animal-shelter-truths

A Most Dangerous Precedent

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:30:49 +0100

February 14, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

If the ASPCA and Assembly Member Amy Paulin get their way, feral cats and scared cats can be exterminated immediately on intake in New York State shelters.

The ASPCA is pushing legislation sponsored by Assembly Member Amy Paulin that would allow New York State shelters to kill animals immediately if shelter staff determine that the animals are in “psychological pain.” There is no definition of what constitutes psychological pain and no standards to how it will be applied. For the first time anywhere in the U.S., shelters will be allowed to kill animals with no holding period of any kind based on the animals’ perceived state of mind, giving regressive shelter bureaucrats unlimited discretion to immediately kill animals based on unenforceable, unknowable, and completely subjective criteria. Not only is this a real and immediate threat to shy and scared animals, as well as feral cats, but it is a very dangerous precedent to introduce in the animal control laws of our nation.

Whether you are from New York or not, please speak up for the animals:

§ Email Ed Sayres: esayres@aspca.org

§ Post comments on the ASPCA Facebook page: www.facebook.com/aspca

§ Post comments to twitter: @aspca

§ Email Amy Paulin: PaulinA@assembly.state.ny.us

§ Post comments on Paulin’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/assemblywomanpaulin

§ Post comments to twitter: @AmyPaulin

Learn more:

Gone in 60 Seconds

The ASPCA Fights for More Shelter Killing in NY

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An Appeal to Right

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:29:05 +0100

February 15, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

The job of the Chair of the Board of Directors is to ensure the mission is followed, to protect the reputation and integrity of the organization, and to hold the CEO accountable. In this task, ASPCA Board Chair Mary Jo White has failed. Under her leadership, she has allowed Ed Sayres to turn the ASPCA’s mission on its head, promulgating policies and legislation that are the antithesis of what an animal protection organization is supposed to be doing, and the antithesis of what the ASPCA tells their donors they represent.

Sayres has promulgated legislation to kill animals with no holding period of any kind based on an animal’s perceived state of mind, a declaration of war on shy and scared animals, as well as feral cats. Sayres has turned a blind eye to rampant neglect, abuse, and killing at the NYC pound, and even sends animals there to be killed. Sayres has fought No Kill reform efforts in places like San Francisco, Austin, and Tallahassee, going so far as to protect a shelter director who committed animal cruelty. In other words, under her leadership, she has allowed Ed Sayres and the ASPCA to become a hoarder of money, a defender of shelter abuse, and a fighter against lifesaving.

In your own words, in your own way, please let her know how disappointed you are. Ask her to step in and protect the animals she is pledged to protect. And tell her she must start by ensuring that the ASPCA’s “Quick Kill Bill,” A05449, be immediately withdrawn. Let her know that the fate of thousands of animals are in her hands and she must finally start living up to her responsibilities as ASPCA Board Chair.

Please be thoughtful. Please be civil. But please be firm and offer no apologies.

Mary Jo White
919 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022

T: (212) 909-6260
F: (212) 909-6836

email: mjwhite@debevoise.com

For more information: The ASPCA’s War on Animal Lovers

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Ed Sayres & His Proxies

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:27:00 +0100

February 20, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

Amy Paulin, Nancy Perry, & The ASPCA’s Effort to Turn Back the Clock on Animal Protection in NYS by 40 Years.

The fight against NYS Assembly Bill A05449 has brought many new animal lovers to our cause. The facebook page of the legislative sponsor of this bill, Amy Paulin, is overwhelmed by thousands of comments by animal lovers begging her to withdraw her “Quick Kill Bill.” The number of e-mails sent to legislators in opposition is now well over 18,000 and when we asked for donations to pay for newspaper ads in Paulin’s hometown, we raised thousands of dollars to do so in just a matter of hours. Clearly, New York’s animal lovers are angry and fighting back. There is a right side to this issue, and it is NOT the one being championed by the ASPCA.

Yet because media reports about the battle over this deadly legislation have failed to place it into a proper historical perspective, and in order to ensure that everyone fighting this dangerous bill is an informed and effective advocate, I wanted to provide the back story of A05449 and how it came to be. For those of you who might be new to this issue and already angry with the ASPCA about their attempts not only to stop rescue access but to erode what little protections animals entering shelters in New York already have, you will no doubt find the history behind this bill equally shocking and, hopefully, equally motivating in the cause of its defeat.

For anyone who is familiar with the back-story of A05449, the ASPCA “Quick Kill” bill being sponsored by Assembly Member Amy Paulin, it can be incredibly frustrating to read media accounts of the battle about this harmful and deadly legislation. In two recent New York Daily News articles, the ASPCA is portrayed as having introduced the bill in order to address existing deficiencies in New York law regarding shelter animals. The legislation is described not only as necessary, but equally false, the article leaves the impression that the ASPCA conceived of this legislation on its own, to address real and pressing problems in New York shelters, and not, as is really the case, as a means of co-opting and therefore destroying true shelter reform legislation introduced by No Kill advocates in New York over the last three years.

Unfortunately, the media often do not know what to make of a battle that seems, at a first and quick impression, to pit animal lovers against animal lovers. When the environmental movement takes on polluters or oil companies, it is easy for outsiders to orient themselves to the struggle and to understand whose interests each side represents. But when animal rescuers take on the ASPCA, confusion often sets in. With deadlines looming and the age of investigative journalism in its death throes, rare is the reporter who takes the time to research and understand what is truly going on, rather than to simply fall back on preconceived notions that favor the status quo. In short, many journalists simply cave into their biases: assuming that because the ASPCA is supposedly an animal protection organization, and because the ASPCA is old, wealthy and powerful, that it must be on the right side of this issue—the side of the animals. No Kill advocates are therefore conveniently written off as unreasonable, even though, in truth, the policies we advocate, and not those of our opponents, are those that most faithfully represent the mainstream views of most Americans who do not want animals in shelters to be killed out of custom or convenience.

A quick look at the facebook page of Amy Paulin, the legislative sponsor of A05449, filled with thousands of comments by New York animal lovers asking her to withdraw her deadly bill and none in support, combined with the 15,000 e-mails that flooded the offices of Albany legislators begging them to kill the ASPCA bill on the eve of an important vote, and it becomes clear which side represents the views of most people, and which side represents the extreme. Despite their professed missions, our nation’s old-guard animal protection organizations are staffed by former kill shelter directors and their friends. As such, they have tragically become the equivalent of corrupt labor unions, fighting innovation and accountability at our nation’s shelters at all costs. And perhaps no story demonstrates this point more clearly than the story of how the ASPCA/Paulin “Quick Kill” bill came into existence.

Meet Oreo

Three years ago, a one year old dog named Oreo was intentionally thrown off a sixth floor Brooklyn roof top. Oreo suffered two broken legs and a fractured rib. Oreo also appeared to have been beaten in the past—several of the neighbors in the building where Oreo lived reported hearing the sounds of the dog being hit. The ASPCA nursed her back to health and arrested the perpetrator. They also dubbed her the “miracle dog,” and fundraised off her plight. But the miracle was short-lived.

According to Ed Sayres, the President of the ASPCA, when Oreo recovered from her injuries, she started to show signs of aggression. After a series of temperament tests, Ed Sayres made the decision to kill her. (Although there are videos taken of Oreo, the ASPCA has refused to release them. The only documentation we have of Oreo is a photograph of ASPCA employees hugging her, their own faces inches from hers). The New York Times reported the story the day before Oreo’s scheduled execution. Pets Alive, a No Kill sanctuary in Upstate New York which specializes in rehabilitating aggressive dogs (and, if that proves impossible, safely caring for them for the rest of their lives), contacted the ASPCA to ask if they could take Oreo. They made numerous phone calls and sent numerous e-mails. They were ignored, hung-up on and lied to. And Oreo was killed.

As word spread among animal lovers about what had happened, the furor and condemnation of the ASPCA was immediate and severe. No Kill rescue organizations, tired of shelters killing animals they wanted to take, adopted Oreo as their mascot and sought the introduction of a bill that would make it illegal for a shelter to kill an animal a rescue organization was willing to save. Assembly Member Micah Kellner, whose district includes the headquarters of the ASPCA, called it “Oreo’s Law.”

Although Oreo’s death was the catalyst, the legislation was desperately needed statewide. A survey of New York rescue groups revealed that 71% had experienced shelter directors who refused to work with them, and who then killed the very animals they had offered to take. It was estimated that if Oreo’s Law passed, 25,000 animals a year—mostly friendly and healthy dogs, cats, puppies, kittens, rabbits and other animals—would be saved who would otherwise be killed by New York shelters. The number could be even higher, as much as 60,000 animals a year.

Meet Ed Sayres

Ed Sayres—a long-time opponent of No Kill efforts nationwide and spiteful of the backlash against his killing of Oreo—declared that he would use his leverage in the State Capitol to defeat the bill. And although the public support for the bill was overwhelming, with calls to the New York legislators shutting down the servers in the NYS Assembly not once but twice, Oreo’s Law was defeated by a coalition of anti-animal “animal protection” groups, spearheaded by the ASPCA.

