Hi and welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host Dr. G and our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan. Today's guest is a repeat offender, Dan Ettinger, host of the Animal Control Report. Thanks for being here.

Wow, I don't know if that's a good title or a bad title, but I, I love being here and I appreciate, uh, just everything you're doing on this show and I'm glad we can, we can set up times to chat. So this is great.

Thanks. So for anybody that has not listened to any of these episodes or doesn't follow your podcast, you want to give a quick. What do you do and who you are?

Yeah. So I guess we'll start with, I am, it's, it feels so weird saying this, but I was like, I have to figure out a way to properly account for what I do with the side company that I have, which is keep it humane. You could find that at keep it humane. com. And I guess I'm the CEO and president of said company. And really it's focused on a couple of different things. Obviously the podcast that we have. Which is the animal control report, the podcast network that we have, which is the keep it humane podcast network, which includes the animal welfare junction and a few other podcasts. Um, so, and the other part of that is like doing consulting and teaching. Um, I like to do that stuff on the side. And, and then other piece under that is the smart shelter concept that you and I actually came up with.

And we're going to be talking a little bit about that, um, just because, well, actually, do you want to let our listeners know about this case that we were discussing a little bit ago?

So. I did a quick Google search to like determine what's out there in the news these days. And I found this article about Greenville County's animal shelter. And this is from the post and courier in Greenville. So the Greenville County animal shelter was once no kill. A surge of dogs has changed that. And so the article really, and I'm not going to read it word for word just because it's a fairly Fairly long article, but I'll, I'll jump in really quick. So it gives some backstory, uh, Greenville each morning staff at Greenville County's animal shelter start the day with all their kennels full, more strays arrive as the day passes and an increasingly large numbers. Let me try that again. And in increasingly larger numbers. Over the years, Shelley Simmons has seen both worse and better, only to lose ground in the shelter effort to keep the no kill status it worked hard to achieve. When she began as the director in Greenville County Animal Care in 2007, the shelter took in more than 20, 000 animals by year. By 2019, that number was below 9, 000. The shelter was making strides. Programs like spaying and neutering intended to reduce the number of animals coming into the shelter. The shelter was making strides. Programs like spaying and neutering intended to reduce the number of animals coming into the shelter were working. She said in an interview with the Post and Courier, as a result, the number of animals being euthanized declined significantly from about half in 2012. To about 9 percent in 2019 below the 10 percent qualified the shelter for the no kill status, a goal that Simmons had long worked towards. And then she talks about the pandemic hitting in 2020 and just the change. And now their numbers not being below the 10%. And so that's kind of the, the gist of the article, which we're hearing more and more. And, I actually have some personal experience with Greenville County and I'm grateful to say I was there earlier this year in 2024 and did a little training and consulting and talk to them about just the different options of, of, I would say like using terms like no kill sounds great on the outside and save them all sounds great from like a marketing standpoint, but is that truly what represents our shelters? And so we did a session on smart, I did a session on smart there and it was received fairly well. And you know, it just goes back to this arbitrary goal and number. I don't know why it's become so popular or such a trend in our industry. And it's led us to things of like, staff, I think it creates an issue with staff because staff feels overwhelmed, uh, trying to get numbers down. And the reality is no one wants to euthanize, but we have to respect and understand the fact of like, These situations are fluid. Every city, every County, every animal shelter is different. And so, you know, they may have been able to achieve that status for several years, but maybe there's different growth in their community. Uh, people are moving in or more people got animals during the pandemic. And now they're starting to see some of those animals that didn't get spayed and neutered. And let me tell you, I'm actually friends with, uh, they're one of their veterinarians there. And, uh, they, they have a facility at the shelter that is dedicated to spaying and neutering pets in their community and it's free to people that are on government assistance. And I got to sit there and kind of watch that process for a day. And it's amazing. I mean, they do close to 10, 000 spay and neuters a year and it's almost still not enough as we can see with their numbers. Now, the other part is They're a big county, and maybe some of those animals, unbeknownst to them, come in from other counties as well, so it's very possible that some of the animals that they're seeing in their county maybe not, are maybe not specific to Greenville.

