Latest / The Animal Advocate / Designer Dogs, Shelter Dogs, and the Small Shift That Would Save Lives

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Designer Dogs, Shelter Dogs, and the Small Shift That Would Save Lives · The Animal Advocate

• 0:01
  Welcome back to the Animal Advocate. I want to start today
• 0:05
  with something that's been on my mind and honestly on my
• 0:09
  heart for a while now. It's a contradiction
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  many people in animal welfare feel but don't always say
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  out loud because we don't want to offend people. And it's this.
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  People keep buying dogs, so breeders keep
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  breeding them. And the dogs nobody chose
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  die in shelter euthanasia rooms.
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  Most people assume that if a dog in a shelter is healthy and adoptable,
• 0:35
  they'll find a home. That assumption doesn't match what's
• 0:39
  happening in shelters in many areas of this country today.
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  I want to walk you through why, what the real math of this problem
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  looks like and what it would take to change it.
• 0:54
  Welcome to the Animal Advocate, where we arm animal lovers
• 0:57
  with the information and inspiration you need to become
• 1:01
  effective advocates. I'm your host, Penny Ellison, and
• 1:05
  I've taught animal law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania
• 1:08
  since 2006. If you've ever thought
• 1:12
  someone should do something about that, I'm here to guide you
• 1:16
  on your journey to being that someone. You can
• 1:19
  find us on the web@animaladvocacyacademy.com
• 1:24
  and that's where you'll find show notes and resources, and you can
• 1:27
  send us your comments on episodes and ideas for topics you'd like
• 1:31
  to hear on future shows. So onto today's
• 1:35
  topic.
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  A few weeks ago, I was at the Pennsylvania SPCA shelter here
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  in Philadelphia, and they were housing 317
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  animals, 191 of them dogs.
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  Many of those dogs had been sitting in kennels for months,
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  months, waiting for someone to come in and choose them.
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  A mile away, Philadelphia's open intake shelter euthanized
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  more than 70 dogs the previous month.
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  For many, if not most of those dogs, it was not because they
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  were irredeemably suffering, not because they were dangerous,
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  and not for lack of effort. The staff were
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  promoting them, sharing them, transferring them to rescues whenever
• 2:24
  possible. But the influx never stops and
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  eventually there's just no more room. And that's just two
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  shelters in one city. Across the country last
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  year, shelters reported euthanizing approximately
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  334,000 dogs. That
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  number comes from Shelter Animals Count, which is the best source we
• 2:46
  have. But reporting is voluntary, so it's safe to assume
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  the real number is higher. We just don't know how much higher.
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  At the same time, the supply of dogs coming into the market
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  from breeders is enormous. Large scale
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  commercial breeding operations alone produce somewhere between two
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  and two and a half million puppies every year. That
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  doesn't include small breeders or breeders working under state licensing
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  thresholds or private sales between individuals.
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  Those categories combined produce many more.
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  So this isn't a marginal source of dogs. It's one of the dominant
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  ones. Which is why I keep coming back to the
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  same uncomfortable thought. We've built
• 3:31
  a system in which some dogs are treated as precious
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  while others become surplus. Some
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  people wait months for a chance to buy the perfect puppy.
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  Some dogs wait months to find out if anyone will choose them
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  at all. That's not a shelter problem.
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  That's a choice problem. And the choice isn't the
• 3:55
  shelters. It's ours.
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  Look, some dogs are brought into homes with abundant resources,
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  high quality veterinary care, every possible comfort.
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  Others are left to languish or die in shelters,
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  not because they're sick or unsafe, not because they wouldn't make great
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  companions, but because the line of dogs coming in
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  never ends. And often, if we're honest,
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  it's because they don't look like the dog people think they want.
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  Let's pause on that for a minute, because this is where the conversation gets a
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  little uncomfortable, and I don't want to skip over the uncomfortable part.
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  People want to blame shelters, call them kill shelters,
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  ask why they can't do more. But the shelters
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  aren't the ones making the choices that fill the kennels.
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  We are. Every time someone picks a puppy over
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  an adult, a breeder over a rescue, a
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  look over a fit, that's a choice.
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  And choices add up. Some reasons are
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  legitimate. If you compete in agility, if you do herding
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  trials, if you need a service dog or a therapy dog with
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  a very specific temperament and predictable build, there
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  are real reasons. You might need a particular breed from a responsible
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  breeder that is a small slice of buyers. And that's
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  not who I'm talking about today. For most people picking a
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  dog, what shapes the decision is something different. They
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  want a certain look. They want a puppy. They can shape themselves.
