In my recent correspondence with a pet rescuer who has yet to embrace No-Kill, I saw firsthand the phenomenon that Nathan Winograd discusses in Redemption: that we hear so much about pet overpopulation, but has anyone seen it?
The e-mailer wrote:
[Shelters] only kill the animals because THERE ARE TOO MANY! Hello? Have you heard of the overpopulation problem?
Why yes, I’ve heard of it quite a lot. I’ve also heard extensively about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. If the modus operandi of the shelters in this country were to throw dogs off cliffs because the Easter Bunny commanded it, there’d be an uproar. If you had to trade Santa Claus a euthanized shelter dog for each present, the tragedy of “Christmas Puppies” would have a much darker and more sinister outcome.
I’ve heard a lot about “pet overpopulation,” but I’ve never seen a feral dog colony or a single dog starving in the street. I’ve never seen a dog abandoned at the dog park. Every loose and stray dog that I’ve picked up has always had a tag and an owner. I’ve never seen a pet store going out of business. The breeders I got my dogs from two decades ago are both still in the breed with occasional litters. Every breeder I met in the last few years who are active in some aspect of the dog world are actually “growing” their business. They are all expanding their activities and having more frequent litters. The only breeder I know who is “getting out of the business” was paralyzed in an accident.
Last October I became a dog breeder and just a few weeks ago I became a dog seller. I certainly didn’t get any hint that there was a Border Collie overpopulation problem. I had to go out of state for both of my last two dogs, and I sold two of the four puppies out of state. If I were just out for money I could have sold my litter five times over in one week. That’s all it took to find really good homes. One week. And I’m only catering to a very small fraction of the dog owning and buying world. People who are interested in purebred Border Collies who have had the breed before, who have a good sized yard, who won’t have to leave the animal at home for long periods of time, who are active and healthy themselves, who are willing and able to offer vet care to a high standard to the pup, who are willing to sign a contract, who agree to spay and neuter their pets or who pay a premium to keep them intact, who are willing to pay a premium for pedigreed dogs, who are willing to pay a premium for extensively health tested dogs, who are willing to put up with my interviewing them, who are interested in dog sport, etc.
I found four really excellent homes for four really excellent puppies and a handful of other A+ to A- homes that I’d gladly sell a dog to, and by that I mean make a contractual and emotional commitment to for the lifetime of that dog. Around 10 homes that would probably make excellent homes for a Border Collie but who just didn’t outshine the best homes, or excellent homes who just weren’t ready for a Border Collie now (new baby or too many very young children which would mean little time to train the dog during the crucial early months, their current dog is old and infirm and probably wouldn’t appreciate a new puppy, excellent experience with other breeds but brand new to Border Collies, too many Border Collies already, etc.). And then a slew of people who may or may not be great homes but who were either too far away, too inexperienced with dogs or Border Collies, or who were uninterested in training for dog sports for me to take a chance and who would be better served by a breeder in their area or a different breed of dog. And that doesn’t count the legions of callers who just wanted a price quote on a puppy.
In other words, if an aspiring Breeder like myself, first time breeding, who is an elitist, ultra picky about where my puppies go, selling puppies in the $450-600 price range (unregistered BCs go for $100, average price for a papered dog off of a Ranch is probably $250-300, show quality pups being sold to show homes sell for $600 and up, and rare colors like Merles go for about twice the market price for each of those classes), selling dogs in a relatively unpopulated area of the country, can find homes and put people on a waiting list in only a week, I have no evidence of a pet overpopulation problem.
The very existence of all these new designer dogs speaks volumes against a pet overpopulation problem. If there are mutts overflowing our shelters, filling the streets, and bringing about their own destruction, why are people paying $1200 for “designer” mutts? Perhaps it’s a shelter advertising problem, not a pet overpopulation problem. If shelters have too many dogs coming in, why are they importing them from overseas, and across our borders?
If I had to go out of state for my last two dogs, and so did two of my puppy buyers and many of the potentials, that speaks to a greater demand than supply, not an overpopulation problem.
I’ve licked my finger and placed it in the wind, and every indicator tells me that dogs are getting more popular, more homes are opening up their doors to them every day, and as we grow as a society our animals are becoming even more significant and being given higher status at every turn.
