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159 of 179 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Redemption Ignores The Biggest Issue, May 13, 2008
A no-kill shelter was recently built on 13 wooded acres outside a city near me. The facility has space for 250 animals. A huge budget. Slick marketing. A partnership with a major pet food manufacturer. A variety of innovative programs. 1300 volunteers, 130 foster families and thousands of extremely generous supporters. Last year, 2100 of their animals found new homes. It's the kind of operation Nathan Winograd would call a no-kill success story. And yet the organization admits they cannot accommodate the more than 300 requests they receive weekly from people trying to relinquish their pets to them.
Within 15 miles of this beautiful facility are 2 open admission shelters that have to euthanize for space. They have implemented most if not all of the programs Mr. Winograd claims is necessary to achieve no-kill status. But, unlike their no-kill neighbor up the road, these shelters do not turn any animals away. Last year, they took in 21,000 animals! Anyone out there willing to build, staff, operate and fund a no-kill shelter for 21,000 animals?
Which brings me to what I found most irritating about Redemption. Nathan Winograd never discusses what I believe is the biggest issue separating the two kinds of shelters- what to do with the staggering number of animals no-kill shelters turn away. He only briefly mentions the necessity of no-kill shelters to "occasionally" limit incoming animals. Where I live, however, no-kill shelters only occasionally accept animals! In fact, I don't know anyone who has been successful getting a stray or their own animal into a no-kill shelter. My point is this: EVERY NO-KILL SHELTER IN THE COUNTRY HAS TO FIRST ACCEPT EVERY ANIMAL BROUGHT TO ITS FACILITY BEFORE WE CAN HAVE ANY HOPE OF ACHIEVING A TRUE NO-KILL NATION.
They shouldn't be setting standards for open admission shelters when their very way of operating directly contributes to these shelters having to euthanize for space.
The author crows about his success leading an open admission no-kill in a sparsely populated rural part of New York. Note that, last year, Tompkins County SPCA took in less than 3000 animals. His urban success story - the San Francisco SPCA- did not even take animals from the public if I correctly understand their relationship with the SF Animal Care and Control. Last year, the San Francisco SPCA took in less than 4000 animals. When Nathan Winograd can take over an open admission shelter accepting 21,000 animals annually and still make it no-kill, then and only then will I be impressed enough to jump on the Redemption bandwagon.
I also did not like that Redemption is full of inflammatory, anonymous and dated remarks that cannot be verified easily because the author does not include footnotes and references you usually see in a piece of nonfiction. Fact checking is limited to a 12 page bibliography.
It is a myth that we can somehow save every homeless or unwanted animal without having to first address the disparity between no-kill and 'kill' shelter admission policies and intake numbers. Redemption only gives one side of the story and, unfortunately, the author is promoting it as the whole & balanced picture it isn't. I'm just a little surprised that readers are swallowing his half-truths with such gusto. Dig a little deeper, animal lovers! You can start by asking you favorite no-kill shelter how many animals they turned away this week.
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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hateful and misleading, September 14, 2008
It is a tragedy that millions of healthy, adoptable companion animals are euthanized each year in the U.S. Conventional thinking on the cause of this tragedy focuses on the overpopulation of companion animals: there are too many cats and dogs available and too few adopters. Shelters do not have the resources to keep up with the constant supply of animals.
In Redemption, Nathan Winograd disagrees with the conventional thinking. He argues that the problem is rooted in the policies of animal welfare organizations and animal control agencies. And if shelters would embrace the No Kill policies, the killing can be prevented.
While the first chapter on the early history of animal welfare in the US is interesting and the second appendix on how to implement No Kill policies is useful, the remainder of the book is filled with polarizing diatribes. At times Winograd's writing is so over the top, even Ann Coulter would be proud. As such I cannot recommend this book.
Much of the book is about denigrating others and placing blame. He could have written a book that was appropriately critical of animal welfare policies without burning the very bridges he needs to get his policies in place.
While there is a lot to criticize over past policies, after reading this book you'd think the Humane Society of the U.S., various ASPCAs, and most animal control officers are heartless bastards who would as soon put a dog down as have a cup of coffee. I'm not exaggerating - much of his ranting is hyperbolic; for example, at one point he actually associates people who want to protect native habitats with Nazis and apartheid South Africa!
