Recently, a “growing discussion” in animal welfare developed about shelters referring adopters to breeders and having shelters breed animals. Susan Houser, who previously wrote a no kill blog that turned into one defending bad shelters, floated this idea back in 2015. Over the years, I’ve seen others occasionally mention it, but it recently gained momentum. Joyce Briggs, who is the President of the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs, authored an article that called for shelters to breed animals or outsource the breeding to others. Additionally, she is part of the Functional Dog Cooperative, which is pushing these policies, and members of that group will sell these ideas during an April 2022 HSUS Expo session titled “Family dogs for the inclusive community: Alternatives to puppy mills.” Finally, Ms. Briggs has been doing a series of interviews, such as this one, advocating for this breeding idea.
Proponents argue shelters need to breed pets or outsource the practice to 1) meet demand for dogs, 2) prevent expansion of puppy mills and 3) avoid shelter overcrowding and killing resulting from unscrupulous breeders. Ms. Briggs and her allies claim parts of the country have a severe dog shortage and the rest of the nation will soon experience it. Additionally, the proponents claim we have a cat shortage in parts of the country and we may need to breed more cats.
Are the advocates for shelter breeding and outsourcing the practice correct? Do shelters really need to breed animals to stop puppy mills? Will shelters become overcrowded and kill more pets if we don’t have shelters breed animals?
False Claims of No Kill
In a Functional Dog Collaborative podcast, Joyce Briggs stated the following to insinuate the nation is no kill for dogs:
But for example, there were over 3200 shelters reporting to it in 2019. And in that year, there was an average percentage of about 7% of dogs coming into shelters were euthanized. So you know, and by most cases, they’re talking about “no kill” – a “no kill” being under 10% knowing that there will be some dogs that come into shelters that are either too dangerous to be rehomed or too sick. But, so 7% is pretty good. And actually the trends through that same Shelter Animals Count for 2020. There are… it’s dramatic decrease in intake, but it’s about 5% euthanasia. So it’s even gotten better.
The Shelter Animals Count data I reviewed does not match up with these claims. When we look at all organizations, both animal control shelters and rescues, 13.3% and 11.3% of all dogs lost their lives in 2019 and 2020 based on net outcomes (i.e. not double counting live outcomes, such as when a shelter transfers an animal to another shelter and that shelter adopts the pet out). From what I could tell, Ms. Briggs did not count owner-requested euthanasia or dogs that died in shelters (i.e. no kill benchmarks must include this data) and used gross intake (i.e. double counting animals impounded by one shelter and transferred to another shelter or rescue). Given no kill level death rates are based on animal control shelters, we should only look at shelters that governments run or private shelters operate under contracts with municipalities. Using this metric 16.5% and 14.1% of dogs lost their lives at animal control shelters in 2019 and 2020. Thus, Joyce Briggs used manipulated and misleading data to claim shelters had a dog death rate less than half of what it really was.
Joyce Briggs used a similar dishonest approach when talking about lower and higher kill regions of the country. She stated New England and the Pacific Northwest had 96% dog “save rates” and Louisiana and Mississippi had an 87% dog live release rate in 2019. Once again, Ms. Briggs appeared to 1) lump rescues and shelters together, 2) not count owner-requested euthanasia and dogs who died in shelters and 3) double count animals who came into shelters or had outcomes. When I look at the real data for animal control shelters, Louisiana and Mississippi animal control shelters had 28.1% and 25.6% dog death rates in 2019 and 2020. New England animal control shelters had dog death rates of 6.6% and 11.1% in 2019 and 2020 compared to the 4% death rate Ms. Briggs claimed. Similarly, The Animal Shelter Alliance of Portland, which Joyce Briggs co-founded, had a 9.7% dog death rate, which far exceeded the phony 4% rate excluding owner-requested euthanasia, and a 13.1% non-reclaimed dog death rate in 2019. Furthermore, these metrics understate the local animals’ death rates as they include easier to adopt transported animals and not just local pets. For example, if we assumed The Animal Shelter Alliance of Portland shelters saved all dogs transported in, the local dogs’ and local dogs’ non-reclaimed death rates would equal 15.3% and 26.3% in 2019. Thus, Joyce Briggs used deceptive data to hide the killing of shelter dogs in New England, the Pacific Northwest and Louisiana and Mississippi.
Ms. Briggs’ use of a 90% live release rate/10% death rate standard itself is a false notion of no kill. As Nathan Winograd, who created the 90% benchmark, repeatedly stated, that benchmark is outdated, obsolete and fails to mean a shelter is no kill. In fact, numerous animal control shelters across the country save around 98% to 99% of dogs, such as Florida’s Lake County Animal Shelter and Williamson County Animal Shelter in Texas. Thus, Joyce Briggs would be wrong to claim communities were no kill for dogs even if she didn’t manipulate her live release/death rates above.