If we wouldn’t throw dogs off cliffs for the Easter Bunny or sacrifice puppies for Santa Claus, why are we so accepting of killing dogs for another myth that there is little evidence for: the “pet overpopulation” problem?
The Myth of Pet Overpopulation“Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.”
— William Shakespeare (circa 1600)Sometimes the obvious eludes us. We are told something so often that we accept it a priori. We ignore evidence to the contrary, even overwhelming evidence. It is so because we believe it is so. And we believe it is so because we have been told it is so for as long as we can remember. Each time we say, read, or write it, we reconfirm it. It is so. It is so. It is so. But pet overpopulation is not so.
There is little reason why most people, your average animal lovers in the United States, would know pet overpopulation is a myth. The one fact that would dispel the myth is something they almost never see consistently because they do not go to shelters everyday. But animal rescuers see it. Animal activists see it. And others in sheltering do also. They see it daily, but still believe in pet overpopulation. What do they see every time they go into animal shelters? They see empty cages. Shelters kill dogs and cats every single day, despite empty cages.
The City of Los Angeles Animal Services Department kills every day despite empty cages. A veterinarian who tried to keep more animals alive by keeping the cages full was fired in 2005, in part, due to staff complaints of “too much work.” In September 2006, the Department killed twenty-five kittens because they had a cold, despite empty cages. In Eugene, Oregon, activists noted a high percentage of empty cages at their local shelter in the summer of 2006 due to killing that shelter management blamed on pet overpopulation and lack of a cat licensing law. The Lane County Animal Regulation Authority kept all but a half dozen cat cages empty at the height of the busy season, even though it killed approximately 70 percent of cats during the last year, many of them ostensibly for “lack of space.” According to local activists, doing so makes it easier for staff to clean. In Philadelphia before a new leadership team took over later that year, I counted over seventy empty cat cages in February of 2005 on a day they were killing “for space.” These are not isolated examples. They are epidemic–and endemic–to animal control.
Empty cages mean less cleaning, less feeding, less work. Some shelter directors simply don’t care and do it for that reason. Others do it because they falsely believe that no one will adopt the animals anyway. Still others kill because they believe the cages will get full. And others–such as Tompkins County before my arrival–require a certain number of animals to be killed in the morning to make room for the new animals they expect that day–animals who might or might not come, animals who might come after those animals killed could have been adopted, lost animals who might be reclaimed, thereby opening up space without the need to kill, animals who instead could have been transferred to rescue groups or placed into foster care.
There are many reasons why shelters kill animals at this point in time, but pet overpopulation is not one of them. In the case of a small percentage of animals, the animals may be hopelessly sick or injured, or the dogs are so vicious that placing them would put adoptive families at risk. (This killing is also being challenged by sanctuaries and hospice care groups, a movement that is also growing in scale and scope and which all compassionate people must embrace). Aside from this relatively small number of cases (only seven percent of the animals in Tompkins County), shelters also kill for less merciful reasons.
They kill because they make the animals sick through sloppy cleaning and poor handling. They kill because they do not want to care for sick animals. They kill because they do not effectively use the Internet and the media to promote their pets. They kill because they think volunteers are more trouble than they are worth, even though those volunteers would help eliminate the “need” for killing. They kill because they don’t want a foster care program. They kill because they are only open for adoption when people are at work and families have their children in school. They kill because they discourage visitors with their poor customer service. They kill because they do not help people overcome problems that can reduce impounds. They kill because they refuse to work with rescue groups. They kill because they haven’t embraced TNR [Trap, Neuter, Release] for feral cats. They kill because they won’t socialize feral kittens. They kill because they don’t walk the dogs which makes the dogs so highly stressed that they become “cage crazy.” They kill them for being “cage crazy.” They kill because their shoddy tests allow them to claim that animals are “unadoptable.” They kill because their draconian laws empower them to kill.
Some kill because they are steeped in a culture of defeatism, or because they are under the thumb of regressive health or police department oversight. But they still kill. They never say, “we kill because we have accepted killing in lieu of having to put in place foster care, pet retention, volunteer TNR, public relations, and other programs.” In short, they kill because they have failed to do what is necessary to stop killing.