Oreo’s Law was introduced again in 2011 but under a new name—the Companion Animal Access & Rescue Act or CAARA—with the hope that changing the title of the bill might diminish ASPCA opposition. No such luck. Again the ASPCA led the opposition which defeated the bill. With CAARA pending again this year, the ASPCA sought a new tactic to ensure its defeat and its final demise: introducing competing legislation. Ed Sayres attempted to mollify opposition by passing the ASPCA’s own “rescue access” bill. But not only was the bill nothing of the sort—actually giving shelters the legal right not to work with rescue groups and therefore to kill animals rescuers wanted to save—but it went even went one, egregious step further. As if to punish rescuers and animal lovers for daring to challenge the mighty ASPCA, A05449 actually erodes one of the most important protections animals in shelters have: mandatory holding periods. Angry at those who question what until recently has been the ASPCA’s unlimited authority to determine sheltering policy in New York state, Ed Sayres is now trying to not only co-opt and destroy efforts at true rescue access legislation, but to turn back the clock on animal protection in New York state forty years to 1971.

Contrary to misperceptions by the media and contrary to ASPCA assertions, A04559 does NOT mandate rescue access. It merely suggests it, and then codifies in law a shelter’s right not to work with rescue organizations. It states that shelters “may” give animals to rescue groups rather than kill them, instead of “shall” give the animals to them is required by CAARA, A07312, the bill supported by the New York rescue community and thousands of New York animal lovers. And in codifying a shelter’s unlimited authority to determine whether a rescue group or particular animal qualifies, the law eviscerates whistleblower protection for rescuers who want to expose cruel and abusive treatment of animals in the shelters they may visit but are now afraid to do so for fear of losing their rescue privileges.

Other parts of A05449 which seem to give the illusion of reform are worded so as to be merely suggestive. The bill suggests that shelters scan for microchips and post lost animals on the internet only if they find it “practicable” to do so. Again, the real shelter reform bill mandates that these common sense things be done whether a shelter wants to or not precisely because at far too many shelters they are not being done, with shelters already finding it inconvenient, or not “practicable,” to do so.

But the worst part of the bill is the provision which eliminates holding periods for scared and shy animals, granting shelters the authority to kill such animals the moment they walk in the door. If shelter staff determines that an animal is in “psychological pain,” the animal can be killed immediately. Not only is killing an animal for being scared or shy cruel, and not only is killing an animal who is fearful of being harmed both paradoxical and absurd (a shelter is doing the very thing they claim they want to prevent: harm an animal), but there is no definition in law as to what constitutes “psychological pain” and no standards as to how it is to be applied. If any two shelter employees—including the janitor, the receptionist, or a kennel attendant—believe that an animal is in “psychological pain,” that animal can be killed immediately.

For those New Yorkers who share their lives with a dog or cat, the threat this bill creates to their cherished pet is very real: the next time the gardener accidentally leaves the gate open or the next time the kids forget to close the front door and their pet escapes, it may be the last time he is ever seen alive. Because being scared or shy are precisely the behaviors that often characterize lost or stray pets, shelters would be granted the authority to kill many animals immediately upon intake, before their families even have a chance to look for them. In many cases, before their families even have a chance to notice that their beloved pet is missing.

Meet Nancy Perry

In 2009, after his killing of Oreo, Sayres promised the ASPCA Board of Directors that the outpouring of concern would quiet after a few days or weeks. It continues three years later. In fact, the outcry over Sayres’ actions remains strong and to date, unending. Unable to delete comments from the ASPCA Facebook page fast enough, the condemnation and call for his ouster is not only intensifying, but diversifying. Assembly Member Amy Paulin, the sponsor of the ASPCA “Quick Kill” bill has had her Facebook page completely taken over. Ads will begin running in her district newspaper this week and a billboard will soon grace her Scarsdale, NY community. In addition, animal lovers have turned their ire to the Chair of the ASPCA Board of Directors, demanding that she cease shirking her duty by turning a blind eye to the ASPCA’s war on animals and rescue groups. And Joseph Lentol, the longest running Assembly Member in New York, has joined the fray.

Assembly Member Lentol recently released a statement explaining that he understands that A05449 is designed to give “absolute power” to shelters, eviscerating any whistleblower protections of the Kellner bill. In addition, rather than parrot the fiction that shelters care and are working hard to save lives, he noted that, “the worst thing we could do would be to allow the ASPCA to go backwards by permitting them to limit the organizations they will work with. If an organization faults them – they could find themselves off the list of approved rescues! That’s not wise and that is not how we work to open up all publicly funded institutions for public review.” The proud parent of his own rescued pets, Lentol admitted that his own animals may have been killed under the bill. He is now assuring New Yorkers that the bill will not be reported out of his committee.

A caring man would not have sacrificed animals to his own vendetta. A smart man would have walked away from the bill given the overwhelming opposition. Ed Sayres, unfortunately, is neither. Instead of admitting that the effort to derail true shelter reform was over, Ed Sayres is attempting a superficial makeover by blaming Paulin and offering up a better spokesman. And he thought he found one, in Nancy Perry, the ASPCA’s Vice-President of Government Relations. It is now Perry’s job to quell the unrest over the bill and sell it in a softer way. It is her job to distance the ASPCA from the “psychological pain” language, the center of the public’s ire and a thinly-veiled declaration of war on feral cats and other animals who act traumatized in a shelter environment. The ASPCA, which has proved itself willing to stab animals and animal rescuers in the back, has chosen to do the same to Amy Paulin, and Nancy Perry is wielding the blade.

Late last week, Nancy Perry released a statement on the ASPCA Pro Facebook page that attempts to rewrite history and imply that Paulin, on her own and without their guidance, authored their bill. Perry stated that the bill had problems she, too, is concerned about, and that Paulin made a mistake. It would be the first of her many lies. According to Assembly Member Micah Kellner, “The ASPCA isn’t just supporting A5449-A [which is bad enough], they wrote this bill behind closed doors… Everything in A5549-A is written exactly as the ASPCA wanted. Don’t let them fool you by blaming Albany. This bill is a huge step backward for animals because the ASPCA wanted it that way… As with most things in this world it comes down to maintaining power…” In fact, they chose Amy Paulin precisely because of her reputation for introducing bills without regard for what is in them, without even reading them. The ASPCA wanted a legislator willing to rubber stamp their power grab, and Paulin fit the bill.

Proving herself as willing as Sayres to betray the animals, Perry continued with several additional misrepresentations. She stated that the ASPCA’s support for the Paulin bill was only a response to the fact that Kellner’s legislation was seen as an unfunded mandate, and that Albany would not pass it: “We don’t think the Kellner bill can pass—we have been told in no uncertain terms it is not passable. The unfunded mandate problem is not about finding funding. It is just the reality of how the New York state legislature works. They just won’t pass bills that force expensive requirements on local entities.”

Not only is this an admission that the Paulin bill does not require shelters to do anything they claim is not “practicable” (giving them the ability to cite lack of resources for the refusal to do anything differently than they are doing now), but it is a lie. Paulin herself has authored bills that imposed requirements on local governments without any funding attached. And more importantly, the inability to pass the Kellner bill in the past is only because of the ASPCA’s opposition.

Perry also lied to animal lovers by claiming that the ASPCA is motivated in its opposition to the Kellner bill, and before it, Oreo’s Law, because of a fear of hoarding. There is no question that the effects of hoarding are tragic: animals wallow in their own waste, are denied food and water for long periods of time, do not get necessary veterinary care, are sometimes crammed into cages and do not receive walks or regular exercise, all of which results in tremendous suffering and death. Hoarding is cruel, painful, and abhorrent, but it doesn’t have anything to do with this issue. Rescue access laws are about leveling the playing field between large non-profit organizations like the ASPCA which enjoy unlimited power and discretion over a community’s homeless animals, and smaller ones which, while founded for the same purpose, are prevented from fulfilling their own missions by shelters which refuse to work collaboratively with them to save lives.

Moreover, not only do the conditions which describe hoarders precisely describe conditions in many New York shelters which rescue groups want to deliver animals from, but using the animal hoarding card to defeat rescue access legislation is nothing more than ugly fear mongering. Hoarding is the result of mental illness and is not as common as many animal protection organizations would have us believe. Psychologists estimate that only 2% of the population suffers from hoarding, and of those, not all of them “collect” animals—many collect inanimate objects. By contrast, killing is endemic to animal shelters in the U.S. These are animals who have a 100% guarantee of being killed if rescue access isn’t mandated by law because rescue groups are only empowered to save those animals scheduled to be killed. So, there is a 100% chance the animal is killed vs. a slim possibility they’ll end up with a hoarder. Is it really a difficult decision?

To suggest that we must protect animals from rescuers is also backward thinking. Shelter killing is the number one cause of death for healthy animals in the U.S. If we care about saving animals, we must save them FROM shelters by putting them in the hands of RESCUERS. Moreover, logic and fairness—both to rescuers and the animals—demand that altruistic people who devote their time and energy to helping the animals who end up in our nation’s shelters stop being equated with mentally ill people who cause them harm. Animal rescuers seek to deliver animals from the type of cruelty and abuse that characterizes not only the care or lack thereof given to animals by hoarders, but, in reality, by many of our shelters as well.