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  Instead of an adult dog whose past they didn't control,
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  they want the kind of dog they saw someone else with. Those are
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  not malicious impulses, but they are consumer
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  impulses, and they produce consumer
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  outcomes. Part of what reinforces that
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  mindset is the law itself. Under the law,
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  dogs are property. That means we're legally free to approach
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  getting a dog the way we would approach getting anything else we bring into
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  our lives. Browse, compare,
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  pick the one we like, check the price tag. That's not
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  cruelty, but it is a mindset. And it has
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  consequences measured in lives. And I'll Go
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  one step further, because I think this needs to be said.
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  A real portion of breeder purchases today come down to status,
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  to the look, to the breed of the moment. The French
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  bulldog that costs more than a used car. The doodle being
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  bred in someone's garage because the designer breed market is hot and
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  they can advertise online and make it look like they were raised on a farm
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  with rolling meadows and rainbows every day.
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  The Instagram dog, the accessory dog,
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  the dog that matches the aesthetic. Do we choose
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  friends that way? I hope not.
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  A 2019 review of dog acquisition studies published in the journal
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  Animals found that appearance is one of the strongest factors in
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  choice. The other is what people believe the dog's
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  temperament will be. And a study of French bulldog, pug
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  and bulldog owners published in plos ONE found that a
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  meaningful portion of owners of these fashionable breeds fall into
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  what researchers call an extrinsic motivation group.
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  People who see their dog as part of their personal identity or
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  social status, rather than valuing the dog for his or
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  her own sake. That's where status comes
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  in. Certain breeds and these new designer mixes
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  carry social meaning. They signal lifestyle,
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  taste, and even a kind of aspirational identity.
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  You see it with doodles, French bulldogs, and whatever is
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  currently in demand. The dog becomes part of how someone
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  presents themselves to the world. Layered on top of
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  that is the belief that choosing a breed means choosing a predictable
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  temperament, that you're buying not just a look, but a
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  personality. But that confidence is often misplaced.
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  Behavior varies widely within breeds, and it's heavily shaped by
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  early environment, socialization and training.
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  In contrast, an adult dog in a shelter has already shown
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  you who they are. They've been observed by staff, handled by
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  volunteers, often exposed to other dogs and people in
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  different situations. That doesn't make them perfectly predictable.
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  I know. But it does mean you're not guessing based on a breed
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  profile or a puppy's appearance. You're making a decision based on
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  an observed pattern of behavior. So if
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  what people say they want is predictability, the more reliable
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  path may not be the breeder puppy at all, but the dog whose temperament
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  has already been tested in the real world. Because the
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  right dog for your life is not necessarily the one that looks a certain way.
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  It's the one whose energy matches yours, the one whose needs you
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  can meet, and the one who can thrive in your home.
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  Which brings me to the word rescue, because the meaning
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  has gotten muddy. Look it up in any dictionary.
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  Rescue means saving someone or something from danger
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  or harm. It's in the Grammar of the word itself.
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  You rescue someone from something. A burning building,
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  a sinking ship, a full shelter. If
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  there's nothing to be rescued from, no rescue is happening.
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  And I want to be clear, because most of what gets called rescue work
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  really is rescue. Pulling dogs at risk of euthanasia,
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  transporting dogs out of overwhelmed shelters, taking in
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  the medical cases, the seniors, the dogs who need foster
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  time to decompress, running sanctuaries for the ones
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  no one will adopt. That's all real rescue. That's the work.
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  But the word has also gotten applied to situations where nothing much is
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  being rescued at all. A 12 week old purebred looking
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  puppy isn't in danger. A doodle with a waiting list
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  of adopters isn't being saved.
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  Adopting them is still better than going to an irresponsible breeder.
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  But in my view, that's not rescue. To me,
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  rescue means choosing a dog who needed you to choose them.
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  The blocky headed dog who's been sitting in Kennel 14 for six months.
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  The black senior who doesn't photograph well. The
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  bully mix whose paperwork says may not do well with other dogs in
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  the home. The ones who've spent the most time at this
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  shelter, the ones who don't have a line of people waiting,
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  those are the dogs the system may not save without someone
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  choosing them on purpose. And that someone
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  has to be US advocates. The
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  general public is going to take the puppies and the doodles, which
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  means the dogs who maybe are a little more challenging to place are going
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  to be waiting for the people who went in specifically looking for
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  them. If you love dogs, and if you're listening to
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  this still, I think you do, those are the dogs
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  who need your love the most.
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  We've come a long way in the past several decades reducing shelter
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  deaths, but we won't finish the job unless more
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  people stop choosing based on what they want the dog at the end
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  of their leash to look like. I'm not here
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  to shame anyone for loving their dog. I'm here to ask a
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  harder question. Is the way we're choosing dogs
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  the way we would design if we really thought about it?
