So based on my last piece regarding AB-1045, a bill that aims to inject doublespeak into shelter law, I’ve since had an email communication with the HSUS’s Jennifer Fearing. She was one of the individuals that I name-dropped in my prior article. She and her organization not only support this language-softening bill, but they were also both supporters of carving out certain sections of the Hayden Act last year–that is until the public revolted–and then they flipped in the 4th quarter and came out against it. So they were for chucking portions of law before they were against chucking portions of law. And it all seemed to stem on the amount of push back that they received from an angry public. So you can’t help but ask yourself, are they principled on their positions of reform or are they something else? Anyways, here is the back and forth that myself and Jennifer Fearing had yesterday, posted with permission…

Dear Josh,

Thanks for sending me your email address.

I have been volunteering to help homeless dogs since 1997, when I found a stray dog and took him to what was then a very poorly run government shelter here in Sacramento. I became a volunteer at that shelter and since then have personally fostered and placed more than 100 dogs – mostly pit bull type puppies and dogs. I also spent several years pushing for reform of local shelters and promoting spay/neuter, including starting No-Kill Sacramento which morphed into the Sacramento Area Animal Coalition – a group that has since provided close to 10,000 affordable spay/neuter surgeries and created a network for the area’s rescue and shelter groups to help save the lives of countless animals over the last decade. I spent a recent Saturday driving more than 200 miles to ensure the adoption of two hounds who were seized in a cruelty case. Whatever my professional priorities have demanded of me – from leading campaigns to protect farm animals from extreme confinement to stopping reckless persecution of wildlife – I have always made time to help homeless dogs because it is my personal passion.

Contrary to your blog’s assertion, I did not start a task force with the intention of “getting rid of the Hayden law.” After years of legislative suspensions of some of the Hayden law’s most critical elements and years of my own and HSUS’ efforts to stave off those suspensions as well as last year’s repeal proposal by the Governor, I reached out to other humane leaders to develop a sustainable plan for achieving California’s policy preference for improving and saving the lives of homeless animals by: (1) evaluating what’s working and what’s not about current practices; (2) developing new approaches; and, (3) identifying reliable and stable funding options that promote life-saving efforts. In particular many people are concerned that current state laws aren’t sufficiently helping stray cats, who continue to wind up at shelters in very high numbers and rarely leave alive.

We share your conviction that animal shelters should be safe havens for animals. We want humane euthanasia decisions, not routine destruction of healthy pets. But with regard to the language changes proposed by AB 1045, I understand your perspective but respectfully disagree with it.

California law uses the term “pound” in twenty-five different places when referring to animal shelters and their operations. This outdated term does not reflect the balance that communities expect to exist between animal control and animal care efforts by government agencies. Communities expect California animal shelters to provide essential life-saving services that the word “pound” does not accurately encompass.

Similarly, California laws referring to euthanasia in cases of dire animal suffering as “destroying” an animal also are outmoded. You’ll note if you read AB 1045 that the proposed changes of the word “destroy” to “euthanize” are limited to situations where animals are found clearly suffering and in distress – not situations in shelters where decisions are made to end the life of a homeless animal. We believe that it’s important that officers and veterinarians given authority under the law to “destroy” an animal understand that the law requires “euthanasia” – to reinforce the state’s commitment to the humane handling and treatment of animals in distress and suffering irremediably.

Another reason we support making these changes to state law is to help empower local agencies to seek – and receive additional voluntary community support to offset significant budget cuts most have endured. Over the past several years, not only did the state not fund the Hayden law requirements to hold animals for additional days, but also most local governments cut their animal services agencies’ budgets – some of them dramatically. When our own laws consider government animal care and control agencies as “pounds,” that doesn’t inspire volunteerism or donations that many agencies now really need to help fund life-saving efforts and veterinary care.

It is our opinion that laws calling shelters “pounds” and suggesting that suffering animals be “destroyed” do not meet society’s current commitment or expectations to homeless animals, nor do they recognize or encourage dedication and caring at the facilities entrusted with them. This point was well-articulated by well-known blogger, pet columnist and no-kill advocate Christie Keith in this column back in 2011: http://www.sfgate.com/pets/yourwholepet/article/The-era-of-the-dogcatcher-is-over-2457583.php.