Despite similar fear mongering over a decade ago by HSUS when Perry was working for them as California was the first state in the nation to consider such legislation, that provision has been an unqualified success, increasing the number of animals saved, without the downsides—including hoarding—which opponents claimed. Indeed, coupled with other modest shelter reforms, the number of dogs and cats killed in California shelters dropped from over 570,000 animals the year before the law was passed to roughly 328,000 the year after, a decline of almost 250,000 dogs and cats. And, the number of small animals saved, such as rabbits, also spiked according to an analysis by one of the largest law firms in the world. Indeed, that analysis not only concluded rescue rights in California have been incredibly successful, it concluded such laws were necessary in other states. In short, we have PROOF and experience that concerns about hoarding amount to nothing and that rescue access saves lives, facts which Perry and the ASPCA conveniently ignore.

And yet despite the fact that killing in shelters is so common and hoarding so rare, nonetheless, the Kellner bill has significant protections against such an outcome, which were put in the bill in the hopes of convincing the ASPCA to support the bill. It excludes organizations with a volunteer, staff member, director, and/or officer who has a conviction for animal neglect, cruelty, and/or dog fighting, and suspends the organization while such charges are pending. In addition, it requires the rescue organization to be a not-for-profit organization, recognized under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3). As a result, they must register with the federal government, and with several state agencies, including the Attorney General’s Office. It provides a mechanism for inspection of the rescue organization. And, more importantly, nothing in it required shelters to work with specific rescue groups. They are free to work with other rescue organizations if they choose and they are also free to adopt the animals themselves. What they cannot do, what they should not be permitted to do, is to kill animals when those animals have a place to go.

Perry’s final lie is to “apologize” for the “misunderstanding” and to urge animal lovers to work with the ASPCA to pass legislation to save more lives. But how is this possible when they are committed to defeating the existing bill which does just that? The Kellner bill is a strong, effective rescue access bill with safeguards to address all of their alleged concerns, and yet they refuse to support it, all the while arguing that we need to work together to come up with a bill that can pass, when, in truth they are the only thing standing in its way. Given how easily the ASPCA has defeated true rescue access laws in the past two years, and given how easily their Quick Kill bill passed the Agriculture Committee despite intense public opposition, how can Perry possibly claim that the Kellner Bill would be defeated even if the ASPCA threw their weight behind it? To state that the ASPCA wants to pass legislation “that will help animals” while refusing to not only support, but working to defeat the very legislation that does just that, is illogical and absurd. If that were true, the choice would be easy. They would support the Kellner bill. And so, Perry—who came to the regressive ASPCA by way of the equally regressive Humane Society of the United States—offers little more than Orwellian doublespeak at the behest of Sayres: “The bill we wrote is not our bill;” “The legislator we chose is not our legislator;” “We regret that the Kellner bill cannot pass because of our own opposition preventing it from passing.”

Perry’s machinations to the contrary, the ASPCA’s Quick Kill bill is not good for animals, it is not good for animal lovers, it is not good for New York, and it is not a good precedent for the nation. For the first time anywhere in the U.S., legislation is being sought that would allow shelters to kill animals based on a perceived state of mind, eliminating fundamental protections animals entering shelters have had for decades. Although as anyone acquainted with the crisis of cruelty and uncaring that characterizes our nation’s dysfunctional animal sheltering system can attest, our shelters are already poorly run houses of horror where animals face a better chance of being killed than exiting alive. But at the very least, mandatory holding periods, when they are obeyed, allow people the opportunity to reclaim their missing animals, and they afford homeless animals a little time and space to be adopted.

If the ASPCA has its way, and A05449 passes, New York shelters, which in theory exist to help homeless animals and reunite stray animals with their families, will become nothing more than dog and cat slaughterhouses. And if the law then catches on with regressive organizations in other states who introduce similar legislation which comes with the blessing of the powerful and influential ASPCA, the body count could be astronomical. And for what purpose?

Not because of a glaring deficiency in New York law regarding holding periods that the ASPCA was honestly and responsibly trying to amend so that the needs of animals in that state could be better served, but rather, as a spiteful vendetta of one hateful, heartless man: Ed Sayres of the ASPCA—a man who has proved himself willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of animals to his own blind ambition. And a man who has surrounded himself with sycophants and “yes men” willing to do his bidding despite the body count.

———————

What You Can Do:

If—and ONLY if—you are a New York Resident, please contact NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and ask him not to allow this bill to reach the Assembly floor. There is text provided for you, but as always adding your own heartfelt and polite message is always more effective: http://bit.ly/AEHufj

For those outside of New York who want to register your voice, there are three things you can and should do:

§ Please thank Assembly Member Lentol: http://on.fb.me/xyLStb

§ Please contact the Chair of the ASPCA Board and let her know how disappointed you are: http://bit.ly/xStrP7

§ And please let Assembly Member Paulin, author of the Quick Kill bill, know of your opposition: http://on.fb.me/ziFLtG

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Friendly Fire

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:18:03 +0100

February 22, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

When animal lovers learn about the tragic reality of cruelty and killing that is endemic at our nation’s “shelters,” and that the national organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the ASPCA defend the killing and thwart reform efforts, the first—and the most logical—question that inevitably follows is: Why?

Why would organizations which were supposed to have been founded on the highest ideals of compassion become the biggest defenders of the animal abuse and killing which occurs daily in our nation’s so-called “shelters”? Exploring the historical, sociological and financial motivations behind the unlikely support these shelters receive from HSUS, the ASPCA and PETA, among others, Friendly Fire answers this often confounding question while telling the stories of animals who have become catalysts for change: Oreo, Ace, Patrick, Kapone, Hope, Scruffy, Jeri & Murray, and others.

Coming this Summer.

Friendly Fire is Nathan’s fourth book and Jennifer’s second. Learn more by clicking here.

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Q&A With Amy Paulin: A Primer for NY Advocates

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:15:50 +0100

February 28, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

JOIN ONLINE Q & A WITH QUICK KILL BILL SPONSOR AMY PAULIN TODAY

Last week, the half page ad opposing A05449 paid for by animal lovers appeared in the district newspaper of Quick Kill bill sponsor Amy Paulin. Her office was flooded with calls from concerned animal lovers urging her to drop her deadly legislation. In response, Paulin asked the newspaper to run an editorial in support of her bill, and they agreed to an interview with her. But because Paulin has proved herself unable to answer basic questions about her bill, she asked ASPCA Representative Nancy Perry and Mayor’s Alliance owner Jane Hoffman to join her. This interview will take place today, February 28 at 1:30 pm Eastern time online. You can join the discussion in an internet chat room. Now is your chance to take your concerns directly to these champions of shelter killing and to educate the editorial board about how dangerous and deadly their legislation is.

Whether you are a rescuer who understands first-hand the need for a real rescue access law and the danger of giving animal control shelters even more power over life and death, a feral cat caretaker concerned about the well-being of the scared and shy cats you care for should they ever enter a shelter, or simply a concerned New York animal lover anxious about the very real threat the Quick Kill Bill presents to your own animal, please join the Paulin, Perry and Hoffman live for a live, online Q&A.

Following are materials (you can print out as a PDF here) to help you advocate effectively against the Quick Kill bill and in favor of the alternative legislation (A07312) which the Paulin bill is designed to undermine. We anticipate their claims will fall into several categories: that A05449 is an attempt to fix problems in existing state law (rather than an attempt to thwart real rescue access legislation as found in the Kellner Bill, A07312), that the Kellner bill can’t pass because it’s an unfunded mandate and because there is too much opposition, and that the Paulin bill helps animals and may just need a little “tweeking” rather than complete overhaul or withdrawal.

Following is information about who Paulin, Hoffman and Perry are, and a quick “cheat sheet” about the bill, its history, and responses to their false claims about it and the Kellner Bill.

Who They Are

Amy Paulin: The New York State Assemblywoman sponsoring A05449 representing the Scarsdale, New York and surrounding areas. She was hand-picked by the ASPCA because she is notorious for not reading the language of bills she introduces. She has been quoted in newspapers calling those who oppose her Quick Kill bill “uneducated” and “misinformed” even though she herself has been unable to answer basic questions about the bill’s language.

Jane Hoffman: As head of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC Animals, Hoffman has received over $5 million from the ASPCA, one of the reasons she supports their legislation. In addition, Hoffman’s organization is the gatekeeper between animals on death row in NY shelters and the rescue community. If a real rescue access law passes and rescue groups have a legal right to shelter animals, she loses her power over these groups and loses control of millions of dollars in funding.

Nancy Perry: An attorney for the regressive ASPCA who comes by way of the equally regressive Humane Society of the United States. She’s a defender of Wayne Pacelle and Ed Sayres, an advocate for organizations that kill in the face of lifesaving alternatives, and an apologist for the status quo. Her message is a simple one, told out of both sides of her mouth: the bill we wrote is not our bill, the legislator we picked is not our legislator, and we regret that the real rescue access bill will not pass because of our own opposition.

