Episode 3: Nathan Winograd pt. III [8:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Episode 3: Nathan Winograd pt. III [8:38m]: Download

This episode of the Indy Animal Media podcast (which you can listen to by clicking the play button above, or by downloading it to your computer in MP3 or M4A format), is the third in a four-part series of an interview with Nathan Winograd, director of the No Kill Advocacy Center and author of Redemption: the Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America.

In this episode, Winograd talks about:

* what makes a No Kill city like Reno different from a city with traditional sheltering like Indianapolis
* how the move to No Kill can be expedited
* how long such a move might take.

If you’d like to read this portion of the interview series, you’ll find the text below. Be sure to subscribe to the IAM podcast by clicking a link to the upper left of the page: you can subscribe to updates via email, via your favorite RSS feed reader, via iTunes, or even simply bookmark the site in your browser and come back to it regularly. And if you have comments on this episode, please let us know. We’d love to hear your opinions!

In the next episode of Indy Animal Media, find out how going No Kill brought plenty of money to the San Francisco SPCA and how it can do the same for your local shelter. Also, Winograd tells us how you can help your city move to No Kill.

What’s your opinion about your local animal shelter? Are they doing enough to save animals? Leave a comment to share your opinion!

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Interview with Nathan Winograd: Part III

IAM: Do you know if Indianapolis’s current animal control policies (through the Humane Society of Indianapolis and IACC) are helpful in moving the city towards No Kill?

Winograd: Let me put it his way. Let’s compare Indianapolis, which has a population of over 800,000, with Reno, Nevada – Washoe County. Washoe County has a population of just over 400,000, so it has half the population of Indianapolis. They take in anywhere between 16- and 18,000 dogs and cats. So despite half the population, they’re taking roughly the same number of dogs and cats that you are here. And yet they’re saving 92% of all the dogs and 78% of all the cats, where the vast majority of animals are dying in Indianapolis shelters. What is the difference? The only difference between Washoe County and Indianapolis are the choices being made by the leaders of the large shelters, whereas the leaders in Washoe County have not just embraced the No Kill philosophy, but they’ve embraced the programs and services that save lives.

Programs like making Pit Bulls available for adoption rather than killing. Like trap-neuter-return for feral cats. They’ve opened up their shelters to foster parents, to volunteers. Because, like most communities, their shelters are located in a remote part of the city, away from the population centers, away from people work live and play, they take their animals off site to those population centers 7 days a week. They have friendly adoption hours into the evening and all weekend. They heavily promote their animals. It’s truly a welcoming environment.

One of the things I found somewhat disappointing, and really it makes a world of difference, is when you walk into Animal Care and Control, the first thing you’re greeted with are 5 or 6 signs at the front door telling you everything you can’t do: you can’t use their phone, you can’t use their bathroom, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. It’s not very welcoming.

Then the animals are kept under lock and key. So to go in, you literally need to be escorted, whereas if you walk into shelters in Washoe County, it’s wide open, you’re allowed to come in and play with the animals, you’re encouraged to play with the animals, you’re encouraged to adopt the animals.

At the end of the day, one of the things we’ve seen around the country is that the ability to significantly reduce the death rate on the order of 50% in one year, 60%, 75% happened when longstanding directors in these communities were replaced by newcomers to animal control: people with a passion for saving lives and the desire to see it through, not just by saying “we support No Kill,” but by thoroughly implementing the programs. And death rates declined significantly in those communities. San Francisco would still be a bloodbath if it wasn’t for Richard Avanzino. Tompkins would still be a bloodbath if the old director wasn’t replaced. Charlottesville would still be a bloodbath if their 20-year veteran wasn’t replaced with a newcomer to animal control. Reno, Nevada would still be killing the vast majority of animals.

If there’s a central lesson here, it’s that lifesaving is made or broken by the leaders of those shelters. I’d come here and was hoping I’d be able to meet with the shelter directors and do an evaluation of the shelter and help them move significantly towards lifesaving; unfortunately it didn’t play out that way. But I believe that if the leaders of the two large shelters in the community embrace this philosophy, follow through with the programs and services that save lives, that you would have the level of lifesaving that Reno, Nevada does, and because you have twice the population, it should be easier than it is in Reno, Nevada. And they did it in less than one year.

IAM: If a place like Indianapolis’s policies regarding homeless animals are still killing thousands of animals annually, how can the move to No Kill be expedited? How long might a typical transformation to No Kill take a city like Indianapolis?

Winograd: I’m not patting myself on the back here, but I ran two of the most successful shelters in the most successful communities in the country. I’ve been helping shelters in communities nationwide reduce their rates of shelter killing significantly, and Move to Act has brought me to this community to do intensive how-to seminars of all these different programs so that local shelters can benefit from the success in other communities. Unfortunately, the representation from the two large shelters isn’t what it should be.

And here’s the irony: when San Francisco achieved success, you would have thought that because shelter killing was still happening elsewhere in the country, everywhere else, that shelter directors would’ve sent teams to San Francisco to find out how we did it, to bring back with them the cure for the disease of shelter killing that had been discovered in San Francisco. But that didn’t happen, even though that’s how I believe people dedicated to saving lives are ethically compelled to act.

And here we are in Indianapolis, we’ve got 120 people from rescue groups and other organizations, and even shelter directors from outside Indiana, coming to learn how to reduce killing in their community, and the two directors from the two largest shelters have no intention of being present. To me, that speaks volumes about the commitment towards lifesaving that is occurring in Indianapolis. So all I would do is remind the public that you are footing the bill for the killing: you’re paying for it with your tax dollars, and you’re paying for it with your donations or philanthropy.

The killing is being done in your name, because these organizations represent the citizens of Indianapolis. You’re being blamed for the killing because of the fault that “belongs to the public rather than the shelters.” But you’re not paying the ultimate price. That ultimate price is being paid by the animals who are unfortunate enough to enter a shelter that has not embraced either the No Kill philosophy or comprehensively implemented the programs that make No Kill possible. And if those organizations don’t reflect your values, you have to reclaim those institutions and you have to demand accountability and results. In the case of the municipal shelter, from your city council or county commissioners. In the case of the private shelters, you need to attend board of directors’ meetings and say “this does not represent the compassion that exists in this community. Other communities are achieving greater success with less resources and a ‘bigger problem.’” Remember that Reno’s taking in twice the #’s per capita than you are in Indianapolis, and yet they’re saving 92% of the dogs and almost 80% of the cats, and they did it in less than a year. So if they can do it in less than a year with twice the problem, Indianapolis should be able to do it virtually over night.