I hope this email has helped clarify where I’m coming from and why HSUS supports AB 1045. You’re welcome to publish it in its entirety on your blog.

Jennifer,

Everything you stated in your opening paragraph sounds wonderful, amazing, incredible. I love it all and applaud you for it. But if you started a genuine No Kill community in Sacramento that morphed into something very similar to what the No Kill Advocacy Center advocates for, why does the Humane Society of the United States and so many of its promoters and employees actually oppose so many of their ideas and attempts at substantial shelter reform? I realize that’s a huge question, with many elements, but it’s a question that at it’s core has gone unanswered. It makes no sense.

Regarding Hayden, did you not support its repeal which was aligned with Brown’s first attempt at cutting it? Did you also not state that we don’t need the law, and imply that shelter directors would actually follow it, with or without the language in the law? I believe you did support it being repealed, and I believe you did make those statements regarding the language not being necessary. I don’t care about “suspensions” and all of that, they were and still are part of the law. And they shouldn’t be taken out of a law just because the language has been put aside for a time period. You should instead be working to reinstate the existing portions of language now suspended, and even add further teeth to Hayden, as it could obviously be improved. No?

“Pound” is not an outdated term. It’s a realistic term. Quite frankly it doesn’t matter what communities “expect” to happen, and then to have that expectation be appeased through language, when what they expect to happen (shelter reform, animals being treated with dignity, life-saving being the priority) isn’t happening! So why change language implying further that it is happening when it is not? Why? And with the killing/euthanasia discussion my point gets amplified x100. Why would you do this? I view this as a massive disservice to animals i.e. why I stated you were “putting blinds on a hellhole” or something to that effect.

In regards to only using euthanasia in alignment with “extreme suffering,” we know that that is already taken advantage of to the highest order. Dogs are killed with that justification put on them, Pit Bulls are routinely killed with the “unadoptable” label put on them. It happens all the time and 9x out of 10 is totally irrelevant and not even remotely justified. What do you say to this?

Your efforts seem to be aimed at softening the realities of what goes on inside of kill shelters in order to bring more money and volunteerism to the actual shelters themselves. Okay. But I see two problems with that… 1) I personally don’t believe in softening any kind of reality for any reason, especially when no one is blunt enough and straight forward enough with the public already in regards to shelters! There’s little to no transparency and they (shelter staff) also move mountains to stamp out dissent and/or any attempt at any kind of expose. This language will just protect that kind of tyrant behavior. And 2) This is to embrace more volunteerism? Volunteers already want to give their time, and under the current realities! And that’s in an environment where staff doesn’t at all embrace the community. I don’t mean to speak vaguely, as all shelters are different, but here in L.A. County volunteers are shunned, targeted, silenced already. That type of stuff serves to alienate them far more than any “legal language” would. It took my own girlfriend 9 months to get a response from a county shelter when she applied to be a volunteer! That’s the reality here.

So to use your own departing words and just changing a few phrases… It is my opinion that the kill shelters themselves do not meet society’s current commitment or expectations to homeless animals, language be damned (and that language would just further hide/embrace that), nor do they recognize or encourage dedication and caring at the majority of these facilities. That’s the problem. Not words. Actions. The lack of actions and real change.

Thanks for the dialogue. I don’t mean to “attack” you for no reason, but I think these moves need talked about very seriously, and as someone who routinely visits these shelters, I’m offended by them. I view what is being done as really dangerous for shelter animals and for public perception, a public perception that is already watered down to the realities of what goes on inside of kill shelters. The realities themselves need changed. That only happens when more people are exposed to the true horrors of what is being done in their name and by people who are being funded by their tax-payer dollars. The public would not be too thrilled. The more that this was exposed, the angrier they’d get. And yet you seem like you’re coming from the totally opposite spectrum of trying to give these actions/people cover, just because in order to engage the community further you need to “inspire” through misrepresentation. So let’s say that you do “inspire” more… What happens when they come to the table and are then silenced, alienated, disenfranchised, or worse, desensitized in the face of the actual realities. How does that stuff serve to change the actual actions of shelters?