What They Will Say, How to Respond

“A05449 is an attempt to fix existing deficiencies in New York law as it pertains to shelter animals.”

WRONG: The Quick Kill Bill does not strengthen protections for animals in NY law, it weakens them by eliminating holding periods for scared and shy animals, granting shelters the authority to kill such animals the moment they walk in the door. If shelter staff determines that an animal is in “psychological pain,” the animal can be killed immediately. Not only is killing an animal for being scared or shy cruel, and not only is killing an animal who is fearful of being harmed both paradoxical and absurd (a shelter is doing the very thing the animal is fearful will happen—harming him), but there is no definition in law as to what constitutes “psychological pain” and no standards as to how it is to be applied. If any two shelter employees—including the janitor, the receptionist, or a kennel attendant—believe that an animal is in “psychological pain,” that animal can be killed immediately. Even if an animal was in psychological pain, the way to eliminate it is to remove the factors causing it. For feral cats, that means get them out of the shelter through TNR. For traumatized dogs, that means put them in a foster home. Killing them (the ultimate harm) to prevent harm is not only ethically irreconcilable, it is the most extreme and violent of all possible responses.

The Kellner bill, by contrast, specifically defines “Irremediable Physical Suffering” as follows:

AN ANIMAL WHO IS EXPERIENCING IRREMEDIABLE PHYSICAL SUFFERING WITH A PROGNOSIS FOR RECOVERY THAT IS POOR OR GRAVE EVEN WITH COMPREHENSIVE PROMPT AND NECESSARY VETERINARY CARE, AS CERTIFIED IN WRITING BY A VETERINARIAN LICENSED TO PRACTICE MEDICINE IN THIS STATE.

That is very protective of animals and would address any concerns about existing law being weak. By contrast, Paulin’s bill allows every shelter to determine for themselves how to define suffering, on top of adding the “Psych Pain” element. You don’t strengthen existing law by weakening it further.

Although Paulin has stated she was going to remove this provision from the bill, she has made those claims in the past, promising legislators to do so before the Agriculture Committee vote. When she learned she had the votes to pass the bill as is, she reneged on those promises. The only reason she is once against talking about doing so is because she has no choice. The Chair of the Codes Committee has flatly refused to allow a vote on the bill with the provision intact. Moreover, that is not the only problem with the bill. Even if she were forced to remove it, the problems with the bill—and its deadly results—go well beyond this provision.

“A05449 gives rescue groups the right to rescue animals in shelters.”

WRONG: A04559 does NOT mandate rescue access. It merely suggests it, and then codifies in law a shelter’s right not to work with rescue organizations. It states that shelters “may” give animals to rescue groups rather than kill them, instead of “shall” give the animals to them is required by CAARA, A07312, the bill supported by the New York rescue community and thousands of New York animal lovers. And in codifying a shelter’s unlimited authority to determine whether a rescue group or particular animal qualifies, the law eviscerates whistleblower protection for rescuers who want to expose cruel and abusive treatment of animals in the shelters they may visit but are now afraid to do so for fear of losing their rescue privileges.

In fact, the only reason A05449 was introduced is to thwart genuine rescue access legislation—legislation that the ASPCA worked to defeat in 2010 (Oreo’s Law), 2011 (CAARA), and is working to defeat again this year (A07312 by Assembly Member Micah Kellner). It gives the illusion of rescue access but in fact codifies the status quo that made real rescue access legislation necessary in the first place.

“Overall, A05449 is a strong bill which does a lot of good for animals.”

WRONG: In fact, A05449 requires nothing of shelters. Using cleverly crafted language, the bill suggests actions but never mandates them. For example, the parts of the bill that would be beneficial, such as posting animals on the internet or scanning for microchips, turn out to be suggestive, rather than mandatory. The Quick Kill bill only requires these things if they are “practicable,” and tragically, they never seem to be practicable or we would not need a law in the first place. When it comes to legislation, language is everything, and giving shelters the out if they determine doing so is not “practicable” renders the provisions paper tigers.

“The Kellner Bill cannot pass because it is an unfunded mandate. The legislature won’t pass bills that force expensive requirements on local entities.”

WRONG: Paulin herself has authored bills that imposed requirements on local governments without any funding attached. And admitting that their bill does not mandate anything while the Kellner Bill does proves that theirs is an impotent paper tiger. If their bill actually improved conditions in shelters by requiring them to do more than they already are, wouldn’t that also be an unfunded mandate?

But more importantly, the inability to pass rescue access legislation in the past is due to ASPCA’s opposition. Given how easily the ASPCA has defeated true rescue access laws in the past two years, and given how easily their Quick Kill bill passed the Agriculture Committee despite intense public opposition, how can they possibly claim that the Kellner bill would be defeated even if the ASPCA threw their weight behind it? And either way, they owe it to the 25,000 animals the law would save every year to try.

“The Kellner Bill will place animals in the hands of hoarders and dog fighters.”

WRONG: First off, this statement is an admission that their bill, A05449, really doesn’t require shelters to give animals to rescuers as they claim. If they oppose the Kellner bill because they don’t want rescue access for fear of hoarding, how can they simultaneously claim that their bill mandates it? Nonetheless, this is simple fear mongering—an attempt to thwart positive and necessary progress by making that change seems scarier than the status quo.

Despite similar fear mongering over a decade ago by HSUS when California was the first state in the nation to consider such legislation, rescue access has been an unqualified success, increasing the number of animals saved, without the downsides—including hoarding—which opponents claimed. Indeed, coupled with other modest shelter reforms, the number of dogs and cats killed in California shelters dropped from over 570,000 animals the year before the law was passed to roughly 328,000 the year after, a decline of almost 250,000 dogs and cats. And, the number of small animals saved, such as rabbits, also spiked. In short, we have PROOF and experience that concerns about hoarding amount to nothing and that rescue access saves lives, facts which the ASPCA conveniently ignores.

The Kellner bill is about leveling the playing field between smaller non-profits and larger non-profits which hold animal control contracts and all of the power. It is about mandating life-saving collaboration between organizations founded for the same purpose. It has nothing whatsoever to do with hoarding. That some hoarders claim to be rescue groups when they are caught does not mean that they are—and the argument that not allowing responsible non-profit organizations to rescue animals from other non-profits or animal control shelters will prevent hoarding is a non-sequitur. Hoarding is the result of mental illness and is not as common as many animal protection organizations would have us believe. Psychologists estimate that only 2% of the population suffers from hoarding, and of those, not all of them “collect” animals—many collect inanimate objects. By contrast, killing is endemic to animal shelters in the U.S. These are animals who have a 100% guarantee of being killed if rescue access isn’t mandated by law because rescue groups are only empowered to save those animals scheduled to be killed. Without the Kellner bill, there is a 100% chance an animal being killed that a rescue group wants but a shelter doesn’t want to give to them vs. the slimmest of possibilities that the animal will end up with a hoarder. Is it really a difficult decision? Moreover, despite the fact that the chances of hoarding are slim, the Kellner bill contains many protections, without giving shelters the continued ability to kill animals who have a place to go. The bill allows inspections when evidence exists, bans those with a history of neglect and cruelty, and requires oversight by several state and federal agencies.

Finally, logic and fairness—both to rescuers and the animals—demand that altruistic people who devote their time and energy to helping the animals who end up in our nation’s shelters stop being equated with mentally ill people who cause them harm. Animal rescuers seek to deliver animals from the type of cruelty and abuse that characterizes not only the care or lack thereof given to animals by hoarders, but, in reality, by many of our shelters as well

“The dispute over A05449 and the Kellner Bill is all just one big misunderstanding, a misunderstanding that we regret. We need to work together to come up with an accommodation that will save lives.”

WRONG: There is no misunderstanding and saying so is merely a tactic to make it look like the ASPCA is reasonable when, in fact, it is intractable. The Kellner bill is a strong, effective rescue access bill already filled with safeguards to address all of the ASPCA’s alleged concerns, and yet they refuse to support it, all the while arguing that we need to work together to come up with a bill that can pass, when, in truth they are the only thing standing in the way of a truly effective bill passing. If they were sincere, the choice would be easy. They would drop A05449, and support the Kellner bill, A07312.

To print out a PDF of these claims and responses, click here.

For More Information

For the difference between the Quick Kill Bill and the Kellner Bill (a side by side comparison), click here.

For the history behind the bill which reveals how it is not a sincere attempt to fix what is wrong with NYS law but rather a vendetta about Oreo and an effort to thwart real reform, click here.

For Jane Hoffman’s history and how real rescue access threatens her power and position, click here.

To understand how the problems with A05449 go beyond the “psychological pain” provision, click here.

To see another side by side comparison which demonstrates how important legislative language is and why the Quick Kill bill falls short, click here.

See also: “The ASPCA and Amy Paulin Double Down on the Quick Kill Bill” by NYC animal advocate John Sibley by clicking here.

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Where Do We Go From Here?

