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Can a Law Make Shelters Go No Kill? · The Animal Advocate

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  About 14 years ago, I started leading volunteer sessions at an
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  open-intake shelter, and I learned what timestamped
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  meant—at least what it meant at that shelter. It meant that the
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  animal had a deadline to find a safe exit or he'd be
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  euthanized. At that time, those deadlines fell in the
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  evening, so I was constantly checking in, hoping against hope
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  that a safe exit had been found. During that time, the
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  shelter had what they called a pen pal program. Pen pals
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  were assigned to a particular dog, working with them to help them become more
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  adoptable. And one of the saddest things I had ever
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  seen was when a pen pal would sit outside the shelter at
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  6 o'clock with her dog, hoping an adopter would show up
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  and hoping she could talk them into considering her dog
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  before they even got inside the building. Because her dog had an hour
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  left on his timestamp. Sometimes
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  euthanasia is necessary. When an animal is suffering or
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  unsafe, it's the responsible choice. But
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  euthanizing happy, healthy animals because there's simply no more
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  room is soul-crushing.
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  For some people, the first instinct is to demand a law.
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  The city should just require the shelter to be no-kill.
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  I understand that impulse, but the law is not a
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  magic wand. Today, let's talk about what it
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  looks like when advocates try to use it as one, and what we should be
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  asking for instead.
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  Welcome to The Animal Advocate, where we arm animal lovers
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  with the information and inspiration you need to become effective
• 1:45
  advocates. I'm your host, Penny Ellison, and I've taught
• 1:48
  animal law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania Canada since
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  2006. If you've ever thought, "Someone
• 1:56
  should do something about that," I'm here to guide you on your
• 1:59
  journey to being that someone. You can find us on the
• 2:03
  web at AnimalAdvocacyAcademy.com.
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  And that's where you'll find show notes and resources, and you can send
• 2:11
  us your comments on episodes and ideas for topics you'd like to hear
• 2:15
  on future shows. So, onto today's topic.
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  Before
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  we get into it, I want to say up front, shelter euthanasia is a
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  topic we're going to return to more than once. It's too big
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  for one episode. What everyone in animal welfare agrees
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  on is that we want euthanasia numbers to come down.
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  Where people disagree, and where the important conversations happen,
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  is how to get there. The short answer, for me,
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  is there's no single solution. You have to work on reducing the number
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  of animals coming into shelters, and at the same time work on getting
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  more animals out safely, through adoption, transfers
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  to rescue partners, and returning lost animals to their families.
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  Legislation is one tool that's been tried, with mixed
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  results, to push shelters towards saving more animals
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  by regulating when euthanasia is allowed and how
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  shelters have to work with rescues before it happens.
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  That's what today's episode is about. But
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  first, let's talk about what no-kill actually means,
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  because a lot of the confusion around this topic starts right there.
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  No-kill does not mean a shelter never euthanizes an animal.
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  What that term means in practice is that a shelter saves 90%
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  or more of the animals who come through its doors. That
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  other 10% accounts for animals who are medically beyond help
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  or pose a genuine safety risk that can't be managed.
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  No-kill still involves some euthanasia. What it
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  doesn't involve is euthanizing adoptable animals
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  simply because there's no more room. The question you
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  should ask about any shelter isn't whether they euthanize. It's
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  whether they're doing everything possible to keep that number down,
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  and whether their community is giving them the resources to do it.
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  The idea of using legislation to push shelters towards
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  no-kill isn't new. The most prominent example is
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  a California law passed in 1998, the
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  Hayden Law. It established that adoptable and
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  treatable animals shouldn't be euthanized when alternatives exist,
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  and it gave rescue organizations the right to pull animals from
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  shelters before euthanasia decisions were made. That
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  right-to-rescue provision, giving qualified rescues a
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  formal opportunity to step in, was at the heart of the law.
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  Did it work? When the Hayden Law passed, California
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  shelters were euthanizing an estimated 531,000
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  dogs and cats a year. By 2018, 20
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  years later, that number had dropped to roughly
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  180,000, about a two-thirds reduction.
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  That's real progress, and the Hayden Law contributed to it.
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  But California shelters still euthanize tens of thousands of animals every
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  year. Why? Because the
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  right-to-rescue mechanism addresses one piece of the problem.
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  It ensures that shelters give rescues a chance to pull animals
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  before euthanasia. It doesn't address why
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  shelters are overflowing in the first place.