What allows them to continue killing without total condemnation for doing so is the religion of pet overpopulation. It is the political cover that prevents even the animal rescuers and advocates from demanding an immediate end to the whole bloody mess. And, at its core, it is an unsupportable myth. The syllogism goes as follows: shelters kill a lot of animals; shelters adopt out few of them; therefore, there are more animals than homes. Hence, there is pet overpopulation. It is as faulty a syllogism and as untrue a proposition as exists in sheltering today. But people believe it, and because they do, local governments under-fund their shelters, appoint and retain incompetent employees in animal control, and give shelter directors the carte blanche they need to kill because the problem is portrayed as insurmountable.
This also begs the question of why pet stores and commercial breeding operations (sometimes referred to as “puppy mills” or “kitten mills”) are still in business. Hobby breed enthusiasts notwithstanding (since these groups often support No Kill and assist in animal rescue), pet stores and puppy/kitten mills are motivated by profit, and they would not go into the business if homes weren’t available. In addition, the more animals dying in a given community) which traditionalists claim means lack of homes), the greater number of pet stores that sell dogs and cats (which show homes readily available). Generally, pet stores succeed when a shelter is not meeting market demand or competing effectively, and because animal lovers do not want to go into a shelter that kills the vast majority of the animals as this is usually accompanied with under-performing staff, poor customer servie, and dirty and unwelcoming facilities.
– Excerpt from Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America by Nathan J. Winograd
* * *
Comments and disagreements are welcome, but be sure to read the Comment Policy. If this post made you think and you'd like to read more like it, consider a donation to my 4 Border Collies' Treat and Toy Fund. They'll be glad you did. You can subscribe to the feed or enter your e-mail in the field on the left to receive notice of new content. You can also like BorderWars on Facebook for more frequent musings and curiosities.
* * *
Overpopulation?
Someone’s keeping all those Amish puppy mills in business. The Amish are not hobby breeders:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3dahl7
http://www.religioustolerance.org/amish8.htm
http://www.pixiedustpapillons.com/amish_puppy_mills.html
And all those big commercial puppy mills:
http://www.petconnection.com/blog/category/puppy-mills/
And puppy smuggling across the US-Mexico border:
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2006/jun_jul/other/puppies.xml
…some people are willing to take advantage of that love and are smuggling very young puppies from Mexico into the United States.
Purebred and designer breed puppies are purchased in Mexico for between $50 and $150, then sold at street corners, parking lots and flea markets in Southern California for between $300 and $1,000 each, according to the Border Puppy Task Force. The Task Force is a group of 14 California animal welfare and law enforcement agencies including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and initiated by the San Diego Humane Society. The Task Force was formed in 2004 after a rash of complaints from owners who reported their dogs were getting sick and often dying.
The Border Puppy Task Force conducted a two-week statistic gathering operation at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro ports of entry. The findings were announced at a press conference held on December 20, 2005 at the San Ysidro border crossing. The operation looked at animals brought from Mexico to the United States. During the two-week study 362 puppies under the age of 3 months were brought into the United States from the two points of entry. Over a year’s time, that equates to almost 10,000 young puppies entering San Diego County.
Puppies were found packed in glove compartments and truck beds. Some of them don’t have teeth, are drenched in vomit, or are barely weaned. “Puppy peddling is better than selling drugs. The consequences are far less,” said Simran Zilaro, with San Diego Humane Society.
“Most of these pups are bred in Mexico, pulled from their mothers at four to five weeks of age, sold south of the border and smuggled across into the United States for sale,” said Capt. Aaron Reyes of the task force. “Each bust leads us to yet another seller and we’re following up on leads as quickly as we can.”
Apparently the Amish consider puppy-milling to be a “lucrative”
business:
http://amishamerica.typepad.com/amish_america/2007/03/the_amish_puppy.html
(…)
Dog breeding can be fairly lucrative. One Amishman in Indiana told me that he planned to sell pups of one particular breed for $500 a pop. He intended to undercut the prevailing rate of around $600. Not too bad.
The News-Herald Ohio auction story mentions ‘designer dogs’–specially bred mixes–going for up to $5,000.