Shelters Animals Count data, which Joyce Briggs relies on to claim many shelters aren’t killing, overstates shelters live release rates. Bad shelters are more likely to not voluntarily report data. Therefore, many high kill shelters won’t submit such information to Shelter Animals Count. For example, only 24 out of 87 or 28% of New Jersey animal shelters who reported statistics to the New Jersey Department of Health in 2019 also reported such data to Shelter Animals Count. Similarly, only 15 out of 71 or 21% of the New Jersey animal control shelters that reported data to the state health department sent that information to Shelter Animals Count. In fact, 6 or 50% of the 12 New Jersey animal shelters that killed the most dogs in 2019 reported data to the state health department and not Shelter Animals Count. As such, it is no surprise that New Jersey animal control shelters had a 7.1% death rate per Shelter Animals Count in 2019 while the more comprehensive state statistics showed a 7.6% dog death rate in 2019. Additionally, Shelter Animals Count data includes rescues without facilities that have much higher live release rates. When we include all reporting facilities in 2019, Shelter Animals Count showed New Jersey organizations had a 5.2% dog death rate while the state health department’s sheltering statistics reflected a 7.0% dog death rate. Thus, Shelter Animals Count data likely makes shelters look better than they really are due to self-reporting bias.
Data Does Not Support Pet Shortage Assertion
Proponents of shelters breeding animals assume pet owners will replace their dogs when the animals die. Based on the 2020 American Pet Products Survey, approximately 85 million dogs exist in the country and pet owners would obtain around 8 million dogs each year to replace those animals that die assuming the pets lived with owners 10 to 11 years. Given dogs live on average 10-13 years, these figures take into account people obtaining older dogs that don’t live with the owner for their entire lives. Thus, the demand side of the equation is reasonably well known.
Advocates for shelters breeding animals have no good data on the supply of dogs to meet this demand. Specifically, the total number of dogs purchased from commercial and hobby breeders is unknown as complete data does not exist. Furthermore, no one has any information about the number of dogs rehomed between pet owners.
So why do people like Joyce Briggs claim a pet shortage exists? She points to the fact that a minority of people obtain their dogs from shelters and rescues (36% in the 2019-2020 American Pets Products Survey). However, rescue animals have long comprised a minority of the total dog acquisition market. That does not mean a dog shortage exists. In an attempt to stretch the truth, Ms. Briggs asserts we can only count shelter and rescue puppies as part of the supply to meet dog owner demand since only these dogs are “new” supply. Given we are measuring demand for dogs as the number of dogs people want to obtain in a year, we absolutely should count almost all shelter dogs in the supply figure. Why? When people surrender a dog or lose a dog, most do not immediately obtain another dog. Thus, Joyce Briggs has no data to support her pet shortage assertion and deliberately tries to overstate this “problem.”
Basic economics prove no dog shortage exists in the United States. If a dog shortage existed, we would see the following:
- Price of dogs purchased and adopted skyrocket
- Shelter and rescue share of the pet acquisition market dramatically decrease
- Vast expansion of commercial and backyard breeders to take advantage of those price increases
- Shelter intake increasing dramatically as intact animals breed
While we all have heard of stories of people paying large sums of money for specialized breeds, no data I can find suggests a massive rise in the price of dogs. In fact, the price of pets and pet related products has barely exceeded the rate of inflation from 1997 to 2021. While this figure includes things other than the cost of acquiring a pet, one would except a significant rise if a dog shortage existed.
American Pet Products Survey data shows no decrease in shelter and rescue share of the pet acquisition market. As you can see in the following chart using American Pets Product Survey data, animal shelters’ and rescues’ dog market share has largely been the same over the last decade. In fact, shelters and rescues had a greater share of the dog market in 2019-2020 (36%) than in 2012-2013 (35%).
The cat market share data shows a similar picture. As you can see, shelters and rescues had the same percentage of the cat market in 2019-2020 as these organizations did in 2012-2013. Given cats are far more plentiful in shelters and rescues than dogs, we’d expect a far better trend than we see with dogs if a canine shortage really existed.
Puppy mills and backyard breeders have not expanded in areas of the country with low animal intake at shelters. If the alarmist claims of Joyce Briggs and others were true, we’d see puppy mills and backyard breeders spring up in the northeast to take advantage of the supposed pet shortage. Furthermore, we’d expect to see a surge in the numbers of animals coming into shelters in the northeast due to unscrupulous breeders not sterilizing their puppies and kittens. What does the data show?
