well.

For one, the number of complaints responded too in 2009 totaled 25,049. In 2010 animal control responded too 25,259 complaints.

Citations issued dropped off as follows:

Restraint 10-29 (2009)    685 - note – there were no warnings issued at all
Restraint 10-29 (2010)    440

License No Tag 10-43 (2009)     345
License No Tag 10-43 (2010)     171

Public Nuisance Animal 10-33 (2009)     500
Public Nuisance Animal 10-33 (2010)     290

Fact is, even citations issued for “nuisance animals” dropped as well in 2010.

Those numbers are tempered with new categories created with the revised barking/tethering ordinance passed in 2009

Barking (which used to be part of the nuisance section) 10-51B (2010)    54
Duty to be a responsible owner (2010)    140

So, while those numbers remain constant – under the new law NONE of these pet owners add to the number of pets entering our shelters but instead are resolving there pet issues through mediation or fines – just as it should be.

Vicious Animal 10-37 (2009)   39
Vicious Animal 10-37 (2010)     5

Biting Animal 10-38 (2009)   44
Biting Animal 10-38 (2010)     5

Animal Control has a huge responsibility in keeping our community safe from vicious or dangerous dogs. Despite all the media hype about ‘pit bulls” in our county being a “clear and present danger” the numbers don’t bear that out either.

Even the number of bite cases dropped from 44 in 2009 to again FIVE in 2010.

Doesn’t sound like a problem HUGE enough to pass new laws that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to enforced, especially if we’re trying to move that number from FIVE to ZERO?

A Transformation in ideology takes root

Animal Control killed 3,455 dogs and 3,232 cats in 2010. Our goal for 2011 is too reduce that number by 3,000 moving us that much closer to becoming Georgia’s first No Kill Community.

Solving our longstanding and expensive animal control issues was the foundation for which “Animal Advisory Reform Resolution” was built on. We acknowledge and support the work of Dr Tim Montgomery and Superior Court Judge Carla Brown for their role in writing this proposed resolution. We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett appreciate being given the opportunity to participate in that process.

This resolution has the overwhelming support of citizens in our community as well.

Collectively as a community, we have provided the bricks, tools and mortar necessary to build the bridge, but need the political leadership and courage to lead the way.

We respectfully request once again an UP or DOWN vote on this issue that has been held hostage for TOO LONG.

A unique opportunity for the county presents itself to selectively invest in programs that will continually lower our intake numbers moving us closer to ending all the needless killing of dogs and cats in our shelter.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett have provided and will continue to provide a blueprint for that success. All of our proposals will be short term budget neutral with long term cost savings of lowering intake built in.

We seek the leadership in our government, our shelter and our animal welfare community that SHARES that vision. Can we count on YOU?

We encourage our elected officials to give strong consideration to a long term strategy for it’s animal welfare issues. The focus remains to control costs and provide the citizens with the quality of animal services they and their family pets deserve.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett are committed to building a responsible community of pet owners by empowering our citizens to do the right thing for not only their pets but the neighborhood and community as well.

This is about working together as a community in solving our animal problems, that’s how a democracy works.

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Changing the way we think about animal control

2010-12-15T10:43:00.003-05:00

Much has changed in the field of animal control in the past five years. We know how to end the killing of all healthy adoptable dogs and cats. We know how to implement cost effective, community supported feral cat programs, low cost spay/neuter services and proactive adoption programs. Many animal shelters across the country have no only embraced the No Kill philosophy, but more important the programs and services that make that possible.

One would think that with all this success is saving shelter pets innovative communities like Gwinnett would be leading the charge at our own shelter – but it is not.

After an exhaustive study on how our county provides it’s advise our animal related issues it became apparent that the system was broken. Detailed documents on every Animal Advisory Council meeting in the years from 2006 through the summer of 2008 showed an alarming disconnection with issues that plagued our shelter.

It became apparent that we not only needed to reform how we ran our shelter but more importantly how we developed our animal welfare policies and restore confidence with pet owners in the community.

The “Animal Advisory Council Reform Resolution” tackles the difficult process of how we provide expert advise to our political process in developing a long term animal welfare program that not only meets the expectations of the community but more importantly looks at programs that will reduce the cost of animal control moving forward while putting an end to the killing on healthy dogs and cats that our shelter is supposed to protect.

The credit for this resolution goes to AAC members Carla Brown and Tim Montgomery who worked diligently in finding common ground. The resolution is up for consideration by our commissioners is collaboration with the current animal advisory council who passed this resolution without dissent.

As in any change – the “devil is in the details” – here is precisely what these changes are::

The membership changes from the current seven members to eleven. Only two positions were left intact under the new makeup of the board, they are the Lawrenceville Kennel Club and the Gwinnett Municpal Association retains.

The Gwinnett County Extension Service position was eliminated and replaced with a representative from the “Livestock Animals”

Gwinnett Humane Society’s position has been eliminated and replaced with a representative for the “Gwinnett Rescue community”.

The Feline Interest position remains but will be filled by a representative from the Feline Rescue community specifically with experience in developing a feral cat program.

The two “Member at Large” positions have been eliminated and replaced with one member being appointed by each commissioner’s district and a representative appointed by the county Chair. This will form the direct communication link between the advisory council and the board of commissioners that has been lacking.

The advisory council will no longer report findings and recommendations to animal control and the Gwinnett Police Department but instead forward these recommendations directly to the Board of Commissioners. The GAAC will forward only those recommendations that have been approved by majority vote.

It will remain the responsibility of the Board of Commissioners to make final decisions on all recommendations submitted.

There are also procedural issues that were addressed.

Officers elected to the same office will have a two-year term limit.

Two Year Term Limit on chair position.

Members can set up subcommittees that investigate specific issues/problems without approval from animal control or the GPD. This will set in motion creating subcommittees to investigate solutions for problems like feral cats, building a no kill community and developing an animal services unit that serves and educates the community on responsible pet ownership. This coalition building will bring together many of the experts in animal welfare who have been disenfranchised from the process.

This is not cosmetic change - this is changing our animal welfare culture. This is about opening up the door for others to join in on the discussion and participate in the process.

The most significant change comes with HOW this group will study issues.

Section 12 – Committees – The chairman may appoint, with concurrence of the GAAC, various standing and temporary committees to further proposals of the GAAC. Such committees may include members of the staff of various county departments, residents and business owners of the county whose background and knowledge may be a benefit of the GAAC in accomplishing it’s goals.

The purpose of the committees shall be to make detailed investigations, stidies and recommendations to the GAAC as instructed pertaining to matters or classes of matters within it’s purview.

The Chairman or Vice-Chairman shall be an ex-officio member of all committees.

This step alone opens up the process of developing breakthrough thinking leading the way towards solving long-term problems with animal issues in our community.

We now stand on the mountain of change. While our efforts have brought us to this pinacle - it will be YOUR efforts that decide our county's destiny. The question is "do we want to slip backwards and return to the valley of failure and doom" or do we want to march boldly on to the promised land that embraces life saving thinking instead. I think we know that answer.

Please write your commissioner and ask for their support in passing this resolution.

The long and winding road to Animal Advisory Reform

2010-12-13T10:45:00.001-05:00

Thirty months ago, I went in front of the BOC to discuss the controversial animal ordinance passed in January of 2007. That ordinance passed in all of “sixteen seconds” without allowing any public reading of the proposed changes or more importantly – asking Gwinnett County’s pet owners for their comments on the new law.

With that vote thousands of pet owners throughout the county discovered that even being a responsible pet owner could lead to criminal charges being filed for such minor infractions as barking dogs, dogs tethered for short periods of time, no tags, and a number of other issues that micro-manage the care we provide our pets. Offenses that should have been “fix it” citations instead had pet owners facing losing their pets.

For their role, the solicitor’s office (who drafted and were charged with prosecuting the draconian bill) used the threats of jail and huge fines to intimidate pet owners into surrendering their family pets. Pet owners were being threatened with lengthy jail terms only further endangering their ability to care for their family members and their pets.

Instead of focusing our animal control resources on educating citizens on how to be responsible pet owners, our animal control resources and judicial resources were being directed towards prosecuting and impounding pets with the worst possible consequences leading to even more deaths at our brand new shelter.

How this revised ordinance became "law" is even more disturbing. This revision of animal ordinances in Gwinnett was passed solely on the recommendations of the county attorney's office with the blessing of Gwinnett's dysfunctional and highly secretive Animal Advisory Council.

Battle lines being drawn – nobodies right when owning a pet is wrong

At the June 24th 2008 BOC meeting each of the commissioner’s was provided with copies of the Animal Advisory Bylaws and copies of all Animal Advisory Council meetings held in 2006 drafting those changes.

One longtime advocate wrote this as her observation

“This shadowy group (AAC) in no way represents the citizens of Gwinnett County and in fact hides from us, refusing to post it’s meetings, agendas, or minutes on Gwinnett County’s excellent website, which is intended to keep Gwinnett citizens informed. I have attended many (AAC) council meetings and in almost every case I was the only non-member in attendance.

She further went on to report “The partisan inclinations of the core membership, combined with lack of participation from several members and complete isolation from county citizens, resulted in the council’s passage and the Commissioners’ subsequent passage of an animal ordinance of such breathtakingly draconian nature that it punishes the most minor infractions with thousands of dollars in fines and years in jail without the benefit of a jury trial. This ordinance has made Gwinnett a laughingstock among animal law specialists across the country, with several lawyers expressing the opinion that the law is unconstitutional on a variety of grounds. I sincerely hope our commissioners will expand the Council’s membership to be more inclusive and require it to abide by the spirit, not merely the letter, of Georgia’s Sunshine Laws.”

While each of the sitting commissioners received this information only then candidate Shirley Lassiter responded with “it would appear that holding any government meeting should be professional, open and convenient to all the citizens.”

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett couldn’t agree more. We not only believe that these meetings should be open to the public but more importantly the communication between pet owners in the community and the commissioners should be transparent and it is not.

Over the past thirty months our organization has worked diligently in presenting an “Animal Advisory Reform Resolution” that corrects these communication and transparency issues. Unlike the Animal Ordinance that was passed without public input our organization reached out across the county with full disclosure on all the issues involved.

We sought out the opinions of pet owners on issue that related to responsibly owning pets. We fought off numerous attempts by the AAC to drop these issues from AAC’s agenda. In the end these discussions generated the issues that were in serious need of reform. In the end we found common ground and compromise that served the citizens and gave a voice to responsible pet owners in Gwinnett.

The proposed revisions to the Animal Advisory Council Bylaws were drafted, discussed, argued and negotiated for close to a year now. To date, there has been nothing but support from the citizens on the final resolution that passed during the April 20th 2010 AAC meeting.

This resolution has been voted on and passed, the time for negotiation and discussion at this level is over. For animal control and the Gwinnett Police Department to hold these changes hostage six months later to protect the status quo of “catch and kill” is un-conscionable. It is NOW time to bring these issues to a vote in front of the commissioners who WE elected to oversee our interests.

Paranoia strikes deep – into your life it will creep

During the last AAC meeting the issue of reforming the Animal Advisory Council once again reared it’s ugly head. Shelter Director Lt. Respess brought up “new” concerns explaining “Animal Control and our superiors have concerns about the way the resolution is written”. With an air of pettiness animal control’s concerns focused on two areas, one “they” wanted to add a condition that “no one could serve in an advisory position who had violated any animal ordinance”. This stipulation is not only insulting to the citizens who would step forward but to the Commissioners as well, who I would hope would exercise good judgment and appoint people to this committee who they themselves have vetted. Appointments to the advisory council should NOT require approval from animal control or the Gwinnett Police Department especially in light of oversight implications.

One of many major malfunctions of the current makeup of the AAC is that anyone who disagrees with current (failed) policies at the shelter runs the risk of losing their position as an advisor. This stifles created innovation and leaves us with a process of simply defending the status quo. The current process of animal control and/or the Gwinnett Police Department having 100% control over who gets appointed or is allowed to stay on the AAC limits the free exchange of ideas.

The second area of newly created dispute was the reorganization that eliminated several obsolete positions on the AAC and replaced then with slots that addressed the county’s primary issues with animal control.

Animal control sought to keep Gwinnett Humane Society position while sacrificing a position for the rescue community at large. For several years now Gwinnett Humane has held a position on this council and yet open records have yet to offer any program or insight offered that would benefit the rescue community at large. Nothing has been proposed that would assist in building the critical partnerships with the rescue community but instead focuses on self-preservation of their own needs.

The number of pets going to rescue is down by over thirty percent since the new shelter opened. New leadership that understands the importance of building partnership with those who rescue dogs and cats is critical to our long-term success in reducing the carnage. This won’t happen without a voice that understands the significance these partnerships offer.

Building partnerships with rescue community will result in fewer animals being killed and return a substantial cost saving to the county as well – it costs MONEY to end a pet’s life – it costs NOTHING to send that same pet to rescue. This, the new feline interest position and individual representatives from each of the commissioners were areas that were never open for compromise.

Obviously, change is needed to dramatically turn around our failing shelter. Pouring money into a broken process is NOT a solution – change in thinking is. Several positions were removed with even more new positions created – those groups who felt disenfranchised would still have an option of lobbying for one of these openings.

The time for talk, the time for negotiation is over – we have a passed resolution that must be passed on to the BOC for an up or down vote.

People speaking their minds – getting so much resistance from behind

With thirty months invested in this reform effort “We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett” is past the point of offering further compromise. To hold these changes and the resulting citizen oversight hostage while thousands of dogs and cats are being killed is simply not acceptable. We are NOW reaching out to the community to support the “Animal Advisory Council Reform Resolution” with an up or down vote.

Our constituents have strong feelings on moving forward with building a more humane community for our homeless pets. We are solid in our support of building a No Kill community. Those feelings are being realized with the growth of No Kill Gwinnett.

Our supporters come from all walks of life, your church, your neighbors, your friends in rescue and in many members who work in and around Gwinnett County government. We may not agree on all the issues but there is a common bond that there is no moral foundation for ending an innocent dog or cats life simply because it’s convenient and because we can.

Rather then focusing on resolving the serious issues we have at animal control, far too many dogs and cats being killed, we end up with a broken partnership with the rescue community and a lack of professionalism in leadership that has resulted in serious morale issues that look the other way. The result is a process that does nothing but protect a failed model of status quo.

A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say hoorah for our side

The battle hymm's being sung, we are all tired of all the dire sideshows of personal ambition and goals rift with excuses and blame that changes nothing and allows the killing as usual to become our standard animal welfare policy. We are tired of being harassed and intimidated simply because we choose to include pets as an intregal part of our family unit. Pets are NOT a nuisance issue - they are a quality of life issue.
We the Pet Owners of Gswinnett have presented a positive package for professional advise on animal welfare issues moving into the future. The makeup of this team would consists of citizens passionate about representing ALL points of view with a new focus where it’s needed most – lowering the number of dogs and cats killed at our tax supported shelter.

The new advisory council will be able to investigate not only life saving programs but cost saving programs as well. The new advisory council will be more responsive to not only pet owners in our community but there will be a dramatic improvement in the communication between citizens and their commissioners on animal related issues.

More importantly, the commissioners will finally have direct communication with the advisors they appoint and not be limited with ideas or proposals that have been screened by animal control.

The makeup of the Animal Advisory Board is in serious need of new blood which will include active participation by local pet owners and private volunteer rescuers who have for too long now been silenced from this process.

While the current makeup of the AAC may be powerless to do anything more then protect their own self-interest “WE PET OWNERS” have the power of electing commissioners who protect not only our families interests but our rights to responsibly own and protect our family pets.

There will be a meeting with the Board of Commissioner’s on Tuesday December 14th at Gwinnett’s Judicial Center. The meeting starts at 2:00 PM and the public is permitted to speak at the end. It is imperative that our community’s pets be represented as well as Gwinnett’s other important issues.

Those of you who have something to add to this dialog are encouraged to write out your thoughts that can be presented via email or presented to the commissioners for consideration during this public forum.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Gwinnett gets tough on Pit Bulls but soft on drunk drivers

2010-12-09T11:22:00.001-05:00

Caught this off Twitter:

SNELLVILLE - A Gwinnett teen has been charged with running over about two dozen mailboxes in Snellville and Loganville neighborhoods during an after-party vandalism spree, police said.

Phillip Rohrer, 18, of Snellville and a passenger reportedly took a destructive joyride in a 1997 Dodge Ram on Loganville’s Brusymill Court and Snellville’s Hidden Forest Drive, among other locations, about 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

Gwinnett police spokesman Cpl. Edwin Ritter said Rohrer is responsible for toppling and damaging 24 mailboxes in the spree

and from the Gwinnett Daily Post

SNELLVILLE — A Gwinnett teen has been charged with running over about two dozen mailboxes in Snellville and Loganville neighborhoods during an after-party vandalism spree, police said.

Phillip Rohrer, 18, of Snellville and a passenger reportedly took a destructive joyride in a 1997 Dodge Ram on Loganville’s Brusymill Court and Snellville’s Hidden Forest Drive, among other locations, about 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

Gwinnett police spokesman Cpl. Edwin Ritter said Rohrer is responsible for toppling and damaging 24 mailboxes in the spree.

A noise complaint led a patrol officer to the area, where the officer spotted the loud green truck barreling past with one headlight and a busted taillight, according to a Gwinnett police report.

The officer pulled the truck over and questioned Rohrer, who admitted to drinking at a friend’s party before destructive urges came over him, the report states.

“He said he was bored and decided to go run over people’s mailboxes for fun,” the officer wrote. “He said he went into a few neighborhoods and ran over mailboxes.”

Rohrer’s passenger, Graham Fidler, told police he was being taken home from the same party when Rohrer decided to “go joyriding,” the report says.

Police charged Rohrer with 10 counts of criminal trespass and ticketed him for a headlight violation and underage possession of alcohol. The Georgia Gwinnett College student was released on bond Tuesday.

Fidler, the passenger, was ticketed for underage possession of alcohol. Jail records list him as an Athens Tech student.

Tough questions that weren't asked.
So let me be clear – this teen admits to leaving a party at 4:00 AM AFTER drinking – has another teen in his truck WITH ALCOHOL – runs over 24 mailboxes and he ISN’T charged with DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE?

What do you have to do to get charged with DUI – KILL SOMEONE?

Gwinnett Police did charge Rohrer with having “broken lens covers” and “failure to maintain working headlights” – I guess that was the result of RUNNING DOWN 24 mailboxes. They did charge him with “improper lane change” – I guess it is an “improper lane change” when you drive OFF THE ROAD to run down mailboxes. But the TOUGH question is WHY NO DUI?

It is troublesome to know that this teen was released from jail and can STILL operate a motor vehicle. In a county so concerned about public safety that discussions of requiring pit bull owners to run through hoops to keep their family pets simply because of a few isolated incidents involving pit bulls would not realize how many teenagers die from drinking and driving.

Why wasn't the person responsible for allowing underage teens to illegally drink and leave the aprty at 4:00 AM not charged as well? It is exceptable for adults to look the other way while our children are acting in such an irresponsible way? I think if you ask any parent who has lost a child or family member at the hands of someone driving drunk that answer would be obvious.

It has ALWAYS been troublesome for this writer to experience first hand the laxness our Recorder’s Court seems to have with drunk driving offenses as well. In the fifteen times I was in court for my dog barking offences NOT once was a drunk driver sentenced to 24 months probation like I was. In fact, Judge Muise is soft on drunk drivers typically handing out NO JAIL TIME – instead choosing to allow these potential killers to serve probation terms of six to twelve months.

Barking dogs don’t pose any danger to the community – Muise sentenced me to thirty days in jail because I CHOSE to own dogs that bark. Obviously, she is less concerned about people who CHOOSE to get behind the wheel of their vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. The County Solicitor’s Office shares responsibility for this lax enforcement of our drunk driving laws.

It's time the politicians and public officials entrusted to keeping our community safe pull their heads out of the sand or wherever they have them and ENFORCE the law. Barking dogs and pit bulls are the least of our problems. The problem with our judicial system is pet owners are guilty until and if they can prove their pets innocent while drunken criminals aren't even charged.
Not only is she a lousy judge who doesn’t understand or care about the constitution (in favor of her own personal agenda) her rulings put all of us in danger. The citizens of Gwinnett deserve better then that.

With the holidays approaching let’s hope more families don’t have blood spilled, their dreams and lives destroyed at the hands of a drunk driver. We'll be staying off the roads - obviously, it's not safe out there.