So I have to say, you know, when I was growing up, I never went to the Humane Society. And the reason I didn't go to the Humane Society is because it was, a very high kill facility. And to me growing up, you know back then I wanted to be a veterinarian I really liked animals or whatever and I did not want to go to a place That I felt guilty that I was going to walk in and if I picked one animal I was saving that one, but I was leaving the rest of them just to die. Right. So that was my perception as, as I was growing up, but then I grew up and then I realized that not every shelter is like that, that that's not what happens. And that sometimes it's a necessary evil. Right. Um, so my, my perception has changed. I have evolved. Um, so One of the, one of the things I guess that I do want to talk about is there, there has been a shift, you know, I think that way back when there was more killing happening in shelters, and, and shelters and animal control facilities and dog pounds did not seem to be looking for ways to fix the problem. They just had a job to pick them up, bring them in, and then if they couldn't come out, euthanize them. So how about we talk a little bit about the history of how, Oh, kind of like the kill movement started because it, it started long, long time ago.

I'm glad you asked because one of my favorite articles and not favorite in the aspects of like, I really think there's articles like my fit, like, right. It's my favorite from understanding the history of, of our profession, meaning like the animal control officers and such. And so this blog called sniffing the past, uh, it was actually written by Chris Pearson and he is a senior lecturer of about 20th century history. And what he did is he went back and found something called the 1811 law concerning dogs. And this law concerning dogs was very specific to the public safety aspect and how, you know, rabies was a concern. Uh, aggression was a concern because back in the day, these dogs just lived outside and would just roam the streets. And so they might be in packs, uh, they might have behavioral problems. And so what he found is they basically put a bounty on dogs. And what it says is that, you know, there was a, first off there was a tax, a 3 tax to dog owners, and then the bounty. or the law allowed you to basically kill any dog found outside the lamppost district of the New York metropolitan area. And then they would bring these bodies in and collect a bounty. Um, and they would kill them very barbarically. And I was, there's a few books that I've read about it as well. Um, and when you, when you think about like some of the acts that Like a person would literally bludgeon dogs to death, uh, horribly, or if they made it at the shelter and they weren't claimed within like 24 hours, they would get loaded into iron cages and then just dunked in the East river, where they would be held underwater for approximately seven minutes. And in any case, though, it sounds very almost impossible. Any case where a dog came up alive, it would then get bludgeoned, uh, to death. So that's like barbarism. If that's a word, we do that a lot on our podcast, we just make up words, but that's so barbaric in the aspects of like, When these no kill phrases come out, it's like, no shit. We're no one's killing. Like we're not killing. We're euthanizing, which is ending suffering. Like there's a difference between killing, which is like this barbaric bludgeoning murdering of an animal to like humanely euthanizing an animal with care and compassion. And there's a huge difference there. Um, and it's just, it's, as you can tell, I get frustrated just talking about it.

And, and again, like there is a difference between that and kind of like the needing to, to euthanize and the, and the movement at the very beginning seemed to be going in a really good direction, right? With the, with the, um, A-S-P-C-A and, Caroline Earl

White. Yes. And then George Thorndyke, angel, all those folks were very, um, very like, active in just raising awareness, uh, RA, ra raising, raising, raising awareness in, um, in those, in that moment. So, yeah, it was.

Yeah, so it was kind of nice seeing that, you know, these people became involved and they saw that the killing of dogs, um, was just useless. It was barbaric. And then they wanted to change things into where animals would have a place as a shelter, as a safe haven that they could be brought into. And then You know, be adopted out. And then in the case that they did have to be euthanized for whatever reason, then it would be done humanely.

Yeah.

So then we go from there to then the idea of no, not killing anything. And I, and I, what I really dislike about the term no kill is the word kill, because I think that is an inflammatory word, it's, it's a word used to create a reaction, right? We are saying that we're killing animals. And I think that that's used a little bit on purpose just to, just to get the public worked up.

Absolutely. I think it's, I mean, it's genius. I, in the aspects of like marketing, we are in a time and age where it's all about catching the attention of people to fundraise, to ensure that there are funds to Do some of the great projects that some of these organizations do, but it's a misleading term. And it, to me, takes us away from the true, um, the true issue at hand.

