As we approach the 3 year anniversary of the signing of the Delaware Companion Animal Protection Act, the national "No-Kill" movement is holding their annual convention in Washington DC. Needless to say, they don't have too much to celebrate. For the last 3 years since CAPA was passed in Delaware, the movement has introduced their legislation in quite a few states, and with some local governments. To date they have ALL FAILED. Seeing how harmful it has been for our animals and the residents of our state, I'm grateful that other states have far more sense than Delaware's legislators and governor.
Closed Doors For Dogs and Cats
Unfortunately, in Delaware, we continue to lose the battle for sanity and humanity when it comes to protecting our pets from harm. It was horrible enough watching the doors of our shelters close the doors to cats, but now dogs will also have shelter doors slammed in their faces due to the costly nonstop investigations and lawsuits that resulted under CAPA."The Kent County SPCA has recently changed our policy regarding owner surrender unwanted animals. In the past, we have accepted every unwanted animal which appeared on our doorstep.
In our effort to reduce healthy animal euthanasia, we have changed our policy of acceptance. We will accept unwanted animals as space allows and will maintain a waiting list of unwanted animals. As soon as space becomes available on our adoption floor, these animals will be called in to prepare them for adoption into forever homes.
We understand this is a significant change. As a non profit agency we rely on donations from the public to support our efforts with lost, unwanted, adoptable and neglected animals. These donations are vital.
We have will continue to have an open door for lost and stray dogs from Sussex and New Castle counties. These animals are most at risk for a cruel death on the street if not offered a safe place to look for lost owners or new owners.
As always, the animals in the care of the KCSPCA are vaccinated against contagious disease, spayed or neutered, vaccinated against rabies, and microchipped prior to being offered for adoption.
If you have any questions about these changes, feel free to contact our customer service employees at 302-698-3006 ext 2." - KCSPCA Facebook PageWe all suspected this day would eventually come, but knowing it and having to actually face it are two different things. It's no surprise that the "No-Kill" movement supports this change in policy.
"Here is KCSPCA's new policy pertaining to unwanted pets. This is a good thing, in my view. We need pet retention counseling in addition, so people who are struggling get some help." - No-Kill Delaware FacebookYet again, we get to see that No-Kill's claims of open admission communities is just a mythical fantasy that the movement says to convince communities to buy into their flawed and dangerous product. It's as false as their claims that No-Kill and CAPA will save communities money, when we've show that claim to be false over and over.
You can see from the comment by No-Kill Delaware, that closing the doors to animals is what the movement supports, and what it has forced Kent County SPCA to do after the No-Kill movement tried to harm KCSPCA financially with never ending investigations and lawsuits in the name of CAPA, and the No-Kill tactic merely resulted in diverting donations away from helping animals.
While I despise the fact that our state no longer has an open admission, I understand why the Kent County SPCA had to make that choice. Our lawmakers and the No-Kill shelters that support CAPA have forced them into making this decision so that movement doesn't bankrupt them. No shelter can help animals if it's bankrupt.
Sadly, we know that the animals today will pay the price for the KCSPCA to be there for animals in the future. We know that there will be people that choose, and in some cases need, to relinquish animals. We also know that a good amount of those people will just choose to abandon their animals because they now have few options. I don't know what the answer is for the person who's home is being foreclosed on and has no friends or relatives or friends that can take the animal, or the person from the armed services that is being deployed and no longer has anyone to take the animal because he has been deployed over and over. The only thing I can suggest to these individuals is to contact your legislator and ask them what you should do. Actually, I beg you to do that before ever consider placing your pet in danger by abandoning it.
The Face Of Abandonment
Recently there was an emaciated boxer that was left at the Delaware SPCA. Nobody knows what his full story is, but it's worth noting that a brown boxer with a red collar was seen in Kent County and reported to Safe Haven on their Facebook page 2 weeks earlier, with no response on the page by Safe Haven. I have no idea whether this is the same dog, but if he was on his own for a couple weeks due to lack of response and closed doors, then this is the condition I would expect him to be in. Our state officials need to look into the eyes of this beautiful dog and consider their culpability in his condition and suffering.
So whether it's the cat that suffers on the streets like the 1st video shows, or whether it is the dog that is abandoned in the middle of our largely rural landscape for nobody to witness like the dog in the second video, CAPA has created state mandated animal cruelty.
I hope that Governor Markell and our legislators like Senator Blevins understand their responsibility in creating this situation, and think about that every time they see cases like the emaciated boxer left at the Delaware SPCA. They've created a crisis for the animals in our community, placed our shelters in financial jeopardy, and have created a dangerous situation when it comes to public health and safe. Yet our state leaders response was merely to create more state jobs, rather than deal with the real issue that is the overpopulation of animals that the No-Kill movement claims doesn't exist.
There are communities that have lowered euthanasia responsibly. New Hampshire, Jacksonville FL, and Alachua County FL are just a few. They did it by lowering the overpopulation with targeted spay neuter. Low euthanasia rates didn't happen overnight in those communities, but it was done without bankrupting shelters, without leaving animals on the streets, and without placing public health and safety at risk like we've seen with the Nathan Winograd version of No-Kill.
Targeted spay neuter is a REAL SOLUTION solution that is long term and doesn't break the bank, or end in failure like so many communities under the Winograd version of No-Kill have.