At the same time, a good amount of work is involved. Pugs for example can be particularly hard to breed. Birthing is tough on the mother and they are finicky eaters when young.
(…)
My family has lived in PA since 1775, so I’ve got significant PA Dutch hertiage and the Amish puppy-mill deal is a real embaressment.
Most of them see a way to make big bucks in a livestock operation on their land and run with it. There really isn’t a big dog ownership heritage in the PA Dutch (I trade BC stories with my sustainable ag collegues, but not with the Plain Sect folks), so to many of them, it’s literally making bigger bucks on dogs than one could with chickens (it doesn’t take up a lot of room, the kids can do it and the profits are high.)
The really weird thing is that pugs have become a big deal as companions for Amish woman. I think my Brethern grandfather would have screamed at me for hours if he saw me with a pug (you don’t know what he did to me when I was 6 years old and asked him to bring me red tomato plants instead of the yellow and orange ones he was favoring at the time because my friends were telling me that tomatoes should be red!) — he was a very practical guy that didn’t have room for frills.
I’m all for pressuring folks to get out of the puppy mill business — my neighbor has two Cockers because with the PA Dog Laws getting stricter, her Amish friend decided it was time to get out of the business.
PA seems to be doing a better job than CA — the laws are specifically aimed at the puppy mills and there’s enough outrage to keep the pressure on. I think if we can make puppy milling less profitable and do more salemanship on the rescue/shelter dogs, it will be better for everyone.
Dorene
There’s been about 3 or 4 dogs left in our dog park over the past 5 years. Not huge numbers, but it does happen. No tags, and the dog staring through the fence where s/he last saw the owner pulling out of the parking lot. Our shelter also has gotten at least one pregnant dog a year since I’ve volunteered. Don’t even get me started on pregnant cats…
Yes, abandonment DOES happen. Even though we are only euthanizing 5% of our animals, 5% still amounts to about 5 million dogs and cats (many more cats than dogs).
You know how economists say that there is a “maximum” or “full” employment rate, usually around 5% unemployment. That means that in the most efficient economy we can still expect 5% at any one time.
Funny, but that’s about the exact same percent of animals that we kill in shelters. Except we kill them instead of keeping them alive long enough to find new homes.
As Jesus said “the poor will always be with us” … there will always be unemployed people at any one time and there will always dogs who need to be rehomed. It looks like 5% is a reasonable number.
The difference here is that if 5% are going to be abandoned, should we kill them or find them new homes?
To me a 5% failure rate is not excessive. Killing those 5% is.
Good post and you have some of the same questions I’ve had for years now.
When’s the last time a neighbour had an ‘oops’ litter where you live? In my area, probably well over a decade due to high sterlization compliance.
Shelters are getting more and more dogs from outside their areas because there aren’t enough locally available to keep their adoption programs running.
And so on.
Overpopulation is a myth that serves the kill community, the self-styled, for-profit ‘rescues’ and animal rights zealots. It does nothing for the animals themselves.
I’ve been seeing posts in this vein popping up all over the place lately – something I’m attributing to the wider dissemination of Winograd’s book and ideals.
All of them focus on dogs. Everyone talks about puppies this and pet stores that and etc. What about cats? There *are* feral cats everywhere and there *are* stray cats roaming the streets – I remember dozens around my college campus and the surrounding towns. There *are* still “oops” litters of cats all the time, too. There are cats everywhere.
I know from having found a pregnant stray a couple of years ago that it can be difficult to *give* kittens away (even really small, cute kittens who are already altered and vaccinated.) Some pet stores do sell cute little kittens, but I don’t see nearly as many selling kittens as puppies.
So my question is – if there’s no pet overpopulation, then where are all the homes clamoring for cats?
Tara –
I must be honest. Cats are evil.
I actually spent 4 years on the campus that Winograd writes so much about and I must say that the cat situation there is as rosey as he paints it. TNR has really worked there.
As for my other observations of cat info, I noticed that the stats published by the HSUS shows that cat numbers are a much greater percent of the euthanasias than dogs, even more so than the slight difference in their population vs. dogs.
Cats are slightly more popular and dogs are in slightly more homes.