And terms that are important. And I think that, I mean, there's a lot of misuse of terms or sometimes people don't understand definition. So like when I was, Uh, looking into smart, one of the things that I looked up was kind of like what is the purpose of a humane society, the purpose of an animal shelter, the purpose of, uh, uh, I say animal control and the terms are misused often, right? Because humane society tends to be, uh, uh, an organization that promotes humane ideals and treatment of animals. So not necessarily an animal shelter, but there are plenty of animal shelters that use the word humane society within their name, where, you know, the animal shelters is going to be more the establishment that houses animals temporarily, and then they have to make the decision to euthanize homeless animals, uh, if they're unsuitable for adoption. And then when we get into animal control, You can talk about this better than I can, because I'm not an animal control officer that the, the purpose of an animal control officer is public safety.

Absolutely.

So when, you know, when, when some of these organizations are making decisions on not euthanizing, especially my, my pet peeve is aggressive animals. You know, I, I feel bad for animals that, that are sick, that are injured and that kind of stuff. But, When we are making decisions with animals that are extremely aggressive, especially when they have a long bite history or severe bite history, then we are forgetting the fact that we have to protect other animals and the public from aggressive or dangerous animals.

And, and that's like the, like, that's, that's what blows me away is like, that was the foundation. Of all of this and it doesn't mean that we can't change I'm totally open to change but like the all the reason that we're here is public safety and from that birth The animal shelter or the humane societies or whatever title we want to use but it was it was created and born because of the the need for These, these pets that were causing an issue in the community. And then some of the innocent ones ended up as strays in our animal shelters. And, you know, back then we didn't have, there was probably more purebreds. And so some of the purebreds would be adopted out and therefore you have the animal shelter aspect.

Yeah. So, I mean, we went from indiscriminate killing to a humane approach to euthanasia, to now. Trying to to do a complete elimination of euthanasia from shelter.

Mm hmm

Some of the issues that I personally have is the the requirements and the Say the false expectations that it leads As you as you mentioned earlier, you know, we're talking about this 10 percent well a 10 percent may be very attainable to humane organizations that are limited intake, humane organizations that are in affluent areas, but me personally, I travel to a lot of rural areas here in Ohio with the Rascal Unit. So we're going to a lot of places that lack veterinary care that lack resources. So humane organizations in those areas, it's impossible to hold them to the same standard. As other organizations, when, when they just literally lack the resources, they lack the community to be able to adopt these animals. They lack the resources to again, treat animals with mental or physical illness. So we are somewhat setting them off for failure. And then the public sees that and they, you know, same as when I was little, they're going to look at them and be like, well, I don't want to deal with this place because they're just killing everything. I want to go somewhere where they're not killing anything. And in the end, it hurts the animals.

And that's what people don't understand is like, we can sit here and have what we would consider an open admission animal shelter that can't refuse animals coming in because they're, um, You know, whether it's bound legally through their state laws where it's, you know, an open admission shelter, it may be, um, it may be through like their department of agriculture or things of that nature. And then it's like, look, like you can't turn anything away, but these, these open or limited admission shelters that operate as a nonprofit, or somehow we're able to get the, their county to adopt a fact that, no pun intended, that they can be limited with their admission, it's all it's doing. It's it's, it's like, uh, uh, what are they like robbing Peter to pay Paul? Is a saying that you might hear or like chopping a head off of a two headed snake or, you know, there's just like, it's probably not the greatest analogy to use on an animal welfare pod. But my point is like, we're not impacting the community the right way by closing our doors. And that was something we just talked about on our latest episode on our podcast was, was that just that thing right there? It's like, we have to be able to provide the resources necessary in our communities to see a difference. And if we don't, then this problem is going to exist forever, forever. We can be creative and try to like foster, what is it, foster, find her to foster, like, that'll help a little bit, sure, um, or in ramping up our RTOs, that'll help a little bit, but at the end of the day, if people's animals are still reproducing as the way that they've been for the last hundred years and more, we're just going to end up in the same place that we are today, if not in a worse place.