As you can see in the following chart, New Jersey animal shelters took in around 30,000 to 35,000 dogs each year from 2013 to 2019 (2020 had an unusual decline in shelter intake due to the pandemic).
When we look at just dogs New Jersey animal shelters impounded within the state, we see a steady decline in dog intake from 2013 to 2019.
At the same time, New Jersey animal shelters total and local dog death rates declined.
New Jersey cat data shows a similar picture with total cat intake dropping approximately 7% from 2013 to 2019 and the cat kill rate decreasing from 40.8% to 16.6% over the same period.
Connecticut animal shelters also have a similar trend of declining dog and cat intake and decreasing numbers of animals killed.
Clearly, a “pet shortage” is not driving up shelter intake and killing. Instead, the opposite occurred with shelters taking in fewer dogs and cats and killing a smaller percentage of them.
Even if the proponents of the pet shortage alarm calls claimed transports temporarily delayed the pet shortage “problems”, the experience with small dogs proves that wrong. Few small dogs have been transported to northeastern states for many years even though these animals are popular. If the pet shortage pushers were correct, we’d see local shelters overwhelmed with small dogs. Instead, local shelters have few small dogs. Thus, the “pet shortage” panic is unwarranted.
In reality, people can always claim a “pet shortage” exists. The American Kennel Club and Fédération Cynologique Internationale currently have 199 and 354 dog breeds. Even when shelters took in and killed the most dogs in the 1970s, people couldn’t walk into shelters and find every, if not most, dog breeds. Similarly, shelters have a very small percentage of the 43 to 71 recognized cat breeds despite these facilities impounding and killing many cats. Thus, the argument we have a dangerous pet shortage is simply absurd.
Similarities to Transport
Regular readers of this blog and my Facebook page know I’m no fan of transports. While transports can serve as a temporary lifesaving measure for the very small number of shelters where high intake may be difficult to handle locally, in practice it is a money-making shell game. On the source shelter side, lazy directors can just ship animals out instead of developing the 11 No Kill Equation programs to responsibly reduce intake, provide elite level care to animals and increase live outcomes. On the destination shelter side, shelters can artificially increase their live release rates by bringing in easy to adopt animals. Additionally, destination shelters make significant amounts of money fundraising off transports and adopting out the animals for high fees.
Most disturbingly, transports harm local animals. When I volunteered at a local animal control shelter, the facility housed lots of large dogs (many of which came from the community) for years in tiny cages and crates. At the same time, the shelter transported in hundreds of easy to adopt puppies each year. When people came to the shelter, the individuals flocked to the puppies and ignored the adult dogs rotting away in tiny cages and crates. Similarly, when we went to adoption events, people ignored the adult dogs and adopted the puppies from our organization and other shelters and rescues. In one memorable instance, a young couple, who volunteered and loved the many suffering adult dogs, “fell in love” with a puppy the shelter just took in on a transport at an adoption event we held primarily for the adult dogs. This couple would have definitely adopted an adult dog. However, this cute puppy was too difficult to resist. Thus, transport harms local animals.
The Shelter Report blog performed an analysis that supports this hypothesis. In the blog, the author found, both in the winter and during kitten season, that having more kittens available reduced adult cat adoptions. This conclusion makes intuitive sense. When stores hold “Black Friday” or other sales with highly sought after items, they only offer a small number of the desirable products to increase foot traffic that enables these stores to sell other items. In contrast, most destination shelters flood their facilities with easy to adopt transported animals that displace the local pets who need more help.
While actual data is needed to determine impacts of puppy availability on adult dog adoptions, I think it would be more significant than the kitten effect on adult cat adoptions. Society seems to view puppies as “cuter” than kittens and shelters typically quickly adopt out puppies.
Dakin Humane Society, which is located in Springfield, Massachusetts, proves transports harm local animals. In 2010, the shelter killed 40.6% of all adult dogs and 52.2% of local adult dogs if we assume it did not kill any transported adult dogs. In 2019, those figures were 44.6% and 51.9%. Those death rates further increased to 61.5% and 62.7% in 2020. On the cat side, Dakin Humane Society killed 32.6% of all adult cats in 2010, when it did not transport in cats, and killed 21.0% (23.3% of local adult cats assuming the shelter did not kill transported adult cats) and 29.4% (33.3% of local cats using the same assumption) of adult cats in 2019 and 2020. However, when we compare this data to the New Jersey Animal Shelters and Connecticut shelters above (which transported in a much smaller percentage of animals), we clearly see how the New Jersey and Connecticut shelters significantly decreased their kill rates over this time period while the mass transporting Dakin Humane Society increased their dog kill rate and had their cat kill rate stay flat/decrease much less. Thus, Dakin Humane Society’s mass transport program hurt local animals in need.