A Gift of Death to an Extreme Animal Rights Movement

2010-12-08T20:56:00.001-05:00

I wrote "A gift of death to an extreme animal rights movement" in December of 2008 on my "Trailed by 20 Hounds" blog. In this article the foundation of pet ownership philosophy was examined. More so, the foundation of deceit coming out of the leaders in the animal rights movement was also put under the spotlight.

From the article "This philosophy of defending policies of humane euthanasia while professing to protect animal rights is a contradiction that can not be explained. One would assume that at the point an animal is killed any right or lack of it the animal might be entitled to becomes a mute point."

Shelter reform advocates have stopped questioning how shelters choose to kill dogs and cats entrusted to their care with instead asking on what moral authority do we kill at all? In the absence of implementing life saving programs this one single question remains unanswered today. There is no moral support for killing any dog or cat that isn't suffering with a terminal illness.

Owning and enjoying pets is always about choice and responsibility. The nucleus for moderate animal advocacy must include opposition to pet limit laws, BSL, mandatory spay/neuter and nuisance animal laws that include provisions that allow for impounding and killing as a sentencing guideline.

To read more:
http://by20ounds.blogspot.com/2008/12/gift-of-death-to-extreme-animal-rights.html

Neighborhood Bully under seige

2010-12-05T22:31:00.003-05:00

An ordinance being considered in Gwinnett would require all Pit bull owners to register their dogs under the new law. The new ordinance would also discriminate against pit bull owners by requiring them to provide name, address and a registration fee to the county to possess a pit bull. Owners would also have to provide proof of insurance, a full description of the pit bull, including a photo, and proof of inoculation. They would be required to provide a study enclosure that does not share fencing with a perimeter fence.

Penalties under the law proposed would include fines, jail time and court ordered impounding of any dogs identified as pits even if the dogs have never demonstrated vicious or aggressive behavior.

The decision to end a healthy pet's life has always been a flashpoint for conflict, more than ever this decision making process is being contested––and the disputes are increasingly often taken to the outside world. In effect, all pit bulls or even dogs suspected of being pits would be guilty even if proven innocent.

The law would still define as vicious any dog that, without provocation, has killed or injured a person or has killed another dog with an absolute presumption pit bulls are by definition violent and vicious.

Is BSL a license to kill?

The neighborhood bully he just lives to survive
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin
He’s supposed to lay down while his door is kicked in
He’s the neighborhood bully

His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He’s got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it, and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that politicians make for him
Cause there’s a noose around his neck and a gun at his head
And now a license to kill him is given to every maniac – Bob Dylan

When pit bulls are outlawed, only outlaws will own pit bulls

An ad hoc committee set up to draft a new “Dangerous Dog Ordinance” in Douglasville has all but died when Public Safety committee chair announced he was not interested in considering it any further. Instead, the discussion has shifted to evaluating what can be done enforcing the current provisions as written under the current animal ordinances.

Taxpayers want community police resources to be directed at real criminals, not dog owners. The public wants the drugs and the gang bangers and thugs doing home invasions to be hauled off – not the neighbors’ friendly family pet that oftentimes acts as the only line of defense against these punks.

We certainly don’t want to pay to have our animal control agencies conduct witch hunts, deprive honest law abiding citizens of their constitutional rights while implement an agenda of breed specific genocide.

Some believe the vicious image of the pit bull is part of its intrigue. Regulations that criminalize pit bulls only add to the mystique and criminal appeal. Those inclined to participate in gang activity or the drug underworld are not going to line up at animal control with pictures of their pit bulls to register their pit bulls.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett are opposed to any breed specific legislation (BSL). The recommendations suggested by our county law department swould dramatically increase the number of pit bulls entering and being killed at our shelter while virtually eliminating any possible adoptions opportunities.

We cannot support BSL type of regulations while building a NO Kill Community. It is be morally reprehensible to kill any dog innocent of any wrongdoing. Our position is that the actions of the dog that makes the dog vicious, not the breed line.

BSL does not work and will not work because the target of the laws – those irresponsible pit bull owners – are the criminals, the drug dealers, the gangbangers and those inclined to fight their dogs would not be registering their dogs with any policing agency.

BSL type laws passed requiring registration are largely ignored. Since pit bull owners would be required to take out liability insurance on their dog and build a separate enclosure, they would now have an financial incentive not to register.

Those responsible pet owners who simply could not afford to comply under the new requirements would have to choose between surrendering their pets or not following the law which would turn their pet ownership into a criminal act.

Criminals who will continue to own pit bulls irresponsibly and responsible pit bull owners who were role models in the community would now be partners in the crime of owning a pit bull. The cost of enforcing this new law and sorting out the various criminal elements would be enormous – any positive results would not.

For Pit Owners “register or you can’t have them here”

A recent WSB-TV investigation of a pit bull attack in Snellville this past August made it clear that the owner(s) of the dogs involved allowed these dogs to run at large. The owner(s) was in clear violation of the leash and restraint provisions of our current “Model Animal Ordinance” passed in 2007.

Section 10-29 Restraint requirements authorize animal control to not only issue citations but impound any threatening or dangerous dogs.

The current animal ordinance provides adequate regulations that protect our community against dogs who are allowed to roam as strays and who subsequently have incidents or engage in aggressive or hostile behavior.

This ordinance includes provisions that protect citizens against dangerous dogs regardless of breed. The law simply needs to be enforced. If animal control would put as much focus in enforcing our leash laws as they do patrolling for barking dogs and wandering cats we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Animal Control has a clear responsibility to pick up and remove dogs that are in violation of the nuisance ordinance, especially if those dogs present any type of danger to the community. Passing new regulations primarily directed at responsible pet owners who follow the law will only divert enforcement away from problem owners.

It is also important to point out that the “Model Animal Ordinance” also includes specific requirements for dogs deemed vicious or dangerous “based on prior acts” of that specific dog. Classifying ALL pit bulls as vicious or dangerous would require owners to comply with the same requirements as truly aggressive dogs despite any pre-existing behavior warranting those requirements.

Depriving Pet Owners of Constitutional and Due Process rights

Responsible dog owners with well behaved pit bulls or dogs who appear to be pit bulls would not be allowed to take their dogs on walks in public or even allow them to run supervised in their own yards unless the dogs were muzzled.

The mere act of registering a non-aggressive pit to a dangerous or vicious dog registry would be an admission that the dog was potentially dangerous even though the owner has never experienced such behavior.

This “guilty by breed association” places the owner in a tenable position of defending the dog against false allegations simply because the dog is a pit or assumed to be a pit. This was the same problem presented with the county’s infamous but now repealed dog barking ordinance which classified breeds such as beagles as “barkers” or as the county solicitor who wrote the law pointed out “beagles bark – you own beagles – your guilty of owning barking dogs”.

There are serious constitutional issues with passing a broad based registry that includes a vast majority of dogs who have never posed any threat or risk to the community. Anyone who owns a pit and registers that pit as “potentially vicious or dangerous” agrees to allow “any enforcement officer of the department of police services shall have the authority to enter into private or public property for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the provisions of this subsection (d).

What this means is any policing agency would be authorized to enter a pet owners home – your home – on the assumption that you might be harboring one of these banned vicious dogs, even IF you have never actually violated the law.

Dangerous Dog Law or a License to Kill Pit Bulls?

The neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Watching the clock run out, while time is standing still
He’s the neighborhood bully the world wants to kill

Under the law being proposed citizens would be prevented from offering compassionate aid to any dog abandoned in the neighborhood if it resembled a pit bull. Thse dogs would be demonized in the same manner as a wild bear or panther – they would be hunted down and killed.

Compassionate citizens who attempted to offer comfort or shelter to any stray resembling a pit bull would be in violation of the ordinance as well. We would no longer have the discretion of “rescuing” any dog but instead be required to notify animal control even if we understood that would result in the dog being slaughtered. The law provides but another series of obstacles that prevent citizens from being “good Samaritans, even when the dog presents a friendly disposition.

Under the new law citizens have to “hide” any outlawed dogs to rescue them from our own government hell bent on labeling them as canine criminals with a needle full of blue juice being their destiny. Is that REALLY how we want to utilize our police budget and combat neighborhood crime?

Pet owners should not have to surrender the rights granted under the constitution (which includes a reasonable pursuit of happiness) simply as a condition for owning any breed of dog.

We HAVE laws that address all dogs, all breeds that simply need to be enforced by a competent animal control department. Once again We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett question the leadership in animal control lacks the specific guidance to implement it’s own mission of keeping our community safe by enforcing the laws already in place. Changing the ordinances without addressing the leadership vacuum is not a solution that will work.

Pit bulls entering our shelter system already face tremendous odds simply surviving – passing a new law would only exacerbate that problem.

Excluding dogs based on breed could wrongfully implicate some dogs and ignore others that might be more prone to attack. There are some dogs are therapy dogs and some who are simply great dogs who make great family pets and some dogs who are unsocialized no matter what breed they are.

Rather then worry about a specific breed of dog shouldn’t we focus on the people who are choosing them?

Trap Neuter Release - Compassionate - NO KILL Solution for Feral Cats

2010-10-26T12:54:00.011-04:00

Fight to Survive

With the killing of cats in Gwinnett at an all time high – it should be obvious that current programs and policies of “catch and kill” are not working.

The 2010 third quarter numbers for our shelter show 908 cats “dropped off” at the shelter with road patrols bringing in an additional 174 “strays” or a total of 1,082 intakes.

None of the cats picked up were returned in the field and only two reclaimed by their owners during a three-month period. Of the 1,082 cats needing life saving efforts at our “shelter” 915 or 85% were killed. The cost to catch and kill 915 cats in a three-month period is between $50,000 to $80,000.

“Trap-neuter release, commonly referred to as TNR, is the only method proven to be both humane and effective at controlling feral cat population growth.

With a “Trap/Neuter/Release program the cost to spay/neuter these same 915 now dead cats would have been less then $20,000 including vaccination costs.

TNR traps all the feral cats in a colony – they are altered and then returned to their territory, where caretakers provide them with regular food and shelter. This non-lethal sterilization method reduces the number of feral cats in an environment both immediately and over the long run.

TNR was introduced in the US during the 1980’s. The practice of TNR grew rapidly in the 90’s when Alley Cat Allies began providing information and assistance to people caring for feral cats that recognized that their numbers must be controlled and reduced sterilization.

In communities where TNR is widely embraced, feral cat numbers have dropped. TNR works because it breaks the cycle of reproduction. Since TNR programs are operated largely or entirely through the efforts of dedicated and committed volunteers the cost savings to taxpayers is an added benefit.

The Huge Cost Savings through TNR

Aside from the minor ethical issue of killing healthy yet wild cats there is a much larger issue that even taxpayers can support. That’s the potential advantage on a large scale is cost savings with our animal control budget both short term and in the years to come.

For one – a Trap Neuter Release Program doesn’t involve funding new animal control trucks at a cost of over $207,000 to be used to round up cats for slaughter. Instead, freed of the responsibility of chasing down loose cats, these same “road” officers could instead focus on enforcing county leash, tethering, neglect and cruelty laws and working with the public on life saving programs at the shelter instead.

Traditionally, the cost involved with feral cats includes the time it takes for an officer to trap the cat, the expense of feeding and sheltering during the usual mandatory waiting period before the animal can be killed and the cost of killing and disposing of the body.

In contrast, the only cost involved with TNR is the neutering and vaccination of each cat. The rest of the work – trapping, feeding, and so on – is done by volunteers.

In a study in Orange County, Florida, over the course of two and a half years of a new TNR program, cost savings were found to be 47 percent of an alternative “catch and kill” program.

TNR has the advantage of being humane because it respects the cats' right to live and provides them with as high a quality of life as possible under the circumstances.

It is also effective at lowering population levels, both within individual colonies and across entire communities. “Catch and Kill” is not only more costly; but it doesn’t work. TNR is clearly the future when it comes to care and control of feral cats.

Is there any wonder our new shelter has experienced an increase of over FIFTY PERCENT in the number of cats being killed in the last three years alone?

There are volunteers and rescue groups who care about cats – enabling these citizens to do the right thing for feral cats is critical in reducing not only the growth in killing but in animal control costs as well.

Yet, shelter management under the watchful eye of the Gwinnett Police Department continues to cling to this model that fails EVERY YEAR.

National Animal Control Association Supports Trap Neuter Release

In practice, many municipalities which have tried TNR have found it effective in reducing cat populations within their borders. For this reason, the National Animal Control Association recently changed its position on feral cat control to support TNR.

In an interview explaining the change, the president of the National Animal Control Association explained that municipalities have found management more successful in controlling cat populations than attempts at eradication, that it is much cheaper and elicits the assistance of the private sector, that no agency in the country can afford to just keep practicing trap and euthanize, and that the old method of trapping and euthanizing is like trying to "bail the ocean with a thimble" due to limitated animal control resources.

The High Cost of Trap, Hold and Kill

In general the cost of sterilization and returning a feral cat is less than half the cost of trapping, holding, killing and disposing of a feral cat. TNR protects public health and advances the goal of reducing the numbers of feral cats in the environment. The public will support humane, non-lethal TNR as the long-term solution to feral cat population.

The traditional approach has been "trap-and-kill," whereby feral cats are trapped, usually by animal control or your neighbor, and then invariably killed. The reasons why it almost always fails in the long term are clear enough.

First, it's not easy to catch all the cats in a feral colony. If there are a large number of cats, it can take several days and a lot of persistence. Animal control and/or your neighbor rarely have the time or resources to make this kind of sustained effort.

Instead, what normally happens is that animal control officers set some traps, catch some of the cats, and make a temporary reduction in the colony's numbers.

All’s well until nature kicks in – or new cats show up. The feral colony grows in size up to the number of cats their food source can support. Once the colony is reduced, the remaining cats over breed until the ceiling imposed by the food source is reached again, and the temporary drop in population is quickly erased.

Even assuming all the cats in a colony are caught and removed, that still won't lower the population in the long run. This is due to the "vacuum effect," first observed by Roger Tabor in his studies of London street cats (The Wild Life of the Domestic Cat).

In the real world one feral colony are surrounded by other feral cat groups in adjoining areas. If a colony is removed but its food source remains, cats in neighboring territories will move in and start the cycle of reproduction again.

This last point also indicates another reason why it is almost impossible to eradicate feral cats from an area: their caretakers. Feral cat caretakers are a devoted breed who will often do whatever is in their power to feed and protect their feline wards, including violating feeding bans.

The trap-and-kill approach turns these caretakers into enemies. While “Trap Hold and Kill” sheltering models are costly to implement TNR, on the other hand, mobilizes an enormous volunteer force for population control.

An effective TNR program also reduces cost and killing by not bringing feral cats into the shelter in the first place. Plenty of domestic cats are now dying in our new shelter for “lack of space”. Why bring in feral cats off the streets when they can be maintained where they are, in a manner more befitting their unique natures?

At the other end of failed alternatives to TNR is the “rescue” model. Feral cats are NOT adoptable as pets. Many well-meaning people, convinced they are "saving" a feral cat by bringing him indoors, end up condemning the poor creature to a life of hiding under the bed and being in constant fear. Better a fuller, even if riskier, life in freedom.

Breaking the Cycle of Failure

Every female feral cat trapped and altered represents fewer kittens during and after “kitten season”. Should the county invest from $20 to $50 on a spay surgery as a preventative measure or should taxpayers be burdened with the cost of handling an entire litter soon thereafter?

Should the county support a TNR program that can be funded by local citizens, volunteers and non-profits when the only trade off is putting an end to a killing mentality or should we taxpayers continue to finance the slaughter of thousands of cats each year instead? Who benefits from this “pest” eradication service?

The cost of trapping – holding – killing and disposing on an entire litter is several times higher then the initial investment in spay/neuter.

It has estimated that the cost to handle a stray cat for the five required days in the shelter, plus the cost of killing and disposal, is about $70 per cat. There are still only three alternatives to handling the population of stray cats: 1) alter/release/management; 2) exterminate/kill; 3) ignore.

Comparing cost options:

Test/Vaccinate/Alter = less then $50 in a low-cost program vs.

Stay at shelter = $70 - $100

Funding for a program of this type can take many forms:

1. Looking at the figures from 2009 alone, one can readily see that for a cost of 4800 cats (killed) X $70 per cat (to trap-hold-kill)) cost the taxpayers close to $340,000. The costs of altering (even if this cost was absorbed by the county) would be less then half. Successfully implementing a TNR program would not only provide immediate cost savings but would also reduce the number of cats handled in the future further reducing the cost of “controlling cat populations”.

2. The program pays for itself with reduced animal control costs. Reduced shelter costs frees up resources and manpower for staffing life saving adoption and retention programs instead.

3. Further cost saving can be realized by developing partnership with local veterinary services and by soliciting donations through local non profit rescues and grant programs. The decreased shelter costs would more than fund any future and ongoing trap/alter/release efforts.

If Gwinnett County’s animal welfare policy included a partnership with the rescue community by providing services instead of simply killing off as many cats as they can pick up our citizens would do the rest.

Removing the obstacles that enable volunteers to provide medical treatment, food and support services for feral cats will provide the best possible outcome for all involved. Instead of enabling solutions, current policy only provides the obstacles to that success. Should we be surprised with nothing but failed results?

Naysayers who scream for “eradication”

There may be those who prefer to continue the eradication method. The concerns put forth are usually centered around noise (cats fighting over territory or mating), smell (of spray), vector infestation, disease transmission or possible injury. The assumption of a quick and clean solution makes this avenue of population control especially attractive. Yet eradication programs are ineffective.

While attractive from a theoretical and short-term perspective, eradication has proven to be an elusive goal. Some will continue to advocate the trap and kill eradication approach. However, if eradication programs really worked, we wouldn't be faced with so many stray cats and their offspring ending up being killed at our shelter during “kitten season”.

Cats are territorial. They don't allow other cats into their territory to steal their food. Altered cats will stand their ground and guard their food source, will not have kittens, and will die in a few years. Remove the cat(s) from the habitat without changing the habitat and another cat will move in.

Gainesville Florida Study evaluates effects of feral cat sterilization program

Various long term studies have shown that TNR is effective in stopping the breeding of cats in the wild and reducing the population over time. In addition to these studies, a 2004 controlled study by veterinarians in Connecticut found that TNR consistently reduced the populations of feral cat colonies, by a mean of 36% over two years and with the extinction of one third of the colonies within the same period, while the non-TNR'd colonies increased by a mean of 47%.

Many TNR programs that have resulted in decreased populations have also included intensive efforts to adopt a large proportion of the population, which is generally part of TNR.

Although a recent study on a Florida spay/neuter program for feral cats wasn’t able to identify the program’s precise effects, the results published in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (Vol. 5, No. 4, 2002) suggest that a feral cat trap-neuter-return program can be an important facet of a community strategy to fight pet overpopulation.

Written by Kathy L. Hughes and Margaret R. Slater of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A & M University and Linda Haller of the Hawaiian Humane Society, the study focuses on the feral cat sterilization program that Haller oversaw when she managed Orange County Animal Services in Orlando.

Begun in 1995, the trap-and-return program was a cooperative effort between the county and a local volunteer group. Though the county had tried in the past to address feral cat issues, those efforts had focused mainly on trapping and euthanasia—and had failed to reduce the numbers.

Under the new program, the volunteer group trapped the cats and brought them to the county to be spayed or neutered, eartipped, and vaccinated against rhinotracheitis, calicivirus, panleukopenia, and rabies. (Some were later re-trapped for a subsequent vaccination.) The surgery was free, and caretakers paid $5 for each rabies vaccination.

“High-risk males” or cats that appeared ill were tested for feline leukemia virus and feline immunodeficiency virus infections, and, if positive, were euthanized. Kittens were not returned to the colonies but were socialized and, if possible, put up for adoption. Those who appeared to be at least seven weeks old were neutered or spayed.

From fiscal years 1990 to 2001, the period during which data was collected, the county sterilized 37,182 cats, including 7,903 ferals. Analysis of the program’s results was complicated by concurrent changes to regulations and other animal control programs (the study did not identify these), but statistics were still significant.

The number of cat impoundments remained stable during the study period, despite an increase of 32 percent in the human population. Although intake rates did not decrease as expected, the authors note, “This may reflect in part a change in the county code of September 1995, in which a renewed emphasis was placed on enforcement.”