Yeah. And, and what happens is. You know, it's kind of like a no win situation for people that find themselves in the position of needing to surrender an animal or euthanize an animal, right? Because we see them asking for help and saying, Hey, I found this dog, found this dog on the street. I found this cat or my cat had a litter. My dog had a litter. I can't have it. So I need a place to be able to take them to. They're given no resource. They're given no ability to surrender that animal, to put him in a safe space. And they're told it's your responsibility. So unfortunately, there's a lot of crazy people in this world. And once you make it their responsibility and you take away all their options, then horrible things happen, right? Um, there was a case from Kingston, Pennsylvania. Uh, it says a man testified that he has strangled his ailing dog to death as a last resort after seeking help from several animal hospitals. which, uh, reportedly required cash up front to see the dog, and an animal shelter. He claimed that the dog had stopped eating and was vomiting and experiencing severe diarrhea after eating dirty diapers. The dog reportedly vomited in a turn away facility's lobby and workers there told the man to take the dog to a veterinary hospital, which he said he had no money to pay for. They allegedly threatened to call the police if he didn't take the dog and leave. So is it okay that this man strangled his dog? Absolutely not. Like, I am not telling people go do that. But you take some, you know, this is somebody that is seeing his dog in pain, he's seeing his dog sick, he he's trying to make his dog not suffer. And he has no resources available. And this is what he was pushed to do. You know, it is not okay.

It's not. And I can share just a brief story of something in a sense, somewhat kind of similar, I guess you could say. So the last shelter I worked at, we operated in a County, but in our County, we had, um, another, we had a nonprofit that also provided services. And we, for whatever reason, we hadn't figured out how to do this the right way. But if someone found an animal in the nonprofits jurisdiction and brought it to our shelter, we would always ask, Hey, can you bring it 15, 20 minutes down the road to the appropriate shelter? That way, you know, everything is just everything is done the correct way. We're able to get it, you know, the fees correctly if there's reclaimed fees or if there's prior history, those types of things. So there were, there was that type of stuff going on and like we had a cut. And so oftentimes when I was working at that shelter, we would have a customer customers come in and they'd get so angry that we wouldn't just accept the dog. And I get it. They're at an animal shelter. They just found a stray. They're trying to do the right thing. And then they're told no. But recently at a case where there was a person. And the dog was very active on the leash, which was, it wasn't even a leash. It was like a ratchet strap that you use to tie down stuff in the back of your truck. And I, he was being kind of rude to our, our team. And so they asked me to come up and talk to him. And so I went and talked to him. And I was just trying to deescalate, have a good conversation with him. And the dog was rowdy going back and forth. And I was just like, Hey, you know, I'm just trying to explain like where we're coming from. If you're able to do this for us, great. If not totally understandable, we'll take the animal and then we'll call that agency to come pick it up. And this person had none of it and just let the dog go right in our parking lot. It took off towards our, all of our kennels are outdoor kennels here. So it, uh, took, took off after, you know, The noise that it heard. And then I went and got the dog, but this person was so unreasonable, but I could imagine that same energy. if it was an animal you're trying to relinquish because you can't take care of it anymore. Like, I could see why people, not that I would, not that I condone it, but I could see why people would act that way.

Yeah, especially people, like if we talk about people with like mental health disease or mental health conditions or again, I mean, they don't, they don't have the funds, they don't have the resources and dumping animals at the door of shelters is happening more is Somebody finds a dog and then they're told, just, just release it where you found it. It'll find its way home. No, that's, that's not how that works. Right. And we, we certainly don't want to end up with street dogs like other countries do where they have higher incidence of rabies, higher incidence of bites. You know, stray dogs and stray cats are completely different things. Cats like hide, they run away. Hey, they do build their own colonies or whatever. You don't really hear about cats, packs of cats coming down the down the street and attacking a person. But in, in other places you do hear that with packs of dogs.

And, and that's, that's, that's where I get kind of confused about like where, where we want to go and where our focus should be. Because I think like we should be unified. There should be kind of some harmony, if you will, throughout our industry. And it doesn't feel that way. It feels like it's very. siloed and isolated from each other. And you can't, it's almost like you can't have a differing opinion. So like where I stand, I believe professionally and personally. If we want to achieve a no kill status, if we want to not have to euthanize anything, but 10 percent for health health concerns and behavior concerns, then we have to put all our time, focus and energy on creating resources and access to care for our community. If we did that, then through attrition, we're going to get to no kill. Like that is practical as practical can be, but having that opinion seems. That it creates this like negative space with me and, and, and organizations that their whole brand are, is no kill. And I, I just, I don't understand that. I wish I've asked them to like, let's do a panel discussion at their conference. Like, let's open this up. And anything that jeopardizes the integrity of your fundraising is scary, truthfully. And I think that, you know, and I know saying this is probably no surprise to anybody, but it's like, we all know that those are brilliant marketing terms and it, it, it jeopardizes that integrity when people understand no kill is this nice idea, but it never, it will never exist unless we focus our time, effort, and resources on creating access to care.

