Let justice be done
Court cases to help animals will determine whether justice is blind or money rules. This and other news for the week ending February 28, 2025
In the news: Rescuers banned for criticizing killing. Justice delayed for Ryder, the horse. The question of whether dogs domesticated themselves or were forced into domestication has been answered. A cat declaw ban. Do you have what it takes to save lives? As egg prices rise, so do sales of vegan egg substitutes. Lawsuit challenges inhumane conditions on factory farms. Another lawsuit asks a court to decide what animal cruelty is. Your dog’s favorite color. An update from a pigeon rescue.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
Rescuers banned for criticizing killing
Appearing indifferent to the number of additional dogs who may die, Mobile County, AL, officials have banned Mylo Foundation from helping rescue and place dogs scheduled to be killed. According to rescuers, the termination results from Mylo sharing their concerns about practices at Mobile County Animal Control. The group maintains that its statements were based on accurate data and aimed at raising awareness about the shelter’s “euthanasia [killing] policies.” However, county officials claim the group’s statements misrepresented the shelter’s practices, leading to public misunderstanding and unwarranted criticism, a claim typical of pounds that kill animals. Specifically, a county commissioner accused the group of doing so to make money through fundraising.
One dispute concerns a dog named Izuku, whom Mylo claims to have saved from being killed by promoting him on social media to get him adopted. By contrast, the county says it maintains a placement rate of better than 90%. Unfortunately, the county’s claim does not withstand scrutiny.
First, the County only offers a combined rate, potentially obscuring lower placement rates for cats or dogs. It is common for counties to claim a 90% combined placement rate while the cat rate, for example, is lower, in some cases as low as the mid-70s. Because the county only separates dogs and cats in intake reporting but not in its outcome reporting, there is no way to know based on the data it posts on its website, suggesting the opacity may be intentional.
Second, it does not count kennel deaths in its calculations. When the number of animals who died is counted, the combined placement rate falls to just under 85%.
Third, while 90% — and even 85% — is better than many pounds, “shelters” ought to be compared to the best-performing shelters, not the industry standard, plagued as it is by indifference and dysfunction. As I wrote in The No Kill Companion, while,
Some organizations have argued that “shelters can euthanize up to 10 percent of their animals for reasons of health and temperament, and still be considered ‘no-kill,’” … that argument does not withstand scrutiny. The guideline that about 10% of animals who enter shelters are irremediably suffering was promulgated in 2008 with a minimal data set — less than a handful of communities with placement rates between 92% and 95% — and when many illnesses, like parvovirus, had a poor to grave prognosis for recovery. Even then, placement rates exceeded 90%.
Today, these once-fatal diseases have a good to excellent prognosis. Additionally, understanding of and the ability of shelters to rehabilitate dogs once considered dangerous has vastly improved. As a result, communities across the country are successfully placing 99% of animals. By current veterinary and behavior standards, roughly 1% of animals entering shelters are dangerous dogs and irremediably suffering animals. A shelter must place 100% of healthy and treatable animals or 99% of all animals it takes in.
You cannot judge today’s outcomes by yesterday’s standards.
Finally, the numbers underscore another problem: much of the placement rate is born on the backs of rescuers. In 2024, almost half of all animals (46%) who left the pound alive were transferred to rescuers. At a well-functioning shelter, rescuers should account for no more than 20% of all positive outcomes. Without rescuers, the agency would be falling on the job, raising concerns that the termination of the group may lead to fewer adoptions and more deaths. That would undoubtedly be inhumane. If this was retaliation, it is also illegal.
Citizens not only have a First Amendment right to speak out against government policies with which they disagree, but they also have a constitutionally protected right to demand that the government correct the identified wrongs. As the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled, “speech on public issues occupies the ‘highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values’ and is entitled to special protection.”
When animal lives are at stake — as they are when animals enter a shelter that has not fully embraced a culture of lifesaving — banning rescuers whose comments are critical of policies by government shelters is even more egregious given the life and death consequences. Thankfully, the First Amendment gives rescuers, volunteers, and No Kill advocates the right to criticize the shelter online without being banned. It gives them the right to complain to city and county officials without being fired as a volunteer or rescuer partner. It gives them the right to take and publicize photographs of conditions at the shelter without being evicted from the premises. And it forbids shelters from forcing them to sign, as a condition of volunteering or rescuing, a “non-disclosure” agreement that prevents them from posting criticism the shelter deems “disparaging.” Animal lovers do not surrender their constitutional rights at the shelter door.
Stay tuned…
Justice delayed for Ryder, the horse