Much of the book is polarizing. Even the term "No Kill" is polarizing (if you aren't a no kill shelter, you must be a kill shelter). Mr. Winograd constantly makes the false dichotomy that if you don't believe in these policies you must support killing.
Many of his arguments are weak or illogical. For example, take his argument about the "myth" of pet overpopulation. This is probably the most important argument he must make - if there is an overpopulation of animals, then No Kill cannot be achieved. He makes 2 claims to support the "myth" of overpopulation: 1) there are empty cages at shelters, and 2) the number of houses that become available for new adoptions (as pets pass away) outnumbers the number of available animals. His first argument is naïve - there are many reasons why shelters leave open kennels (and he'd be hard pressed to find more than one or 2 open kennels at many of the shelters around where I live). The second argument is unsubstantiated - he gives no numbers or citations to back the claim. Actually there is a third component to his argument not identified in the chapter of the "myth" of pet overpopulation- feral cats don't count. But I digress.
Winograd uses all the argument tricks modern politicians are so adept at. He boldly knocks down straw-man arguments. He takes things out of context. He tells only those parts of the story that support his argument. For example, he insinuates that PETA supported the employee who was killing puppies in the back of the van and throwing them into dumpsters. While I'm no big fan of PETA, I do know that the organization went out of its way to denounce these actions and made it clear that it was not their policy. Anyway, Winograd uses these types of misleading arguments throughout the book.
There are numerous shelters, private and municipal, that while not fully embracing "No Kill" policies, implement many of them (strong foster programs, trap/neuter/release for feral cats, convenient hours for adoptions, having adoption events outside the shelter, low cost spay/neutering, etc.). These policies are working to reduce the overpopulation of companion animals. Yet at times Mr. Winograd seems to even despise these shelters for not fully embracing the policy. Appendix I has a No Kill declaration with this classic line that pretty much sums up his attitude: "Now, therefore, be it resolved that No Kill policies and procedures are the only legitimate foundation for animal sheltering."
Clearly Mr. Winograd is outraged by the amount of euthanasia. I can understand that; I am too. But his ranting and hyperbole does No Kill no good. So instead of buying this book, I suggest donating to a local shelter. And the time you would have spent reading this book? Use it to volunteer at a local shelter.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What an angry little book, August 17, 2008
Don't be mislead by the subtitle. This book does nothing to the debunk the "myth" of pet overpopulation. It also doesn't talk about the "no kill revolution."
The author's entire argument that overpopulation is a myth is based on his absurdly simplistic calculation that the number of owned animals that die or run off each year far outnumbers those that enter shelters each year, so the real problem is simply proper marketing of shelter animals as replacements for those who die or run away (ignoring that the bulk of potential adopters, and the bulk of shelter dogs, tend not to be geographically anywhere near one another). There's enough food produced to feed everyone on the planet, but people are still starving, aren't they?
I'm not saying shelters aren't horrible at marketing their animals - most are. There is huge room for reform in animal sheltering. Humane Societies in particular have an obligation to focus on reducing intake numbers and increasing adoption numbers.
So, what about this "no kill revolution?" How do we make this work?
The author doesn't say. For nearly 200 pages, I clung to the hope that somewhere, at some point, he would stop attacking the "old school" shelters and national humane organizations long enough to outline the No Kill Equation, detail HOW it was implemented in San Franciso and, later, in Tompkins County, and present a replicable plan for implementation around the country. Never happened. Apparently, he waltzed into Tompkins County (which houses Cornell University and is hardly the rural backwater he'd have you believe), declared they would never kill another animal, and instantly there were enough volunteers, donations, and participating vets to implement all the programs (TNR, fostering, remote adoptions, rescue outreach, low-cost spay/neuter) that make up the No Kill Equation.
Yeah. I don't think so.
Sadly, I feel at this point that the author did not intend in this book to promote "no kill"; rather, he wanted a very public outlet to vent his frustrations with animal shelters, humane societies, and most especially the HSUS. Anyone who truly wants to work toward no-kill will need to look elsewhere for guidance (the Model Programs at Best Friends Animal Society's No More Homeless Pets page are more helpful, inclusive, and uplifting).
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