So speaking of marketing and how words matter, the smart shelter came about. So yeah. Right. So how about. You, you tell our listeners how you started with the whole idea for smart sheltering.

Well, and thank you for being so humble about that. I mean, you had a very big part in this too. Um, I will say it kind of came about a lot of different ways for me. And so I was a patrol patrol field services or animal control officer, however you would like to define it, um, for several, several years. And the common thing that I would hear from people, whether it was a golden retriever puppy or an American bulldog or a French bulldog, um, you're not going to take it back to the shelter and kill it. Are you, are you going to kill it? Are you a no kill shelter? Are you going to kill it? So there was one instance specifically that really made my, made me lose faith in people. Dr. G. It's just like, we can't be that ignorant as a community. So I got called to a school. It was a grade school, middle school, I guess, actually. And anytime I would go pick up a stray, I intentionally would bring my microchip scanner because I wanted to show people how that worked and how we were focused on the RTO. How could RTO, meaning return to owner for people that aren't in the industry. Um, how could we get, The dog back to the owner as quickly as possible. Cause if we don't bring it into the shelter, it's just better for everyone. It's better for the pet. It's better for the person. And it's better for our staff. And I'm walking into this school, got microchip scanner in hand and I'm just do to do. And I see that it's a French bulldog. So I'm super excited. And I'm like, it's a high probability that this dog has a microchip. It really is. So I get in there and there's two, two teachers there. And the first thing out of one of the teacher's mouth is Are you going to kill it?

Are you going to kill it?

That was the first thing out of her mouth. I literally dropped the microchip scanner, broke the screen, because all the screens break every time. Don't tell my old boss this. Sorry, old boss. Um, I was just like, are you, what are you talking about? I was like, you're an educator. You're, and I, I'll be honest, I was a little frustrated at this point. I mean, I clearly dropped the microchip scanner. I was just like, what are we doing here? And so I tried to have a car, like 22 hindsight being 20, 20, I should have had a different conversation. I should have not dropped the scanner. Cause that was dramatic. I did it. And then I tried having a conversation and she was just completely like turned off to the idea of just have like turned off to the idea that any other thing could exist. And I was like, look, first off, this is a French bulldog. It probably has a microchip. Our goal is not to euthanize. This is not how you see us in the movies that were some like unempathetic, untrained, unhealthy dog catcher. Like we have compassion, we care, we want to do what's best for the people. We want to do what's best for the animals. And so she like stormed out. This lady was hot. I don't know why she was so mad, but then her friend or the other teacher was actually super reasonable. And I was like, if you could like, here's my card. If that person ever wants to have like a conversation, um, I'd be happy to, like, I apologize for me being dramatic, but I was upset. And, um, so that got me thinking. And then Colorado, I was there for a long time and they do some great stuff. I feel like Colorado is one of the, and I know they are based on the ALDF for those that don't know what that is. That's the animal legal defense fund, uh, the ALDF. org. They do a yearly power ranking, almost of, of best States versus worst States in animal welfare. And Colorado is always in the top 10. They do some great stuff. There's some great people in Colorado. I'm very, um, proud to say that I, that's where I got my start in animal welfare. It has absolutely shaped me in many ways, and so I'm grateful for that. They came up with this term, a group of some of the, I would say, stakeholders in the state that really are immersed, immersed in animal welfare. Um, we're, they were strategic because in 20, I'm going to get the dates wrong. 2018 somewhere in there, uh, the County of Pueblo, which is South of Denver at about two hours created, and they were a no kill state. And so the nonprofit that had the contract there lost their contract, and some group that was not skilled or experienced enough came in and ran the county shelter and it it was horrible The state had to come in you can google it the state had to come in And actually do some research, not research, excuse me, do some, um, like heavy ticketing and impounding. And they actually like, they had to shut them down and then agency that operated it before it came back and secured the contract. And, uh, it was a mess, but I think part of that no kill County led to these, these stakeholders in Colorado saying we need to come up with something clever and they came up with socially conscious sheltering. Great concept, horrible name, great concept. Horrible name. And so I was around that at the time. And I think the, you know, if I'm not involved in something, um, I tend to like, if I, if I really like think that it's something that I want to have some input on, you know, I tend to like create other avenues. And so the idea came to birth, uh, smart, which thanks to Dr. G we, we are, we were able to really get our acronym. Um, perfect. I don't know how else to say it. And so. SMART stands for Saving More Animals Responsibly Together. And so the whole ethos of SMART is to lose any arbitrary number that we have to hit. Um, it creates teamwork and collaboration throughout animal shelters, and promotes not only like a great phrase. Hey, are you a no kill shelter? No, we're actually a smart shelter. And let me tell you what that means. So it's a great comeback to this, uh, no kill terminology. And kind of a very fun fact for me because I'm somewhat of a historian when it comes to animal welfare is, there's still a shelter today in Denver called the Dumb Friends League. Uh, there's an organization in, in the, in Europe called our Dumb, uh, it's also called the Dumb Friends, it might also be called the Dumb Friends League, but it was for, they were for, um, horses. Uh, so two of those exist, which is really cool. But what people didn't understand is in our current day. Um, what they don't understand is back then in the 1800s, dumb was for those that couldn't speak. And so there's publications called, um, our dumb animals, which was a basically a magazine put out by George Thorndike angel, um, where they covered just really the humane education aspect of what we were doing in animal welfare. And so it's neat to know that we've come from dumb being a very prominent terminology to this concept. Or the birth of SMART, um, to represent what we should be doing in animal shelters.