The adoption rate during that period reached 12 percent, twice as high as it had been during the six years before the trapping program began. Euthanasia of impounded cats decreased by 18 percent from fiscal year 1996 to fiscal year 2001. (Feral cats who had already been spayed or neutered did not factor into impoundment statistics.)

The frequency of cat-related complaints also fell—by 25 percent between the mid-90s and 2001. The county’s policy of requiring relocation of colonies deemed a “nuisance” may have contributed to this decline (though the need for relocation was rare); public awareness also may have increased during the years because of educational outreach on the part of volunteers and rescue groups.

Reducing the financial cost of addressing feral cat issues was a goal of the program from the beginning, with county officials surmising that a neuter-release program would be less expensive and less labor-intensive than impoundment.

They appeared to be right: Spaying and neutering the feral cats totaled $442,568, according to the study, substantially less than the estimated $1.1 million it would have cost to impound and euthanize the cats.

Other positive trends were recorded during the study period. The authors observed that the relationship between animal services staff and citizens concerned about feral cats improved, and that “citizens who previously felt overwhelmed by the dilemma of feral cats they saw in their neighborhood now feel empowered and able to make a difference in these cats’ lives.”

While the authors acknowledge that “separating out the effects of a single program may be impossible,” they stress that no negative consequences were recorded for the sterilization program. They also laud the creation of the program itself.

“The establishment of the feral cat program was done without a change in the county code,” they wrote, “through the persistence and teamwork of concerned citizens and county officials.”

It's important to recognize that if a cat is truly feral, then the most compassionate choice may be to allow him to live outdoors. Trying to domesticate such a feral cat is little different from trying to make a squirrel or a raccoon a household companion - you might succeed somewhat, but never fully and only with a great deal of time and patience. Moreover, you would not be permitting the animal to live in the manner that suits him best.

Innovative Solutions versus the Rhetoric of a Failed Killing Philosophy

The number of feral cats in the U.S. is estimated to be in the tens of millions. Sadly, many communities still opt to control populations via outdated methods, including lethal elimination or relocation. Not only are some of these methods horribly cruel, they are also highly ineffective. It’s time to include the issues of feral cats in the fight to end animal cruelty.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett support the immediate implementation of a Trap Neuter Release Program that will put an end to the slaughter of hundreds of cats each month.

We support an immediate issuance of free spay/neuter vouchers for all residents to take in stray and “loosely owned” community cats for free altering.

Implementing this one program alone will dramatically reduce the number of pets being killed at our shelter and lead to the cost savings necessary to further implement other life saving programs as well.

To accomplish the cultural change needed to transition from an animal “control” mindset to a responsive animal “services” unit it is imperative that our elected commissioners and the law department show the political courage to move swiftly in approving the “Animal Advisory Reform Resolution” that has broad community support and was approved without dissent by our current animal advisory council.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett encourage the Board of Commissioners to appoint a new voice to fill the “Feline Interest” position on the newly revised advisory council with a voice experienced in establishing a successful TNR program in our community. This voice would be responsible for building the critical partnership bridge with the Feline Rescue community to assure success.

The following information provides background on TNR, online and print resources, and what you can do to get involved.

TNR is the only proven solution to solve this problem. Caring for the existing colony:

· Ends the breeding cycle

· Alleviates suffering due to: fights, starvation, being hit by cars, illness...

· Helps prevent the spread of disease; the two of concern to humans being fleas and ringworm

· Results in less noise and troublesome behavior

· Cuts down on wildlife predation

To learn more
Alley Cat Allies
http://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=505

http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/feral_cats/tips/feral_cat_organizations.html

http://www.spayusa.org/

http://strayaid.org/

Feral Cat Coalition
http://www.feralcat.com/lffc.html

Gwinnett County Seeks too Tighten the Noose on Pit Bulls

2010-10-18T18:50:00.002-04:00

A Gwinnett's Animal Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at the Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center. 884 Winder Hwy, Lawrenceville. The meeting starts at 7:00 PM.

Items included on the agenda include the year old discussion of a shelter "urgent list", a disaster plan and a new item added - a discussion on revising the dangerous dog ordinances to include pit bull licensing registrations, including tags, microchips, insurance ect.

It also includes a requirement that all pit bulls be on a leash at all times unless in an approved enclosure - in other words, your dogs could not be off leash even if supervised on your property.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett opposes any BSL types of restrictions that would only lessen the number of homes for good pit bulls needing rescue and would only increase the number of good pit bulls being surrendered and killed at our already "too high" kill shelter.

We oppose this type of approach for two reasons - as a pet owner, there is no evidence that breed-specific laws make communities safer for people or companion animals. Those who own and care for pets responsibly are typically not part of the problem and yet are punished nonetheless. Those who own any type of dog irresponsibly typically won't comply with the laws already on the books so enforcement is counter-productive.

As taxpayers these types of ordinances which attempt to mandate pet care are costly and difficult to enforce. As we should learned from the "2007 Dog Barking Folly" - pet owners faced with losing their pets, facing huge fines or compliance costs might find it less tedious to dispute any infractions through the courts. Not only is this a very expensive way to litigate these cases but it is disengenous of the county to further burden taxpayers with these additional expenses as well.
We need to put an end to this senseless approach at tossing a net over small problems that put unnecessary restrictions on those who responsibly own their dogs - including pit bulls.

What isn't on the agenda is equally troublesome. There are no discussions planned on how the shelter might implement many of the No Kill programs that have the support of pet owners throughout the county. There will be no discussion on the process needed to implement no kill here in Gwinnett. Just more of the same - blame and punish approaches that have failed our community in the past.

Pet owners, taxpayers and voters are encouraged to attend. Just say NO to growing "bigger" governement.

Build it...... they will come...."

2010-10-06T09:38:00.001-04:00

Our animal welfare “authorities” are failing its citizens with wasteful spending during this period of economic uncertainty. This squandering of resources is a top down leadership crisis that is at the heart of the many problems that must be overcome.

The High Cost of Killing

At the September BOC meeting 2010-0757 Award BL068-10 was approved by a consent order (meaning no public discussion was allowed) to purchase FOUR new animal control trucks at a cost of $207,788.

The latest in failed leadership comes with the decision to purchase four new animal control trucks at a cost of $207,788.

This decision ignores the tight budgetary constraints that severely limits hours the shelter is open to the public, ignores lack of office staffing issues which further limits shelter operations in favor of providing four brand new trucks that clearly can not be justified during these tough times.

For a shelter that already fails each and every pet that dies under their care and control by not providing off site adoption events, fails miserably in promoting pets available for adoption, fails dismally with it’s volunteer program and sees increased efficiency only in the number of animals being killed, this expenditure will only lead to more killing – not less – as our animal control officers attempt to justify this need by rounding up more dogs and cats for slaughter.

If we are truly in a budgetary crisis wouldn't a more logical approach be reducing our fleet of 16 animal control vehicles, lower our costs associated with insuring and maintaining that fleet and shift our manpower over to shelter related duties instead? Shouldn’t shelter duties focus on life saving placement options for shelter dogs and cats instead of the age old fall back of simply killing them?

Rather then maintaining reduced shelter hours and thus doom even more pets to a certain death wouldn't it be more prudent to allocate manpower and resources for additional evening and weekend hours thus making the shelter more assessable to the community? This could be done without a need for more officers or additional overtime if we simply pulled a few trucks off the road.

Wouldn't it be a more cost effective use of manpower if the focus is shifted to staffing off site adoptions on weekends, adoption events at our shelter, and to focus on reaching out to the rescue community to increase the number of pets that can be transferred to rescue – as opposed to excessive road patrols?

Shouldn’t we at least consider moving officers off the street to work at the shelter on programs that will increase adoptions and save more healthy adoptable pets rather then this revolving door that only kills them?

Grassroots Reform of our Animal Welfare Programs

"Beyond the instruments of death where sunrise hears the screams.

Every man is torn apart with nightmares and with dreams

all while silence drowns the screams..........."

That the commissioners approved this tremendous waste of critical resources only shows how disconnected our leadership is with the real animal welfare issues in our community. This disconnect is a result of a dysfunctional animal advisory council which remains still in serious need of reform.

The notion of animal control focusing on lifesaving, and taking on what has traditionally been an animal welfare platform of lifesaving and social enrichment for our family pets is now firmly taking root as a “No Kill Movement”.

What we are witnessing is the transformation from traditional “animal control & enforcement” to “animal care, services and control”. Throughout our community rescue groups, animal lovers, pet owners, good Samaritans and animal advocates are demanding change. Rejecting the tired, tried and challenged failed notion that the best we can do is offer a “humane” death for thousands of innocent animals and that the shelter bears no culpability for the numbers of animals being killed, these individuals are challenging the status quo.

What would $207,788 buy in a No Kill Community?

While there is a cost associated with killing innocent animals, saving one’s life is a priceless commodity that separates a truly compassionate community from one that isn’t. The citizens of Gwinnett share a compassion for our pets – shouldn’t our leadership reflect those values as well?

Instead of making investments in life saving programs that will in time drive down the cost of animal control we continue to waste money on the “toys of the killing brigade” while the death toll grows higher.

Sadly, over 90% of these deaths are unnecessary.

What would $207,788 “purchase” in critical services?

With $207,788 we could have spay/neutered over 10, 000 cats and found them rescue groups or feral cat colonies where they would still be alive rather then paying the cost of collecting and killing them – that would be EVERY cat that’s been killed since opening the new shelter in October of 2007.

With $207,788 we could have spay/neutered 2000 dogs at $50 each AND 4000 cats that will be killed in the next twelve months under our current failed animal control program and still have money left to hire TWO full time customer service clerks to help with adoptions and working with the rescue community.

Instead, we get four new trucks at a cost of $52,000 each that will be virtually worthless once their driven off the lot. With sixteen trucks currently being used by the thirty plus animal control officers one should seriously question why this was such an urgent need that it trumps ALL other budget requests that clearly would have returned critical services to our community?

Sending out animal control officers to pick up more stray cats when we already kill over ninety percent of the cats that enter our shelter not only adds to the costs of running our kill shelter but wastes valuable fuel and vehicle expenses as well.

With an abysmal record of killing cats and dogs that enter our new county kill shelter is it really wise to patrol our county's streets for more animals to kill?

Shouldn’t our “Animal Advisory Council” be having this discussion on how our resources are being spent? The fact that this issue wasn’t addressed by the GAAC only demonstrates the urgency in reforming that advisory group in order that more meaningful alternatives are addressed.

Are We Simply Running a “For Profit” High Kill Shelter?

We the Pet Owners has been outspoken over the county’s failing to provide the resources needed to promote pet adoptions and responsible pet animal services to our community.

The issue of providing reasonable community assess to our new shelter has been a contentious issue since the shelter opened in 2007. While funding was allocated to build this shelter the county has failed miserably with properly funding programs and services vital to promoting responsible pet ownership in our community.

If all we are going to do is fund the killing of healthy animals in our new shelter then WHY were we mislead in building it?

From the AJC article “Counties Killing Dogs-Cats by the Thousands” (May 2010)

http://www.ajc.com/news/counties-killing-dogs-cats-473204.html

Gwinnett’s Animal Advisory Chair (GAAC) Gail Laberge states "The Gwinnett shelter has also explored expanding hours into evenings to allow working families more time to visit and shop for a pet. Statistics show a noticeable increase in adoptions when the shelter remains open late, but budget cuts won’t allow for overtime, so the shelter is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday."

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett first raised the issue of increasing shelter hours and access for working families at the June 2009 GAAC (link) meeting where the issue was discussed.

At that meeting the GAAC approved (by a vote of 7-0) a resolution to send a letter to the Gwinnett Police Chief Charles Walters asking that the shelter open on Sundays from 12 to 4 PM and on Tuesday and Thursday nights and that the shelter be closed another day to make up for being open on Sunday.

While there was never an official response from Chief Walters on this critical services issue an excuse of lack of funding was circulated instead.

At the July 21 2009 GAAC (link) meeting a resolution was approved requesting additional office staffing to replace two positions lost in budget cuts. This 50 percent reduction in staffing was being used to eliminate critical services including maintaining timely and accurate information on the dogs and cats being held at the shelter.

Often times data base information wasn’t being entered in a timely fashion (link) resulting in many pets never being properly promoted for adoption leading to even more unnecessary killing at our shelter. While office personnel are vital to overall shelter operations this issue has still not been addressed by shelter management.

While it might be understandable that the county can’t fund every position needed to run an efficient shelter operation it does not explain why our shelter continues to rebuke offers of increasing volunteer participation by requiring those volunteers to agree to a strict criminal background check to volunteer at our shelter.

It shouldn’t take an FBI clearance to be able to walk a dog or bottle feed some kittens. The fact that our shelter management views local pet owners who want to help as “potential criminals” only paints a clear picture why management change is the only practical method of reducing the long term cost of running our failed animal services unit in the future.

The use of volunteers and how to educate the public on the need for volunteers to promote adoptions (on Facebook and other social networks), socialize dogs and cats to help make them more social and ultimately more adoptable has only been met with rules and excuses rather then innovative approaches that serve the pet owners in our community instead.

Volunteers and a need to STOP the SENSELESS KILLING are crucial steps needed for fundraising as well. Instead of our county being a leader – an innovator in providing services that promote responsible pet ownership - we cling to the failed policies of killing the animals we are supposed to protect.

The issue of inadequate staffing was again raised at the January 19, 2010 GAAC meeting when letters expressing concern for the staffing of the animal shelter have been sent to the Board of Commissioners.

There has been no official response to these letters either. If we can’t get our elected officials to respond to urgent and critical needs from an advisory group designed to keep them informed then who should address these issues – the voters who own pets?

So how does the typical malfunctioning governmental unit respond to under-performing departments that have come under repeated public scrutiny and criticism? At a special GAAC meeting on March 16 2010 the issue of RAISING FEES (not services) was addressed.

The lean budget prompted the advisory council in mid-March to recommend increasing fees. The council, which recommends policy changes to the county commission, voted to double the charge for daily boarding to $10 and for quarantine to $200. But members balked at a suggestion to more than double the owner surrender fee from $20 to $50, fearing owners would abandon their animals on the streets. The fee was increased to $25.

This is government at its folly best. When management comes under attack for failing to provide services that were promised when citizens approved building our new shelter – promises which included better access for citizens and ultimately increasing the number of pets who are adopted from the shelter thus driving down the number of animals being killed – our animal control management team blames the citizens for not providing the resources needed to do the job.

What wasn’t addressed was what the Gwinnett Police Department would do with the money these new fees would generate. Would these fee increases finally free up money to open the shelter evenings and on Sundays? Would we finally be able to hire a clerk responsible for putting posting pictures and bio information on pets waiting to be killed? Or would we simply squander these resources too?

The answer to how this money would be spent should outrage ALL citizens who are simply fed up with the waste and abusive spending of critical tax dollars that even our “conservative” politicians continue to vote YES on.

Taxpayers understand that we can’t fund every want and whim that local advocates are screaming for but it’s the lack of a cohesive plan that sticks out. Instead of recommending critical animal services issues be addressed our management team instead went shopping for new “boys will be boys and need their new toys” by requesting four new animal control trucks instead.

This obvious disconnect with pet owners in our community only demonstrates a much more critical need for reforming our animal advisory council so that the real issues needing addressed can be tackled. It also points out the blatant need to address a much more serious issue of bringing in professional shelter management that can tackle our disoriented and dishonest approach to our animal welfare issue that current management continues to ignore.

We need these reform measures for two reasons – one is to turn the tide towards stopping the senseless killing funded by our tax dollars and to reduce the cost of running our shelter in the coming years.

We will NOT lower our costs when our commissioners lack the desire to say NO to requests that do nothing but squander the limited resources that taxpayers DO provide.

While our governmental process is capable of responding to request to waste resources with timely voting on budget issues the issue of voting on reforming our failed process is stuck between the special interest concerns of protecting the county attorney’s office and the interest of the Gwinnett Police Department instead.

The “Animal Advisory Reform Resolution” was approved over three month ago and yet it has it still being held up by those groups who are not interested in relinquishing their own special interests that are part of the many problems we have at our shelter and NOT part of any solution.

Partnerships only work when there is a shared respect for the role each participant plays in helping to resolve the problems at the shelter.

Our county leadership must understand that only by investing in and working passionately towards raising awareness on the critical need for volunteers will we succeed lowering our shelter kill rates while reducing expenditures as well. Killing innocent animals are NOT without costs that are financially and morally reprehensible.

For more information on the alternative programs that are not being used at our shelter follow my blog at

http://by20hounds.blogspot.com/

Join in our community “No Kill” discussion – visit No Kill Gwinnett on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/#!/pages/No-Kill-Gwinnett/126165217428735

Death Row to the Jail House

2010-09-19T22:58:00.004-04:00

A young scared three-month-old dog sits petrified on the euthanasia table not knowing his life is about to come to an end. What this young dobie/lab mix needs is obedience training and socialization. What he needs is the time to learn, but in this shelter his time is about up.

Over 3000 dogs a year are killed at Gwinnett’s Animal Shelter – their once healthy bodies turned to ashes. Over the years our animal welfare policy’s that are supposed to advocate and protect our community’s homeless pets has evolved into a policy of justifying the best we can do is “save a few” while giving the rest a gift of a humane death.

Ernest T Bass

Ernie, with those sweet eyes, is about to be killed because our animal control policies have determined he is “un adoptable” (in the short five day period the law requires he be held). What Ernie needs is just a little more time to become all the dog he’s supposed to be. More time to find that perfect home – that perfect master – a family of his own.- a life with purpose - his life complete. Instead, in a few quick seconds that is about to be over.

This past spring the Society of Humane Friends partnered with the Gwinnett County Detention Center in “Operation Second Chance” to save “death row” dogs from Gwinnett’s Animal Shelter.

In this collaboration, the Gwinnett County Detention Center would function as a “foster home”, the inmates would care for and train the dogs and the Society of Humane Friends would then find them homes.

I had an opportunity to observe first hand an innovative new program that seeks to provide these dogs with a real second chance. My observations paint an entirely different picture indeed.

On this warm summer afternoon a miracle is about to happen. Space has opened up in this innovative new program for young Ernie, with his luck and time running out he is snatched from death’s door and whisked away to a waiting jail cell for his second chance.

Ernie’s New Leash on Life

Behind the walls of the county’s detention center inmates would discover a new sense of purpose working with dogs rescued from the local kill shelter. Instead of being killed, Ernie would become one of dozens of dogs who have benefited since the “Operation Second Chance” program’s inception earlier this year.

The Operation Second Chance program is collaboration between the Society of Humane Friends working with the county detention center to provide training and socialization for at risk shelter dogs utilizing inmates as trainers.

Dogs chosen for this program all share something in common – they have been labeled as “un adoptable” and sentenced to die for a crime of being unwanted.

Sentenced to Salvation – Operation Second Chance
Behind the walls inmates, inmates find a renewed sense of purpose saving dogs who would be otherwise would be dead.

I witnessed Ernie when he first entered the cellblock 1-C. His lack of socialization was obvious but not surprising for a young dog fresh out of the shelter. Watching Ernie gain more and more trust with each day of training only reaffirmed how wrong it is to kill these dogs simply because they haven’t been trained properly.

This lack of training and/or social skills would not have been a death sentence in a shelter that had a No Kill philosophy where training would be provided to increase Ernie chances of being adopted.

They were animals facing a death sentence even though they’ve committed no crime, but they will be punished unless someone steps forward ands gives them that second chance. Those someone’s are young men living in confinement for reasons of their own – be it anger issues, drug abuse or other crimes who in time, are looking for that second chance of their own.

Once matched with a dog, the inmates are fully responsible for the dog’s care, feeding, grooming, housetraining, and most importantly obedience training. After a few short weeks or months of this round-the-clock care, dogs like Ernie are ready for adoption.

Both dog and inmate face isolation and rejection, but when their backs are to the wall they offer each other hope and salvation for each other.

It would take only a few days before this sweet boy would endear himself to everyone he met. Life was exciting with all his new friends.

It would only take a few short weeks before Ernie would be rewarded with a family of his own. Thanks to Operation Second Chance this sweet boy has a whole life of second chances in front of him.

Many a year has past and gone – many a gamble has been lost and won

In a small way the “Operation Second Chance” program operates on the same program techniques as a “No Kill” facility. It utilizes a fostering and training program directed off site through a licensed rescue group to completely change the results of a dog that would be killed to a dog who finds a new home.