But where things get really different is where cats come from versus where dogs come from. Very few cats come from legit Breeders, or breeders at all.
http://borderwars.blogspot.com/2008/01/myth-of-christmas-puppies.html
Just read that post, or at least look at the chart. Only 4% of Cats come from Breeders.
If that chart is true, the entire culture of cats in this country is messed up.
Free roaming cats (stray, semi-feral and feral) ARE a very big problem in this country. The reason you do not see as many strays is that Animal Control Officers have leash-law ordinances that can be enforced to removed potential bitters/nuisance animals. Not so for cats, and yet in most states, counties and local communities, its ILLEGAL to trap and dispose of cats. They shit freely. They breed freely. And they potent disease vectors.
We need legislation that makes it illegal to feed and provide shelter (usually little more than a shed) for free-roaming cats. You feed them, you own them, and are therefore responsible for neuter/spaying, shots and treatment for fleas, worms, mites and other infectious agents that they carry and that can be passed onto humans.
State Public Health Care Departments have taken the easy, most politically neutral route – they have bought into ‘trap-neuter-return’ propaganda. YOU, the person who must deal with the booming cat colony happily fed by your irresponsible neighbor (who is flat denial that they are HIS cats), must PAY 60-100 bucks per cat to have this done. YOU must trap them and take them to a facility and you must continue to live with their endless crapping all over your property. Your property is one big cat litter box when they neighbors have 18-30 cats pumped out each year. YOU must live with the housefly overpopulation, since they breed like flies – just like the cats- in the pet food left outside every day. YOU must fend off the skunks and endure their spraying up the neighborhood. Skunks love that cat food. And you must suffer in silence when the hords of cats play tag ON YOUR ROOF every night, because the colony has learned how to climb onto all of the neighbors roof, as entertainment and for warmth in colder weather.
Heaven forbid if you should complain to the public health and animal control officers in your town, your county, your state.
They smile, and say “not my problem!”
I was really interested in some of the things you posted about lethal breeding, etc. until I came across this article.
You have proven, in this one article, that you are as bad as the double-merle and whatnot breeders out there who breed whatever knowing a good percentage will die. Maybe worse, because you’re deceiving yourself and you obviously have IQ to see that.
What? No overpopulation problem? Just because “I’ve heard a lot about “pet overpopulation,” but I’ve never seen a feral dog colony or a single dog starving in the street.”
Duh, dude, you haven’t seen feral dogs because there are dog catchers who take them to the pound and they get euthanized. Duh.
And you obviously don’t live in the country where dogs without tags get dumped and we have to take them to the pound to get euthanized or just shoot them because they’re harassing our livestock (very legal in this state, btw). (Oh, and to the guys complaining about cat overpopulation, you obviously need more coyotes. Want some? We have a surplus).
No Border Collie overpopulation? How’s come I got two as pups for free? Good working dogs, they’ve turned to be. Very useful on the farm and very entertaining. Destined to be euthanized because there weren’t enough homes.
Yeah, well, there’s an old saying that Rationalizations are more important then Sex, after all you can’t go a day without a rationalization. Here you’re making a rationalization out of the fantasy there isn’t a canine overpopulation problem.
Jeez, and nobody starves to death in the world because everyone is fat in your neighborhood.
All that brain power and you still fall into serving your own self interest and denying fact.
Just add those numbers up from the link above. If they weren’t euthanized, where would they go? People (like you) keep breeding dogs and everyone wants a puppy not an adult.
Hmm, I know how to make your piece factual. There’s no overpopulation of PUPPIES. Puppies can always get placed. It’s Adult DOGS that we have too many of. Oh, see! You’re off the hook, since you’re not producing Adult Dogs!
Why the dummy address? ‘Cuz I know your type. Self righteous in the same vein as flat-earthers. Really no chance to discuss anything with you because your mind is as open as a block of cement.
I was really interested in what you had to say until you opened your mouth. I think your brain is atrophied from all that tofurkey and “organic” quinoa salads from
Whole FoodsChina. Perhaps you can spend all that free time you’ve gained by not shaving your armpits to fill out a summer internship application with PeTA, you’d fit right in. You may as well get some experience being a mindless parrot for radical idiots because I don’t think your associates degree in basement horticulture from Evergreen is going to land you a job when you drop out.It’s a shame “I drink kool-aid” cloaked his/her viewpoint in insults because this could have been an enlightening exchange.