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  Because the cost of choosing a dog the way we choose a handbag
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  is being paid right now by the dogs who die in
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  shelters for no reason other than that no one showed
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  up and chose them.
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  But this problem is more solvable than most people
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  realize. It wouldn't take most buyers changing their
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  behavior to eliminate the need to euthanize dogs for space.
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  It would just take a fraction. Let me do the math out
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  loud. If roughly 334,000 dogs were
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  euthanized in reporting shelters last year, and we add
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  some cushion for the shelters that don't report, let's call the number of
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  shifts we would need to close the gap around 400,000.
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  That's the number of buyers that would need to move into the adopters column.
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  How many puppies do Americans buy from breeders each year?
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  Nobody tracks this perfectly, but commonly cited estimates put
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  the number somewhere between 2 and 2.5 million.
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  And that's on the conservative side because it doesn't fully capture all the backyard
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  and private sales. So using the conservative end,
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  400,000 buyers becoming adopters would be about 1
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  in 6 buyers. Using a higher estimate, it gets
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  closer to only 1 in 10 buyers. And the real number
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  is probably lower than that because some of those
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  334,000 dogs were euthanized for severe
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  medical or behavioral reasons, not for space.
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  Using 400,000 gives us a safe, conservative estimate
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  that almost certainly overshoots what it would take to to end
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  killing for space. That's the scale of the
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  shift we're talking about, not a revolution in how
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  Americans get dogs. Not convincing every buyer to change
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  their mind. A modest, specific,
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  achievable shift at the margins for people who love dogs,
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  but just don't know the effect of their decision on a real dog
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  living in a shelter right now.
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  So it's achievable and yet we haven't done it.
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  I think part of the reason is that we've been saying adopt,
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  don't shop for years. And slogans, they're kind of how
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  you talk to strangers. Slogans don't change behavior
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  at the scale we need because people are not making this decision
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  based on that slogan that they heard or saw on social media.
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  And breeders have also sometimes co opted the use of the word
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  adoption, trying to capitalize on many people's desire
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  to do the right thing but also get the puppy they eyed
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  online. I just don't think the shift happens primarily
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  through campaigns or messaging or it would have happened by now.
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  A lot of it has. But to get the rest of the way, I think
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  it happens in intimate conversations, trusted
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  person to trusted person. The moment where you
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  say, can I tell you what I've seen?
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  Because people don't just choose dogs, they
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  choose how they choose dogs.
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  That is where the shift happens. And it's a shift every
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  one of you listening can help make.
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  So here's your Be the Change segment for this week. Think
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  about one person in your life who's about to get a dog. Not
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  a stranger, not someone online, someone who trusts
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  you. A co worker, a family member, a
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  neighbor, an adult child. Have one
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  conversation with them. Not a lecture, Not a guilt
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  trip. Just an honest conversation about how you would approach
• 15:31
  picking a dog. Fit over looks.
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  Temperament over breed. Prestige. Talk
• 15:39
  about the shelters in your community and the dogs sitting in them right
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  now, especially the ones who've been waiting the longest.
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  Share one story or one link offer to go to the shelter
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  with them. That's it. One conversation with
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  one person. If everyone listening to this podcast did
• 15:57
  that this week, that would be amazing. And if you share this
• 16:01
  episode with other people who care, the math on this problem would
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  shift faster than any piece of legislation could move it.
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  Because the dogs dying in our shelters are not dying because
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  Americans don't love dogs. We love dogs. They're
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  dying because of how we choose. It's a choice
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  every one of us makes or doesn't make every time someone
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  in our orbit is thinking about getting a dog. And
• 16:28
  that is something we can change.
• 16:31
  That's it for today. The Animal Advocate is brought to you by the
• 16:35
  Animal Advocacy Academy. If today's episode got you
• 16:39
  thinking about what you can do to change things for animals, I
• 16:42
  want to make sure you know about the four Cs of legislative advocacy
• 16:46
  for Animals. It's a free audio series I put together
• 16:50
  that gives you a real front framework for making legislation happen.
• 16:54
  You can find it at animaladvocacyacademy.com
• 16:58
  4cs that's 4c's
• 17:02
  f o u r c s and you can
• 17:05
  find all our episodes and show
• 17:07
  notes@animaladvocacyacademy.com
• 17:11
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• 17:14
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• 17:18
  way. Questions on today's topic or anything else,
• 17:22
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• 17:23
  us@podcastnimaladvocacyacademy.com
• 17:27
  we'll write back, or we'll feature your question in a future
• 17:30
  episode. Remember, compassion
• 17:34
  is great, but compassionate action is
• 17:37
  infinitely better. Until next week,
• 17:41
  Live with Compassion.