Why re-invent the no-kill wheel?

In addition to a ridiculous advisory board - two photogenic women with NO experience with no-kill - DCAP continues to make nice with the ignorant Dallas public via their Web site.

We are invited to make suggestions about how Dallas to become no-kill through an online suggestion box at the DCAP Web site. However, we are not allowed to discuss examples of shelters, groups and cities who have already become no-kill. Seems the DCAP task force thinks that Dallas is so fucked up that we can't learn from other cities. Why not? What's the difference?

This is from the DCAP Facebook page (not verbatim, I fixed their typos - repairs are in red font. No words were deleted where I inserted "are not welcome" but that's the jist):

Also, please note - months of research have been conducted up to this point, so while we appreciate the sentiment, general comments like "look at what Richmond did" are not welcome, Keep in mind that we've already researched Austin, Richmond, San Antonio, San Francisco, and many, many more.

Here's more DCAP Let's Re-Invent The Wheel While We Kill Hundreds More Animals humor:

The idea to move forward with a cooperative, “new breed” of no kill task force was conceived by Rebecca Poling and Mary Spencer back in May, and presented to the Animal Shelter Commission in June.

Clever way to buy some time, Rebecca and Mary!

And if you're wondering who Mary Spencer is, here's what the DCAP site says:

Mary Spencer is the former founder, co-owner and President of The Spencer Company, the seventh largest furniture dealership and the seventeenth largest woman-owned business in North Texas.

Maybe Mary's going to buy DAS staff Barcaloungers so they can be comfy when administering the phenobarbitol.

If DCAP had really researched other groups, they wouldn't need to ask the public what to do. These and other groups - like Seagoville - can tell DCAP all they need to know in half an hour. Network with other groups, work hard, publicize your adoption events, ask your community to help, be nice to your volunteers, and don't be snobs.

Some places have published comprehensive guides with details of how they achieved no-kill, too. Washoe County has published a PDF guide for how they went no-kill during a time when Nevada's economy was tanking. Here's a link their Web site. The link to the How We Did It PDF is small - look in the left-hand margin for it. I recommend it.

So why is DCAP taking this time-wasting, unnecessary approach, reinventing the wheel when we have plenty of wheels ready to help? Here are my guesses - readers are invited to add their own in Comments:

1. Poling and Co. want to take credit for suggestions.
2. If anyone posts an unworkable suggestion, the DCAP folks can feel superior.
3. Poling and Co. are doing exactly what Nathan Winograd described: pretend to want to go no-kill when all they're doing is pacifying the public for as long as they can. In the meantime, they can carry on with their committee-sitting, keeping their hands clean while they pass the blame to the public and the killing continues. (Task force chairperson has already told us she doesn't do "hands-on" stuff any more.)
   

I considered posting a polite, sensible suggestion at the DCAP site. However, I will never know what happened to it. Neither will anyone else.

This is because it's swallowed up by a survey-taking app called Survey Monkey. You enter your suggestion, hit the Submit button and it's gone - so DCAP can take the credit or, more probably, trash it.

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned forums?

DCAP's Advisory Board: Is this a joke?

I decided to check out the Dallas Companion Animal Project's Web site today.

As expected, it's published absolutely nothing about successful no-kill shelters. Instead, they're collecting friends with the same juvenile enthusiasm as an SMU freshman pledging a sorority.

Take a look at their Advisory Board. I'm still scratching my head about this, trying to figure it out:

Can anyone tell me what either of these women have ever done to implement no-kill anywhere? The DCAP Web site doesn't. When you click on their photos, all you get is a larger version. So you can admire their dental work.

So far, all I can remember is that Elba Garcia supported the 2008 animal legislation. You know, the one with unenforceable pet limit laws and big fat registration fees for unaltered animals. The legislation that made Mark and Lynn Gideon spend thousands on attorney fees as they were over the six pet limit. You know - the stupid laws.

But Dr. Garcia did get a big fat lick on the butt from the Texas Animal Control Association. TACA gave Dr. Garcia a Presidential Citation in 2008. Who cares of TACA opposed the Companion Animal Protection Act? Who cares if TACA supports kill shelters?

Jocelyn White is equally mystifying. She's on the SPCA board but seems to concentrate on fundraising. But again, absolutely no experience with no-kill, although she can help you shop yourself into insurmountable credit card debt.