Who are these “convicted dogs” being rescued from death row and housed and rehabilitated in our detention center? They are the un adoptable – the damaged – the neglected – the abused – that society has historically chosen to provide “humane euthanasia” in an effort to save them from ourselves.

Meet some of the amazing Jail Dogs rescued from death row and the inmates who are their companions until they are adopted - presented by Karmalized Pictures

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4825JHEJ_k

“Easy as it is to tell black from white – it’s also easy to tell wrong from right”

Their stories are heart wrenching – healthy dogs that enter our shelter with the hopes of finding a new home – a new family – a new beginning - are instead shamelessly slaughtered. The picture of survival for any pet entering our shelter is bleak with an animal welfare program that quickly and inaccurately labels these dogs as un adoptable thus sealing their doom.

Instead in a simple concept, prison inmates receive training to, in turn, train dogs from our local high kill animal shelter. The prisoners learn a joy, a compassion and a responsibility that can come only from raising and training a dog, as well as skills that can help them find a new passion and perhaps a job.

Repeated over and over – this program becomes a win-win-win program for the community. The county taxpayers win by killing one less healthy adoptable dog, the inmate wins by gaining new insight and confidence in their own ability to make a difference and the family wins by being rewarded with a wonderful lifetime family pet.

The dog, already scheduled to die, is the BIG winner as he settles in and becomes adoptable. Some lucky local family gets to adopt a well-trained dog that, just a few weeks before, would have been put to death merely for being unwanted. The shelter reduces the numbers of dogs killed every year (which totals in the thousands).

Meet Bonnie, a sweet, loving boxer mix. Bonnie has a long permanent scar that runs down the length of her back probably the result of an acid burn. Despite whatever abusive happened to this sweet girl in the past she holds no grudges towards humans. She certainly wasn’t bashful in sharing a whole bunch of kisses when extended a friendly hand.

The sad reality is the person who abused Bonnie was never caught and never punished, yet Bonnie faced an uncertain future on the streets and a predictable death at our county shelter. Fortunately, Sheriff Conway saw Bonnie walking down the road and brought her to cell Block 1-C where she too was given a “Second Chance”.

After completing her training Bonnie was adopted by her handler. Not only is Bonnie in a better place but her trainer has gained new insight on himself as well. Bonnie is now able to love and be loved – that’s all a dog really needs.

It’s tempting to think about whether the lives of these young men and women would be forever changed if the opportunity to volunteer for animal welfare programs had been promoted prior to their run ins with the law. Are we doing enough with helping our next generation find their rightful place in society rather then punishing them when they fall?

Many of these “un adoptables” include the misunderstood pit bull that has been maliciously exploited by the media, politicians and even the national animal rights groups as well. All have set standards, passed laws and made adoption requirements that are all but impossible to meet.

Many are the much-maligned “pit bulls” who Shelter Director Lt. Respess describes as the “most common breed at the shelter”. Sadly, they are also the first to be killed as well.

Over the years our animal welfare policies that are supposed to advocate and protect our homeless pets has evolved into a policy of justifying the best we can do is provide them with a humane death.

While not all dogs chosen for the program are pits, they do share a common trait of being targeted for failure with a faulty temperament-testing program implemented at the shelter.

Those who fail this test are labeled as un adoptable expediting their fate with a certain death. Gwinnett Shelter uses an overly broad, meaningless definition of “un adoptable” or places unrealistic demands on potential adopters who would take a pet that the shelter otherwise would kill.

They ignore the fact that people want to help saving the life of a pet who someone else failed to love and protect.

Meet Jake

Jake is a border collie, red in color with white spots and white feet. Although blind in one eye this does noty stop him. Jake is full of energy, and is a very loyal dog who understands all his commands. Many of night Jake would his head on my lap and fall a sleep with one eye open.

Shelters with leadership or staff that is lazy tend to bend the unadoptable curve in the direction of how many dogs they simply want to kill. Eventually, the measurement becomes meaningless. Eventually good obedient dogs like Jake fall victims to this curve as well.

This systematic destruction is done under the guise of “public safety” but are these “killers” really the danger they are made out to be? Are these dogs “too dangerous” or not capable of being “socialized”?

Sadly the life saving programs not implemented by shelter management leave killing as the only viable but repugnant option for these dogs. Programs that would encourage moving trainable dogs into volunteer foster homes (off site fostering) or bringing in volunteers and experts for training to help socialize shelter dogs (improving adoptability) are noticeably lacking in the shelter’s “life saving” arsenal.

There is enough compassion, caring, kindness and love in our community to overcome the obstacles these special needs dogs face. Operation Second Chance” proves that kindness exists and that it does make the difference in placing these dogs back into the community rather then simply killing them.

We need to shift our community focus from excuses that kill to life saving solutions that nurture’s our compassion instead. With an emphasis on problem solving rather casting blame a goal of saving 100% of healthy dogs and cats can be a reality almost overnight.

Assisting and rehoming dogs and cats should be the only missions of shelters – especially those who function with the publics trust and tax dollars.

On sunnier days I envision a community that incorporates animal welfare programs that saves animal lives with volunteer programs directed at misguided young men and/or troubled young woman that help them visualize their future before they end up part of our penal system.

A system where our next generation saves the lives of animals facing death who in return save the lives of our next generation facing no future. They give each other hope – they become each other’s salvation as well.

Shelters need to be seen – not heard….

Animal advocacy and humane work have proceeded for years between the recognition of the need to be effective, enthusiastic outreach programs, and a tendency towards depressed and embittered self-isolation. We have been programmed not to speak ouit against the atrocities of killing in the hopes that a “few more” can be saved.

Unfortunately, throughout most of this time marked by the sounds of silence from the advocacy community has been drowned out by shelter management perceived or at least to accept – that sheltering responsibility includes an obligation to kill large numbers of animals, many healthy and young, others grievously neglected or abused. Transferring grief and guilt by blaming the public has become a time honored excuse to institutionalize the killing mechanism.

The “Second Chance” program proves that even the worst of the worst, like Ernie, like Bonnie, like Jake, are all adoptable if they are simply placed in a setting where their true qualities are accented.

While a fostering, training, adoption program like the Jail Dogs program will successfully place dozens of otherwise slaughtered pets into new homes an effective volunteer fostering program in our county could save hundreds perhaps thousands of pets that are currently STILL being slaughtered.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett recognizes the significance of off site fostering, an inclusive volunteer program that rewards and encourages community participation while raising awareness of the thousands of wonderful pets needing rescue (from our own shelter system) and a renewed working partnership with the licensed rescue groups in our community. These are the basic steps needed to turn our county into a NO KILL community for our pets.

If untrained inmates can make such a dramatic difference for these jail dogs and give us new hope that with innovative programs aimed at our compassionate community of animals lovers can create life saving miracles too.

Our voices demanding change for ALL the dogs and cats still being slaughtered are needed. We must insist that we have an obligation to explore ALL the life saving options that are available before even considering killing as a last resort.

With the increase in shelter killing in our new shelter mistrust by the public remains endemic among citizens and pet lovers in our community. We don’t want to volunteer for a shelter that kills without rhyme or reason, we don’t want to donate money to a shelter that offers these dogs and cats little hope for survival, we don’t want to visit or adopt knowing that all we leave behind most likely will die.

Spirits are much higher when the public is given hope that these dogs will be rehomed – that there will be a “success story’ at the end. Americans love heroes and they love pets – the Jail House Dog program gives us both.

Stay turned, as We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett moves forward in arming an army of compassionate volunteers with the life saving tools we will use in the future as we build a No Kill Gwinnett for future generations to cherish.

To learn more about other successful jail dogs programs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We92yXNBv80&feature=related

Blood on the Floor

2010-09-01T22:38:00.003-04:00

Well, goodbye world
It's sad but true
Got a date with the hangman
I have to leave you

I barked at my Darlin
three times or more
The reason I'm going is blood on the floor

The nights are so lonely
The days are so long
I'm in the jailhouse
Cause they say I done wrong
I don't say I'm sorry
I just say I'm sore
The reason I'm goin
is blood on the floor
Well, I came here one night
She was lyin'
with her hands around
a big blue gun
She saw me, started laughin
and I cried when I saw her gun

Goodbye world
I guess we must part
They're taking my life
cause I have no sweetheart
I don't say I'm sorry
I just say I'm sore
The reason I'm goin
is blood on the floor

The reason I;m goin
is blood on the floor

What is all this No Kill talk?

2010-09-01T09:00:00.020-04:00

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001).

If today is typical of any other day at Gwinnett Animal Control today will be the last day on earth for a dozen or so dogs and cats who's "number" has come up.

The decision to end a pet's life falls entirely on shelter managements lap. They alone have the ability to choose life by sparing that pets life while exploring every opportunity of finding safe refuge instead. Part of that process is putting into effect policies that promote life rather then focusing on blaming others, including this writer, for their own failed policies.

Since the shelter opened in late 2007 shelter killing has increased by over 30%. In effect, the new management team, led by Gwinnett’s Police Chief Charles Walters, squandered the legacy of departing manager Sam Jeannes by gutting programs and relationships that were already in place.

Lt Respess

Statement from the county web site "With pet overpopulation on the rise, we're proud to report a decrease in incoming animals and an increase in animals placed to individuals and rescue groups through our shelter."

This statement is not only inaccurate but dishonest in the appraisel of our shelter's performance to the public. Shelter intake is not on the decrease and in fact adoptions and the number of pets going to rescue has dropped dramatically.

Instead of continuing on a path of working closely with the rescue community in helping to find resources for the pets that went through the shelter, the new management "team" decided to go after those involved in rescue, especially those who had "more animals" then management felt was appropriate.

Armed with a recently passed draconian animal ordinance that differed in scope with the community's values, it became open season on pet owners. Gwinnett has always been a county where pet owners were only limited with the number of pets they could own by the ability to provide responsible care for each and every one of those pets.

These policies implemented by the new shelter management team are not only increasing the number of animals killed at our shelter but they are a costly, inefficient and ineffective use of tax funding used to support our animal welfare programs.

For the last two years I have been addressing the same issues that plague Gwinnett's Animal Control with policies that only fueled more killing, not less. For two years our political process has squandered any chance of reversing these disturbing trends by failing to address the problems with the changes needed to implement success.

Gwinnett's $8,000,0000 New Shelter

Now, we are facing a cultural difference were the issue has been raised why our shelter management chooses to kill any healthy pet when there are proven alternatives available. That cultural difference is at the heart of a “no confidence” decision for shelter management endorsed by We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett.

The only long term solution to solving this cultural disagreement over WHY we allow our animal control to kill without reason is to push for a change in management, whether that change be though efforts to privatize the shelter or whether that effort simply involves finding a more competent management team.

This process is going to be difficult - there are going to be naysayers who defend the current managements positions that allow them to kill without being questioned. The naysayers will point fingers and place blame – some have even pointed fingers in this author’s direction.

These naysayers will suggest we go back to square one and negotiate with shelter management to try and “do better” or “do more” or even worse “save a few more”, but this writer is no longer willing to settle for saving a few more while with a systematic breakdown has that allows animal control to kill far too many.

As I wrestle with my conscience (yes, I do have one) it has become obvious that the solutions are to demand that the killing of healthy animals must stop. This is not about saving a few more – it’s about saving ALL of the healthy animals that go though our shelter. That is the only animal welfare policy that should be endorsed by a community of compassionate people who understand the role that animals have in our lives.

In reality it is animal controls responsibility to improve their operations so those lucky ten live. It’s our responsibility as advocates to be resolute in fighting for saving ALL the healthy pets. There can be no compromise.

The current director has had plenty of opportunity to change on her own. She has had THREE YEARS to implement her own "life saving" policies and to hold employees accountable for doing their jobs and in that effort she has failed.

She has refused to open up the shelter to volunteers; she has refused to implement an intake procedure that places information and pictures of the animals being killed on the Internet for citizens to see. She has refused to hold her employees accountable for being respectful of citizens who enter the shelter.

She has refused to implement any policies that would lower the dreadful death rate for cats entering the shelter – as if their lives are meaningless. She has refused to meet with all members of the rescue community to provide assurances and support to contradict her early heavy-handed enforcement activity that has effectively prevented many rescue groups from partnering with our shelter.

Instead of an honest dialog on improving the results at the shelter we have received nothing but excuses and dishonest rhetoric. When excuses and dishonest rhetoric fail to quiet those demanding a more responsive life saving results she resorts to the illegal use of threats and intimidation to hide the truth.

Others disagree with my assessment - that is their right. Nonetheless, our group "WE the Pet Owners of Gwinnett" will continue in our role of educating other pet owners on the issues. The fact is, after two years of discussions with shelter there is no common ground where we can agree on to move forward.

Any promise to do better at this late hour is “too little – too late”. We cannot wait in the hopes that things will get better next year or the year after. Thousands of dogs and cats will die in the interim – something we advocates must consider before accepting a compromise that only moves the ball forward a few inches.

An offer to work “more” with rescue or to allow “more” volunteers into our shelter is only something that we are entitled to in the first place. It should be the shelter’s responsibility to work closely with rescue and to have an open transparent volunteer program that allowed for community oversight in the process.

We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett will continue to advocate for the rights of rescuers to follow their passion without fear of retribution or retaliation from animal control. Our decision not to work with current management certainly can't be viewed as part of the problem. We didn't create this problem but do remain steadfast in ending it.

“Indeed, as I suggested earlier, I think we’re in a period of profound change. Governments are going to have to rethink their roles and responsibilities. And the people we serve are going to have to rethink their expectations of government.”
Chairman Bannister’s comments January 2010 “State of the County” speech

Yes, Chairman Bannister, we are going through a period were citizens are demanding profound change. As leaders, your role is to remove the obstacles that prevent us from succeeding in attaining our dreams.

Change never comes easy, it requires the courage to admit that the process is broken and must be fixed. Yet, the reason we elect officials to govern for us to to be resilient in bringing about the change that improves the standards of our lives and makes Gwinnett a better place to live. Failure doesn’t live in Gwinnett – success does.

The question we pose is “why wouldn’t the community be better served with a new shelter manager who is willing to work openly with all responsible pet owners in the community? Aren’t we entitled to the same high standards in lour animal welfare programs as we are to other services supplied by our county?

One of the issues still on the table is the reform of our county’s Animal Advisory Council that will for the first time give a voice to citizens who own pets in making recommendations to improve our animal welfare policies. If you want and expect the private sector to help solve some of the county’s problems then you need to provide them the tools to do that job.

Everyone who has looked at this issue agrees that the current animal advisory council doesn’t serve the interest of the community but instead functions only to buffer and excuse poor policies and lack of service that results.

Support No Kill Gwinnett by using your voice in demanding more from our political authorities who continue to look the other way while thousands and thousands of animals continue to die.

It’s one thing to use a promise of lowering our shelter’s kill rate as a political platform but it’s entirely different to ask our politicians to have the leadership backbone to introduce resolutions that require these life saving programs to be put in place.

You improve NOTHING if you do NOTHING – if there’s one thing we all can agree on is our political process has failed the animals in Gwinnett.

If you can’t change the process of failure then you need to change the people who were elected to fulfill those processes. There shouldn’t be any politicians who should feel secure in getting the pet owners votes without listening and acting on our concerns.

Until we change the culture into simply saying NO we won't kill for No reason this senseless killing will continue. As long as the killing continues, “We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett” will continue to advocate for a cultural change to end this senseless practice – that’s what No Kill is all about.

Leave Those Cats Alone

2010-08-29T17:10:00.020-04:00

This poor kitten has little chance of survival

Regardless of whether the cat is the most beloved and pampered pet or the wildest outcast, shelter policies that claim to be based on humane policies view cats without a human home to protect them as feral. Since they have no owner is it better to take them to the shelter and kill them rather then to allow them to survive on their own?

The palace of mirrors were cats are selected
The endless road, cold bloody moons and the wailing of the chimes
The empty rooms were their memories are protected
The angels voices whisper to souls departed from better times

Eden is burning

Either brace yourself for the night

Or your hearts must have the courage

For the changing of the guard - Bob Dylan

Information obtained through open records paints an even more dismal outlook of survival for cats in Gwinnett County. In June of 2010, Gwinnett Animal Control & Enforcement took in 480 cats killing 468 of them. Only 12 cats survived the shelters slaughter.

In other words, the shelter was only “able” to save less then THREE PERCENT of the cats entrusted to their care in the month of June.

Yet, despite these dismal, pathetic numbers there was no discussion whatsoever on addressing this issue at the July 2010 animal advisory meeting. The fact our shelter manager doesn’t consider this wholesale slaughter a “problem” is troubling. The fact that she offers no alternatives paints but another bleak picture of incompetent leadership.

A Glance Back at Feline Death by Numbers

Year End       2007     2008    2009

Clayton          1867     2095     2258

Cobb              3394     4058     4000

Dekalb           1077      1896     1843

Fulton               464        400      565

Gwinnett         3169      4025    4588

Over 10,000 cats have been slaughtered by this animal control administration since opening our new EIGHT MILLION DOLLAR shelter in the fall of 2007.

I use the word slaughter for a reason – any healthy animal who is trapped, captured or stolen and subsequently put into an environment where death is the only outcome has not been rescued, it has not been humanely euthanized – it has been cruelly slaughtered.

I first wrote in June of 2008 about the issue of a rabid shelter plan that aggressively went out picking up wandering cats only to bring them to slaughter in our shelter. My hope was that by raising awareness the compassionate voices in our community would holler and scream for this killing to stop.

Instead, even those voices claiming a stake in protecting cats, including ferals, has been uncharacteristically silent. Instead of condemnation there was but another rash of excuses that not only condoned the killing but allowed it to grow by 50% by year end 2009.

Now, we have reached a point were over 97% of the cats are being killed in one month alone – still no outrage. At what point do we as “No Kill Advocates” justify cutting deals “to save a few more” while turning our backs on the thousands who will die in the process?

Are we so afraid of failure that we have lost our moral voice? This author would rather fight for moral high ground rather then crawl through the dirt and dead carcasses to negotiate with the “terrorists” who are responsible for this slaughter.

Isn’t that what NO KILL ADVOCACY is all about? How do you advocate for “some” or a “few” of the animals? Only Allison Cauthen would do that.

Offering up the key to life and death for so many animals (dogs and cats) simply to grandstand and promise something that is morally offensive while ignoring the silent screams of those who are slaughtered is nothing short of repulsive.

It’s a sell out and one should question the motivation that makes these lives expendable. Can you imagine a situation where a negotiator agreed “give me a few and kill the rest”? This author can’t and won’t.

Frightened by what looms ahead?

Until this shelter administration answers the question “why do we kill healthy animals” this battle for No Kill will continue. The reason they won’t answer is because there isn’t a morally acceptable response to that question except that we don’t have the moral authority to continue taking innocent lives.

What is a feral cat?

You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.
You that never done nothin'
But work to destroy – Masters of War

Though feral cats are members of the domestic cat species and are protected under state anti-cruelty laws, they are typically fearful of people. They are NOT a danger or health risk to the community.

The question that needs to be raised is does our local policy of picking up and killing stray feral cats violate the state’s anti cruelty laws meant to protect them “in their habitats”? We don’t get questions answered by being silent an d looking the other way – we get answers by confronting the abusers and holding them accountable for THEIR actions.

Feral cats live and survive outdoors, yet have no chance of survival and are killed once they reach the shelter.

Of course, there is no moral justification for killing a cat simply because the cat lives in the wild. This fact is backed up with a national opinion poll that shows 81% of Americans who believe it is more humane to leave a stray cat outside to live out her life then have her caught and killed.

Intentionally killing any cat is a criminal offense in all fifty states, regardless of ownership. Yet, when animal control picks up a stray or feral cat knowing that it will be killed upon entering the shelter shouldn’t that be criminal (sanctioned by the very entity empowered to enforce the anti cruelty laws) as well?

Many times these “feral” cats become friendly with the caregiver and decide to come inside after they trust the person. In addition, many cats we help are actually abandoned stray cats who wind up outside through no fault of their own.

The cats that are friendly are the ones we put up for adoption and work hard to find them loving homes. The other truly feral cats are not happy being inside. They prefer to live in their cat colony or environment where they exist.

There are an estimated 50 million feral cats in the United States living in groups known as colonies. Dedicated individuals and organizations practice a non-lethal strategy known as Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) to reduce their numbers and improve the health and safety of cats and communities. With TNR, cats no longer reproduce, and nuisance behaviors are reduced or eliminated.