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:12:09 +0100

March 16, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

PAULIN AMENDS QUICK KILL BILL TO REMOVE “PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN” PROVISION, BUT THE FIGHT FOR THE SAFETY OF NEW YORK ANIMALS IS FAR FROM OVER.

Congratulations to every animal lover who assisted in forcing Assemblywoman Amy Paulin to amend her deadly legislation, the “Quick Kill Bill,” to eliminate the provision allowing for the immediate killing of animals entering shelters who are claimed to be in “psychological pain.” Together, we have succeeded in stopping the ASPCA, Jane Hoffman of the Mayor’s Alliance, a woman named Laura Allen and Amy Paulin from eroding New York State’s mandated holding period for shelter animals. By flooding the New York State legislature with roughly 20,000 calls and e-mails of opposition, 11 cosponsors dropped their support for the bill, including the New York Senator who introduced the bill in his chamber, and Paulin was forced to revise some of the language of her bill.

Together, we prevented a very tiny handful of heartless people from thwarting the will of animal lovers and the best interest of animals by turning back the clock on animal protection in New York over 40 years. While this is indeed cause for celebration, and evidence of our collective power, it is, in reality, just the beginning of the fight against Paulin’s bill and the effort by a small group of individuals to thwart real shelter reform, including genuine rescue access, in New York State.

Paulin’s bill, even as amended, is still dangerous, and although over the last few months we were forced to focus our energies on preserving what few protections New York animals have when they enter shelters, we must still contend with the fact that the Paulin bill was introduced merely to co-opt the real rescue access bill overwhelmingly supported by New York rescuers and animal lovers, the Kellner Bill (A07312A). The Kellner bill would require shelters to give animals to rescue groups that they have determined to kill. Had the “psychological pain” provision never been included in the Paulin Bill—an immediate threat to animals which required our urgent focus—then all of our energies would have been aimed at exposing how the Paulin bill is merely a cynical attempt to derail the effort for the much needed rescue access provision guaranteed by the Kellner Bill.

Please join me and New York rescuers and animal lovers in directing our attention back to our original goal: guaranteeing genuine rescue access legislation in New York state to prevent the needless deaths of an estimated 25,000 animals every single year who shelters are determined to kill, but rescue groups are willing to save.

Below is a quick history of the Paulin Bill, the players who are working to promote it and thereby defeat true rescue access legislation, and a point-by point overview of the dangers of the Paulin bill as it is now written, including the following:

1. The amended bill says that shelter “may” make animals they intend to kill available to rescue groups, rather than “shall” as the Kellner bill does. In short, it continues to give shelters the power to kill in the face of a rescue group alternative.

2. The authors themselves admit that the law is amended to add “‘placement with an organization on a list of approved organizations’ as an option for a humane society, animal shelter or pound to consider in the case of any animal of which possession is taken.” It should not be an “option” for them “to consider,” but a requirement for animals scheduled to be killed.

3. The amended bill gives shelters the power to “approve” or not approve rescue groups, eviscerating any whistleblower protections that rescue rights laws were designed for by giving shelters the unchecked power to deny rescue groups because the director deems them “disruptive.” That is tantamount to self-regulation by the industry. In other words, the requirement should be mandatory for animals shelters are intent on killing when rescue groups meet state-approved criteria, like those in the much more comprehensive and thoughtful bill introduced by Assembly Member Micah Kellner (A07312A).

4. Shelters “are not required to include on the list animal rescue organizations located outside of the impounding organization’s county and adjoining counties in the state of New York”, thus preserving Jane Hoffman’s power at the expense of the animals and allowing rural shelters to avoid working with rescue groups in Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and New York City where homes are in greater abundance.

The “Quick Kill” Bill

New York State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin has a reputation for introducing bills on behalf of well-heeled constituents without reading them. Her “Quick Kill” bill (A05449A) was no exception. At the behest of the ASPCA, and working with Laura Allen of the so-called Animal Law Coalition (it is a coalition of one—Laura Allen) and Jane Hoffman of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC Animals which has nothing to do with the Mayor, she introduced a bill that would have allowed New York State shelters to kill animals immediately if shelter staff determines that the animals are in “psychological pain.” There was no definition of what constituted psychological pain and no standards to how it would have been applied. For the first time anywhere in the U.S., shelters would have been allowed to kill animals with no holding period of any kind based on the animals’ perceived state of mind, giving shelter staff unlimited discretion to immediately kill animals based on unenforceable, unknowable, and completely subjective criteria. Not only was this a real and immediate threat to shy and scared animals, but it undermined New York State’s laws protecting lost animals that have been in place since 1971, turning back the clock on animal protection over 40 years.

Tragically, that was not the only problem with the bill. The parts of the bill that would have been beneficial, such as posting animals on the internet or scanning for microchips, turned out to be suggestive, rather than mandatory. Paulin’s bill only required these things if they were “practicable,” and tragically, they never seem to be practicable or we would not need a law in the first place. When it comes to legislation, language is everything, and giving shelters the out if they determine doing so is not “practicable” rendered the provisions paper tigers.

Finally, the provisions asking shelters to work with rescue organizations merely codified existing practices. The bill specifically said that shelters “may” give animals to rescue groups rather than kill them, instead of “shall” give the animals to them. And if they choose to, it gave them unlimited authority to determine whether a rescue group or particular animal qualifies. If shelter staff believed the rescue group is unfairly critical of the shelter, they could have deemed that rescue group “abusive” under the law and prevented them from rescuing animals. That is the power they have now, and shelters like New York City’s pound have banned rescuers and volunteers for exercising their First Amendment rights trying to improve conditions. (Except for a few cosmetic changes, these latter provisions have not changed.)

Writing the provisions this way was by design. The ASPCA, Hoffman, and Allen—collectively known in New York City as the “humane mafia”—asked Paulin to introduce the “Quick Kill” bill as an alternative to true shelter reform, which they have been fighting for three years because they saw it as a threat to their power, and in the case of Hoffman, wealth. (You can read more by clicking here.) In response, roughly 20,000 New Yorkers wrote in opposition, ten of Paulin’s cosponsors withdrew their support, the Senate sponsor struck his own bill leaving her without anyone in the Senate willing to carry it, and Codes Committee Chairman, Joe Lentol, stated emphatically, the bill was dead. Instead of acknowledging anyone’s concerns, Paulin dismissed all of them, including Lentol, as “uninformed,” “uneducated,” and “emotional.” We wanted what she wanted, she said. We were just too stupid to know it.

The Amendments

A more thoughtful Assembly Member would have seen their relationship with the ASPCA, which kills animals in the face of alternatives and hoards its money while the animals of New York City’s pound are systematically neglected, abused, and put to death, and those of the ASPCA’s enablers, like Allen and Hoffman, who have their own skeletons in the closet (Allen was willing to exploit the law to save her own dog which was declared dangerous by a shelter), as not only toxic, but self-serving at her expense. Instead, Paulin—ever willing to do their bidding—simply claimed that it was all a big “misunderstanding” (it was not), and amended her bill (she had no choice), reintroducing it as A05449B, without the Quick Kill provision. The bill also made other improvements, such as removing some (but not all) of the language giving shelters an out if they find certain provisions impracticable—see, for example, Section 1(A)(3) requiring shelters to upload a photograph to the internet, but only “if practicable” or requiring shelters to publicize stray animals, again only if practicable—somewhat of an improvement over the original bill (A05449A), but hardly making the new version worthy of support; in fact, far from it.

It is merely a continuation of their true goal: undermine rescue access rights which would undermine Hoffman’s power as the middleman between rescue groups and the New York City pound which has allowed her to control and siphon off some of the over $20,000,000 in grants. They are willing to compromise on the rest of the bill because those provisions are not important to them. They merely provide a vehicle to undermine the effort to pass a true rescue group bill of rights.

Their hope is that people will support the requirement of “appropriate” vaccinations and “necessary” medical care enough (“necessary” is not defined, unlike the Kellner bill) that they will go along with the rest of the bill, even at the expense of codifying shelter power over rescue groups. (Ironically, the ASPCA claimed legislators would not support the true shelter reform bill introduced by Assemblyman Micah Kellner because it was an “unfunded mandate,” but Paulin’s bill is now filled with unfunded mandates. Why would they support her unfunded mandate that shelters provide veterinary care and vaccinations if they were not willing to support the Kellner bill?) Although Hoffman & Company made some cosmetic changes to those provisions, the intent remains the same; as does the outcome: the continued killing of tens of thousands of animals every year in New York State shelters, even when those animals have an immediate place to go.