And Jocelyn has three pugs. She describes one as "rescued" at one site, but at another Web site she says all three are rescues. Why not shelter mutts, Jocelyn? Couldn't find any that matched your interior decor?

Former HSUS volunteer: Help a puppy, not a lobby

CULP: Help a puppy, not a lobby - Washington Times

Running scared, or DCAP's co-option dance begins

Earlier today, I listened to Nathan Winograd's October 30 interview on Animal Wise Radio. It's available as a free, downloadable podcast.

During the interview, Winograd referred to the "Co-option" chapter of his first book Redemption. He saw the Dallas Companion Animal Project (DCAP) coming a long time ago, because this sort of reaction is not uncommon. It's happened in other cities.

Here's how co-option works. It's a three-step process.

1. The folks who did nothing to stop killing in the past begin to get nervous, as more of the public insist that the shelter gets rid of bad management and stops killing the majority of animals in its care.
2. Eventually, these folks decide that the only way they can hang on to power is to begin to start tossing the phrase "no kill" around. This will buy them some time. For example, they'll probably begin to classify many more animals as "unadoptable". This cunning little math trick will immediately increase the numbers of "adoptable" animals that aren't killed. Easy!
3. However, this charade, combined with the others in store for us, won't fool us forever. When their failure eventually becomes obvious, the DCAP task force won't be blamed. Nor will they be held accountable. Instead, the public will be blamed for the killing again, as they were before the task force was formed.

DCAP's Rebecca Poling, is refreshingly honest about her unsuitability to chair this task force. If you read her "About Me" page here, you'll get the drift. For example, she admits she isn't involved in any "hands on" rescue any more. She's not lazy - she's "focusing on the big picture". And she thinks we need tons of unenforceable laws to keep the "stupid" members of the public in line.

And where are these brilliant plans to reduce shelter killing? Not for our eyes. DCAP's Facebook page and Web site have NO details of what the task force is planning to do to reduce euthanasia rates, even though Poling knew it was coming way back in May (see previous post).

Instead, DCAP's Web presence is nothing more than pages of cheerful mutual masturbation, thanking other shelters for joining the Project. Here are some examples from the DCAP Facebook page:

Welcome A Different Breed as a new Animal Advocacy Partner! Thank you for your support!

More new Animal Advocacy Partners... thanks Take me Home Pet Rescue for joining the Dallas Companion Animal Project!!

A big shout out to Paws in the City for joining us as an Animal Advocacy Partner. Your support is appreciated!

French Bulldogs are in the house via Short Mugs Rescue Squad! Thank you for joining us as an Animal Advocacy Partner!

To be fair, not 100% of the Facebook messages are suckups. I think some of the shelters who are now "Animal Advocacy Partners", whatever that means, mean well.

Occasionally, someone will dare disagree with this rubbish - including those who have been truly successful with the No-Kill Equation. But any message they post will be deleted in minutes.

They are also occasionally told to fuck off and not post any more. Here's an example:


Asking Poling and Co. to be accountable is kind of like asking Wayne Pacelle to be honest about the HSUS's fundraising efforts. (And since the HSUS reports have done nothing to improve things at Dallas Animal Services, can we have our $50,000 back?)

I feel sorry for many of the shelters who are joining, as they're ready to do what needs to be done to make Dallas a no-kill city. Instead, they'll eventually realize that DCAP's message hasn't changed - just the name.

In the meantime, the killers at Dallas Animal Services and in Dallas City Hall will continue to kill the majority of animals they take in, while they continue to tell us to shut up and let them do what they want to do behind closed doors, without accountability.

Dallas Companion Animal Project: Ouch, ouch and ouch

Since Jody Jones was brought in to run Dallas Animal Services (DAS) a few months ago, I decided to take a wait and see attitude to see how she planned to manage.

Recently I have decided that she might as well have stayed in Richmond.

The bottom feeders at Dallas City Hall, especially the ones in the Animal Shelter Commission, have already got this no-kill Dallas thing wrapped up. (Not really, but this is what they want you to think.) They've named themselves the Dallas Companion Animal Project. Let's call them DCAP for short.

