DogTime is a “vertical media company” that aggregates dog blogs to create traffic based upon this content and then sell advertising to select dog-themed partners. The only compensation most of these blogs get is a little JPEG which announces their participation. Unlike other vertical media companies, DogTime produces very little of its own content and unlike other advertising driven content sites like YouTube, content creators are not necessarily compensated for the views they generate and the process is opaque.
I was a “premium blogger” for 4 years and never received a dime and the promise of millions of eyes on my content never drove much traffic to my blog. In fact, when searching google for my own content, my republished posts would show up higher ranked on DogTime than on my own site due to DogTime’s higher google page rank. My traffic jumped almost immediately and permanently after leaving the network. It took them over a year to remove my feed after I asked due to incompetence, turn-over in their employees, and inability to remove my feed myself.
The reason I left wasn’t primarily the lack of revenue or the traffic stealing–you’ll notice I still haven’t put ads on this blog–but the first significant original content (advertised as “Exclusive” which indicates just how much the site relies on aggregating other’s content) on the DogTime network written by Editor-in-Chief Leslie Smith where she seethes with hatred for dog breeders declaring “there are no responsible breeders.”
Leslie Smith is the Editor in Chief of DogTime, and beginning in May 2011 she wrote an eight-part examination of the No Kill movement which unfortunately spread more disinformation than light. Despite claiming input from “Nathan Winograd, Michael Mountain, Richard Avanzino, and Helga Schimkat,” Smith’s series documents a profoundly flawed understanding of what No-Kill means and reveals deeply held but wrongly aimed resentments toward breeders.
Brent Toellner of the KC Dog Blog, being well versed in the No-Kill movement, gives a convincing critique on how Smith’s analysis veers from reality into rhetoric and crashes into the well-worn territory of fixing the blame. Blame, blame, blame, lots of blame.
Blame and shelter dogs have a lot in common: there’s plenty enough to go around; the bleeding hearts are deeply in love with both and associate them with breeders; and most striking, trying to fix one will not fix the other and policies which attempt to do so simply create more of both.
In one post, Smith decides that “No Kill” is the wrong name for the movement and that it’s time to change it. This coming from one of the few paid employees of what is foremost a marketing firm. No Kill is perhaps the singularly most successful slogan and brand in the dog world: it is short and easy to remember, it is widely known and the message aligns with the values of the cause.
In ranking the Top 100 Advertising Campaigns of the last century, a marketing expert proposed three criteria:
- It was a watershed, discernibly changing the culture of advertising or the popular culture as a whole
- It either created a category or pushed its brand to the top of its category
- It was simply unforgettable.
“No Kill” satisfies all three. And one of the pillars of the No Kill movement is embracing effective marketing techniques to find homes for dogs. So again, Leslie seems fundamentally unable to appreciate what No Kill is on its own terms. This is evident from her suggested alternate name for the movement:
“No Suffer”: the new No Kill?
I’d like to see the U.S. become a No Kill nation. But my even greater hope is that we become a No Suffer nation. No animal deserves to die simply because the shelter is full, but neither does he deserve a life devoid of exercise, companionship, security, and medical care.
The success of a No Suffer movement would be harder to measure, but its impact, at least as profound. We’ll have achieved it when our animal cruelty legislation is strictly imposed and enforced, when our shelters are all but empty, and when euthanasia is a reprieve from incurable affliction, not a method of population control.
No Suffer would mean we’re not classifying animals in terms of how adoptable they are, but instead, we’re devoting resources to any dog or cat who needs extra care. Ultimately, we’ll know we’ve become a No Suffer nation when we’re no longer keeping track of those animals we, as humans, have failed. When the reality is truly a humane society, where every creature is respected and treated with compassion.
Right off the bat Smith makes it clear that she doesn’t understand No Kill by setting up the false antagonism between “full” shelters and suffering in the form of no exercise, no human contact, no medical care. Both of these positions require you to assume positions that Nathan Winograd argues are false: that shelters are full and they are inherently unable to provide enrichment to the animals under their care:
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.”
…
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.
If anything needs a new name due to failing to live up to the marketing, it’s not No-Kill, it’s the word “shelter.” No one goes to a shelter to be killed. And this is where Leslie Smith is still steeped in the old paradigm of shelters: the notion that any degree of inconvenience of misfortune can be labeled “suffering” and that human failures to find expedient solutions to that “suffering” necessitate a moral intervention of killing to end the “suffering.”
This is how shelters have operated for centuries, giving the public the impression that it’s about success and happiness but operating under the philosophy of defeatism and suffering and extermination. You give us your dog because we make promises of a doting little kid getting their new best friend or a pastoral life in the country for Poochy, but we’re really just going to kill it and dispose of it in a landfill if it can’t overcome the numerous roadblocks we put in its way. And it better do so fast because it’s got 72 hours or less.