What I like about the acronym, and I broke it down, I gave a presentation a little bit ago, and I said, you know, the saving more animals because we're replacing arbitrary numbers, right? So I explained it to the, to the participants. We are saving more animals. So if you're in a rural shelter, and you are at a 40 percent life release rate, and you're able to make changes that increase you to 45, that's a 5 percent improvement. So we're not comparing you to anybody else, but yourself. I like to tell people, worry about yourself. Right. So, yes, we want to see what other, what other people are doing so that we can get better. But it's about what are you doing to get better? I like the term responsibly because we're recognizing that it's about the safety and, and wellbeing of both the animals and of the community. And together, because it's everybody, right? All stakeholders, not just the shelters. This is about the veterinarians. This is about the community. This is about everyone that is involved. So SMART, let me say this, the SMART acronym just literally embodies everything that we should be aiming to in, you know, in the fight to help animals. I

couldn't agree more and You know, we created a private animal or smart shelter group on Facebook where there's quite a few people already in it. And you know, I'll be honest, my bandwidth is so thin that I really wish I could do more. And this is basically me putting out the bat signal, by the way, speaking of bat signals, dude, do you know there's a bumblebee bat? It's literally the size of a bumblebee. Well, anyway, there's a thing called the bumblebee bat and I'm really impressed by it, but putting out the bat signal, if anyone is listening and wants to take on some more responsibility as like a volunteer role, please hit me up, man, Daniel@keepithumane.com or just go to keepithumane.com. Um, I would love the help cause we're really, we, we need to do is push this out there. And take some of that pressure off of shelters that feel like they have to save 90%. Get at it, like stop. We don't, what we have to do is treat animals with humane care treatment. Keep a public safety, um, aspect of our community. But all this other shit, please, like, we don't need to just hit this 90%. That's, that, to me, that doesn't show me that you're successful. What shows me that you're successful is you have active programs in your community trying to help people help animals, that you're creating things like low cost vaccine clinics, low cost spay and neuter clinics, doing things like the rascal unit does with for you, like that is how you judge success, not off of a 90 percent live release rate. So you got a plaque. Whoop tee doo! What are you gonna do? Hang it up in your office and be proud that you didn't put down an animal that's been suffering and living in a shelter for 600 days. We taught, I know I get a little amped up on this. We talk about the five freedoms and it got adopted, no pun intended into the animal shelter world, but it wasn't, it wasn't created for that. It was created for livestock in the UK, but it sounds cool. It sounds nice. Well, one of those five freedoms is freedom to express normal behaviors. So if we're adopting this idea of five freedoms and we have, we're warehousing animals in kennels, is it allowed to, to have normal behavior because of that? Absolutely not.