Most importantly, transports devalue the lives of local animals. If an organization is willing to bring in dogs and cats from hundreds or even thousands of miles away, what does that say about how much value the organization places on animals in its own community or even its shelter? Clearly, those animals lives don’t matter as much. Given the data above shows local animals’ live release rates increase when animal intake decreases, which is likely due to shelters being able to divert more time, resources and focus on these pets, transport harms these animals. Furthermore, shelter breeding programs would offer more desirable animals than transports and would hurt local pets even more.
Mass Transporters and Pro Killing Zealots Push Shelter Breeding
Joyce Briggs, who is the most vocal proponent of shelter breeding, started her animal welfare career working in a high level marketing and public relations position at American Humane Association during the mid to late 1990s. Nathan Winograd wrote many articles highlighting American Humane Association’s decades long pattern of supporting animal killing and abuse. For example, the organization frequently held “training” sessions at regressive shelters where American Humane Association killed animals. Additionally, American Humane Association had conference sessions “teaching” people not to feel bad about needlessly killing these animals. Furthermore, American Humane Association gets paid to certify “no animals were harmed” in various films. However, Nathan Winograd asserted animals were in fact harmed in cases, such as 27 animals dying in one film. In another instance, an animal nearly drowned and the American Humane Association inspector said “I think this goes without saying but DON’T MENTION IT TO ANYONE, ESPECIALLY THE OFFICE! I have downplayed the f— out of it.” Furthermore, American Humane Association gets paid by factory farms and slaughterhouses to receive their humane seal of approval. No wonder a prosecutor Nathan Winograd conversed with stated “From being the protectors of animals they’ve become complicit to animal cruelty.” Thus, Joyce Briggs started her animal welfare career off in a key position at an organization that harmed animals and allowed the infliction of violence towards animals in exchange for money.
Ms. Briggs went on to become the Executive Director of another animal exploiting operation called PetSmart Charities. While PetSmart Charities is technically separate from PetSmart, PetSmart Charities is nothing more than a public relations arm and money making vehicle for PetSmart. In 2021 and 2020, 32% and 34% of PetSmart Charities’ revenues came from PetSmart. Why would PetSmart give $26 to $27 million a year to a “charity?” To provide PetSmart customers the illusion PetSmart is doing right by animals. In reality, PetSmart profits off the sale and suffering of many small animals. Furthermore, PetSmart does not allow pit bulls to go to its “Day Camps” or “Play Groups” despite the widespread belief that people and organizations should treat all dogs as individuals. Thus, Joyce Briggs led an organization that enabled PetSmart to profit off the harming of animals and spreading of anti-pit bull bias.
Joyce Briggs created and ran a massive transport program at PetSmart Charities while destination regions still killed large numbers of animals. In 2004, Ms. Briggs launched the “Rescue Waggin” program. Over its 13 year life, the program transported 60,000 of dogs primarily from southern to northern states. While PetSmart Charities claimed “no animals are ever displaced at destination shelters to make room for incoming dogs”, the reality is the organization transported dogs to regions where shelters still killed many animals. In 2004, New Jersey and Connecticut animal shelters killed 43.5% and 11.8% of impounded dogs and cats. In 2006, New Jersey animal shelters killed 23.7% and 51.7% of all impounded dogs and cats. Thus, Joyce Briggs’ Rescue Waggin program transported massive numbers dogs to regions where shelters still killed significant numbers of animals.
The Rescue Waggin program had shocking incidents. The YesBiscuit! blog detailed how the SPCA of Southwest Michigan killed two dogs, which Rescue Waggin said were behaviorally sound. The shelter stated one of the dogs, Buddy, was “mouthy but very sweet.” YesBiscuit! also relayed an account from an SPCA of Southwest Michigan employee stating the shelter killed two dogs to make room for a Rescue Waggin’ transport of 20 puppies to the facility. Thus, Rescue Waggin did in fact cause the killing of local dogs and even some of the transported dogs themselves due to it working with kill shelters.
Joyce Briggs currently is the President of the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs. Ms. Briggs states she transformed the organization from “all-volunteer” to a non-profit where she conveniently receives approximately $120,000 a year. In fact, her salary made up 44% of the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs’ total expenses according to the organization’s 2020 Form 990. While the the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs does do good work in facilitating the development of non-surgical sterilization techniques for dogs and cats, Ms. Briggs states the organization’s board “also supports me spending time” on the shelter breeding animals issue “knowing it’s a passion and knowing and believing it will advance animal and dog interests to do so.” In other words, the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs board allows its President, who receives almost half the organization’s expenditures, to devote time to push the breeding shelter animals idea. Who is on this board and why would an animal sterilization group do this?
The Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs board has many former and current large and traditional animal welfare organization people. Of the 10 board members, seven, including Joyce Briggs, work or previously worked at large national or international animal welfare organizations. One of these members worked at Colorado’s Animal Assistance Foundation that refuses to give money to organizations calling themselves no kill. Thus, the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs board is filled with people who appear comfortable with shelters killing animals.
Many traditional national animal welfare organizations also provide funding and “key strategic
and networking support” to the Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs. According to the organization’s notes to its 2018 audited financial statements, its “Council of Stakeholders” include Alley Cat Allies, the ASPCA, Best Friends, HSUS, International Cat Care, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Maddie’s Fund, Petco Foundation and PetSmart Charities. As a result, these organizations are funding and helping Joyce Briggs spend time to push for shelter breeding programs.
Joyce Briggs recently joined the Functional Dog Collaborative Board of Directors as its Treasurer. The organization’s web site states it was “founded to support the breeding and raising of purebred, outcrossed, and mixed-breed dogs while prioritizing the goals below.” Those goals generally attempt to reduce the physical health problems associated with breeding and to minimize behavior problems. While the Functional Dog Collaborative’s goals are admirable, the organization admits they conflict with what many breeders want to achieve (i.e. limited genetic diversity to breed for specific physical traits). In other words, the Functional Dog Collaborative appears to want to continue selective breeding and make it less damaging to dogs. However, the very nature of selective breeding (i.e. limiting genetic diversity to breed for specific traits) often harms the health of dogs. Unsurprisingly, several of the Functional Dog Collaborative board members and advisors are breeders or have close ties to breeding. Thus, Joyce Briggs serves on the board of an organization that is trying to encourage breeding.
The Functional Dog Collaborative inclusion of a person vocally calling for shelters to kill more dogs for “behavior” is far more concerning. Trish McMillan, who was a former director of animal behavior at the ASPCA, serves on the Functional Dog Collaborative’s Board of Directors as its Secretary. During a horrific Animal Farm Foundation video on “Behavioral Euthanasia”, she stated we should kill dogs that were aggressive towards other dogs and even ones that have high prey drives. Furthermore, she advocated for killing shelter dogs with pretty minor behavior issues since they may take up space for a long time and lead to the shelters not having perfect dogs. Even just a few weeks back, Ms. McMillan cheered the Humane Society of Utah’s decision to kill a dog that “attacked” another dog while on leash, but didn’t actually harm the animal.
Ms. McMillan’s philosophy about killing dogs is so extreme that she admits to being down with Sue Sternberg’s views. Sue Sternberg created the infamous “Assess-A-Pet” temperament test that killed and continues to kill huge numbers of dogs across the country. Even worse, Ms. Sternberg gives lectures advocating for shelters to kill many dogs, and pit bulls in particular. In an article Trish McMillan wrote and referenced during the Animal Farm Foundation video, she clearly stated her alignment with Sue Sternberg:
I’ve come a lot more in line with Sue Sternberg’s philosophy that shelters should be where people come to get the best dogs, not to become expert trainers or to have their bank accounts drained.
In a recent podcast, the Functional Dog Collaborative founder, Jessica Hekman, showed her cards in stating she was down with Trish McMillan’s killing many more shelter dogs idea:
I also have been talking with and watching the work of Trish McMillan, who has a lot of interesting things to say about the state of behavior issues in dogs coming out of shelters in the U.S. Obviously when I say that, I do not by any means mean 100 percent of the dogs coming out of shelters, but that she’s seeing an increase in the number of really severe behavior cases. So she does a lot of work around behavioral euthanasia, particularly with dogs coming out of shelters and rescues. All of that started coming together in my head into one thing: the problems with finding a good dog, basically.
AND
This is really what Trish McMillan is grappling with. This is a lot of the work that she’s doing right now, just talking about … she calls it “outsourcing behavioral euthanasia” that she feels that a lot of rescues are not willing to do the hard work of saying, “These animals are not appropriate to place into pet homes and actually there isn’t a place for them.” That euthanasia part is so hard, and I hate talking about it because it sounds like I’m saying we need to kill more dogs.
In reality, a University of Denver study found that severe dog bites did not increase in Austin during the time its dog live release rate skyrocketed to a very high number. Thus, the implication that saving all treatable dogs and public safety are not compatible is simply not true.