Seems that the committee-sitters have decided to retain their links to the folks who helped them kill the Companion Animal Protection Act earlier this year - namely, THLN, HSUS and similar - while attempting to pass off their mysterious plans for a no-kill Dallas as Nathan Winograd's No-Kill Equation.

To my mind, if you're in bed with the THLN and HSUS, there is absolutely no way you can make no-kill become a reality. But DCAP insists this is true.

DCAP's Facebook page proudly links to THLN, HSUS, and similar "hidden-agenda" organizations. Ouch One.

Winograd not only noticed that DCAP's Rebecca Poling borrowed an outdated quote of his; he was sufficiently outraged to write to the major of Dallas and to point this out in detail. He also made his letter public.

Here an excerpt from his letter, in which Nathan eats Rebecca's lunch one more time:

...you cannot create a true and authentic blueprint for No Kill success by empanelling a Task Force chaired by a person who has no track record of success and who opposes the very approach necessary to end the killing of savable animals.

Here is a link to Nathan's entire letter. That's Ouch Two, DCAP.

But even though Nathan's letter has been public knowledge for several days, DCAP has not had the courtesy (or the brains) to remove his quote from any of their materials.

Here is Ouch Three. Even if the previous has not convinced you of the disingenuous nature of DCAP, this may.

Someone NOT involved with No-Kill Dallas (a group separate from DCAP, and supported by Nathan Winograd) has wandered over and registered every usable No Kill Dallas Web address. If you visit Register.com and look up these:

www.nokilldallas.com

www.nokilldallas.net

www.nokilldallas.org

you will see that they're taken. NOT by a group, but by an individual. And they are not in use.

Here's a screen shot of one of them, courtesy of Register.com.

My guess is that she is busting a gut to sabotage the real No Kill Dallas group - the group that Nathan Winograd actually supports. Because if she can do this, she can keep the spotlight on herself. You can read about this group and find out how to volunteer at the No Kill Dallas Facebook page.

Does anyone care to hazard a guess as to what's wrong with Rebecca? For someone who pretends to love animals, her actions betray her at every step.

But here is the ultimate bad news: while Rebecca busies herself with her egocentric activities and confuses a growing number of newcomers to no-kill, Dallas Animal Services keeps killing more and more animals. Every day.

THLN celebrates animal deaths at Sambuca

It appears that the Texas (In)Humane Legislative Network (THLN) thinks they have something to celebrate.

Click on the headline below to be nauseated by the story (but don't bother posting a negative comment, as it will be deleted):

THLN Victory Party Sunday at Sambuca

I suppose the THLN sycophants' celebration includes killing the Companion Animal Protection Act (CAPA). Killing this act means that Texas shelters can keep the current modus operandi.

Nathan Winograd's blog post contains details of what THLN fought to keep:

Thanks to opponents, pounds in Texas will continue killing animals cruelly (gassing them to death). Thanks to these groups, they will continue turning away rescue groups and then killing the animals those rescue groups offered to save. They will, like the Houston Humane Society, systematically slaughter dogs they claim are “pit bulls” for just being dogs. And they will continue to lie to the public, claiming they are doing all they can to save lives; even as they have shown they will do whatever is necessary to defend their ability to kill animals and to protect that ability for others, even in the face of readily available lifesaving alternatives they simply refuse to implement.

There's not much left to say.

Except fuck you, THLN.

Man faces jail time for TNR. WTF?

From a St Paul, MN newspaper - click on the first sentence to be taken to the complete story.

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Doug and Annette Edge thought they were doing the right thing for their community.

With feral cats roaming their North St. Paul neighborhood, the couple trapped the wild felines, took them to be sterilized and vaccinated, and then released them back into the city.

City officials, though, say the couple was breaking city animal laws.

In April, North St. Paul charged Doug Edge, 45, with two misdemeanors: failing to have a cat license and allowing domestic animals to run at large. Edge faces a fine and up to 90 days in jail.

"I'll go to jail before I pay that fine," he said.

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The No-Kill Advocacy Center (visit their Facebook page by clicking here) has begun a letter-writing campaign to St. Paul's Mayor, Mike Kuehn, in defense of Doug Edge. Here's the mayor's contact information:

Fax: 651-747-2435

Email: mike.kuehn@ci.north-saint-paul.mn.us

Postal address:

2472 14th Avenue
North St. Paul, MN 55109