Yeah. And from, from myself, from a forensic veterinary forensic side, you know, we deal with cases of neglect and cruelty. And I, and I think that there are some cases of neglect that are just because people are assholes. But then there are cases of neglect that it's because people do not have resources, they do not have access to care. So, how, how great would it be to help not only improve the quality of life of animals of owned animals by providing affordable and accessible care and then also decreasing the number of animals that are suffering because the owners don't have these resources? And to all the people that say well if you can't afford an animal don't have it get out of here because that doesn't exist, right? If we were to say that I heard the other day on on another podcast about how 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. So basically, are you telling me that 60 percent of Americans should not own a dog and a cat? Because if that what we're saying, we're saying that we can adopt our way out of this problem. Well, we can adopt our way out of this problem with 40 percent of the population. Are we going to be putting like 30 dogs and 50 cats inside of every home in the every wealthy home in the United States? Like that's not going to happen. So, you know, we, we talk about decreasing shelter intake. Well, let's decrease it responsibly. Let's find out what are the reasons why some of these individuals are surrendering their animals and see if there is a way that we can help keep that animal in their home. Because the reality is that there are quite a few people that surrender animals because they're looking for a better opportunity, better life or something for them. And they don't, if they have it their way, they would keep that dog or cat. So, you know, being able to, to provide these services, to keep animals in the homes again the word is responsibly.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I, I think, you know, there's little things that plague our plague our numbers, like people that rent, you know, a lot of landlords don't allow pets where they're, you have to pay a pet rent deposit. So there are a lot of hindrance, but the reality is here's the difference. Is, you know, back in the 18, 19 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, pets were not necessarily seen seen as part of the family. It wasn't the same as it is now. And I think we have to really recalibrate and understand that, you know, pets, though they're still considered property property, they're sentient beings and they have become family members. And so we have to find ways just like with the one health model, and we talk about that in smart being like able to show that connection. Like let's help everyone together. If we can vaccinate a person and a pet at the same time, we're doing good. Like we're making, we're making headway. And so I just think it's really important that we continue to push that narrative forward, that I it's, it's mind boggling to me. To see like how popular it's become. And if look, I'm not knocking anybody for feeling good about not euthanizing. I want that to be clear again, no one wants to euthanize, but we have to also understand, like we are, we're a profession that has obligations. And so it's important that we understand sometimes we have to make those hard decisions. And, you know, it, it's, it, I don't, I don't know how else to say it. It's just, we shouldn't shy away from it if that is going to be the best outcome for the community or the best outcome for the animal.

And we just have to, again, we have to collaborate. We have to work together and we have to watch what we say about others because there are so many groups that may inadvertently say, well, we are, are this kind of shelter, and they don't understand that then that is making other organizations look bad. And, you know, they, they all need help. And if we're, if we're worrying about some of these smaller shelters that don't have resources, euthanizing too much, does it make sense to decrease the The amount of adopters, the amount of support that they get. Absolutely not, because what are we doing? Then we're causing them to need to euthanize more. We need to be able to bring those organizations to the public and say, hey, they're having these issues. These are the problems that are having. How can we as a community help this shelter improve? You know, we want, we want higher life release rates. We don't want to be euthanizing a ton of animals. So it needs to be everybody's problem. Everybody has to come together. It can not be just that individual shelters problem to solve.