Without TNR, the majority of feral kittens do not survive to adulthood, and almost 100 percent of the feral cats brought to shelters are killed because they cannot be adopted as pets. –
Feral Cat Program of Georgia

To learn more about the “Feral Cat Program of Georgia”

http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/fcpga.html

Do feral cats have a “right” to live?

Behaviorally speaking the answer again appears to be that feral cats are wild animals and should be treated by animal control as such. We no more have the right to address feral cats through "trap and kill" policies as we do to the wholesale slaughter of other wild animals such as birds, rabbits, squirrels or raccoons.

If a pet cat is abandoned or runs off and gets lost in the woods, has kittens and the kittens that grow up wild because they have no contact with people, are they wild or domestic? Technically, they would be domestic because of domesticated parentage but don't all domesticated cats ultimately come from the wild?

The concept of “rescuing” a cat that has been abandoned by killing it is not only repulsive but immoral. Defining a feral cat as a "nuisance" in the absence of any nuisance behavior is simply an excuse to justify this ignorant behavior.

Society goes to great length to protect "wild animals" with great efforts being placed on "allowing" man to live amongst them. Why are feral cats not afforded those same protections?

The reality is that all animals living in the wild face hardship—and feral cats are no exception. Since no animal groups support the trapping and killing of other wild animals—raccoons, rabbits, fox—why do we reserve this fate for feral cats?

Current shelter policy not only allows for the trapping of cats but animal control condones, supports and encourages this illegal trapping by supplying the traps. Citizens can bait these traps therefore encouraging cats to enter their property where they are captured and delivered to animal control to be killed.

We can argue semantics about whether the cats should be contained but the fact remains for animal control to condone and encourage the illegal trapping and subsequent killing of these cats is not only irresponsible but should be viewed by the community as abuse of power that sanctions animal cruelty.

At the point that OUR animal control participates in the rampant slaughter of any species they lose all credibility in enforcing any of our laws that are designed to protect animals.

The fact remains that the leading cause of death for cats in Gwinnett is not irresponsible pet owners, it’s not pets who die from neglect or abuse but it’s the killing of healthy cats at the hands of the very entity entrusted to protect them from this abuse – animal control.

Since animal control makes no effort to determine whether these cats being turned into the shelter have owners or are truly homeless or are truly feral, a system is put in place that allows and encourages people who dislike cats with an easy option to kill them.

The right to choose death as a “humane alternative” for wild animals?

No time to choose when the truth must die
No time to lose or say goodbye
No time to prepare
For the victims that die
No time to suffer or blink
No time to think

Socialism, Hypnotism, Patriotism, Materialism
Fools making laws for the flapping of jaws
The sounds of the keys as they go clink clink
But there’s still no time to think - from Dylan's No Time to Think

One of the excuses used for killing feral cats is that these animals suffer by being “forced” to live their lives in the wild. Think about that, animal control is ending an animal’s life so it might potentially spare it from future suffering?

In fact, the shelters current “rescue coordinator” has been quoted as saying that “she has no problem with killing all the feral cats that come through the shelter”.

Determining that feral cats can’t lead meaningful lives is not an opinion (since it isn’t a fact it can only be an uneducated opinion) shared by others in the community, especially the dozen of feral cat rescue groups who work diligently to save these precious lives. What gives anyone the right to negotiate away this compassion for saving lives – even feral cats – including those who wave a No Kill Banner?

What chance does this cat have when this is the best our shelter can do in promoting her life?

Kill them she does – that much is a fact. Cats that enter the shelter must pass a unscientific, unproven “temperament test” which identifies their characteristics as domesticated or feral. With the shelter consistently reporting killing nine out of ten cats in either group there doesn’t appear to be much difference in the survival rates of domesticated or feral cats.

The fact remains, those cats determined to be “feral” are killed immediately as opposed to a domesticated cat being held the state mandated period for stray animals. This policy of labeling a cat un adoptable simply because the shelter has determined it is feral defies a state law that states “all stray animals are to be held in order that their owners might reclaim them.

The result of applying this unsupportable policy is that cats misidentified as feral are killed immediately. Thus cats that might have owners, who “test” as feral, are also being illegally killed. There are documented cases where citizens have had their domesticated (yet outside) cats killed simply because they failed an unscientific temperament test administered by an animal control officer who has predetermined that all “wild cats” are better off dead.

The Secret War to Kill Feral Cats

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm dumb
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though you claim I'm dumber than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do. – Bob Dylan

Even the wildest cat can learn to live around humans and may even exhibit pet like behavior to the person who feeds him. Those locally who care for feral cat colonies cats witness cats who rub up against their legs and even perhaps purr, just like pet cats. Don't mistake their aloofness as being a symptom of a dangerous nuisance animal.

Contrary, even the most pampered house cat that escapes and runs loose in the wild can survive with the deftness of the most voracious raccoon, rabbit, squirrel or other wild animal. Wouldn't that cat deserve the same respect and rights of survival as any wild animal?

We cannot continue with punitive enforcement that includes rounding up feral cats. This only discourages compassionate citizens from caring for these homeless cats. It also drives caretakers “underground” making them harder to reach and help.

If a person is feeding feral or homeless cats, they will be loathe to turn to the shelter for low cost spay/neuter help, rabies vaccinations or other support because doing so not only the entire feral colony of risk even though doing so does not violate any of the counties leash laws, pet limits or licensing requirements.

Why does Gwinnett Animal Control view an un-owned cat’s life as a series of brutal experiences? Are our policies enforced to "protect" these cats from future suffering? How do we justify using our animal control policies to systematically slaughter animals who are guilty of nothing more then being animals surviving in the wild?

Ultimately, while there are no leash law requirements for cats, there are state and local laws that protect animals that live in the wild from citizens who might choose to capture and kill them – yet – our animal control policies not only condone and participate in these “acts of cruelty” but perform the final act of taking an animals life at the very shelter financed with our tax dollars.

A law that should protect them from acts of cruelty was ignored over 4,500 times in 2009 alone. While the numbers are staggering the concept of visualizing the size involved in stacking 4,500 dead cats is mind boggling – and depressing.

Ninety cats EVERY week were killed in 2009 alone.

The palace of mirrors were cats are selected
The endless road, cold bloody moons and the wailing of the chimes
The empty rooms were their memories are protected
The angels voices whisper to souls departed from better times

Eden is burning
Either brace yourself for the night
Or your hearts must have the courage of the changing of the guard - Bob Dylan

To be effective, cat lovers and No Kill advocates, must confront those responsible – rather then ignore the excuses that legitimize this killing.

With a 50% increase in feline killing from 2007 to 2009 we can no longer ignore the excuses used to slaughter cats in our community. While this author is NOT a cat person the numbers alone scream out for reform. We must put an end to the feline policies that allow this mass killing to continue. This open season on cats can’t be negotiated away – it must be stopped.

The Economics of Running a Slaughterhouse

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
War can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the blood
That runs down your drain.

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death toll gets higher
You hide in your shelter
As the innocent blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to allow feral cats
To exist in this world
For threatening their babies
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins. – author’s adaptation of Dylan

We have a shelter management team that enjoys killing – is addicted to the power that killing represents – that is why things never get any better at our new EIGHT MILLION dollar shelter that should be called what it is – a slaughterhouse for displaced animals.

There are more sinister reasons for the excessive slaughter of cats in our county.

It’s all about funding, job security and the county making a profit off the suffering of innocent animals. Think about this – if we weren’t able to substantiate – or pump up our kill numbers coming out of our new shelter wouldn’t we citizens demand downsizing the animal control staffing and budget?

It is that “fear” of downsizing that drives our current management team – run by the Gwinnett Police Department - that refuses to even acknowledge that killing isn’t even necessary. What size budget would be needed to handle an animal control services unit that welcomed volunteers, welcomed partnerships with the rescue community and worked diligently towards rapidly moving animals out of the shelter ALIVE rather then turn them into ashes and dust?

Since we have an absence of proactive management that seeks to improve operations, we are left with a lazy unsupervised staff that works hard at doing nothing to save lives or save the taxpayers money. Not only do we taxpayers receive lousy or no service for our tax dollars. We are repeatedly punished and accused of being part of the problem.

A few months ago the Gwinnett Police Department put in for a rate increase for those who surrendered an animal to the shelter. In our compassionate community this rate increase would have been welcomed IF the result was the animals being surrendered were offered opportunities to be adopted or placed into qualified rescue groups. Instead, we have a policy were owner surrenders are routinely killed almost immediately after arriving at the shelter. It has become profitable or a cost savings to kill these pets as soon as possible so that the money collected can go into the police department’s general fund.

Think about how much money is collected by duped pet owners who think their contribution will help their pet find a new home? It’s outrageous that these animals are killed for no good reason except we have policies in effect that reward expedient killing for profit.

"We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett" demand an end to the policy of killing ANY owner surrender until every effort at placing them safely has been explored. If they enter the shelter without shot records the shelter should use the money paid by pet owners to vaccinate these pets and make them available for adoption or rescue.

“Regardless of whether or not you’re a “cat person”, taxpayers around Atlanta spend over $15 Million taxpayer dollars each year dealing with homeless animals. Research proves that killing animals does not effectively reduce the number of homeless pets, including feral cats. Only spay/neutering and in the case of feral cats “Trap-Neuter-Release” has been the only proven success in controlling feral cat population numbers.” - Alley Cat Rescue

With a substantial portion of our animal control budget being allocating at “cracking down” on “stray cats” this is an area where long term cost savings can be realized by simply implementing a more effective, HUMANE feline cat policy.

That is why “We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett” advocates for ALL animals to have an equal right to live. We will not accept saving a few while ignoring the critical masses simply because current management is feeling the heat of our criticism and complaints.

This is all about “too little – too late”, we no longer have any confidence that the current leadership can be trusted to work in any honest partnership with the rescue community. We not only support “regime change” but will aggressively push for that needed change. There are compassionate leaders in our animal welfare community who share our dreams and goals that this killing must and can stop.

Working side by side with a killing mentality is not an option we will support. Through education we will arm an army of compassionate soldiers to engage in this change. It is this author’s belief that once the citizens of Gwinnett are presented with the facts they alone will make the right compassionate choice on how our community moves forward in our relationship with our homeless pets.

We must unify and must speak out loudly demanding NEW MANAGEMENT. No more excuses – no more wholesale slaughter of the innocent.

While the shelter industry claims to be in continuous development,
So are the tempers of it’s citizens. – I said that

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul. - Dylan

Please use YOUR voice to defend the lives of the innocent who continue to be slaughtered.
Citizens in our community who agree with my comments are encouraged to let their voices be heard by contacting their elected commissioner - here's the contact information. Phone messages work too.

Gwinnett Police Department
Chief Charlie Walters
770 513 5000
Charles.Walters@gwinnettcounty.com

Animal Advisory Board
Gail Leberge Chairperson and Lawrenceville Kennel Club

outland@laberge.org
Shelter Manager
Mary Lou Repress New Shelter Director

Mary.Respess@gwinnettcounty.com
Gwinnett County Commissioners
Commission Chairman:

Charles Bannister
770.822.7010
Charles.Bannister@gwinnettcounty.com

District 1 Commissioner: Shirley Lassiter
770.822.7001
Shirley.Lassiter@gwinnettcounty.com

District 2 Commissioner: Bert Nasuti
770.822.7002
Bert.Nasuti@gwinnettcounty.com

District 3 Commissioner: Mike Beaudreau
770.822.7003
Mike.Beaudreau@gwinnettcounty.com

District 4 Commissioner: Kevin Kenerly
770.822.7004
Kevin.Kenerly@gwinnettcounty.com

Urgency of Death has No Honor

2010-08-15T12:59:00.302-04:00

With Death Awaiting this sad soul

All animals that enter our shelter deserve a process where each has a chance of either being reunited with their family or placed in the safety of a new home. That safety net could be through adoption right out of the shelter or by finding a suitable rescue group willing to take them in.

In today's multi tasking environment rescue groups work tirelessly on the goal of saving shelter pets from high kill shelters located throughout the state. With so many homeless pets in the Atlanta area critically needing help - time and space are at a premium.

Rescue groups learn how to wisely use their time and resources in order to benifit as many as pets as possible. With the new role that the Internet and social networking play in our business and private affairs the rescue community has come to rely on these communication mechanism's as well to "get the word out."

Two of the most widely used sites are Facebook and Petfinders. In working with either or both of these venue's progressive shelters are able to rapidly communicate a shelter's "urgent" needs, especially when it comes to dogs or cats that are facing death. These are called an "Urgent List".

To accomplish this minimal goal of promoting a shelter pet throughout the community certain standards must be written into a shelter intake and exit procedures. Every dog and cat that enters the shelter, whether it be a stray or owner surrender, should have an ID number assigned, a pen or kennel location, a picture for identification and information about that pet, sex, approximate age and size along with any other information that might help with the placement process. The reality is if you perform this step right and provide useful information on either Petfinders or Facebook others can pass that information on through "crossposting". This gives a shelter and the pet maximum coverage.

Nine out ten cats will die

That would be the goal or Breakthrough Thinking (which would move the community closer towards a "No Kill Gwinnett) that would develop a process where these standards were met, not just some of the time, but each and every time a pet entered the shelter.

Ultimately, this process would not only provide pet owners with the service they are entitled to but would lower the costs associated with animal control as well.

Currently, Gwinnett animal control uses two data bases to list the dogs and cats held at the shelter. One listing is the Gwinnett County Animal Control website (maintained by the county) and a Petfinders site maintained by animal control. Neither are remotely accurate, alike or kept up to date. What the consumer is left with is a confusing malfunctioning process that leads to more killing.
While the county site has more information, pictures and the date available - that information is suspect because there doesn't seem to be a process of removing pets that aren't at the shelter and the website itself is out of date. Petfinders is easier to access but critical information like a picture and release date are lacking. It too seems to have many pets who aren't even at the shelter anymore.

Gwinnett's dysfunctional animal advisory council (GAAC) has studied this issue for sixteen months without any sense of urgency. For the thousands of dogs and cats senselessly killed during this period, this couldn't be further from the truth.

The Urgency of an Urgent List

The issue of developing an urgent list for pets needing reclaim or adoption was first addressed at the Gwinnett Animal Advisory Council's (GAAC) April 21, 2009 meeting.

GAAC board member, Carla Brown, talked about "increasing cooperation with rescues" by creating an urgent list (to compete with all the other shelters who do) of dogs and cats at the shelter, and providing details of available dogs and cats on Petfinders. With the number of pets going to rescue having dropped by over 30% this would be a crucial step needed to bring more rescue groups into our new shelter.

July 21, 2009 GAAC meeting

Council (GAAC) members agreed there is a need for creating a list of animals, with their information and picture, that are scheduled to be killed in a few days. This list needs to be visible by network to reach more people and organizations that could adopt or take one or more of these animals. The information needs to be sent to the organizations or people or accessable rather then having them having to come to the shelter.

This list should also provide timely information for local pet owners as well seeking to find lost pets as well. In attendance was shelter rescue coordinator Officer Chris Hughes.

GAAC Chair Gail Laberge recommended a committee be set up consisting of Carla Brown, Dennis Kronenfeld and Rescue Coordinator Officer Hughes to get the urgent list up and running.

The purpose of any committee should be to identify a problem but more importantly to seek out a solution. All three accepted the task.

Dekalb Animal Control puts out this information on it's pets awaiting reclaim or adoption.

Hello. My name is Sunshine. I am a beautiful and sweet young male orange and white cat. I am about 7 months old. I was turned into the shelter by my former owner who was moving and said she could not take me with her. The people at the shelter said that deserve someone who will love me forever and take me with them no matter where they go. I am a great boy. Please consider adopting me.

Sunshine's intake date: 4/16/2010

Lost and stray animals are held at Dekalb Animal Services for five (5) business days in order to give their owners a chance to reclaim them. After that time period, adoptable animals are held as long as space allows.

Gwinnett's Broken Process leads to broken dreams

The GGAC meeting scheduled on October 21 2009 was canceled due to a mix up in scheduling - there was no quorum, however Officer Hughes was in attendance.

A solution would have to wait until the next year.

January 19, 2010 GAAC meeting

Discussion of urgent list - Dennis Kronefeld, Carla Brown, Chris Hughes

Dennis Kronefeld, who represents feline interests, commented that he didn't see an urgent list working for Gwinnett Animal Shelter. With the shelter killing nine out of ten cats that enter the shelter Dennis offered nothing in it's place. This is an interesting surrender to change a broken process especially in light of his own rescue group's reliance on Petfinders to place their adoptable pets.

Officer Hughes did not attend the meeting nor was there any indication that she offered any input on the issue. Her absence and lack of interest was not explained, nor should it have been acceptable for a critical aspect of her job responsibility that is so obviously lacking.

Carla Brown, who works closely with others in the rescue community, commented she thinks it can work and would bring recommendations to the called meeting on March 2nd (2010).

Such a defeatist and lackadaisical attitude by two crucial members of this committee before seriously researching the issue is telling with the need to reform the GAAC. This attitude does not explain how other shelters like Fulton County are able to provide a mountain of timely information about all of it's dogs and cats needing rescue. The fact is Gwinnett is one of few major county's that doesn't provide access to this crucial information.

With support from only one of the three committee members, with the other two bored with the discussion, things would only get worse for the dogs and cats urgently needing an urgent list.. The "Urgent List" was about to die a horrible death.

March 16 2010 GAAC meeting

Urgent list - Carla Brown is putting together and will give to Chris Hughes (once again Hughes was not in attendance even though she still was assigned to this committee). Carla also commented that beginning May 1st (2010) Gwinnett AC will receive new software that will make an urgent list easier to implement and maintain. Dennis Kronefeld offered had no input on the discussion.

April 20 2010 GAAC meeting

Urgent list - Carla is working on an email format with a cute picture of the animal and a detailed description of the animals personality and facts about the animal. Carla suggested that volunteers could come to the shelter and take several shots of the animals in a variety of locations, other then cages to better capture their personalities.

Once again, Dennis offered no comments or suggestions and Officer Hughes didn't bother to attend.

Will YOU help me - do YOU care?

Since successful implementation would require input and cooperation from her department her failure to show an interest in this discussion dooms any process that the council might recommend. With no explanation or excuse coming from her boss, the shelter director, one can assume that the issue of providing timely information to the community on pets needing rescue is urgent with management either. The reality is this crucial step should be part of any intake procedure performed not by volunteers, but by the person in charge of checking animals in.

The bottom line is that not only do these lists increase the number of pets rescued but they save the taxpayers money. It costs LESS money to send pets back to their owners or to rescue then it does to hold and kill them. This is one of many reasons why "We the Pet Owners of Gwinnett" has no confidence in the shelter's current management team.

July 20 2010 GAAC meeting

The lack of urgency in developing a communication tool for pets facing death at our shelter dies a horrible death as the "Urgent List" is dropped from the GAAC meeting agenda. This despite a shelter report of over 60% of all dogs and cats being killed at the shelter in the previous month.

This wouldn't be the first time that GAAC Chair Laberge dropped a shelter discussion issue that didn't effect her "AKC world view" of our county's animal welfare issues. Laberge represents breeders in our community who in effect compete for the same homes that as shelter pets - is it any wonder why she's not enthused about promoting competition?

The GAAC admits defeat, agrees that the solution others have implemented is far too complicated for our shelter and that the alternative of killing these nameless pets is an attractive alternative.

The fact that management can not see the connection of extremely pathetic kill numbers and a lack of urgency in providing minimal information on the animals THEY are killing suggests they simply have accepted killing as a logical conclusion for a majority of pets they are entrusted to care for.

This low level of service is not only unacceptable by any community standards but costly and wasteful of the resources provided as well - including our county's multi MILLION dollar investment in a new shelter.. What's really sad is in the old shelter under the previous shelter manager we provided more information and more cooperation with the community then what we have now.

So, we are left with the age old question - what are the metrics of communication provided by those operating our animal control department. From the county's web site it is stated:

The Gwinnett Police Department operates the Animal Shelter to enforce animal control laws and to shelter animals that have strayed, gotten lost, or been turned over for adoption. With pet overpopulation on the rise, we're proud to report a decrease in incoming animals and an increase in animals placed to individuals and rescue groups through our shelter.

The problem with this statement is not only is it downright inaccurate - the shelter is NOT reporting a DECREASE in incoming animals (as reported in Dismantling the Killing Machine) the number of cats entering the shelter is UP by 50% and the number of dogs entering the shelter is UP by 20% from our old shelter.