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  Rescues can pull animals, but if there aren't enough rescues with
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  capacity, enough adopters, enough support for
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  families trying to keep their pets, the pressure on shelters
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  doesn't go away. Now, California wasn't the only
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  state to try this approach of limiting euthanasia through passing a law.
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  Arizona, Virginia, Florida, and Illinois have
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  each adopted some version of a rescue access requirement.
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  And a handful of other states have addressed it through administrative policy
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  or statewide shelter standards. The right-to-rescue idea has
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  spread. The question we're asking here is about whether
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  each new version has learned from what the earlier ones got
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  right and what they got wrong, and whether this is an issue
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  that's best addressed through a law.
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  I've been thinking a lot about whether we can legislate our way to
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  no-kill, because Utah just passed its own right-to-rescue
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  law. The basic idea is the same as California's:
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  before a shelter can euthanize an animal, it has to notify rescue
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  organizations that want to be contacted about at-risk animals, and
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  give them a window to step in. Utah's law was
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  developed with the help of Best Friends Animal Society, one of
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  the largest animal welfare organizations in the country, and they're based in
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  Utah. Now, Best Friends does important work,
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  but there's a difference between how a large, well-funded
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  organization with deep rescue infrastructure
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  experiences this work and how a small,
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  underfunded shelter experiences this work.
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  And when you look at how this kind of law works in practice,
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  real challenges emerge when we think about adopting this kind of law
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  in more jurisdictions. But before I get into those
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  problems, I want to be clear about something. The instinct
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  behind this law is right. Rescues do
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  save animals who would otherwise be euthanized. There are
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  shelters that have been slow to build rescue partnerships, that have made it
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  harder than it needed to be for rescues to pull animals from their
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  shelter. The people pushing for these laws have seen that
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  firsthand, and their frustration is legitimate.
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  The question I'm asking isn't whether rescues should have access to
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  at-risk animals. Of course they should.
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  The question is whether imposing legal requirements on when
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  shelters can euthanize does more good for animals
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  than harm. So what are the
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  problems with trying to legislate this? First,
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  shelter work doesn't lend itself to bright-line rules.
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  What most people who haven't worked in a shelter don't realize is
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  that a shelter's situation changes, not just day to day,
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  but hour to hour. You can start a morning with empty
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  kennels and by afternoon be dealing with a cruelty seizure, a dozen
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  strays picked up by animal control, and multiple families
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  surrendering animals at once in your lobby.
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  Staff are constantly weighing capacity, disease
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  risk, and what they can realistically provide for the animals in
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  their care. Animals in crowded conditions are
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  more vulnerable to illness. Animals who spend too
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  long in kennels can deteriorate in ways that make them harder to
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  adopt out. These decisions can't be
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  reduced to a checklist. They require professional
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  judgment, made in real time, by people who know their
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  facility and their animals.
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  The second issue is that the key terms are almost always
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  undefined. Utah's law requires shelters to
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  exhaust reasonable alternatives before euthanasia.
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  But never defines what that means. What counts
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  as a reasonable alternative? When has a shelter genuinely
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  exhausted them? Leaving that undefined
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  creates real legal uncertainty for shelter staff that are making hard
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  decisions under pressure. The
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  third problem I see is about when a shelter can say no
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  to a specific rescue, and I want to explain this one carefully
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  because it sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out.
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  Shelters work with rescue organizations every day.
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  That relationship is usually close, collaborative, and
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  it's vital to the animals at the shelter. So shelter staff
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  know their rescue partners well. They know which rescues have
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  capacity and which ones are stretched thin, which
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  ones are managing their own health crises, and which ones are in a
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  good position to take on a challenging animal. I know locally
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  we have rescues that are run by vets, so they're much better positioned
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  than most to take on a seriously injured or ill animal.
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  Others will put animals in boarding because they want to save one more
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  life, but they don't have a foster home lined up.
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  Under Utah's new law, almost none of that knowledge on the part
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  of shelter staff counts. The only grounds
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  on which a shelter can refuse to release an animal to a rescue are a
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  criminal conviction or pending charges for animal cruelty,
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  or a court order preventing them from taking animals. That's the
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  complete list. A shelter can't say no because
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  the rescue has no available foster homes, can't say no
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  because the rescue is managing its own disease outbreak, can't
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  say no because the rescue is already over capacity and doesn't
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  have the capacity to manage more challenging animals. The
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  professional judgment built up over years of working relationships has been
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  written out of the decision. These laws
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  also remove shelter professionals' ability to act on their own
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  safety judgment about specific animals.