I would completely agree. Um, I, I'm curious to see how things unfold. You know, I know that. Um, best friends created no kill 2025. So I don't know if that means like they need to be no kill by 2025 or they, um, have until the end of 2025 to like meet that term. But it's like, I, I feel like they'll do anything that it takes to make the numbers. Cause they don't want to have to be like, uh, we're going to now shoot for no kill 2030. I just feel like the best thing to do in my opinion is just drop it. Just move on, create a new slogan, like help people help animals and then create programs not only focused on like the programs are focused on providing access to care, but also like encouraging our next round of veterinarians, our next vet techs, you know, making an incentive. Like incentivized so we can get these people in the programs like that to me is really important

Yeah, that's one of the things that we are doing We have a mentorship program and the whole idea of it is to bring veterinary students at early stages Right first second and third year students to come in and see the work that we're doing so that hopefully we can get them involved in this community service and And them wanting to give back to the community, you know, kind of going back to how veterinarians used to be, you know, veterinarians were highly regarded by the community. Um, so we want to bring, we want to bring that back. And I'm not saying bring back when veterinarians made zero money because they didn't charge appropriately for what they did, but you can, you can still make a very decent living. And provide affordable, accessible care. I mean, I say it because I live it. Yeah, it's, it's what, it's what we do and it's what we're trying to teach students. So I guess also in, in that way, if you're a shelter, if you're a humane organization, reach out to the vet schools, reach out to students, engage them, get them in and let them get their hands dirty so that they see how rewarding it can be, and they can see what opportunities there are. Right now, you only have like big corporations reaching out to students telling them "hey come work for us, and this is what you're gonna get" you don't see a lot of other organizations doing that So, you know it it's out there. The the opportunities are out there. We just need to You know to go get them.

Yeah, and I think you know getting people look we all want to have some sort of unity and camaraderie within our our In our lines of work, whether it's, um, the work that we do in animal welfare or whether you work for a big team like Costco, like there, there's going to be some sort of like unity and connection amongst that. So it feels good to be part of a no kill community. And I, I respect people that want to have that. All I'm saying is you can be part of this smart community and not have to worry or deal with that. Oh, I have to, we have to every, every month, make sure our numbers are at 90. Like we just heard a story where a shelter refused to euthanize four cats that were suffering because it would have threw off their numbers for the month. And so they waited for the following month to do it. That we're, we're basically, that's basically animal cruelty. What are we doing? Like, what do we can't do that?

Yeah, it's sad. And it is sad that that happens. And it is also sad that. Some organizations are not being transparent and they're not actually releasing their kill rates, their kill numbers, or are making different, how you say, um, requirements for what counts as kill versus no kill, because they need to stay within, within those numbers. So, uh, and, and again, I think that the community has a big, a big part in it because the community expects these shelters to be within that percentage. So, if If the public understand what things mean and why things are done, um, and start being more supportive, I, I believe that we can get to, to that no kill idea, but in a very responsible way.

I agree. And I think we have to just change the narrative. And not focus on no kill. And again, through normal attrition, by creating those programs, we'll get there. I really believe that, but we have to, we all have to work together and focus on the access to care element. Uh, and therefore, you know, that's the, to me, that's the most important, important part and the take home that I have is like, figure out a way. That we can promote spay and neuter in our communities, promote, you know, folks that make maybe can't afford veterinary care and are in the process of possibly losing an animal through an investigation to find ways to get them that, um, asset aspect of care.

Yeah, absolutely. So for anybody out there that is interested in learning more about smart or becoming part of the smart movement, what can they do?

So probably the biggest thing is to join. The Facebook group, the smart shelter, Facebook group, uh, reach out to me through Daniel at keep it humane. And if you want more information, but the, at the end of the day, all people really have to do is just start using the terminology. Um, they can, I can send them a logo if they want it. If they want to print out the smart logo and use it at their shelter, they're more than welcome to, um, you know, it's, I have a different format. So if they need it for certain marketing things, uh, I could send it. There's like, there's no cost. We're not asking for anybody to like pay anything. We just want people to know that they're supported and they don't need arbitrary numbers to make them feel like they're doing a good job.

And that's what I like about it. It's, you know, it's, it's completely for. For helping, right? It's not for helping ourselves is for helping others.

Absolutely.

Awesome. Well, well, thank you so much for spending this time and for sharing information and for getting me involved in the SMART movement, because it's been a fun ride and I'm looking forward to where it's going to take us from here.

You know, it's, uh, it's not just about me being smart. It's about surrounding myself with smart people. So I appreciate all your help. It helps a lot.

Fantastic. Well, everybody that's out there, thank you for listening and thank you for caring.

Keep it humane!