If the pro-killing culture of the Functional Dog Collaborative wasn’t bad enough, the organization had no other than Sue Sternberg herself on its Advisory Board until recently. Ms. Sternberg has stated she is down with shelter breeding. In a frightening video, Ms. Sternberg said shelters should not adopt out pit bulls to families with small children by asserting their tails could knock someone’s teeth out.
While I cannot confirm these allegations, I have heard people claim Sue Sternberg publicly calling for shelters to kill many more dogs in the northeast. Specifically, I’ve seen allegations here and here stating Ms. Sternberg wants shelters to kill 75% or more of dogs in the northeast. Most disturbing, many people, including someone I know, pointed to Sue Sternberg seminars where she quickly concluded people should could kill dogs that didn’t seem to have any significant problems.
Sue Sternberg still has these sociopathic and psychopathic views. The rabid anti-pit bull organization, dogbites.org, gleefully shared and analyzed Ms. Sternberg’s Fall 2020 “seminar” at Long Island’s Oyster Bay Animal Shelter. During this “seminar”, Sue Sternberg quickly agreed with the killing of dogs for absurd reasons. For example, Sue Sternberg applauded the killing of a dog named Precious, which caused public outrage, for fence fighting. And how did Sue Sternberg come to that conclusion? Precious showed too much “arousal” and “frustration” as a “fighting stock guarding breed” and she was too “game bred” due to her playing too aggressively with a stuffed animal dog:
Savocchi asks if it is valid for animal “advocates” to say, “Any dog will fight through a fence.” And that Savocchi should not negatively score a dog for fence fighting(1:04)
“No,” Sternberg said. “This is what happens when people only see fighting stock guarding breeds and mixes in the shelters, who have such dog aggression and such arousal and frustration problems, that this becomes normal,” she said. “This is not normal. This is not what dogs do … a normal dog will fence fight and there is no contact. It’s all display” (posturing and noises). Referring to Ruby and Precious, due to their genetics, “there is no place where they are able to be with access to their instincts because they’re not bred as dogs. There is no way to fulfill them. It’s a cruelty to keep them alive. There is no way to provide the enrichment that they would really need in a safe way.”
(1:11) There was a protest after Precious was euthanized. Protesters said, “She’s a good dog. She just needs to go to a house without other animals.” After watching the Dog-to-Dog test, Sternberg goes into the concept of “game” and being “game bred.” Precious was not playing with the stuffed dog — play is reciprocal. “What she is showing, her motor patterns, all of her behaviors are to kill. She’s not doing it out of anger.” She added, “These dogs do not belong in our communities. When shelters place these dogs or send them to rescue and they get loose and hurt somebody else’s dog or a person? The emotional and financial liability? It’s so irresponsible. It’s got to stop. This is all in the name of a complete lack of knowledge of normal dog behavior, and a complete lack of knowledge of the limitations of behavior modification and of dog training.”
Sue Sternberg also stated the following about pit bulls:
You should be afraid of these dogs. These dogs are predators. These dogs are dangerous, the highest level of aggression and risk.
Ms. Sternberg also cheered on the killing of a small intact male pit bull seized from a squatter house. Using Sue Sternberg’s infamous, and scientifically invalid, food guarding test, the dog lightly nipped at the hand after being harassed. In response, Sue Sternberg stated the following in response to the shelter’s trainer asking if she should have rehabilitated the dog:
“No,” Sternberg answers. “You can’t change these aggression thresholds. This isn’t a food bowl issue. This is a resource guarding, a guarding issue. This is a guard dog. Here’s the thing, you neuter him, his appetite goes up. Now, he is worse, if that is even possible. No, this level of resource guarding is so serious. That dog, no sociability to humans. These are really dangerous combinations. These are not pet dogs. So dangerous.”
In reality, scientific studies prove food guarding in a shelter often doesn’t even happen in a home and most people can manage it (i.e. leave dog alone when eating) when it does occur. Of course, that would interfere with Sue Sternberg’s psychotic god complex to kill the many dogs she hates. Therefore, she ignores it. Simply put, the animal welfare community must ostracize the Functional Dog Collaborative for having anything to do with this maniac.
Roger Haston also is pushing the pet shortage panic. In 2019, Mr. Haston infuriated the animal welfare community when he went on a speaking tour where he expressed anti-pit bull views and told shelters to kill more animals. Furthermore, Roger Haston’s views were shaped by a deeply flawed model he previously presented. In 2015, Mr. Haston commented on a vicious anti-no kill blog by Michigan Humane’s CEO by stating “Fantastic Article.” After Nathan Winograd and Animal Farm Foundation strongly criticized Roger Haston’s 2019 presentation, Mr. Haston resigned from his high level position at PetSmart Charities and formed a consulting firm called The Institute for Animals.