The amendments were also so hastily and sloppily written (does Paulin’s staff even proof the language given to her by Nancy Perry of the ASPCA, Allen, and Hoffman?), that in fact, they are internally contradictory. And they exclude whole categories of shelter animals. For example, the sections suggesting, if practicable, that photographs be uploaded to the internet, or that require veterinary care and vaccinations do not appear to apply to owner-surrendered animals, only stray animals. Moreover, while Section 1 deals with dogs and Section 2 deals with other animals such as cats, the Section 2 requirements to provide shelter, food and water specifically says that they have to do this only “during the time the dog is in the[ir] possession.” Section 2 does not deal with dogs, so it makes no sense. Poor drafting to be sure, but it affects the legal requirements. All of that, of course, can be remedied and depending on the level of opposition, may well be, because none of that really matters much to them. Their eye is on the real prize: undermine the movement for full rescue access, the kind that gives rescue groups whistleblower protection from abusive shelter directors. A 2010 survey found that 71% of NYS rescue groups have been turned away by shelters and those shelters subsequently killed the animals they offered to save. The survey also found that roughly half of all non-profit organizations have been the subject of retaliation, including retaliatory killing of animals, for expressing concern about inhumane conditions in shelters.

Shelters May Transfer Animals Instead of Killing Them; They Don’t Have To

That is why the bill, especially the provisions allegedly mandating “rescue access,” continue to deserve the opposition of New York State animal lovers and the legislators who represent them. Section 4 of the bill says that shelter “may” make animals they intend to kill available to rescue groups, rather than “shall” as the Kellner bill does. In short, it continues to give shelters the power to do one of three things after the holding period for stray animals: adopt the animals out, transfer the animals to rescue groups, or kill them. That is the power they always have had. As such, the bill continues to codify the status quo which has resulted in the killing of, by some estimates, 25,000 animals every year despite rescue groups ready, willing, able, and capable of saving them. (The bill later says that animals cannot be killed unless the shelter reaches out to rescue groups, so it is internally contradictory on this score. Whether this is simply Allen and Hoffman’s sloppy draftsmanship or intentional is not clear. Either way, the language of the enabling section remains permissive—may—rather than mandatory—shall.) In fact, the policy language, part of the legislative history which can be used to determine legislative intent when the bill itself is contradictory or confusing (it is both) specifically says,

Subdivision 2 is amended to add “placement with an organization on a list of approved organizations” as an option for a humane society, animal shelter or pound to consider in the case of any animal of which possession is taken.

It should not be an “option” for them “to consider,” but a requirement for animals scheduled to be killed. Nor does it make sense to give shelters the power to “approve” or not approve rescue groups. That is tantamount to self-regulation by the industry, a power they have used to kill animals in the face of readily-available lifesaving alternatives they have refused to implement. In other words, the requirement should be mandatory for animals shelters are intent on killing when rescue groups meet state-approved criteria, like those in the much more comprehensive and thoughtful bill introduced by Assembly Member Micah Kellner (A07312A).

Self-Regulation

Moreover, the bill gives shelters open-ended discretion to reject rescue groups, since the bill specifically says that rescuers are “subject to approval by the impounding organization as set forth in this subdivision,” once again a power they already have. Other than setting deadlines, the provisions give shelters virtually unchecked power, including the power to reject rescue groups not in their own county or if they claim, with no standards of any kind, that the rescue groups engaged in behavior that calls into question the activities of the shelter, even when those activities include unnecessary killing. In other words, the bill allows Hoffman to maintain control over New York City rescue groups (shelters “are not required to include on the list animal rescue organizations located outside of the impounding organization’s county and adjoining counties in the state of New York”), it allows rural shelters to avoid working with rescue groups in Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and New York City where homes are in greater abundance, and it eviscerates any whistleblower protections that rescue rights laws were designed for by giving shelters the unchecked power to deny rescue groups because the director deems them “disruptive.”

New York City’s abusive pound has fired and has threatened to fire volunteers and rescuers who are critical of their shelter (a violation of their First Amendment rights). It has engaged in a witch hunt to determine who leaked information that an employee abused a rabbit, rather than fire the abusive employee (he still works there and still has access to animals). And it continues to set the terms of which rescue groups get approved, turning away qualified rescue groups despite killing healthy and adoptable animals. That kind of conduct would continue under the Paulin bill, even as amended.

History Repeating Itself

Of course, if she hears from enough New Yorkers that they remain opposed, she’ll no doubt accuse them of being “misinformed” and “uneducated.” When that fails, as it did before, she may even claim again that it was a “misunderstanding” as she did with the “Quick Kill” provision, which on top of being dishonest, calls into question her ability: a legislator who keeps misunderstanding what their own bill does is not fit to represent the people, let alone set the standard by which animals live or die in New York State. Once again, this bill—even as amended—is not good for animals, it is not good for animal lovers, it is not good for New York, and it is not a good precedent for the nation.

The good news is that there is already legislation pending that would truly end the practice of convenience killing in New York State shelters. Assembly Member Kellner’s bill (A07312A) would empower non-profit animal rescue organizations to fulfill their missions, a right often denied to them by larger non-profit organizations and shelters. It provides whistleblower protection for rescue groups, creating an incentive for non-profit organizations to help end cruelty or neglect at shelters without fear of retaliation and loss of rescue access. It has specific provisions to ensure that these groups have the best interests of animals at heart and are able to care for them. And it prevents needless animal suffering by mandating precise, sensible, and objective criteria for determining which animals are dangerous or irremediably suffering and therefore exempt from rescue access provisions.

Don’t be fooled: Amy Paulin’s bill is a continuing death threat to animals who have a place to go. Jane Hoffman knows it. Laura Allen knows it. Ed Sayres and Nancy Perry know it. And Amy Paulin does—or should—know it, too.

What You Can Do

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Pens Before Pets: Amy Paulin Seeks Revenge

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:08:21 +0100

April 20, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

And she is willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of animals in shelters to get it.

In time, Amy Paulin’s tenure in the New York State legislature will mean very little and will be largely forgotten. That’s because Paulin doesn’t care about issues as much as she cares about tokens. Specifically, she cares about “pen certificates.” A pen certificate is a framed copy of a bill signed by the governor, complete with the actual pen used to sign the bill. Paulin likes the pens and the certificates. Lots of them. She puts them on her wall, a tribute to all her Pyrrhic victories that have done nothing substantive to right some wrong or truly advance good government. According to Paulin’s website, “Since her election to the Assembly, 121 of her bills have been signed into law. In 2011 alone, Paulin authored 16 bills that passed both houses, placing her in the top 3% of members.” But there is a reason for that; actually two reasons:

1. She is willing to introduce anything and has a reputation of not reading those bills, effectively rubber-stamping the desire of special interests; and,

2. She is willing to amend the bills to the point that they are largely meaningless (they can’t even be called symbolic).

A few years ago, for example, Paulin introduced legislation: “The Transparency of Shelter Operations Act.” The bill would have required New York State shelters to post how many animals they save and kill online and to do so quarterly. If shelters are transparent, taxpayers and animal lovers will demand accountability—and improvement. At least, that should have been the defining issue. But Paulin doesn’t care about those issues as much as she cares about getting the pen certificate for the bill. So when kill shelters objected that they should not be held accountable and that taxpayers and animal lovers had no right to know that they were slaughtering animals, she amended it so that it only applied to shelters that receive state funding, of which there were only a couple in the entire state. In one stroke of the keyboard, Paulin exempted over 95% of all New York State kill shelters. After more objections, she further amended the bill, eliminating the requirement that the information be posted online. In fact, even state-funded shelters would not have had to affirmatively make the information public. What was left was a bill that did virtually nothing.

Anything to get another pen certificate. It’s quantity for Paulin, not quality. In the race for pen certificates, Paulin is the gold medalist, not that anyone else is competing. When you are the only person in a race you created, of course you’ll win. In fact, as to her Quick Kill/Quiet Kill bill (A05449C), she believes she’ll get it, too. She said so. Specifically, she stated that when the “emotions” of the “ignorant” and “uninformed” New York masses—who happen to pay her salary and whose will she is supposed to represent—die down, the bill will pass because the mighty ASPCA is behind it. And so at the request of Ed Sayres of the ASPCA and Jane Hoffman of the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City animals, her bill (which she re-amended this week):

§ Eviscerates whistleblower protections for rescuers;

§ Allows shelters to turn rescuers away if they question inhumane treatment and continued killing in those shelters;

§ Allows shelters to turn away rescue groups if they are not local (thus preserving Jane Hoffman’s power at the expense of the animals and allowing rural shelters to avoid working with rescue groups in Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and New York City where homes are in greater abundance);

§ Allows shelters to enter foster homes based on an undefined belief that they should (a tactic of intimidation and harassment); and,

§ Only allows rescues “if approved” by the shelter, an approval that can be withheld for questioning their rates of killing.

In short, Amy Paulin is willing to sacrifice thousands of animals for a framed certificate and a pen. She is also willing to subvert the democratic process. She is asking the Speaker of the Assembly to do an end-run around the committee system and bring the bill directly to the floor, where uninformed legislators will think they are helping animals because the (corrupt) ASPCA is behind it. If the ASPCA says it is good for animals, it must be!

It’s dishonest. It’s undemocratic. And it’s reactionary. Why is she willing to go that far? Why will this pen certificate take its coveted place at the center of all the others that adorn her wall? Why will this be the sweetest certificate of them all, regardless of how much animal blood is shed to get it? Why is she digging in her heels, when most legislators would have backed down in deference to the voice of the people? Because this one is personal. This one is driven by revenge.

