Agenda - 09-19-2006-7b - Laserfiche WebLink

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Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 52 them-and that the `no kills' in their community work cooperatively with them and understand that they have the luxury of being a 'no kill' because there is a full- service or animal control agency in their community," For the most part, the public grasps the realities of euthanasia and the dynamics behind the "no kill" philosophy when shelters take the time to present the issues in an honest, straightforward manner, says Pullen, "It really is more than words," she says. "It's how you run the operations, it's haw you communicate your programs and services to the community, and how trustworthy you are in that presentation, ,.. I think it becomes a problem in the communities where the open- admission shelters have been afraid to talk about it, they've been afraid to address the issue, they ve skirted around the issue, or they've manipulated the numbers, And in those situations where the public is so confused and hasn't gotten a straight answer, they are more swayed when someone comes in on a big white horse and asks, `Why can't we be doing more?' " Some believe "no kill" terminology has been a necessary, if unwelcome, part of the public discourse, engaging those who wouldn't otherwise pay attention to the animal homelessness problem, Though Sayres and Friedman have gradually infused new, more inclusive language into the San Francisco dialogue, Sayres believes the phrase "no kill" did have its place in that city; he says San Francisco may not have achieved as much without it, I think a paradigm shift has to have a label," Sayres says. "Our new label, Partnerships for Life, is more polite and more true and more a bunch of things, but it doesn't stick." Each community is different, however, and a few have been able to achieve numbers comparable to those of San Francisco without using the "no kill" label. In those places where the verbal battles have not yet begun, it makes more sense to adopt more inclusive, less divisive language as Sayres and Friedman have-for the sake of both private inter-agency relationships and public understanding. Lots of organizations are doing it, and there's no better illustration of the new peace offerings than the move to change the name of the "No Kill Conference" to "Conference on Homeless Animal Management & Policy' ;the new title is intended "to capture the common goal of every person dealing with dog and cat overpopulation-placing the adoptables in quality homes and limiting the numbers of unwanted births," wrote Lynda Foro in last fall's edition of No Kill News, "I think everything has a lifespan, and it was important to get'no kill' to be a comfortable word known to the public," says Foro, who started the No Kill Conference in 1995 as the director and founder of Doing Things for Animals and who is now also the director of the Pet Savers Foundation, " .,, I think now we're into talking about 'no kill,' and most people are comfortable with it. So we served our purpose in bringing that word and terminology forward, but ... we failed to reach a few people who never gat the message that everybody was invited. And so I wanted to come up with an acronym that was positive and easy to