Roger Haston recently put together another model to estimate the future supply and demand for dogs in the country. Once again, I have serious concerns about this model. It used unreliable animal shelter data primarily from Shelter Animals Count (see issues above). Additionally, Mr. Haston’s assumed puppy intake at shelters is a proxy for puppies in the community (I’d argue people are less likely to surrender puppies than adult dogs) and owner microchip rates would massively increase in the future. Overall, these assumptions would understate the supply of dogs to meet demand. Unsurprisingly, Roger Haston used this model’s results to argue for shelters and breeders to “work together”:
We never thought we would be here,” Haston said, adding that he believes breeders and shelters will have to work together to figure out where dogs will come from to meet the demand, and how to produce them humanely.
I think we are, on both sides of the equation, ill-prepared,” Haston said. “It’s going to force us to have to have a lot of conversations that maybe weren’t traditionally in our realm that will be uncomfortable for all of us.
The mass transporting and high kill Dakin Humane Society also is down with the “pet shortage” story. In an article from last year, the organization cites Roger Haston’s model to claim a pet shortage exists and transport isn’t enough. It should come as no surprise Dakin Humane Society’s Director of Operations. Karina King, will present at the upcoming HSUS Expo shelter breeding session. In a 2016 HSUS Expo article, this very same person claimed she desperately needed transport since she only had one “one dog available for adoption.” What Ms. King failed to mention is her shelter killed 445 dogs and 36% of all adult dogs the facility took in that year.
The wealthy and high kill Massachusetts SPCA also is down with shelters breeding animals. In a recent Facebook post by Austin Pets Alive Director, Kristen Hassen, Mike Keiley, Massachusetts SPCA Director of Adoption Centers and Programs, stated New England shelters discussed the issue for “30+ years” and “we cannot possibly import dogs fast enough and with enough diversity to satisfy the adoption market” to argue for shelter breeding. What Mr. Keiley failed to mention were his very “adoption centers” catastrophic death rates of 37% to 74% for all dogs, 39% to 76% for adult dogs, 6% to 27% for cats and 8% to 33% for adult cats.
At the same time, Massachusetts SPCA is extremely wealthy. The organization took in $89 million of revenue, with a $12 million profit, in 2020 and and had $142 million of net assets per its 2020 Form 990. When we look at the organization’s 2020 audited financial statements, nearly 80% of that revenue comes from its health and hospital services. These hospital services don’t just include caring for poor folks’ animals, but also offer state of art treatment for people who could easily afford to go to other high end animal hospitals. Where does a lot of Massachusetts SPCA’s revenues go? To its highly compensated executives. In 2020, the two people serving as CEO during the year received $867,033 from the organization (the person serving as the only CEO in 2019 made $777,830). Thus, Massachusetts SPCA is money making scam for its high end executives and a death trap for homeless animals unlucky to find themselves entering Mike Keiley’s “adoption centers.”
Austin Pets Alive and Best Friends Community Sheltering Programs Will Transform Shelters into Pet Stores
Austin Pets Alive and Best Friends are strongly advocating for their Human Animal Support Services (HASS) and community sheltering programs. Under these programs, shelters only take animals in on an emergency basis, such as serious bite cases and severely injured animals, and do not bring in stray and owner surrendered animals. Instead, the public is forced to do the work shelters previously did. While Austin Pets Alive and Best Friends argue shelters will assist people in these efforts, experience shows many shelters simply dump the problem on the public. In fact, El Paso, Texas terminated its HASS program after public outrage resulting from abandoned animals dying on the streets.
While HASS promotional pieces argue shelters can use this empty animal holding space for good uses, such as more expansive kennels and larger adoption counseling areas, this is hopelessly naive. If governments have no animals to house, they will simply stop funding shelters. Therefore, animal control shelters will close or become significantly smaller unless these organizations find new revenue sources.
Shelters will become pet stores if HASS/community sheltering becomes the norm and the pet shortage/breeding idea wins out. While the idea may seem farfetched, it has happened with transport. A decade ago, Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter contracted with numerous municipalities and killed scores of them. At the same time, the shelter transported tons of easy to adopt pets from the south. Why did the borough of Helmetta do this? To bring in revenue to lower taxes. Similarly, private shelters, such as Dakin Humane Society and St. Hubert’s, do similar things albeit without the animal cruelty charges that Helmetta Regional Animal Shelter had. Even though empty shelters could have more than enough pets to adopt out for decades by transporting animals in from other countries, this would cost more due to longer traveling distances and more stringent disease control policies for international dogs. Additionally, breeding will provide the public even more “desirable” dogs than any transport could yield. Furthermore, for people like Trish McMillan and Sue Sternberg, who want to kill any dog that doesn’t fit their submissive and supplicant ideal, breeding dogs in this way will be preferable. Thus, the combination of HASS/community sheltering and the pet shortage ideas winning out will transform shelters into pet stores.