I’m new to your blog but have found it fascinating and insightful. I’m thankful for the link to you, left by a commenter (gsd owner I think) on an article about the Crufts suspensions, because I was beginning to think it impossible to find breeders honestly discussing the implications of ethical breeding.
I’m not a breeder, just a dog lover who had/has purebreds and mutts from both breeders and shelters. I have an interest in breeding shelties but haven’t yet found a like-minded breeder from whom to buy.
Living in Missouri, which is known as the puppy mill capitol of the U.S., I respectfully disagree with your assessment of pet overpopulation.
On a nationwide basis there are bound to be areas that have less of a problem with homeless dogs but there are also places like MO, where we have packs of homeless dogs living in the cities (St. Louis, East St. Louis, Kansas City) as well as large populations of homeless dogs in the rural areas.
Around St. Louis, the majority of homeless dogs are pitt-bull mixes that are harder to place than other breeds. Were it not for the persistent effort put forth by our rescue community we would undoubtedly have a much higher euthanasia rate than we do.
Rural areas are less successful in their attempts to avoid euthanasia as the animal control facilities/shelters are poorly funded and staffed and almost constantly at full capacity. The reality is dogs are viewed as a commodity by puppy mills and disposable by owners who don’t spay/neuter, so the rescues buy the unwanted puppy mill dogs to save them from suffering through an economical method of death and the shelters are brought boxes of puppies that were thrown onto roadsides.
Sadly, these are not exaggerations or intentionally emotional examples but are common occurrences here and will continue until people change their attitude about animals.
Local rescues are involved in transporting dogs to other areas of the country but doing so isn’t enough to save all dogs from euthanasia. If there are areas such as yours (or anyone in the 48 states) that have rescues who are willing to take additional dogs I’ll gladly forward the information to local rescues, thanks.
I don’t know much about N. Winograd but am leery of him because of his attacks of other animal charities. Working in unison rather than driving a wedge….and all that stuff.
Thanks for allowing me to voice my opinion.
Mary
If you haven’t read Nathan Winograd’s _Redemption_ yet, get to a library.
I’ll give it a shot.
From what I’ve read he makes several good points but his solution seems oversimplified.
He reminds me of the old joke:
Patient: (while stretching his arm in the air) “Doc, it hurts when I do this.”
Doctor: “Then don’t do it.”
By saying that guess I just committed myself to reading his book. Trying to attain objectivity is a lot of work. :o)
I forgot to add that a few reasons breeders, puppy mills, and pet stores remain in business in spite of the homeless population are: preference of a certain temperament/look/breed, timing, perceived prestige, and lack of education in the case of buying mill and pet store dogs.
It is true, you can not see dogs as a single group in this case, there is such wide variation in what people want their dogs to, and sytray street dogs just dont cut it. Certainly there are many people who would like these street dogs, but it takes a lot to take care of the majority of them in an adequate way and it seems many do not understand this. it does not mean the same thing to buy a small toy puppy or adult of the same breed / mix, a small German shepherd from working lines or adult frog Shepherd, and whatever it is is not the same people who want adult stray dogs. Sweden imports bulk some of these kinds of dogs from other European countries and the only thing you get is sick animals that have a for sweden new disease and dogs that are in an poorly condition physically and mentally and that really should be humanely euthanized instead, in all cases be taken care of in the areas and countries where they have been released and not sent around the world. That would have been more human.
That’s disconcerting news. In St. Louis there’s a rescue, http://www.strayrescue.org , that has great success placing the aforementioned pitt mixes because the dogs are trained and exercised before adoption.
They also have dogs available for “rent a dog” so potential adopters can keep the dog for a short time to see if it’s a good fit in their home before committing. Offering these services decrease the return rate.
Most (not all) rescues around here are up-front regarding potential issues the dogs have. They would rather have the dogs in foster/shelter longer than quickly adopted and returned.
I’m a pre-mature “post comment”er.
Ideally dogs wouldn’t be transported all over tarnation to find homes. If only people would educate themselves before owning and breeding animals this wouldn’t be such a thorny issue.