There is NOT an increase in adoptions and the number of animals placed in rescue is DOWN by over 30 % for the last three years . If the shelter can't be honest with it's appraisal on these critical issues why should we believe them with any statements they make?

Breakthrough Thinking - the solution is obvious

Please, before it's TOO LATE?

Breakthrough thinking doesn't require reinventing the wheel to solve every problem a shelter might face. In fact, in this case, the solution might be as simple as evaluating the current process for intake and outtake on animals that go through the shelter to determine whether that process is being followed. If the process needs to be rewritten then the answer might be as simple as contacting other shelters like Dekalb or Fulton (or a number of other shelters) and asking for their process and input on implementing an Urgent Notification system.

Breakthrough Thinking requires a willingness to ADMIT that there are problems - problems that are easily overcome. A basic premise that anyone can break out of self-defeating, traditional modes of reasoning once these accept that change is inevitable. We will not change nor will we see improvement until we recognize the urgency for this change.

Still The Band Played On

2010-08-12T13:25:00.005-04:00

Still The Band Played On

This blog was created with a purpose of informing local pet owners on the laws and rights of pet ownership in our county. It is presents a vision of how we can work together in reducing the number of pets who are senselessly killed in our new shelter when life saving alternatives do exist.

There is a paradigm of killing that is embraced by those who control our animal welfare policies who are resistant, down right stubborn, to any suggestions of change that would focus on life saving alternatives instead.

While history has praised the band that went down with the Titantic as heroes, there are no heroes for those who defend the the practice of killing innocent yet homeless animals.

Initially, the focus of my writing was to protect all of my hounds from the county’s attempt to include their lives as part of any plea bargain with the court. There has never been a reasonable explanation why a first offense, amounting to three minutes of barking, could send me to jail for twelve years. Instead, this type of "behavior by the court" was used to extort a guilty plea in exchange for the lives of ten of my hounds.

For my role in speaking out, I have paid a heavy price, including the loss of my freedom, I was was sentenced to thirty days in jail for “violating probation” which ultimately lead to the death of one of my beloved hounds Bam Bam.

That type of sentencing extreme would be common for violent criminals, drug offenders, sexual predators or even white collar criminals but for three minutes barking offenses?

Since the solicitor never presented any evidence of my incident being anything more then a first offense, the county attorney's office should have offered a nolo plea, with a reasonable fine, which I probably would have accepted. Had we reached an agreement the county would have come out ahead as opposed to opening up the vault in a desperate attempt to punish me.

Instead, the case mutated into a costly nightmare that included several pre trial hearings, a full blown trial (Dog Barking Case of the Century) covered by the media, which lead to a finding of guilt and a sentence of two years jail time (served on probation) and that my property be “brought into compliance with all zoning codes within 45 days”. In the end the county emerged battered and bruised in the court of public opinion, the hounds became heroes oblivious to all the new found fame..

I was content with an outcome that didn’t include the court placing a “pet limit” on my property. Judge Muise did correctly rule that doing so would amount to the court invoking zoning requirements, which is outside of the courts juristiction. Nor did the court include any fines due the county.

The county attorney's office wasn’t content on simply silencing the hounds. Instead, an effort was made to silence me as well. I was told that as a part of my two year probation term I would be prohibited from speaking out, either verbally or through my writing, with any negative comments about the solicitor’s office, animal control or any of the witnesses who testified in my case. Those witnesses included Lilburn City Councilman and tax cheat Eddie Price).

As an advocate and a writer these conditions were clearly not acceptable. There has never been any precedence that would include surrendering one's first amendment right to "free speech" for a misdemeanor offense Clearly, the lengthy probation term was more about silencing me as opposed to “bringing peace and tranquility" to a neighborhood that has overwhelmingly supported the hounds.

While one would assume that attempts at limiting discussions on governmental policies might be expected in some third world areas where oppression rules the land, one should be outraged that the "law of our land" would include such outrageous conditions. Since I also intended on changing the nuisance barking law that was used to manipulate my case, this condition was tempered but ignored.

Once the hounds were safe, I moved forward with having the barking law changed. There were a number of issues in the old law that clearly violated pet owners rights, including the issue that allowed citizens to file a criminal complaint with no policing agency being required to investigate whether a crime had indeed been committed. Nowhere in the constitution are citizens granted such broad policing powers.

The other changes involved requiring complainants to actually live nearby where the alleged complaints were filed. Both witnesses in my case, realtor Porter and Councilman Price lived several miles away with their only interests being rental property they owned.

Finally, the sentencing guidelines that allow animal control and more importantly the animal advocating attorney who wrote the law to threaten and extort pet owners into surrendering their family pets or go to jail had to be removed in it’s entirety. This is the area where I went nose to nose with our self proclaimed animal advocating attorney who not only wrote the previous law but wanted to strengthen any new law by limiting barking where any dog that barked six times for thirty seconds would be a violation of the ordinance.

Animal advocacy is, in a certain sense, standing up to tell true life

stories that are not being heard; true life stories that most people are

ignoring. The first step in animal advocacy is to help people see things

differently. Animals are somebody, not something. - Tom Regan

The public saw through this madness and sided with the barking provisions recommended by "We the Pet Owners. With her law now extinct it became clear that the county attorney’s office and the court was not happy with my involvement in rebuking her idea of advocating for animals by sending them to our high kill shelter simply because they bark.

No longer could she build her career by sending innocent dogs and cats to animal control despite her claims "where they would be adopted". Had she ever bothered to really get her "hands dirty" by investigating the truth on the fate of animals entering our shelter, especially our new shelter, she would have realized that for most this was a death sentence. While it may be understandable that animals living in "squalor" might be better off dead (something I don't advocate for) hounds who are living in a responsible, loving home would never be better off dead.

Maybe, she was upset because I hurt her feelings.

Instead of thanking me for streamlining the court process and saving the county money by having these cases resolved through mediation my efforts were instead greeted with six attempts to revoke my probation for much mundane offenses like failure to pay probation fees of $129 and for alerting the county tax office of Councilman Price’s fraudulent claim of a homestead exemption on property he owned nearby.

The county attorney’s office proceeded with six attempts to revoke my probation including attempts to. One would assume that the courts would focus on jailing violent offenders that present a danger to the community, especially during an economic downturn that has many fellow citizens struggling financially. In fact, even when presented with prior Supreme Court rulings (Georgia vs Bearden) where the court upheld the Fourteenth amendment which prohibits incarcerating citizens simply because they have an inability to pay fines or fees.

In that ruling, the court suggested that non violent offenders be offered alternatives to jail not limited to changing fines or fees over to community service instead. My repeated attempts at offering to pay back “restitution” with community service were denied.

This makes absolutely no sense, of course, in lieu of recent studies by “Engage Gwinnett” that point out the cost of incarcerating a person to taxpayers is about $45 a day – thirty days incarceration comes at a cost of $1,350. Even with the good time provisions that allowed me to “only” serve 15 days the cost to taxpayers was $675 – for a failure to pay Sentinel Offender Services $474 in fees – none of which were due the county of Gwinnett.

Since when does the court have a responsibilty to improve the bottom line for a private company like Sentinel by acting as a collection agent with tactics one would expect from the mob - not our courts.
Anyone else who used threats and intimidation to collect money would be charged with a RICO violation.

These are the facts in my case – even though my case is officially over – even though I have no further business with the court – the court is now attempting to intimidate me from speaking out about my dreadful experience. This has never been about seeking justice for something the hounds may have done – it’s about punishing me for my dissent.

On July 28th I wrote an entry that explained how our court case was now over with the following article which was only initially released to the rescue community.

http://by20hounds.blogspot.com/2010/07/dog-barking-case-ends-with-30-jail.html

Sittin' and starin' out of the hotel window.

Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again

I'd like to get some sleep before I travel,

But if you got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in. –

Words from Grateful Dead – “Trucking”

This article was released early in the morning. Within the hour two animal control trucks pulled up wanting to “inspect my house”. I simply informed animal control's "cruelty officer" that the court case was over, probation was over (which never included allowing inside inspections of my home since the barking incident occurred outside) and that absent any proof of a specific cruelty or neglect complaint there would be no inside inspection of the hounds or my property.

The law is clear on this, policing agencies are required to attain warrants before storm trooping your home, looking under your bed, rifling through your belongings, invading the sancity of your home looking for alleged criminal activity with no prior proof that a crime has or will be committed.

Further, AC was advised that if they were truly concerned about issues with the hounds they could simply go to FACEBOOK (like everybody else) where I have shared dozens of pictures of the hounds inside our “castle’ and that was as close as they would get. The truth be known, why would I trust the judgment of animal.control with a history of being complacent with killing?

Our shelter director can not explain why she choose to send two trucks with two officers who spent at least two hours “investigating” my property simply because of something I wrote on a blog. This is an abuse of power which she should be held accountable for, especially since she has repeatedly claimed she can’t implement programs that save lives at the shelter she manages because the citizens in our community don’t give her the resources needed to do the job. She has the resources; she simply squanders these resources in her attempts to punish anyone who has the nerve to hold her accountable.

One would think that would be the end of those in positions of making responsible decisions on spending resources that should be directed towards the real crime issues we face in Gwinnett. Tuesday morning I answered a call from someone who identified himself as an “Officer of the Court” who wanted to discuss comments I had written on my blog.

After pointing out that all of the comments I had written were protected under the first amendment and after he assured me I wouldn’t be arrested for those comments I agreed to meet him outside to clear up any questions he might have.

According to the two officers who showed up, a court clerk had brought this posting to the attention of the court as “threatening” and they just wanted to make sure I had no intentions of being “violent”. It was pointed out that there was nothing in the post were threats were made that could even remotely be viewed as threats as opposed to what appeared to be one more desperate attempt to silence my comments by intimidation.

What bothers me is why would the court assign a clerk to monitor private emails I have written in the first place? Would they prefer I send them an advance copy for their review?

Since this happened early in the morning with the court in session I would assume the court could find more productive duties. Not only was the court clerk’s time a waste and abuse of the court system but to send two officers to my house when they had my cell number where any misconceptions could be cleared up is mystifying. This isn't about justice, it's about protecting personal agenda's and appeasing political special interests.

Anyone smarter then a fifth grader would be able to see that the only weapon I have ever used is my keyboard. The only way I’ll give up my keyboard is when the county pries it from my cold dead fingers.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

Thomas Jefferson

The right to dissent is a core value and foundation with which our country was founded.

All the flag waving in the world doesn’t make us free if we are intimidated against speaking out against those who are supposed to uphold the law. The court is free to answer why they deemed this case so important to proceed in the irresponsible manner as they have.

Over the years I have volunteered over 5000 hours of my time trying to place hounds in homes. Still I am saddened by the fact I no longer feel safe living in this community. While I do feel safe inside my home I certainly don’t feel safe outside. How ironic that it’s not the fear of being victimized by a criminal element that concerns but instead a fear I now have for our county government instead. Love my country but fear my government.

It should be obvious that these latest acts of desperation from the court and from the leader of animal control come from those who are trying to protect that power to kill - acts of desperation coming from an obsolete killing mechanism that's sinking faster then the Titanic. With a ship hell bent on killing sinking fast, this band of characters still plays on.

We have two political positions on the fate of animals sent to animal control being actively discussed in our community. Those who want to protect a paradigm of killing that is embraced by animal control, our county attorney’s office and the court and those who want to change the focus to proven life saving alternatives instead.

The question for those on the fence is what side of the issue do you want to end up on? The side that will continue to abuse their power in a feeble attempt to bale out the water on a sinking ship OR the many No Kill Advocates who are offering life boats to anyone who is willing to abandon this killing philosophy.

Your typical city involved in a typical daydream

Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.

Sometimes the cards ain't worth a damn, if you don't lay'em down and play your hand.,

I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin',

Get out of the door and light out and look all around - Grateful Dead

One would assume that these recent threats would cause me to throw down my “axe” in disgust but in doing so I would dishonor all of the brave souls who through the years fought and died to keep this country free.

For those dumber then a fifth grader, an “axe” is British slang for a “tool used to create words that cut deep”, no violence intended there either.

Now, excuse me while I answer the door…. It’s the band still playing on….. disconnected.

Breakthrough Thinking - A No Kill Gwinnett

2010-08-10T08:52:00.001-04:00

Shelter's killing dogs and cats by the thousands... the rest of the story

To get a community on track requires a spark – sometimes borne of anger, other times of compassion, most of the time from a combination of the two – Nathan Winograd

Breakthrough Thinking - A No Kill Gwinnett

The key to any effective solution lies in the approach to the specific problem at hand. The essential, straightforward process of “Breakthrough Thinking” involves a meaningful organization of the purposes you seek to achieve.

If the shelter’s purpose is to efficiently kill homeless dogs and cats as a standard operating procedure then it could be determined that there is no problem that needs corrected for they are already quite efficient in that operation.

One question that remains unanswered is “what are the metrics or standard operating procedures that the police department uses to evaluate the shelter’s performance?

If the SOP calls for efficient use of killing to control costs then the leadership is performing there jobs admirably.

Breakthrough Thinking would seek to identify the purpose of animal services in the broadest possible purpose level, to not kill any healthy treatable dogs or cats, with development of a feasible target solution from a variety of alternatives.

Under breakthrough thinking the goal, not killing any healthy, treatable animals would always remain the same with only the targeted solutions changing. By working backward to develop a creative change (from killing over 60% of healthy, treatable animals) in the problem situation, you can evolve toward your solution goal.

Breakthrough thinking offers an exceptionally productive approach to problem solving and problem prevention. Its basic premise is that anyone can break out of self-defeating, traditional modes of reasoning (kill traditionalists) and break through to find revitalizing, consistent positive “No Kill” solutions to the problems he or she confronts.

What breakthrough thinking does require is a willingness to admit that there is a problem. If we want to stop killing healthy pets then we must first admit that killing healthy pets is wrong.

Once identified as a problem (killing) a solution or need for change becomes the dream or goal. At this moment, we face several problems – nine out of ten cats being killed, owner surrender’s being killed, dogs with socialization issues being killed, puppies and kittens being killed – that are not at all unusual nor daunting in complexity.

Life is an ongoing struggle. The purpose of solving problems and accomplishing legitimate dreams isn’t to remove them, but to give meaning and direction to the struggle.

Ours is a struggle for No Kill. It’s a struggle much too important not to succeed.

Yet simply talking about change, the future and emerging dreams does not ensure results. Everyone agrees that change is constant, that today’s choices create tomorrow’s future, and that we have many options in developing solutions to fulfill that dream. One thing is certain, if we continue using the same failed practices we can predict a future of only killing as well.

We have compelling reasons for following in the footsteps of other progressive communities that have successfully implemented No Kill parameters. We have seen the depths of frustration that our current shelter model delivers. Yet, there are reasons to be optimistic about the immensely productive changes that lie ahead.

Successfully implementing life saving procedures will make us feel good about ourselves – both as a community of compassionate pet owners and as people who respect all life as sacred.

The importance of “Breakthrough Thinking” cannot be overestimated. We will not solve the complex problems that have been allowed to accumulate through the years by attempting to fix blame. Every day we chase down these phantom causes we miss another opportunity in addressing the real problems instead. .

Our shelter has a duty to one thing only; the homeless animals being killed there.

It will be your voice, silenced no more, and your heart that will march our community into this promise land where the killing of the innocent will end.

Steps for No Kill Success

I. Feral Cat TNR Program – TNR refers to “Trap-Neuter-Release” or “Trap-Neuter-Return.” Gwinnett Animal Control is killing close to 100 cats a week – establishing a working trap/neuter/release program with the rescue community is crucial to establishing No Kill Success.

TNR is the only proven method for lowering the numbers of feral cats living in an area. Using TNR effectively sterilizes the cat colony.

The current policy on feral cats, “catch and kill”, is not only ineffective in lowering the feral cat population but is extremely expensive to implement. Shelter resources are squandered in a futile attempt to kill off the “ownerless” cats in our community.

What a “catch and kill” policy doesn’t do is answer the moral question of why “wild” cats are singled out for eradication while other wild animals such as squirrels and raccoons are not. Obviously with the number of cats being killed approaching 5000 a year this dismally unmoral policy has failed.

While feral cats by definition are not “adoptable”, that fact alone doesn’t translate into ferals as not having meaningful, healthy lives if they are maintained as a feral cat colony.

A compassionate community believes that even though these cats are not adoptable they do have a right to live. A responsible TNR program serves the community by lowering the colony’s population over time.

II. High-Volume, Low-Cost Spay/Neuter – Quality of Life Issue - Low cost, high volume spay/neuter will lead to fewer animals entering the shelter system, allowing more resources to be allocated toward saving lives. Current animal welfare policies do little or nothing to promote low cost spay/neuter resources in our community.

One is left to wonder whether we would have been better served by building a number of spay/neuter clinics with the several million that went into building what has in effect turned out to be our new state of the art kill shelter.

III. Rescue Groups – An adoption or transfer to a rescue group frees up cage and kennel space, reduces expenses for feeding, cleaning and while improving the rate of lifesaving. With the rampant rate of cats and dogs being killed at our new shelter there is no practical excuse for not working with licensed rescue groups.

Killing a dog or cat that otherwise would have a safe haven in rescue is a judgmental, vindictive form of animal cruelty at the hands of shelter management.

Our shelter must reach out to the rescue community and form a partnership that currently does not exist. The first step in reaching out must include naming a new rescue coordinator who will works towards nurturing and developing this partnership.

IV. Foster Care – Volunteer foster care is crucial to No Kill. This fact has been proven by the success of the “Jail House Second Chance Program”. Dogs that would have been killed at the shelter are being socialized and placed through this fostering program at the jail. This same program, if ramped up through volunteer foster homes, would all but eliminate killing at our shelter while reducing the costs associated with providing longer term care for dogs and cats with specialized issues.

Shelter management refuses to discuss any type of outside volunteer fostering program, instead preferring to hang on to the failed policy of killing for “space” animals that would be highly adoptable if only they had a little more time.

Saving lives becomes compromised by the tunnel vision policy of controlling an animal’s destiny inside a malfunctioning shelter that implements the expediency of killing instead.

Fostering programs are a low cost, often times no cost, method of increasing a shelter’s capacity, improving public relations while improving the shelter’s image, rehabilitating sick and injured or behaviorally challenged animals and saving more lives.

Our shelter must reach out into the community for volunteers to foster dogs and cats who simply need more time to blossom.

V. Comprehensive Adoption Programs – Quality of Life Issue - Adoptions are vital to a shelter’s lifesaving mission. The quantity and quality of shelter adoptions is in shelter management’s hands, making lifesaving a direct function of shelter policies and practice.

In practice, rescue groups are better prepared to conduct home inspections, hold off site adoptions, evaluate application options and matching up pets to new owners then public shelters because of volunteer resources available.

Our shelter would increase adoptions by merely making the shelter more assessable to working families and through off site adoptions that promotes shelter pets needing adoption.

VI. Pet Retention –Quality of Life Issue - Saving animals requires communities to develop innovative strategies for keeping people and their companion animals together. The more a community sees its shelter as a place to turn for advice and assistance, the easier this job will be.

Changing our focus from “Gwinnett Animal Control and Enforcement” to “Gwinnett Animal Services Unit” is more then mere semantics. It’s a cultural shift and enhancement of value structure our animal welfare policies have on those citizens who responsibly own pets.

VII. Medical and Behavior Programs – Quality of Life Issue - The shelter must put in place comprehensive vaccination, handling, cleaning, socialization, and care policies before animals get sick and rehabilitative efforts for those who come in sick, injured, unweaned, or traumatized.

Our compassionate community will support efforts to rehabilitate, rather then kill, our homeless pets. We witness this all the time with news stories – the public leads the cheers for those pets that are saved and mourns those who are not.

VIII. Public Relations/Community Involvement – Increasing adoptions, maximizing donations, recruiting volunteers and partnering with community agencies comes down to one thing: increasing the shelter’s exposure.

New ordinances and a focus on enforcement won’t solve animal related problems in our community – our people will – the very people who are being exploited by these draconian laws that often times include threats of impounding the family pet and sending owners to jail..

Public relations and marketing are the foundation of all a shelter’s activities and their success. To go No-Kill, the shelter must be in the public eye.