Respect for Life Must Be the Future of Animal Welfare
Shelters should use declining intake to put more focus and resources into animals dying in shelters. When shelters first achieved 90% live release rates over a decade ago, savable animals still lost their lives based on the standards of today. Specifically, the respect for life culture of many individuals utilized advances in animal behavior science and veterinary medicine to save animals previously considered “untreatable.” Eileen McFall of the Final Frontier Rescue Project, which has been at the forefront of saving previously unadoptable behavior dogs in Austin, Texas, recently stated she believes only 1 in 5,000 or fewer shelter dogs truly have unfixable/unmanageable behavior problems. Yet even the best no kill animal control shelters still take the lives of around 1 in 500 dogs for behavior. In other words, we should focus our efforts to save the lives of animals who are still falling through the cracks by developing programs and techniques to address their needs. Thus, shelters must make respect for life of the animals in their care the key focus of their activities.
Nathan Winograd also articulated a broader respect for life approach shelters can take in his recent podcast. Using his work at the San Francisco SPCA in the 1990s as an example, Mr. Winograd envisions a world where shelters proactively attend government meetings and address issues in real time. For example, Nathan Winograd cited an example where the San Francisco SPCA stopped a plan to use glue traps in government buildings and instead rodent proofed the facilities to solve a pest problem. Similarly, I could see shelters working to resolve wildlife conflicts without resorting to killing the animals. Also, shelters can proactively work with pet owners in the community to solve behavior, medical and other problems long before the issues could result in the owners surrendering their animals. Finally, shelters can continue to support retail pet store bans and additional legislation to curb cruel breeding operations. As a result, shelters can spread the respect for life culture far beyond their walls.
On the other hand, the pet shortage pushers disrespect life. Instead of viewing shelters as places to save the lives of homeless animals, the pet shortage proponents want to use these facilities to sell puppies to meet their view of market demand. Of course, good shelters have long altered this market demand by appealing to the public’s deep desire to save lives. Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter to the pet shortage pushers who have long profited off the killing (or enabling) of animals in need. Even worse, folks like Trish McMillan and Sue Sternberg, are on some perverse quest to kill animals and even huge swaths of the dog population. Thus, the pet shortage pushers show a complete and utter disrespect for life.
The pet shortage idea is just another example of the animals welfare industry harming animals. In Nathan Winograd’s recent podcast series “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Animal Sheltering in the United States”, Mr. Winograd outlined how shelters abandoned the movement’s initial goal of animal protection in favor of profit. After ASPCA founder, Henry Bergh, died in 1888, the ASPCA and other animal protection organizations took over pound contracts and killed animals for money (albeit in a less cruel manner). Subsequently, the animal welfare industry created myths, such as blaming the public, to justify it killing animals for money. Even when lifesaving alternatives existed, such as subsidized high volume spay/neuter, TNR and high powered adoption programs, the animal welfare industry opposed them for long periods of time. Is it any wonder that people who accumulated wealth and notoriety in this system would not respect the lives of animals?
Austin Pets Alive Director, Kristen Hassen, seems to want to have a “conversation” with the pet shortage pushers even if she appears to oppose shelters breeding animals. I disagree. You don’t have a “conversation” with people who have no respect for the lives of animals. You do not talk with people who profit off the killing of animals. Certainly, you do not have a “discussion” with psychopaths like Sue Sternberg, Trish McMillan and the people elevating those two individuals. Instead, you destroy their arguments and crush this idiotic idea before it takes hold.
Joyce Briggs describes herself as a “game-changer” and “serial collaborator” in her Linkedin profile. Animals and their lives are not a “game” and even if they were I wouldn’t want Ms. Briggs to “change” it based on her track record. Collaborating with people like Sue Sternberg and Trish McMillan should disqualify Joyce Briggs from being part of any serious “conversation” in animal welfare. Instead, Joyce Briggs should retire and her shelter breeding idea should never see the light of day.
*This blog’s cover photo is courtesy of: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:French_Bulldog_with_puppies.jpg#/media/File:French_Bulldog_with_puppies.jpg
NJ Animal Observer 