Not only does Smith still buy into “overpopulation,” by backing traditional shelters over No-Kill she is supporting the immorality of slaughter for human failings and expediency while preaching an unattainable idea of utopia. Until no dog will suffer, it’s ok to kill them and end their suffering. Until humans are perfect, it’s ok to be barbaric and slaughter perfectly healthy animals. Other people have forced our hands, we have no choice, the dogs must die.
Smith dreams of a canine socialist paradise where there are infinite resources to attend to every need of every dog, and such care will be given simply because it is needed. This utopia assumes that human failures to provide are irrelevant to the dog’s needs and that the equation need never balance. There will always be enough to give and it will be given by those who have it and this will always balance with the level of need and those who need it. Those needs should and will be met no matter what and it shall not harm those who have to give it to those who need.
Leslie Smith is a dangerous sort of person who would sacrifice the real on the altar of the ideal to a false god that doesn’t exist. Someone who doesn’t understand that the word “utopia” is not derived from the Greek for “good place” but from the Greek for “no place.” Her fantasy world does not and never can exist and yet she’s perfectly willing to burn people she deems to be witches on her pyre of indignation.
Posts in this Series:
- DogTime Smears No-Kill
- DogTime’s Slobbering Hatred for Breeders I
- DogTime’s Slobbering Hatred for Breeders II
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Excellent post! I’d recommend NW’s essay “The Culture of Cruelty” which I think speaks to this issue.
Until there is a perfectly enriched life w/o suffering for every human being, good luck obtaining the unobtainable utopia for dogs, even if they truly deserve that utopia.
Christopher, I didn’t read this the same way you did. I read it that shelters are killing animals and until animal welfare laws are implemented fully dogs will end up in shelters and end up being killed. Overpopulation is definitely the cause…..puppy farmers churning out puppies to meet a pet market that really doesnt care. Often when people surrender their dog to a shelter or kick it on the street…they are not bothered that its going to get killed. Sadly killing does seem to be the way that over population is controlled and I believe that shelter cages will be empty because all the animals are killed. What I read was that if people cared for their animals etc, the shelters would be empty because every animal is being cared for properly and the only animals euthanised will be those that are suffering from incurable illnesses.
I agree the name shelter is not what its really about….we have homeless shelters and thank god the homeless people don’t go in there and end up dead. The name shelter needs to be changed…..that’s a given.
Annie,
If you haven’t had a chance to read Nathan Winograd’s Redemption, I’d ask you to read the large blue box at the bottom of this post:
Killing for a Myth.
There are many in the No Kill movement who approach this question from the angle of a vegan: kill no doggies! I am not in this camp. I do not support the idea based upon the deep belief that we must save every heart beat on the planet and that killing excess dogs is a deep moral sin. I agree with the plan because I see the inefficiency as a moral wrong, it’s wrong to kill animals that don’t need to be killed simply because human run shelters are horrible at doing the job of finding them homes.
I am going to need you to defend your statement that “Overpopulation is definitely the cause.” To me this sounds as illogical as “Drunk driving deaths are caused by an excess of Toyotas on the road!”
If we want to step back from the wrong, the killing, to the proximate causes, I see it like this.
The dog is killed -> because the shelter made the choice to -> because the shelter staff didn’t find it a home -> because the shelter was not good at managing their resources and took in more dogs than they were able to handle -> because they put the principle of being “open admission” above the principle of “doing right by the dogs” -> because people do abandon their dogs to shelters -> the vast majority for reasons that have to do with human failings and nothing to do with the mere existence of too many dogs.
I could go on with this, but it’s going to be a long while before I get to breeders and how many dogs are being produced.
All the nasty rhetoric denies that (1) the kill rate is now better than it has ever been in the past (2) it has been falling like a rock for 40 years (3) the majority of the remaining kills 2-of-3 are in the pit bull breeds (4) every aspect of buying a dog from a true breeder (like paying $ for the dog) greatly reduces its chance of being part of the shelter population ever and greatly increases its chance of being adopted should it end up in a shelter (5) most people get their dogs for free from friends and family, these dogs are not being bred by “breeders” in any real sense of the word save that they owned dogs who mated.
” because they put the principle of being ‘open admission’ above the principle of ‘doing right by the dogs’ -> because people do abandon their dogs to shelters -> the vast majority for reasons that have to do with human failings and nothing to do with the mere existence of too many dogs.”
I have to back Christopher here. I worked for the E 92nd St ASPCA for two years as an adoptions counselor; 1994-1996. Back then, the A was going from public shelter to private, leaving the contract as “KILL” shelter up for grabs.
Once we went private, we frequently told people we had no room and folks had to get on a wait list to get their animals in. That wasn’t enough for a lot of people and I can’t count the number of times I heard “Take him or I’m tossing the dog/cat in the street TODAY!”
With all the times we were threatened with that, I have no doubt it was actually done some of the time.
