Companion Animal Care Articles from All-Creatures.org

Live and Let Die

FROM Nathan Winograd
June 2022

How money and power combine to send 'very friendly' animals who ‘love attention’ and ‘love to be pet’ to early graves.

A dog’s body is in a garbage bag awaiting disposal. Despite a rescue offer, the pound director chose to kill her. Doing so should be illegal. The No Kill Advocacy Center is trying to make that happen in several states.

New York Assemblymember Donna Lupardo has condemned 25,000 animals to death, despite an immediate place for them to go. These are animals in “shelters” who rescue groups are ready, willing, and able to save, but who will instead be needlessly killed. As Chair of the Agriculture Committee, she refused to allow A7155, the Shelter Animal Rescue Act (SARA), to come to a vote, even though it had the support to pass.

SARA would have made it illegal for New York shelters to kill animals if qualified non-profit rescue organizations were willing to save them. It was modeled on legislation passed in California and Delaware and municipalities in states across the country, including Texas, Minnesota, and Indiana. Over 85,000 animals a year are saved in California alone.

Despite the pleas of hundreds of rescuers, animal lovers, and others to allow a vote, she refused and ran out the clock. As the 2022 legislative session ended today, any hope of rescue for these animals did, too.

Why did she block this common-sense, proven reform?

Oreo

In 2009, the ASPCA killed Oreo, an abused dog who a No Kill sanctuary offered to save. Oreo was a one-year-old dog thrown off the roof of a six-floor Brooklyn apartment building. She suffered two broken legs and a fractured rib. Several of the neighbors in the building reported hearing her being beaten.

The ASPCA nursed her back to health and arrested the perpetrator. They also dubbed her the “miracle dog” and fundraised off her plight, reportedly raising millions. But the miracle was short-lived. After the money was counted and safely deposited into ASPCA bank accounts, the ASPCA decided to kill her. If it was true that Oreo was still traumatized and untrusting, as they claimed, who could blame her? Although the ASPCA could have cared for Oreo as long as it took to get her to trust again, they refused. But others came forward to offer a second chance the ASPCA would not.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE.

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