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  Take a dog with a known bite history. The owner mentioned it to
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  staff when they were surrendering the dog, or the animal lunged at
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  staff members during intake. Under this new law,
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  none of that counts either. The exemption for dangerous
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  dogs only applies if the dog has already been
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  formally declared dangerous through a legal process, which in
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  Utah varies by jurisdiction, but it can
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  take days or weeks, and in some places it doesn't exist at all.
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  Meanwhile, a shelter is legally required to offer that dog
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  to a rescue. And because Utah has strict liability
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  for dog bites, a rescue that accepts a dog with a dangerous history
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  could face legal exposure if that animal injures someone.
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  As an example, Los Angeles Animal Services has paid more than $31
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  million in settlements in cases where dogs with known bite
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  histories were transferred out and later seriously injured
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  people. Just think what that money could have done for
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  animals if it hadn't needed to be spent settling dog bite
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  cases because the shelter felt pressured to hit a
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  specific live release number. That's the real-world
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  version of what happens when professional safety judgment gets overridden.
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  And one more thing: if a shelter faces a serious bite claim, they
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  will almost certainly lose their liability insurance.
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  Insurance for foster-based animal rescues is getting harder and
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  harder to get. And without insurance, they can't operate.
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  So the law that was meant to save one dog may just have ended
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  that rescue's ability to save any more. And
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  finally, there's typically no funding attached to these
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  kinds of laws. Every additional process these laws
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  require falls on shelters that are already, in most
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  cases, running without adequate resources.
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  Mandating new processes and longer hold periods, even
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  for dogs they think are not safe to place, without giving the
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  shelters any more resources, is a pattern that has not
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  served shelter animals well anywhere it's been tried. You know,
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  there's a saying, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, every
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  problem starts to look like a nail." Euthanasia
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  is a very visible problem to advocates. When they look to
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  their government for a solution, all legislators have is a
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  hammer: pass a law.
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  But euthanasia isn't the root problem. It's what
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  happens when the real problems driving animals into shelters go
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  unsolved. Legislation can address those problems, too,
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  but not with a quick mandate. It takes funding, and
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  sustained commitment, and that's a much harder ask than
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  passing a law that tells shelters what they can't do.
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  Animals come in because of unplanned litters, unaffordable vet
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  care, housing that doesn't allow animals, and a wide range
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  of economic pressures on families. When intake is high,
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  shelters are strained. When intake comes down,
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  the whole system gets more manageable. Staff have more time for
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  medical care, behavioral work, connecting animals
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  with adopters and rescue partners, so euthanasia numbers
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  fall—not because of a mandate, but because there's
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  room for the system to function the way the people inside it want it
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  to. Maybe I'm biased, but
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  my local open-intake shelter works incredibly hard to place every
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  animal they can. and they don't need a legislative mandate
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  to tell them how. And I suspect that's true of most
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  shelters. The ones that do need a push are a real
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  problem, but I don't think a blunt legal mandate that
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  applies to everyone is likely to be the best solution.
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  Also, I don't want to skip past the people doing this work,
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  because they're largely invisible in these policy debates. The
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  staff making euthanasia decisions are not indifferent to the animals
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  they're making them about. Shelter work involves sustained
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  emotional weight that most of the people criticizing shelters from the outside
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  have never experienced. Compassion fatigue is real,
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  burnout is widespread, and the turnover is high.
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  When experienced staff leave because conditions are unsustainable,
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  the animals pay the price. Any serious effort to reduce
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  euthanasia has to include the humans doing this work.
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  So what should advocates be pushing for? Funding
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  that gives shelters real resources to do their jobs.
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  Shelter policies that are transparent and publicly accountable.
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  Upstream programs that reduce how many animals arrive in the first place.
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  And legislators who stay engaged over time, not just
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  when a bill is on the floor, but year after year
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  asking whether shelters have what they need to succeed.
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  Utah's new law has a goal shared by every animal advocate:
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  fewer animals dying in shelters. And it may push
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  some shelters towards stronger rescue partnerships. I hope it
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  does. But before other states follow Utah's lead,
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  it's worth understanding what makes Utah unusual.