I realize sometimes people genuinely run into hard circumstances – truly having to move at a moment’s notice with no time to be picky about finding a dog friendly apartment ( though I also know folks often are just too lazy and selfish to look), kids that really have asthma develop and the space is too small to isolate the dog, etc.
And desperation can make people do and say things they wouldn’t normally….sometimes.
But still, you can never be sure who you are talking to, because too often this just speaks to the low character of the owners involved. It’s why shelter workers get bitter, and start thinking every “my baby has allergies now” story is a bunch of BS.
It’s the problem of people at large, who don’t take their responsiblity seriously.
And before the A went no-kill, and even to some extent afterwards, the excess taken in was to replace animals being sent out for having something as simple as a cold. Mildly ill animals that can recover are seen as something that can spread a virus shelterwide, or so we were told, but I’m sure it was just also easier to kill them than to seek foster care and spend the $$$ for the meds to help them.
Excuse me. In that last paragraph when I say “Sent out” I mean they were sent to the KILL shelter to be euthanised.
Going by some of the horror stories of apathetic killing-as-routine that seems distressingly common in shelter circles (and accepted as normal operation), I’d think letting your pet out by the side of the road may give them a better chance than turning them in to your local ‘shelter’ in many places.
Yet, people who advertise to rehome their pets themselves often get flak for ‘dumping’ or ‘getting rid of’ their animal from armchair holier-than-thou ‘animal lovers’. Some people just can’t win with the amount of sanctimonious judgmentalism that is tolerated in most animal welfare circles.
I’d rather rehome a dog on Craigslist (and have done so with fosters before) than take them to a shelter ANY day.
Then, you can act sort of as a rescue and take the time to vet the person, choose who you are going to adopt the dog to, and possibly keep in touch afterward. All that happens is you end up fostering the dog for a few weeks while you wait.
I have a problem with Craigslist’s anti-breeder policy. I think it makes for a worse situation for dogs than a better one.
Paying $$ for dogs keeps them out of shelters.
Animal welfare laws are not going to solve the problem of pets being needlessly killed in shelters. If anything, most animal welfare laws, when enforced, mean MORE animals are taken from their homes and put in a shelter as punishment to their owners.
And while I do hate the type of breeder we all know as a “puppy mill”, I have met many people who have gotten a puppy through that type of place and love it to death and gladly shell out for vet care. They DO care about their inbred and under-socialized puppy, they just need to be educated about where to get a puppy next time.
cyborgsuzy recently posted..Homemade Ear Cleaning Solution for Dogs
And yes I believe that thought is unattainable…in every sense
I read and actually commented on her response to the concept of ‘responsible’ breeders at the time, a term that makes me cringe. I wasn’t nice.
A prime example of someone who thinks with their heart instead of their brain. Feeeeewings are sooooo important, you know, when trying to implement public policies. This woman and those morons who believe that only ‘show’ or ‘competition’ breeders should be allowed to breed are two peas in a pod. More concerned with their own little version of reality and reinforcing their own egos than in doing anything that’s hard and might go against their feeeeeewings.
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LOL! Great Jess. Now I have Elmer Fudd stuck in my head. 🙂
I’m sorry if my post was not well written. I am finding it harder and harder to articulate what I mean as I am not very well at the moment.
I agree wholeheartedly that the open admission policies are encouraging euthanasia. How can anybody possibly find a home for a dog in 72 hours. Here in the UK it’s 7 days and then there are registered charities or NFP rescues that step in and take the dogs. The pounds work with them taking photographs and allowing them to network so that when the 7 days are up and nobody comes forward…the dog can be taken and placed in foster.
We have similar problems to the pitbulls here in the UK…with Staffies…a bull breed. Bred by anybody and everybody. We call the “breeders” you are talking about “back yard breeders” where they breed their pet dogs to earn additional money to pay for holidays etc., or supplement their benefits. They sell to anybody or are given away when they can’t get sold. They don’t care where the puppies go and these are the puppies that are at most risk.
Pedigree purebred breeders all say their puppies don;t end up in rescue because they take them back…and a very good breeder will take their puppies back if circumstances change…but there are a hell of a lot of dogs in rescue here in the UK for that to be the true situation of them all taking the dogs back. Some take them back, have a litter and then sell them on again…so it’s a double whammy.
My experience with rescue is that a lot of people involved have no real experience and are full of good intentions….but have no idea how to spot a home that may not be good for the dog. They don;t appear to be able to match the dog to the correct owner..and of course…all of this takes time.
I was involved with helping rescue in Cyprus and the amount of money I spent was phenomenal. When I saw the same mistakes happening again and again I had to walk away because my heart wasn’t strong enough to cope with the misery. Some of these dogs would be better off PTS than living a life of abject misery. That appears to class me as being cruel and heartless…but nothing could be further from the truth. Being starved every day with no enrichment is no life for any animal.. If it was me…I would rather be dead….
I hope this makes my earlier post clearer.