Good news for Delaware shelter animals

Not every state is content to live with an unacceptable level of killing of shelter animals. Last week, the Governor of Delaware signed the Delaware Companion Animal Protection act.

Here is a Reader's Digest Condensed version from Nathan Winograd's blog:

... the Delaware Companion Animal Protection Act mandates collaboration between shelters and rescue groups. A shelter cannot kill an animal if a rescue group is willing to save that animal’s life. But that is just the beginning. It also makes convenience killing illegal—shelters can no longer kill an animal when there are available cages or the animals can share a cage or kennel with another one.


For Dallas Animal Services (DAS) to turn things around, they would have to make some major changes. In addition to actively recruiting more volunteers, DAS would have to work with ALL rescue groups, not just a few select ones. It would be a 180-degree turnaround from their current modus operandi. But it's way past due. And the legislators in Delaware couldn't find any reason to oppose it.

From Nathan Winograd's blog, again:

To legislators, to the Delaware animal loving public, to the shelters and rescue groups who participated in the passing of this bill, there was nothing controversial about it. No fear mongering about hoarders, no fear mongering about dog fighting, no fear mongering about overcrowding, no fear mongering about costs, no fear mongering about notice requirements being unfair to small rural shelters, no fear mongering about anything. The bill mandates that animals be given every opportunity for life, and no one thought that would be a bad or controversial idea. In other words, there was no HSUS, no ASPCA, and no Best Friends. It seems that in order for shelter reform legislation to be allowed to pass, the supposed leaders of the animal protection movement itself can’t be involved.

Given that our current DAS management:

• Seems unbothered by an euthanasia rate that's stuck at 78-80%;
• Needs a grand jury to investigate why staff allowed a cat to die in agony within the shelter's very walls;
• Enables members of the Animal Shelter Commission to violate the very laws they helped bring in two years ago; and
• Doesn't seem to care what the taxpayers think of their performance ...

isn't it time these people found other jobs - hopefully in an industry that doesn't involve animals?