Thanks to tens of thousands of New Yorkers who spoke out against the bill, 11 cosponsors withdrew their support for it and the Senator who introduced the bill on her behalf withdrew it in the Senate. Moreover, articles and editorials have appeared in the district newspaper against her bill, tens of thousands of emails from New Yorkers have poured into the Assembly in opposition. A half-page ad was published in her hometown newspaper and a postcard mailing paid for by animal lovers reached every household in her hometown. Her Facebook page was flooded with comments in opposition (before she began banning and deleting those who disagreed with her; once again showing her true reactionary and undemocratic colors). But more than that, her desire to become the County Executive of Westchester which, at one point, was considered a done deal is now an open question because of the controversy. And Paulin is committed to making New Yorkers who questioned her pay.

Though her tenure will be largely forgotten, her effort to thwart meaningful shelter reform and to allow shelters to kill animals in the face of a rescue alternative will not be. Paulin’s effort to do so by introducing a competing bill that codifies the status quo (and initially sought to increase the power of shelters to kill animals) will be memorialized in my upcoming fourth book, Friendly Fire. Exploring the historical, psychological and financial motivations behind the unlikely support abusive, kill shelters receive from groups like the ASPCA, Friendly Fire answers the question, Why?

Why did organizations which were supposed to have been founded on the highest ideals of compassion became the biggest defenders of the animal abuse and killing which occurs daily in our nation’s so-called “shelters.” It also discusses the tactics, proxies, and puppets they use to do so. Proxies and puppets like Amy Paulin who are willing to trump true reform in deference to these organizations, even if it means the continued killing of savable animals in shelters who have an immediate place to go. That is what people will remember of her. And the unconscionable and tragic cost-benefit analysis that she employed, when she came to the conclusion that a pen and a pen certificate were worth more than the lives of 25,000 animals a year.

Learn more: www.protectNYpets.org

What You Can Do:

§ If – and ONLY if – you are a New York resident, please contact NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and ask him not to allow this bill to reach the Assembly floor. There is text provided for you, but as always adding your own heartfelt and polite message is always more effective: http://bit.ly/AEHufj

§ If – and ONLY if – you are a New York resident, please contact the cosponsors of the bill and ask them to withdraw their support. Once again, text has been provided, but as always adding your own heartfelt and polite message is helpful. These sponsors are not necessarily the enemy; most are merely uninformed as to the true intent of this legislation: http://bit.ly/IEPXGn

§ No matter where you live, let her know how you feel: www.facebook.com/assemblywomanpaulin

Send Amy Paulin a Pen!

When a dog resource-guards something, like toys, we respond by flooding the dog with toys, so he can realize they exist in abundance and that they aren’t so special. Since Amy Paulin is resource guarding pens and pen certificates, we need to flood her with them, so she can realize they aren’t so special, too. Certainly, they aren’t worth the lives of 25,000 animals a year who are being killed in NYS shelters despite rescue groups ready, willing, and able to save them. Send Amy Paulin a pen. Simply stick it in an envelope and mail it to her office. If you send a note with the pen, BE POLITE!

Assemblywoman Amy Paulin
700 White Plains Road Suite 252
Scarsdale, NY 10583

For Further Reading:

Amy Paulin Revives the Quick Kill Bill

A Most Dangerous Precedent

Bill Bad for Animals

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In the Arms of the Angel of Death

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:02:31 +0100

May 8, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

The healthy 3-week old kitten was delivered to the ASPCA, probably by a Good Samaritan who found him. Perhaps, they saw the commercial, heard the Sarah McLachlan song “In the arms of an angel,”

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold … room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here;

knew that by taking him to the organization that bills itself as the animals’ “voice,” whose revenues exceed $140,000,000 a year making it one of the wealthiest overall charities in the nation and the single richest SPCA in America, the kitten would be safe.

After all, the ASPCA has more resources than it knows what to do with. So many resources, in fact, that they could afford to pay their CEO over half a million dollars a year, even provide him a driver to get him around Manhattan. And only a few short days away from eating on his own, with a full-service medical hospital named after the great Henry Bergh staffed by a team of veterinarians and hundreds of employees, the kitten was surely safe.

Maybe the Good Samaritan even wrote a donation check, to thank the ASPCA for taking in the kitten. It is not uncommon. And the ASPCA could then use that money to buy formula, the bottle, some cotton balls to help stimulate the kitten to go to the bathroom if he was not yet doing so on his own. It was just one kitten. Even if he didn’t write a check, no matter, the ASPCA could afford it. It would cost peanuts:

1. Bottle of powdered KMR: $12.99

2. Kitten bottle: $5.19

3. Cotton balls: $1.39

4. Heating pad: $13.49

5. Towel: donated

Only $33.06 to save this kitten’s life; a mere fraction of the revenues: 0.00000002% to be exact. They’d make that back in interest before the kitten needed his next feeding. Yes, the kitten was safe. And not only did he have the animals’ “voice” protecting him, he had a veritable army: the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful army in the animal protection world.

According to Maddie’s Fund, New York City and its shelters are a “national model.” They’ve given over $25,000,000 to arm it. Best Friends also claims it is a model of compassion, “well on its way to meeting its no-kill goals.” They opened up an office in New York City. The Mayor’s Alliance for New York City’s Animals boasts that the City does not kill healthy animals—under “Health Issues,” the kitten’s record is marked “None”—and claims they are “on track” for achieving No Kill. And since they’ve been “on track” for 11 years, surely they’ve built the ultimate safety net for healthy motherless neonatals with all those tens of millions they’ve taken in. Even HSUS has an office there. Combined, the four organizations with fundraising offices in New York City—ASPCA, HSUS, Mayor’s Alliance, and Best Friends—take in over $320,000,000 per year. The kitten just needs 0.00000001% of the total take. In fact, they could fundraise off the kitten and make that back ten fold; a hundred fold; even a million fold.

And why shouldn’t that kitten be safe? After all, there are No Kill communities which have per capita intake rates ten times higher than the City. Add the largest adoption market in the nation to one of the lowest per capita intake rates; add to that that the City is the center of the nation’s wealth; top it off with New York City being the most cosmopolitan and progressive community in the U.S. and the center of the Western World, and there is absolutely NOTHING that could and would stand in the way of the bright future this kitten has to look forward to.

The sky has parted, providence is bathing the world in sunshine, and one tiny little kitten is in the arms of an angel. Check that. He’s not just in the arms of an angel, the entirety of the heavens has opened up to protect him. He’s got a fleet of angels—Maddie’s Fund, the ASPCA, HSUS, Best Friends, the Mayor’s Alliance, even the “model” city shelter—all there to protect this little baby kitten because he is healthy, has his whole life ahead of him, and all of them are in New York City raising money promising to protect little kittens like him. They all tell us they believe in No Kill and they all tell us they are No Kill “experts,” and they all tell us that every single last one of them is dedicated to saving lives. And this one is easy, a no-brainer; saving-lives-for-dummies. No surgery, no heroic efforts, just your run of the mill, garden variety need for a volunteer, some powdered milk, a five-inch plastic bottle, and a little TLC.

Two hours later, the kitten is dead.

Under orders from Ed Sayres and his team, the kitten was taken to the city pound to be killed. The pound would oblige. Less than one hour after he arrived (41 minutes to be exact), he was scheduled to be killed. Why? “No placement.” The Mayor’s Alliance was busy fighting legislation that would save animals to actually save him themselves. Best Friends was too busy coming up with magical five year plans in other cities based on the very same Mayor’s Alliance model. HSUS, of course, was not interested. The ASPCA pleads lack of resources. Maddie’s Fund would like to refer all concerns about what is happening in New York back to the Mayor’s Alliance, who is also too busy fighting legislation to save animals to respond to your questions.

One hour and 27 minutes later, he was given a fatal dose of poison. He was tossed on a pile of other dead animals. His kennel number was updated to “Freezer.” There he sits, awaiting transport to the crematory.

Although this is not him, this is what a 3-week-old kitten looks like. How could they possibly kill him?

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Ryan Clinton & The Deathly Hallows

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:09:14 +0100

March 27, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

“You’ve got a great location. An unparalleled location! So why would you even think about moving it?” –Ryan Clinton, FixAustin, Austin Chronicle, 2007.

“I am 100 percent convinced that moving the animal shelter will have no impact on adoptions,” Dorinda Pulliam, Animal Control Director, Austin Chronicle, 2007.

“[T]he problem is not getting adopters to the shelter, but rather, having enough desirable and placeable animals to choose from.” –Karen Medicus, ASPCA, Unpublished Letter to Editor, 2007.

The gun shots rang out in the early evening. It wasn’t the first time, but it would be the last that some volunteers at Austin’s new animal shelter building would be hearing them. City officials determined that it was not safe for volunteers to be at the new shelter after dark and so the call went out. According to an e-mail sent to volunteers by city staff:

We had another incident of gun shots fired near the animal shelter this evening… This also happened last Saturday. About fifteen minutes after tonight’s incident, [Austin Police Department] reported more shots fired on a street behind the shelter… [Y]ou all are encouraged to take measures that will make you feel safer about being here (walking in groups, not volunteering after dark, etc.).