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  Best Friends Animal Society, the organization that helped draft this law,
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  as I said, is headquartered in Utah. They launched their
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  NoKill Utah initiative more than a decade ago, and they've spent
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  years building relationships between shelters and rescue
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  organizations across the state. When the law passed,
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  Best Friends' own data showed that Utah was fewer than
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  1,200 animals away from statewide no-kill status.
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  In other words, the rescue infrastructure to absorb those animals
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  was largely already in place before the law required
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  shelters to use it. Most states aren't starting
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  from there. If your state doesn't have that
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  foundation—the rescue network, the partnerships, the years of
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  relationship building—a law that tells shelters what they
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  can't do without building what they need may
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  create more problems than it solves. The path to
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  meaningful progress runs through the policies and investments
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  that shape how animals and people live together in communities.
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  Funding, upstream programs, sustained commitment from
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  legislators who stay engaged. That's where our
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  advocacy makes the greatest long-term difference.
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  Today's
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  question comes from a listener named Jane who wrote: My
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  local open-intake shelter gets a lot of criticism on social media.
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  People say the staff doesn't try hard enough to find rescues, and
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  animals who could be saved are being killed. I want to
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  push back, but I don't know what to say. Well, Jane, I
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  want to give you a real answer here, not a diplomatic one.
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  First, the criticism is sometimes valid. There are
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  open-intake shelters that are not doing everything they can. Not
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  working rescue relationships as actively as they should, not
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  marketing their animals well, not welcoming volunteers, not
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  being transparent about their outcomes. If that's your shelter,
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  it's worth pushing for improvement. But in many cases, and I
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  think the majority of cases, the people doing the
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  criticizing have never set foot inside a shelter.
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  They don't know what it looks like when the lobby is full of stray animals
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  and people surrendering their pets and there's nowhere to put all of them.
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  They don't know what a disease outbreak does to an animal population in
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  crowded conditions. And they don't understand that
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  a rescue or foster saying they're willing and a rescue or foster
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  having the capacity to care for an animal are sometimes two
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  different things. So my first piece of advice is for you,
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  not for the person complaining. Go learn.
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  Volunteer. Foster. Get inside the shelter and see what
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  it looks like. Not only will you be a far more effective
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  advocate for it, you'll be able to speak from firsthand experience when you
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  push back, and that matters. When it comes to the
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  social media pile-on, don't get drawn into an argument
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  with a person posting. Instead, post correct
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  information yourself. Explain what open intake
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  means. Explain what staff are dealing with. You
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  probably won't change the mind of the person doing the complaining. In
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  my experience, someone who wants to run the shelter from behind their keyboard
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  isn't usually looking for information. But your response
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  will be read by everyone else who sees that thread. And when those
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  people realize the criticism is coming from someone with no firsthand
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  knowledge of what they're talking about, they'll give it the
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  weight it deserves. If you do want to engage the
• 20:54
  complainer directly, ask them questions. Are they volunteering?
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  Have they fostered? Have they ever attended a public meeting about the shelter's
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  budget? Let their answers speak for
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  themselves—publicly. And if the
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  shelter genuinely isn't doing its best, direct engagement is
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  still how you change it, not a comment thread.
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  For today's Be the Change segment, find out who funds your local
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  open-intake shelter and how much they get. Is it a municipal
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  contract? If so, that budget goes through your city
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  or county government, and your elected officials vote on it.
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  Look up your council member and send them one email letting them know that
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  shelter funding matters to you and that you're paying attention to it.
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  You don't need to know the details of the budget to do this. You just
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  need them to know you exist. Legislators respond to
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  constituents who show up, even by email.
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  The shelters with the resources to reduce euthanasia are the ones whose
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  communities decided to fund that outcome.
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  That decision gets made by elected officials, and elected officials
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  listen when enough people ask.
• 22:21
  That's it for today. The Animal Advocate podcast is brought to
• 22:24
  you by the Animal Advocacy Academy. You can find
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  episodes and show notes at
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  AnimalAdvocacyAcademy.com, along with a
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  If you have any questions on this or any other topic related to animal law,
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  email them to
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  podcast@animaladvocacyacademy.com
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  and we'll make sure to get them answered. We'll either email you
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  back or feature them in a future episode or both.
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  And remember, Remember, compassion is great, but compassionate
• 23:10
  action is infinitely better. Until next week,
• 23:14
  live with compassion.