Companion Animal Care Articles from All-Creatures.org

Betrayal

From Nathan Winograd
November 2023

The San Francisco SPCA, the former crown jewel of the No Kill movement, is trying to destroy the revolution it started.

Oswald Winograd

In the 1990s, I worked at the San Francisco SPCA. My job was to defend the animals threatened with killing, expand the safety net so we could save more, and promote the new and innovative programs the San Francisco SPCA was creating, which transformed San Francisco into the safest community for homeless animals in America. Part of that work involved exporting our success across the country. To that end, I worked closely with Senator Hayden on a groundbreaking shelter reform law.

Of its many provisions, the most important legacy is a provision that makes it illegal for California pounds to kill animals that rescuers are willing to save, unless those animals are irremediably suffering. Over 2,000,000 animals have been saved rather than killed in the 23 years since the Hayden Law was signed by the Governor. And one of them is sleeping comfortably beside me as I write these words.

One day away from being killed in a pound that refused to work with any rescue groups until the Hayden Law forced them to, my dog Oswald — underweight, fearful, and suffering from a painful eye injury — was transferred to a rescue group that provided the medical care he needed and adopted him to us.

Today, the San Francisco SPCA — the shelter that helped create the Hayden Law, that empowered and emboldened me to take a job at an open admission animal control shelter and create the first No Kill community in America, which in turn led me to found the No Kill Advocacy Center to replicate that success, and which finally led to a 95% decline in killing nationwide — is a leading opponent of the very revolution it started.

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Read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE. 

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