During the winter months, when the sun sets as early as 5:30 pm, if volunteers heed the call to end their shifts before dark, this would effectively eliminate essential volunteer support during the workweek for many. As tragic as that is for dogs waiting to be walked, cats looking for socialization, and all the other benefits volunteers bring to sheltering; what makes it all the more so is that it isn’t the only legacy that will continue to haunt Austin’s effort to remain the largest community in the U.S. with a 90% save rate or better.

The new shelter reduced the number of cages and kennels for the animals in order to build larger offices and more administrative space, and it is already feeling the pinch (there are roughly 60 fewer kennels just for large dogs than the old shelter at Town Lake). On top of rumors of fewer people venturing to the shelter because of its remote location, the shelter is not only difficult to find (it abuts a State highway and the State will not allow the shelter to put up signs along the freeway), it is difficult to navigate once you’re inside of it. Even when you turn into the driveway, you’re not sure whether you are in the right place because the “front” of it is actually facing the opposite direction of the road and the driveway. As a result, adoptions are rumored not to be keeping pace with the growing need. The shelter remains perpetually full, and has found it necessary to send overflow animals to the old facility at Town Lake.

While those hostile to the No Kill initiative are questioning whether No Kill is “sustainable” because the city shelter claims to be in perpetual crisis mode, this view misses the point entirely. The problem was entirely predictable and avoidable and has nothing to do with No Kill. In fact, it has everything to do with those who tried to prevent No Kill from being embraced by Austin city officials. In 2007, Austin had what other communities coveted: a centrally located facility in an area that is a daily destination for thousands of Austinites. And while most communities were struggling with trying to increase foot traffic to their shelters through offsite adoptions, satellite adoption centers, and other strategies because they were located in remote parts of their community and were not designed with lifesaving in mind, plans were underway to do the opposite in Austin. Supporting the then-shelter director regardless of the outcome, the ASPCA took on the role of spearheading the effort to move Austin’s shelter from its centrally located facility to a remote part of the city, far away from where people live, work, and play.

There was no doubt that the existing facility was run down and needed significant capitalization. But instead of embracing improvements to the existing facility or building a new one at the existing location, Dorinda Pulliam, the then-shelter director, enlisted the support of anyone who would listen to move the shelter, pushing for the remote location with fewer cages and kennels, even in the face of rampant killing, which was at the time the status quo in Austin. It was a call that would be answered by Karen Medicus, the ASPCA’s bureaucrat whose legacy in Austin includes one failure after another, and Ed Sayres, her detached boss who rubber stamped her actions, including those which cost animals their lives. Medicus and Sayres urged the city of Austin to do Pulliam’s bidding and take a giant step backward; fighting No Kill advocates like Ryan Clinton of FixAustin and others who were against the plan of taking the shelter from its prime location and placing it in a more remote location.

While admitting that the proposed location was not centrally located, Medicus and Pulliam claimed that it would be more “central” to those who surrender animals. But that claim showed how desperate they were to find a rationale for the move. To the extent that they proposed moving the shelter away from prime retail, commercial, and residential corridors, they were trying to undermine the ability to save lives, increase adoptions, improve volunteerism and keep the shelter in the public eye. The “customers” of Austin’s shelter—the animals who faced life and death at the shelter, the adopters, taxpayers, and animal lovers who did not want them killed—would not be served by the move. But by claiming it was best to relocate the shelter to where intakes were occurring, Medicus and others were trying to make it easier for people to surrender their animals at the shelter, even if it made it more difficult for other people to adopt them. This was a clear admission that the priority was not on lifesaving. And she enlisted the support of another regressive agency to support her view: the ever-willing-to-protect-incompetents-even-if-it-means-animals-will-pay-the-price, Humane Society of the United States. HSUS chimed in, telling Austin officials that locating a shelter in areas where the shelter is likely to see the most adoptions should not be the primary factor in considering a shelter’s location. In other words, HSUS supported the move, not because logic compelled it, but because a kill shelter asked them to.

More importantly, it wasn’t even true. None of the zip codes surrounding the proposed site were even among the top seven highest-intake zip codes. The original shelter location was located where adoptions and intakes were both highest, making it the preferred one. In other words, the existing location was closer to the areas of Austin where most strays came from and where most adopters came from. It was closer to the city’s geographic and population centers. In short, it was perfectly situated and Medicus knew it.

Instead, she argued that the new location would allow new people to volunteer, people who had not historically done so because of the shelter’s current location. But in making that claim, she was undermining her other arguments. If these people were not willing to go to the existing location to volunteer, didn’t that underscore the claim of opponents of the move that if the shelter is not centrally located, it will reduce volunteerism? In other words, they were admitting that the move had the potential to lead to fewer volunteers and, by logical extension, fewer adoptions.

No Kill advocates also expressed concerns about the reduced number of kennels and cages in the plans for the new facility. But once again Medicus dismissed them, claiming that more space wasn’t needed because the animals weren’t “desirable” or “placeable.” More kennels would only result in “warehousing animals.” The animals, she argued, were better off dead.

Although the City split the baby, keeping the old facility open as a satellite adoption center (which is the subject of new debate), it approved the relocation. And it is now paying the price. That does not mean that Austin is in danger of falling below the 90% threshold it set when it enacted the No Kill Plan. This simply puts the city where most communities are, with a shelter in a remote location. And as long as the Austin shelter maximizes the programs of the No Kill Equation, aided by groups like Austin Pets Alive and other private rescue groups, the future continues to look bright for Austin’s animals. But there is little doubt that the effort is more challenging than it needed to be because the shelter itself has one hand tied behind its back by virtue of the smaller-than-needed, ill-designed and remotely-located facility championed by the ASPCA.

Ryan Clinton’s “FixAustin” put No Kill on the map in Austin. FixAustin put the city-enacted No Kill plan on the map. FixAustin helped remove Pulliam who found killing easier than doing what was necessary to stop it. FixAustin succeeded in marginalizing the ASPCA and removing their corrupting influence on shelter policy. While the ASPCA tried to sabotage the No Kill plan; while the ASPCA embraced a leader who committed animal cruelty in Austin and lamented her departure; while the ASPCA championed indefinite killing by claiming the animals were neither “desirable” or “placeable”; FixAustin fought back and won. And because of that, Austin finished last year saving 91% of all dogs and cats, instead of less than 50%, as they would have if Medicus and Sayres weren’t swept aside. They are the largest city in the United States to do so. But though David bested Goliath; Or, more accurately, Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort, Voldemort left his mark. The scar on Austin—the shelter’s relocation—continues to be a threat. It was the one fight FixAustin did not win.

Will Austin’s animals ever become the ones who pay the ultimate price? They shouldn’t, so long as the Austin shelter comprehensively implements the programs of the No Kill Equation. But as the rumblings in the press are becoming more common, it appears that is the one question which threatens to haunt Austin for many years to come.

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Learn how to create your own patronus charm and get rid of the dementors in your community. Read The No Kill Revolution Starts With You, Ryan Clinton’s guide to reforming animal control through effective political advocacy.

Additional reading:

There is Truth and There is Untruth

As Blue as the Summer Sky: Austin Then & Now

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50,000

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:00:43 +0100

Browse > Home / Blog Posts, The Truth About ASPCA / 50,000

June 12, 2012 by Nathan J. Winograd

In November of 2009, ASPCA President Ed Sayres ordered the killing of Oreo, an abused dog who had an immediate place to go. Pets Alive of New York, a No Kill sanctuary near the ASPCA which specializes in rehabilitating aggressive dogs (and, if that proves impossible, safely caring for them for the rest of their lives), contacted the ASPCA to ask if they could save Oreo. They made numerous telephone calls and sent numerous e-mails. They were ignored, hung-up on and lied to. Two volunteers of the group even went to the ASPCA but were escorted out after Sayres and others in charge of Oreo’s fate refused to meet with them.

In response, New York State Assembly Member Micah Kellner introduced “Oreo’s Law,” which would have mandated collaboration between large, non-profit and municipal animal shelters and smaller rescue groups which wanted to save the lives of animals on death row at these facilities by making it illegal for shelters to kill animals when qualified rescue groups were willing to save their lives.

The law was projected to save roughly 25,000 animals a year at no cost to taxpayers. And despite overwhelming support for the legislation from rescue groups and New York animal lovers, what finally killed the bill and tipped legislators in favor of the opposition, dooming to death tens of thousands of animals every year whom rescue groups statewide were willing to save, was the opposition of the ASPCA.

Despite over 20,000 emails, telephone calls and letters from New Yorkers, the bill was tabled and animals who had an immediate place to go continued to be killed. The bill was introduced two more times, each time being defeated because of ASPCA opposition. As of today, the number of animals killed who could and would have been saved since Ed Sayres and the ASPCA first defeated Oreo’s Law has hit 50,000.

It is not easy to conceptualize 50,000 dead animals. But here they are. Each paw represents an animal who was killed. As you scroll through them, remember that each had a rescue group ready, willing and able to save them.

http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=9399

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