IX. Volunteers – Quality of Life Issue - Volunteers are a dedicated “army of compassion” and the backbone of a successful No Kill effort. There is never enough staff, never enough dollars to hire more staff, and always more needs than paid human resources. That is where volunteers come in and make the difference between success and failure and, for the animals, life and death.

With only 31 approved volunteers our current volunteer program is a failure.

Our shelter must proactively recruit more volunteers to help staff the shelter – walking dogs and promoting adoptions.

X. Proactive Redemptions – Quality of Life Issue - One of the most overlooked areas for reducing killing in animal control shelters are lost animal reclaims. Sadly, besides having pet owners fill out a lost pet report, very little effort is made in this area of shelter operation.

This is unfortunate because doing so—primarily shifting from passive to a more proactive approach—has proven to have a significant impact on lifesaving and allow shelters to return a large percentage of lost animals to their families as well as garner more public support and backing for the shelter.

XI. A Compassionate Director – A hard working, compassionate animal control or shelter director not content to regurgitate tired clichés or hide behind the myth of “too many animals, not enough homes.”

In the end, there may be an overpopulation problem but not the one traditionally linked to animal control. What we are suffering from that is actually killing a higher number of animals, it is an overpopulation of unqualified, jaded or simply worn out individuals entrusted in caring for our shelter pets, who fail at doing so.

It is the contention of this author that management’s “incorrect thinking” entrenched in killing is the single most cause of our shelter’s failure. With our leadership mired in negativity, implementing only the failed policies of the past, we have become complacent with the status quo of killing.

Those who are intoxicated with punishing the public while killing their pets magically dance through the fog of misrepresentations and deceit only to emerge as the irresponsible death seekers themselves.

Our shelter must put an end to the bureaucracy that needlessly administers lethal “blue juice” injections as an only solution for our homeless animals. They’ve become lost in this low hanging fog of the shelter’s deceit.

Killing Defined: Animals are only euthanized if they are too sick to be treated or too aggressive to be suitable for adoption. No-kill shelters reject euthanasia as a means of population control; all "adoptable" and "treatable" animals are saved.

This conversation on No Kill alternatives cuts through that fog for all pet owners to see that killing healthy pets as wrong because it will always be wrong to kill any healthy pet. It’s morally wrong and for pet owners to kill healthy pets and it’s morally wrong for the shelter’s management and their subordinates to kill healthy pets as well.

Our lack of life saving focus comes from the years of mismanagement of a shelter run by the Gwinnett Police Department. They alone have squandered the opportunity to change and save lives with repeated rhetoric of misplaced blame.

Effectiveness of any movement in reaching shelter goals and operations begins with competent leadership that holds it’s staff accountable for developing proven life saving programs and one that fosters good relationships in the community, none of which exists now.

We face a moment in history where on one side we have “Kill-Oriented” traditionalists and on the other “No Kill Advocates”. This “culture clash” has taken on new life as word spreads across the country off other community’s success in implementing “No Kill” alternatives.

The Blame Game

“I think of all the good things we have left undone
Suffer premonitions, confirm suspicions of the holocaust to come”
“Finally I understand the feelings of a few
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend
We are all equal in the end” - Pink Floyd - The Final Cut

It’s not the public who is to blame when adoptions are low because the shelter makes it impossible for working families to visit. It’s not the public who is to blame when the shelter refuses to do “off site” adoptions. It’s not the public who is to blame when the shelter denigrates or downplays working with rescue groups in placing at risk animals.

It’s not the public who is to blame for rounding up and killing stay cats despite there not being a leash law for cats. It’s not the public who is to blame when our shelter kills feral cats because a Trap-Neuter-Release program is not being utilized.

It’s not the public who is to blame when pet owners are denied services to help overcome behavioral, medical or environmental conditions that cause them to relinquish animals because no pet retention programs are in place.

It’s not the public who is to blame when the shelter focuses on threats and intimidation enforcing the draconian animal ordinance passed in 2007.

It’s not the public who is to blame when animal control works closely with the courts enforcing a draconian animal ordinance with threats and intimidation that leads many responsible pet owners to surrender their cherished pets to avoid jail terms and exorbitant fines from the county solicitors office.

In the end it will be public support that will create No Kill – the same outraged public that will cry out for change that shifts the focus from animal enforcement to an era of providing top notch life saving services instead.

To reach that culture shift it only takes one shelter manager – one leader – who is committed to simply saying NO to KILLING while choosing to aggressively promote life saving alternatives instead.

How can we expect pet owners to act “responsibly” when our own animal control unit commits the ultimate act of cruelty ending a healthy pets life with a myriad of excuses seeking to justify their own incompetence.

This is a failure of leadership, nothing more – nothing less. A leadership addicted to the failed policies of “killing for expedience”.

It will be our voices that will be heard over the silent screams of death coming from our shelter.

“In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends = Martin Luther King

Dismantling the Killing Machine

2010-08-02T20:29:00.005-04:00

Shelter’s killing dogs and cats by the thousand

“If we are to reach the goal of a No-Kill Nation, we must move past the notion that animals are being killed because of pet overpopulation (not enough homes), because we don’t have enough laws, or because the public is irresponsible – Nathan Winograd

Contrary to what many shelters falsely claim are the primary hurdles to life saving, be it the public’s irresponsibility or lack of homes during this period of economic downturn, the greatest impediments are actually in the shelter manager’s hands.

Animals in shelters, like Gwinnett, are being killed because shelter management clings to kill oriented practices.

For far too long animal advocates have remained silent to this abuse – yet sanctioning or allowing these practices to continue will never bring this killing to an end.

In the end, this is not a war of words or ideas but a life and death struggle to save all the healthy and treatable animals we claim to advocate for. In the end, this issue is not about “too many”, “not enough” or “more or less”, the question that begs for a moralistic answer is “why do we kill healthy pets at all”?

Yet, every dog and cat that enters our shelter is more likely to be killed as a result of our broken animal shelter system. For nine out of ten cats that enter our shelter there is absolutely no chance at survival. Dogs don’t fare much better.

The public is increasingly aware of just how broken our shelter policies are and will support proven “No Kill” alternatives. What the public won’t support is a defeatist attitude that wants to blame them for the killing.

The public is left to believe that it is their irresponsible actions as pet owners who is at fault for this failure. Yet, its not the irresponsible public who fails to implement life saving programs at our shelter, nor is it the irresponsible public who fails to hold the animal control staff accountable either. It’s definitely not the irresponsible public that decides the only workable solution for shelter dogs and cats is the “blue solution”.

Effectiveness in our shelters goals and operations begin with competent leadership that sets realistic life saving goals and holds her staff accountable for reaching those goals.

Our battle is against those who claim to be part of our movement but fail to recognize the killing of shelter animals as the ultimate betrayal

It is time that pet owners in our community have an open discussion, not on the excuses given for killing healthy pets but why we kill healthy pets in the first place.

The fact is killing is neither kind, nor necessary, nor does it prevent any future animal suffering. The decision to kill an otherwise healthy animal is not only the ultimate act of irresponsible behavior but it is clearly immoral as well.

In contrast, animals that enter our shelter should be cared for and be saved – no excuses – no blame game.

That is the right thing to do in a community that is compassionate about our pets. A morally acceptable way to run our shelter. Ultimately, does it really matter how they arrive at the shelter as much as how they leave the shelter?

Shelter “Death by Numbers”

“There is nothing so wasteful as doing with great efficiency that which doesn’t have to be done at all. – Anonymous

Our shelter continues to “kill it’s way” to animal control with a majority of animals entrusted to their care paying dearly with their lives. Yet one might suggest that despite all of this killing our shelter is more out of control then anytyime in recent hisory. The shelter has failed to set a mission to control the killing. Staff accountability, effective life-saving programs, and good relations with the community currently do not exist.

The following spreadsheets are a compilation of five years of shelter statistics – including three years from the old shelter (2005-2007) and two years with results from the new shelter (2008-2009). The data represents only the live animals that entered the shelter. Since the shelter officially opened in the last quarter of 2007 some of the numbers for 2007 were skewed upwards

Felines Handled           2005     2006     2007     2008     2009
Feline Strays                1707     1771      1981    2487     2836
Felines Surrendered     2642    2257      2051     2343    2298
Total Incoming              4349    4028      4032     4830    5134
Felines Killed                3084    3079      3169     4025    4588
Felines Return/Owner      57        28          43         18      108

What is telling about these numbers is the dramatic increase in feline cats entering our shelter system after 2007. The number of cats killed at our new shelter went from an average of slightly over 3000 to 4500 in 2009 or an increase of 50%. The number of cats being surrendered has remained constant at around 2300. Since the shelter doesn’t report separately on cats that are adopted or that go to rescue the increase in killing of cats (1500) is a combination of increases in strays picked up in the field and a decrease in the number of cats going that are adopted or go to rescue.

Yet, not once has our Animal Advisory Council or the shelter’s management brought up the issue of cats during the meetings this author has attended for the last two years. It would appear that killing cats has become acceptable to those who manage our shelter..

The fact remains that there isn't a leash law for cats. Any cat picked up as a stray is impounded despite the cat not violating any of the ordinances.  Nor is animal control required to pick up stray cats.  With a 90% kill rate on cats this author has questioned the reasoning behind management's decison to continually round up cats she knows are going to be killed. That's not a policy I would expect a compassionate director to implement.  While all cats are impacted by this policy it's the feral cats who are most in danger.

I have heard from several local volunteers who maintain trap/neuter/release colonies for feral cats and they are concerned that the county does not care whether a feral has been altered or whether someone has accepted the responsibility of feeding the colony.

Not only is the rampant killing of feral cats (Hemingway’s) morally wrong, it comes at a huge expense to our animal control budget as well. Money that could be spent helping low income families alter their pets, help open the shelter more hours for potential adoptions and a variety of other pet friendly programs are squandered by this policy alone.

History has shown that killing has never been a solution to contolling feral population numbers – Trap/Neuter/Release programs have been successful in that area.

Canines don’t fare much better……..

Canines Handled            2005    2006     2007    2008     2009
Canines – Strays            3026     3068     3095    3539     3823
Canines Surrendered      2493     2011     2047    2068     2106
Total Incoming               5519      5079    5142     5607    5929
Canines Killed                2145     2320     2673    2966     3020
Returned to Owner           891       860       865      924       885

The numbers on canines are down for owner surrenders but there are huge increases once again in the number of strays that enter the new shelter. Some of this explanation could be as simple as poor customer service which has local pet owners concerned that the shelter will simply kill any pets that are turned in or perhaps it may account for pet owners who have been told that owner surrenders that enter the shelter without shot records are killed immediately. Pet owners might choose not to surrender a pet if they want to avoid an surrender fee. Unfortunately, any or all of these issues ends with the pet owner simply dumping the dog and letting it fend for itself.

No Kill is an open door facility where the shelter actually lives up to it’s name of providing shelter for pets with no where to go. Since there is little or no evidence that animal control officers are trying to return stray dogs in the field, one way to reduce the number of strays that ends up at the shelter is to aggressively scan for microchips or ask neighbors if the dogs owner is known.

It is far too simplistic to simply blame the public for a problem that management has spent little or no time determining if there were programs that might reduce these numbers instead. Absent a proactive management approach to problem solving the problem and costs associated with strays in our community will likely get worse.

The Killing Machine Continues

Since the shelter has failed to develop an infrastructure that saves pets, any increase in the number of pets entering the shelter results in a corresponding increase in the number killed. Not only has our shelter management fasiled to develop new programs that increase adoptions but it has failed miserably in building a partnership with Gwinnett’s diverse rescue community.

Dogs/Cats               2005       2006      2007       2008      2009
Animals Adopted     2326       1756      1982       1906      2093
Animals Rescued      1335       1492      1770       1201     1071

One could argue that adoption averages have remained constant from the results of the old shelter versus the new shelter except – we were told that by building a new shelter adoptions would increase. We do know that the shelter is capable of adopting out more – after all the best year was 2005. Is it poor customer service, lack of advertising, lack of promotions? Who knows – this is another area that management doesn’t seem to care about. Of course, the reduced hours of operation are probably suspect as well.

The biggest failure of shelter management can clearly be seen in the dramatic drop in the number of dogs and cats going to rescue. Those numbers dropped by 700 from 2007 to 2009 alone. This author would once again point out that not only is the reduced number of dogs and cats going to rescue a reflection of the failure of shelter management to work in partnership with the rescue community, but in fact, had management built these partnerships those numbers should have shown a dramatic increase instead. That increase might have all but wiped out any increases in shelter intake.

One fact is beyond dispute – dogs and cats - going to rescue has been down by 30% for the last three years now. There's the new shelter that opened in 2007. One would assume that the increaed killing isn't becuase a new facility was built.  With the new shelter came a new management agenda of focusing on enforcing the draconian animal ordinance passed in January of 2007.

Who wants to put themselves in potential harms way when the shelter management is threatening those who rescue with jail, huge fines and even loss of their personal pets???

Totals                            2005           2006       2007       2008       2009

Total Canine/Feline In    9868           9107       9174     10437      11063
Total Out Alive              4609           4136       4660       4049        4157
Total Out Dead              5229           5399       5842       6991        7608

What does it all mean? The number of dogs and cats killed has increased from 5200 in 2005 to an astounding 7600 in 2009 – we’re not only not approaching No Kill in our brand new state-of-the-art shelter but were going in the other direction at warp speed.

The buck stops at the Gwinnett Police Department’s management door. That’s were the decision was made to replace a shelter manager who had developed a partnership with the rescue community with a bona fide beat cop who knows how to write citations. Are they really surprised with the chaos that we now have?

The result of this colossal mistake is we end up with a totally unqualified shelter manager who finds enforcement, punishment and the killing of innocent animals entrusted in her care easier then developing the programs and partnerships to do otherwise.

The current shelter manager lacks management skills that manifests into poor community relations, poor customer service, a lack of lack of leadership in setting life saving goals for employees to meet. The job of management is not just supervision, but more importantly it’s leadership.

Management must work on sources of improvement, the intent to deliver a quality of service to the community’s pet owners, and off setting high expectations that all staff members would focus foremost on the shelter’s responsibility to save lives not end them.

Rather then removing employees who fail at their jobs, poor performance is tolerated and becomes the norm. There is no incentive for employees to go above and beyond in trying to save an animal’s life when it’s far easier and less time consuming to kill them. Since each shelter death is a failure, our shelter fails over 60% of the time.

Why else would management keep the current rescue coordinator in her position. Her numbers alone would have been enough cause to at least move her where she couldn’t kill any more animals.

Instead, she has been rewarded with job security despite the number of animals placed with rescue is consistently down by 30% for three years in a row? Rewarded for what – because she’s valuable for not doing her job?

To this day, this rescue coordinator still refuses to post urgent lists to the rescue community – claims she doesn't have time. Rescue is often the last resort for many of these pets.  Gwinnett remains the only shelter in the Atlanta area that doesn’t put out a weekly urgent list in the hopes that they can save more animals.

As Forrest Gump would say “That’s all I gotta say about that” cause it makes me ill to think anyone could shirk there responsibility to the pets they are about to kill.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story...............

The Road to No Kill has it's detractors

2010-08-01T12:15:00.006-04:00

No Kill sheltering has been supported in a battle for public opinion long before no kill sheltering existed in any significant way. While the battle and "war of words" with entrenched animal shelter management is still underway, increasingly it is irrelevant to tens of thousands of volunteer rescuers, donors, and upstart shelter founders, who have taken the work of saving animals into their own hands.

With decades of blaming “irresponsible” pet-owners for problems, animal control agencies and humane societies are facing activists who are now claiming responsible roles and questioning the irresponsible decision making that the animal sheltering industry uses to support what has become a contentious high kill reality.

While established organizations continue to clash over the term “No-Kill,” the most urgent challenge to the entire sheltering community is making effective use of increasing public involvement. The amateurs and newcomers have ideas and energy, and if recruited into shelter work, expect to have a voice in how the shelters are run.

Those shelters who are so firmly entrenched in killing resist, impede or oppose opening up shelter operations to this new wave of volunteers fearful of the oversight that would follow.

As long as shelters can continue to mislead the public on the role that high kill shelters provide by "killing with kindness" because those animals who only face a lifetime of future abuse, then the killing can continue.

However, more and more the public is questioning whether the real abuse or cruelty is at the hands of shelter management who finds it too easy and more convenient to implement mass killing as a solution rather then implementing programs that would save lives.

The decision to end a healthy pet's life has always been a flashpoint for conflict, more than ever this decision making process is being contested––and the disputes are increasingly often taken to the outside world.

The media, in it's role, has found a receptive audience that cheers on the underdog's - our community's homeless pets - and is increasingly beginning to question why we kill when there are successful programs that greatly reduce the killing that aren't being implemented or even talked about in the sheltering community at large.

Opposition to No Kill has it's supporters in surprising animal rights arena's as well. The large and powerful animal rights groups like HSUS, PETA and the ASPCA are skeptical of the successes and have yet to publicly acknowledge No Kill as the future for America's homeless pets.

Part of the philosophy driving the political distancing from the No Kill Movement is the huge financial rewards these groups bring in under the current system of "catch, kill and blame". High kill sheltering has become extremely profitable for these groups, many might suggest there existence depends on the images of killing shelter pets as well..

This author might suggest that there is a "fear factor" that the millions in donations would dry up, or be diverted towards No Kill, if the public becomes aware of programs that actually save lives replacing years of sheltering policies that only use killing as a solution.

Some groups, like Best Friends, have grown more than 600% in 10 years, with more programs, personnel, and annual revenue than PETA. While PETA, the fastest-growing national animal advocacy group during the preceding 15 years, has seen much slower growth, partly because it is the last major national organization to overtly oppose no-kill sheltering, supports BSL, the killing of Pit Bulls and opposes trap/neuter/return for community's seeking solutions for feral cats.

Yet, the public is not forgiving when it comes to groups like Best Friends, who recently opposed a law in New York that would have standardized care and policies for publicly funded shelters including a provision requiring shelters to release dogs and cats to request groups upon request.

The Tide is Turning..... pet advocates come full circle

No-kill came of age in 1998, when PeopleSoft founders David and Cheryl Duffield put Richard Avanzino in charge of Maddie’s Fund, endowed with more grant-giving clout than all other foundations serving the humane community combined.

Maddie’s Fund introduced an ambitious attempt to encourage the entire U.S. to follow the San Francisco model. To apply for funding, a community must assemble a coalition including all of the shelters serving it, of whatever mission.

Community's that refuse to acknowledge the role of No Kill sheltering also refuse the funding available for implementing spay/neuter programs for the poor and a number of other programs that have been successful in turning the tide against increased income numbers which drive up shelter kill rates as well.

Avanzino in 2004 presided over drafting the Asilomar Accords, a pact meant to help attract cooperation from conventional shelters and animal control agencies by standardizing statistical reporting methods.

Although the Maddie’s Fund mission statement explicitly embraces “creation of a No-Kill nation,” the Asilomar Accords do not use the term “No-Kill,” and were widely viewed as an agreement to abandon potentially divisive language.

To be successful No Kill proponents had to find an effective way to stop pit bull terrier proliferation, confronted at every turn by aggressive alliances of fanciers, breeders, and rescuers opposed to any breed-specific response.

The Michael Vick case opened up new wounds with the positions taken by large animal rights groups like who supported a position that pit bulls seized in dog fighting raids had to be killed because of the danger these dogs placed on the community.

History would write an entirely different chapter when animal rescue groups like "Bad Rap" and Best Friends instead were able to retrain and socialize even the "worst of the worst" cases of Vick's abuse. The Vick dogs revitalized the No Kill movement by pointing out to the public how the perceptions formulated by the media and large animal rights groups couldn’t have been more wrong.

Groups like HSUS, PETA and the ASPCA, who all used Vick’s dogs in fundraising schemes, now faced the wrath of advocates who demanded a change in posturing on pit bulls seized in dog fighting raids. Advocates demanded an end to the stereotyping that leads many high kill shelters from simply killing off pit bulls to a position where each dog be treated individually with training and re socialization replacing what was a certain death sentence instead.

Groups like HSUS are being forced to re-evaluate their position on pit bulls out of fear of alienating members and donors for their organization. PETA has remained steadfast in it’s mission to eradicate pit bulls from society and will be judged accordingly.

As in any social movement that our country has taken on, the No Kill movement has had it's obstacles and vocal opponents as well. Part of this opposition comes from those seeking to protect the status quo, not much different then those who opposed eliminating slavery because they had slaves themselves.

