PETA again takes aim at the no-kill movement
In a recent blog post, PETA went on the attack against the no-kill movement and Best Friends specifically, attempting to make their case through lies by omission and an agenda-driven smear.
PETA lied by omission
The gist of PETA’s blog is summed up in its headline: “Indianapolis Animal Care Services Required Background Checks Until Best Friends Recommended Otherwise.” That is simply a lie. What PETA doesn’t include in their taradiddle is that Best Friends supports the use of the Chameleon shelter software background check, which reveals animal cruelty convictions. Indianapolis Animal Care Services staff are instructed to do a Chameleon background check as part of the adoption process.
The background check program that we advised against using, MyCase, does not focus on animal cruelty and does not screen for only convictions, but rather it is a catchall database of every run-in with the justice system a potential adopter may have had, whether determined to be guilty or innocent.
It is a fact that a person’s color, address, accent, or manner of dress has all too often excluded individuals from adopting pets, resulting in more killing in shelters and the subsequent acquisition of an often unneutered, unchipped, unvaccinated dog or cat from another source. It doesn’t make sense. MyCase, however neutral it may be, may have been used as a subjective barrier to adoption because it is also a fact that people of color are more likely to have crossed paths with the justice system, and those encounters should not disqualify them from adopting a pet.
Two Indianapolis Animal Care Services employees refused to comply with shelter policy, continued to use MyCase, and were let go. Not a hard call.
There is no story here other than some invented clickbait for PETA to attack no-kill.
What’s Up with PETA?
You may be wondering, what’s up with PETA?
Credit where credit is due. PETA changed the game when it comes to the industrial abuse of animals, from animal testing to meat production to fur. They have much to be proud of, and everyone I know in animal welfare is grateful for their groundbreaking work with one conspicuous exception: animal sheltering. In this arena, their philosophy is wildly out of sync with the American public as witnessed by the publicly available statistics for the shelter that PETA operates in Virginia.
PETA’s hostility to the no-kill movement
In 2023, the PETA shelter took in 3,117 dogs and cats and took the lives of 2,471 of those pets. That’s a save rate of less than 21%. Really? 79% of the animals they took in were beyond medical or behavioral intervention? When you compare that with the more than 62% of all shelters in the United States that are at or above the no-kill threshold of 90%, it’s understandable why PETA is aggressively defensive when it comes to no-kill, but the question remains … why?
Part of PETA’s apparent hostility to no-kill (which seems to be ranked right up there with their understandable hostility to fur coats) appears to be philosophical. From PETA’s website: “In a perfect world, all animals would be free from human interference and free to live their lives the way nature intended. They would be part of the ecological web of life, as they were before humans domesticated them.” They go on to qualify their preferred reality with this: “Please be assured that PETA does not oppose kind people who share their lives and homes with animal companions whom they love, treat well, and care for properly.”
And therein lies the rub. “Kind people,” “love, treat well, and care for properly” are all very subjective terms — and subject to widely varying cultural interpretations. And who’s to decide who qualifies? Does the rancher who has a couple of working dogs and a house dog along with some barn cats fit inside or outside that definition? What about someone whose pets are a colony of well-cared-for community cats? What is proper care, and can a person living below the poverty line afford to provide what PETA would regard as proper care? What about an unhoused individual or family? I believe it is arrogant and elitist for anyone to decide, based on their supposed superior knowledge, who does and who doesn’t qualify to have a pet as part of their family.
From my many years of watching PETA machete their way through the knotty entanglements of the human-animal bond, I have concluded that they just don’t trust people to do the right thing. They seem to subscribe to an 80/20 rule where 80% of people are likely to be bad actors and that rather than risk placing a dog or a cat into their version of the world, that animal is better off dead, which is the next best thing to never having been born at all. It’s a dark view of the American public.
Best Friends and the no-kill movement subscribes to an 80/20 view of the world as well. But in our version, 80% of the public are animal lovers who regard pets as part of their family, and 80% of the remaining 20% are animal lovers who just haven’t met an animal yet. The public is not the problem; the public is the solution.
Also, in attempting to understand PETA’s motivation, imagine that you have dedicated your professional life to the idea that killing homeless pets is a necessary evil and that you are acting as an angel of mercy when you put the light out in those trusting eyes. What do you do then when confronted with the fact-based reality that killing in shelters is not a necessary evil at all but just plain evil? Do you have a humbling, come-to-Jesus moment of realization as many do and turn from the dark side? Or do you fight with all your might to hold on to the idea that killing is kindness and you really are an angel of mercy and then strive to discredit all evidence to the contrary?
Sadly, I believe this pain point to be key in understanding PETA’s and other old-school shelter directors’ opposition to no-kill, but again, just my opinion.
-Julie