Those who truly advocate for our homeless pets must be willing to plow the fields of dissent. Only by planting the seeds of No Kill can we reap the harvest it will produce. We plow those fields by speaking out in our community against those who seek only to kill – the anti thesis of No Kill.

Expecting support from a shelter industry hooked on killing is irrelevant to the movement itself. The movement has had to confront many of the problems associated with plowing a new frontier in sheltering philosophy.

Many of the newly founded "No Kill" agencies were expected to save every healthy animal before the numbers of incoming healthy animals were reduced to anywhere near the numbers that their communities could absorb through adoption. Successful No Kill communities were able to define these new found problems with solutions that included an increased use of volunteers to support shelter operations, do off site adoptions and commit to off site fostering of special needs cases.

Partnerships were formed and foundation of support were built with an established rescue community as well. Reminiscent of the days of transformation from slavery an increased number of "Rescue Railroads" spouting up in across the country, where volunteers moved homeless pets from areas were there weren't enough adoption possibilties to areas screaming for dogs and cats to adopt. Flexibilty became the standrard determining life saving viability.

True to America’s love affair with our pets, families were all too willing to support rescuing a pet in distress.

The pet industry cashed in on this love affair as well when pet food suppliers like Petsmart and Petco started providing space and support for rescue groups to display and adopt out these homeless pets. Even manufactures like Pedigree have focused their company missions on supporting “adopt a shelter pet” in their advertising campaigns.

Adopting and providing a loving home has become the “politically correct” mantra for pet owners across the land. Not only has the social conscience recognized the importance of adopting homeless pets but more importantly the relevance of how immoral it has become to kill healthy pets is emerging as well. We are now witnessing a social change that questions why we kill healthy pets under any pretext, especially when there are other progressive communities who are not.

Because No-Kill shelters and rescues have typically been founded in reaction against high-volume killing, those involved in running these operations tend to mistrust and resist inclusion in any system that might be controlled by the conventionals.

Likewise, many directors of conventional shelters are on record as skeptics and critics of no-kill approaches. Many frankly resent the no-kill challenge. Thus the seeds of a culture clash sown.

Some see no-kills as rivals for funding, though the economic data demonstrates that the growth of public financial support for No-Kill sheltering has actually brought new money into the cause, while funding for conventional sheltering has also steadily increased.

Some just don’t like the implication that No-Kill shelters exist opposite to “Kill” shelters, and that conventional shelter staff are therefore “animal killers.”

That conflict is not going to go away. Despite the Asilomar Accords, and other efforts by national humane organizations to get no-kill shelters to quit using the term “No-Kill,” it's use will remain because the public likes it, understands it and demads it. It has and will continue to replace the use of “euthanasia” when it involves shelters that continue to kill healthy animals.

Shelter managers can expect to face increasing pressure to make use of low cost “spay/neuter” programs as opposed to supporting any attempt to mandate and punish those who do not. Promoting adoption techniques advanced by the No-Kill Movement will become the norm A generation of animal lovers raised with the expectation that shelters should aspire to go No-Kill is not about to abandon the belief that every healthy animal can be saved.

The major gain in the last decade has been the increased “market share” of those who adopt as opposed to a declining market for those who acquire pets through breeders and pet stores. The adoption “market share” of pet acquisition has increased by half, the longevity of pets in homes has increased by half or more, and more than 70% of pet-keepers sterilize their dogs and cats in most parts of the U.S., with more than 90% of all pet dogs and cats sterilized in some cities. This data refutes the shelter industry mantra that seeks to blame killing on the “phantom” irresponsible pet owner.

There will always be a small number of pet owners who are irresponsible, even cruel with their pets but that number is less then 4% of the number of pets entering our shelters. The fact remains that for many pets the first time they are neglected or even abused is when they find themselves in the very shelters that are supposed to protect them.

Of course, the ultimate act of cruelty is committed everyday when a shelter manager decides to end a pets life simply because they lack the moral conscience to implement programs that protect lives.

Still, the stereotyping image of no-kill sheltering remains tainted by hoarders. The national organizations most involved in sheltering perpetuate the hoarder stereotype, partly because many senior staff have had experience with hoarding cases and have become jaded by their own experience.

The number of rescuers in trouble increased by almost the same percentage as the number of breeders declined, possibly reflecting the migration of ex-breeders into rescue. Possibly reflecting an increased number of new people getting into rescue without supporting infrastructures to assist them. Either of which can’t be blamed on the growing No Kill movement that has evolved. All are issues which must be addressed regardless what sheltering philosophy emerges.

Since the proportionality of “rescuer” hoarders to all others does not appear to have increased by more than can be explained by other factors, the No-Kill movement can not be not responsible for the increase in hoarding cases.

Rather, hoarders appear to be raided and prosecuted more often because of increased awareness of the hoarding problem.

Yet that does not mean hoarding is representative of the No-Kill cause. No Kill recognizes the needs for standards of care not only for those who own, rescue or run a No Kill facility but more importantly for publicly funded shelters as well. It is simply not part of the No Kill Movement to move animals from an abusing public shelter to an abusive setting in either a No Kill facility or in rescue.

As No Kill gains in popularity, so will the need for standardizing care and developing suitable standards for high volume adoptions, care for life hospice care and non sheltering rescue groups.

There will always be irresponsible people to deal with, but that spectrum of irresponsibility exists in all areas of pet ownership, the rescue community and more importantly in our outdated sheltering system that screams out for reform.

Gwinnett's Dismal June Shelter Report

2010-07-30T06:17:00.003-04:00

Gwinnett Animal Advisory Council – Shelter Report for July 2010

Last Tuesday the Gwinnett Animal Advisory Council held it’s quarterly meeting at the shelter. Since there was no attempt to notify thie public of this important meeting only two citizens from the community showed up. What follows are my comments on what was discussed and more importantly the lost opportunity of not discussing the current situation of disarray at the shelter.

After a brief introduction, GAAC Chair Gail Laberge mentioned the accomplishments of Society of Humane Friends “Jail House – Second Chance Dogs” program. This program has lead to the adoption of twenty two dogs that were slated as “un adoptable” by shelter standards, yet, with a little patience and more time afforded by jail house prisoners these dogs are now part of our community at large.

If a message should be taken from the success of the program it is that off site fostering is critical in saving ALL of the healthy but adoptable pets that are being killed instead.

In fact, I was there to witness a few dogs who arrived straight from the shelter. One, a five month old dobie mix puppy now named Ernie was rescued right of the “euth” table – only minutes from being killed by our shelter management.

Ernie arrived at the jail as a “wild, enthuastic and uncontrollable” puppy. He was obviously lacking in any previous training skills but with three or four days Ernie was following his handler around like he found his new best friend. In four short days Ernie went from an unsocial able “un adoptable” dog needing to be killed to a dog with a very promising future being adopted instead.

The question that needs to be asked by our community of pet lovers and animal advocates is what criteria was used in determining that Gwinnett would be better served if dogs like Ernie were simply killed and disposed of rather then attempting to find a safe place where an evaluation and retraining program could be utilized instead?

The answer to that question is probably little or no attempt was made to try and “save” Ernie because our leadership at the shelter places very little responsibility on the shelter’s “rescue coordinator to save lives as opposed to defending the “tough job” she has in having to kill all these wonderful pets.

To be clear, the decision to kill a dog like Ernie rests entirely on the shelter and it’s management decisions.

If the shelter chooses not to release an urgent plea to the rescue community seeking a place for dogs like Ernie then the follow up decision to kill dogs like him are the consequences of their laziness.

Not one member of our esteemed GAAC panel brought up any of these issues. They are supposed to be the experts providing our county commissioners with advise on improving shelter operations. Yet, not one mention of other “no kill” shelters successful use of volunteer foster homes that not only save the tax payers the expense of caring for dogs and cats needing more time for placement, but also the end result of foster homes that actually find homes for these pets as well.

It costs the taxpayers NOTHING to move dogs and cats to rescue groups or volunteer foster homes as opposed to the cost associated with holding and killing healthy animals instead. Of course, I would never attempt to put a price on an animals life.

What was left out of the discussion of the “Jail House Dogs” program was that a vast majority of the adoptions were from employees of the jail itself. One could only imagine the success of THAT program if it was properly promoted by bringing the “Jail House Dogs” to off site adoptions were the public could meet the dogs as well.

Next came the shelter manager Lt. Respress' “shelter report”. For June of 2010, she reported there were 1110 animals handled of which 98 were reclaimed. There were 137 adoptions (less then 15%), a deplorable 80 went to rescue (less then 8%) and the rest – 208 dogs and 468 cats were killed. That is an absolutely horrible month for homeless pets that went through our shelter.

Yet, the only suggestion offered to change those results was that the shelter will be showing movies and handing out popcorn on Friday nights. No plans for off site adoptions, no explanation why the shelter’’s web site still hasn’t changed the hours to let the public know it is oipen on Sunday’s now, no talk about promoting events for increasing adoptions, in fact, what was strangely absent from this meeting with the “experts” was this information seemed to be accepted as typical of the shelter’s dismal performance.

Have WE reached a point in our history of accepting a defeatist attitude that saving only a small number of homeless animals is somehow acceptable?

Our shelter manager’s refusal to address the dismal performance of the shelter’s “rescue coordinator” only points out her shortcomings at setting goals for her staff and holding them accountable.

For three years in a row now the number of dogs and cats that go to shelter are down by over 30% from the numbers out of the old shelter on Hi Hope Road.

This costs the taxpayers of Gwinnett over $50,000 a year alone in costs associated with caring for and killing pets that should be placed in rescue itstead.

Of course, as long as the shelter and the courts maintain an adversarial relationship with those who rescue in our community and threaten and jail people who speak out against the killing do we honestly think there is a partnership between the two groups?

Partnerships only work when there is a shared respect for the role each participant plays in helping to resolve the problems at the shelter.

I have no confidence that the current leadership is prepared to make even the easy decisions of replacing employees who clearly have agendas that kill animals in the shelter as opposed to those who honestly care about saving lives. Our current rescue coordinator has commented that she has no problem with killing any cat she thinks is feral – yet it is the taxpayers who foot the bill for a shelter that kills more then eight out of every ten cats that enter the shelter.

It’s time the community has an open discussion on why we pay for shelter operations that kill healthy adoptable pets while blaming the public for actions formulated by our own shelter management and the “leaders” in our animal welfare community.

The fact that there wasn’t even an attempt to address the high number of animals killed in June only points to the jaded opinions of our current GAAC that killing is the only option and we should just accept the “status quo” as “good enough.

Chair Laberge did mention that the board would be happy to look at any programs that “might help” but what is telling is that this is the group who is suppose to be the “experts” in animal welfare issues. Shouldn’t they already know about programs that are successful in other community’s?

Not only is there a need to reform the animal advisory board but for a change in leadership at the shelter as well. We must change our perspective on accepting the current leadership’s squandering of the new facility and the yearly budget that should be used on life saving programs but instead focuses on creating excuses for failure.

For more information on the alternative programs that are not being used at our shelter follow my blog at

http://by20hounds.blogspot.com/

Dog Barking Case Ends With 30 Day Jail Sentence

2010-07-28T08:11:00.002-04:00

Controversial Dog Barking Case Ends With 30 Day Jail Sentence

After 33 months, our highly controversial dog barking case has come to a close. On June 29th Recorders Court Judge Patricia Muise revoked the remaining two months of a twenty four month term sentencing me to serve 30 days in the Gwinnett Detention Center for failure to pay $473 in probation fees.

While I have complied with the court’s order of “bringing my property in compliance with all zoning issues that alone did not satisfy the judge. This case has long drifted from a case of barking dogs to an issue of inflicting punishment for what the court found was an isolated “three minute” incident of barking close to three years ago.

Citizens should be concerned why our court system saw fit to hold seven pretrial hearings, a full trial and six hearings attempting to revoke my probation. During the process the court awarded (and the taxpayers funded) three court appointed attorney’s including one who was assigned in an attempt by Sentinel Offender Services to collect $129 in “late probation fees”.

Obviously, the court fails to understand that there are citizens in our community who have been effected by the economic downturn. Judge Muise seems confused not only on interpreting the constitution but the real concerns about crime in our community.

In an era where citizens are being threatened loss of police, fire and emergency services our court found fit to expend thousands and thousands of dollars to force me into surrendering dogs to our local shelter where they would be greeted by employees all to ready to kill them. Do we really feel safer knowing the county was able to lock up a retired senior citizen who was found guilty of providing a safe haven for some old hound dogs that otherwise would be dead?

I always said I would go to jail before I would allow the county the county to kill even one of my hounds – so NOW I’ve served my time. The leash is off – no more threats – no more intimidation.

Those of us in rescue have long been the last line of defense for the senseless killing of our companion friends. We speak out for the voiceless suffering and silent screams that kills far too many innocent creatures in our county funded kill shelter. Each life lost is sacred and I will continue to speak out against the planned slaughter of our county's homeless pets.

Unfortunately for everyone who was involved in passing the draconian ordinance in the first place one of my beloved beagles, Bam-Bam was killed while I was being held prisoner by the county of Gwinnett. Had these "leaders" in our animal; welfare movement been diligent in their duty to protect pet owners from repressive laws that threaten our pets Bam-Bam would still be alive today.

In passing the 2007 Draconian Ordinance which granted the county solicitor with broad powers to threaten and intimidate pet owners and in granting false hearted judges like Muise with the power to punish any pet owner who opposed this senseless slaughter of our family pets the wheel was set in motion that lead to Bam-Bam's death.

I always said “you kill one of my dogs and that changes everything….” That changes everything – the muzzle comes off too.

Gwinnett County can NEVER give me back what the county has taken from me and the hounds. The loss of Bam-Bam was not only senseless but avoidable.

The Fallacy of “Fates Worse Than Death”

2009-05-13T17:32:00.000-04:00

For those seasoned rescuer's we are often exposed to the worst of what mankind has to offer with our experiences with shelter dogs. But have we lost the ability to step back and see the lighter side that dogs bring to our lives. Dogs who ply, dogs who seem not to have a care in the world, why should we be the one's to choose whether ending a shelter dog's previous suffering is a excuse that overlooks a dogs amazing abilty to respond to just a small measure of love, care and consideration.

In January of 2007 I was asked to take in a beagle named Camilla from Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter. Camilla was about five plus years old and was suffering from a severe skin condition which caused her to lose over half of the hair on her body. One would assume that if rescue was about saving dogs from a "Fate Far Worse Than Death" the logical disposition for Camilla would be a humane ending to life as she knew it.

Rather then make this judgment call myself I decided to let Camilla make that choice. Despite her obvious suffering from what was a skin condition that didn't seem to respond to the many treatments we tried camilla remained stoically a beagle at heart, spending her days in search of a scent and ultimately in search of food for her belly. Despite her suffering she never seemed to stop wagging that tail or ignoring your every command. Yet, still, Camilla was still by definition "un adoptable (in her present condition) and a perfect candidate for a "no kill sheltering" for the rest of her life.

While we never gave up on finding a cure for her illness often times realty was to simply try and help Camilla hold her own. She would have good weeks and some that were not so good. Through it all I became tremendously attached to this little girl and by the summer of 2008 considered Camilla as one of my own.

However, this love for Camilla was not shared by our local animal sheltering world. Flexing the muscle's developed with the "steroid" bill we call our local animal ordinance of 2007 animal control and our local animal rights leaning solicitor's office zeroed in on beagles like Camilla by suggested she be included as one of ten beagles I surrender to appease the county over our dog barking ordeal.

Fate would decide that Camilla and others would become the local poster dogs for why poorly thought out laws can set a dangerous precedent where the courts, not the pet owner or rescue caretaker, hold the ultimate judgment of the Fate of Death which would be far worse then life itself for these innocent victims.

Despite assurances from insiders working with animal control who assured me ALL the hounds I surrendered would be turned over to rescue why would any reasonable person believe this when the shelter had such a dismal record with the healthy dogs that went through the shelter. The reality was that a dog suffering from the abuse of a previous owner would simply be moved from a home where she was cared for, loved and kept safe and become a statistic on a monthly spreadsheet instead.

Fortunately, our case went better then we expected, the judge refused to order surrender of any pets and as the news head lines leaked out the "hounds were elated". I still took beagles like Camilla to adoptions every weekend even though there was little chance anyone would share my commitment to this sweet but medically challenged little hound. Then along came that special person....

A little more then six weeks after our trial a woman approached the cages where the beagles were, well acting like beagles and ask if "that beagle was still available." Even though she pointed at Camilla I started pointing out the other more healthy beagles but she cut me off withy "no, I want THAT beagle - the one who's speaking to me..." Low and behold Camilla was speaking to her, wagging her tail and working real hard to get her attention". After a lengthy discussion about Camilla's health issues she was adopted.

From time to time over the next few months I would see Camilla on her trips to Petsmart. You really couldn't tell who was happier Camilla or her new proud mom. But what you could see was a gradual improvement in Camilla's overall health. Six months and over $1,200 in vet bills later Camilla is no longer Camilla in name or body. Her new name is Georgia and she has completely recovered from her illness.

Georgia has a beautiful beagle coat, has added six pounds to her once skinny frame and serves as a perfect example why we shouldn't be so quick to judge whether there ever is a fate far better then death. Certainly you would have a difficult time convincing Georgia or her mom of this ridiculous assumption.

From Nathan Winograd's blog:

The Fallacy of “Fates Worse Than Death”
April 28, 2009 by Nathan J. Winograd

Recently, I read a letter from a woman who has spent half a century doing animal rescue work. Her description of her experiences over the years, including the heartbreaking rescue of a near-dead kitten abandoned near a dumpster, makes it clear she cares deeply about animals. And yet, she opposes No Kill. She opposes No Kill because she believes that “there are fates worse than death.” And she cannot conceive of a No Kill nation because she sees a crisis of uncaring in the U.S., a conclusion drawn from decades of experience seeing abandoned, neglected, and abused animals. She knows this, she says, not from “percentages, data, and studies,” but from “what she has seen with her own eyes.”

Sadly, she, and other animal rescuers who share these views, have been in the trenches of rescue work so long, that they have become myopic, and as a result, they have come to believe that the world of animals is little more than pain and suffering. They have been led to believe in the inevitability of certain outcomes, and the things they witness seem to confirm this point of view for them. In addition, the large national organizations which they turn to for guidance reaffirm their beliefs: people don’t care, irresponsibility is rampant, there are too many unwanted animals, and the only available choices for a majority of these animals are a quick death in a shelter or suffering on the streets. Because they lack personal experience at progressive shelters which would debunk these views and have trained themselves not to see evidence to the contrary all around them, they have actually come to believe that “killing is kindness” and the alternative is worse. But they could not be more wrong.

And what is driving these misplaced perceptions is a lack of perspective—perspective which comes from a larger view, a global vision, a top-down image they cannot see and which the animal protection movement historically has failed to provide. They have a distorted view of reality. If they took a step back, if they allowed themselves to see what is happening nationally, if they kept an open mind and stayed informed about the emerging success of the No Kill movement, they would see something else entirely, as many other rescuers do. They would see the “big picture”—which reveals that there is a way out of killing and that a No Kill nation is not only possible, it is well within our reach.

There are roughly eight million dogs and cats entering shelters every year, a small fraction compared to the 165 million in people’s homes. Of those entering shelters, only four percent are seized because of cruelty and neglect. Some people surrender their animals because they are irresponsible, but others do so because they have nowhere else to turn—a person dies, they lose their job, their home is foreclosed. In theory, that is why shelters exist–-to be a safety net for animals whose caretakers no longer can or want to care for them. And the majority of animals who enter these shelters can, and should, be saved.

Based on dog bite extrapolation data, an analysis of intakes at shelters, and the results of the best performing shelters in the country, about 90% of all animals would be adopted if our shelters where compassionate places run by animal lovers dedicated to saving lives. Indeed, imagine if this were actually realized. Imagine if shelters provided good care, comfort, and plenty of affection to the animals during their stays at these way stations funded through tax and philanthropic dollars by a dog- and cat- loving culture. And imagine if all shelters embraced the No Kill philosophy and the programs and services which make it possible. We would be a No Kill nation today. Because while roughly four million dogs and cats are needlessly killed every year, there are also three times as many people—upwards of 17 million—who are looking to get a new companion animal next year and who have not yet decided where that animal will come from. And, as communities across the country have proven, a great many of them could very easily be persuaded to adopt a shelter animal.

For the rest of the story.....

http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=1076