No-Kill Shelters

No-Kill shelters can be misleading, simply by nature of the term "No-Kill".

Let me use this Post to add a little insight, with respect to No-Kill shelters. I do some volunteer work for a local shelter of such nature & while they never put down a healthy animal, there has been rare occurrences when they have humanely had an animal put down. Instances include, being struck by a car, attacked by other animals, ill, or any reason that could not allow the animal to live on without suffering.

This is not the case with Herbie, referencing another Post where Herbie was mistakenly euthanized. But in that particular case, Herbie should still be with us! There should be measures in place, layers if you will, to prevent this from ever happening!

Sadly, some animals, for their sake, need to be put to eternal rest. And financial considerations also come into play. If the vet diagnoses no chance of survival, yet the animal is still alive, the person, or persons in charge of that decision, must take into account the extreme costs of expensive medical care for animals, which will not survive the medical issues they are dealing with, versus all the good the money can do to all the animals healthy & awaiting adoption. Most rescue shelters survive on donations alone. I am certainly glad I would never have to be responsible for a decision as such. And while some shelters are No-Kill by name, hard, painful decisions must sometimes be made, for the best for the animal in question & all the other animals that need to be fostered &/or adopted at a given shelter or rescue org.

I visited a no-kill shelter when I was looking for a new dog to be added to my family a couple years ago. I was told that some of the dogs had been there for over a year. I wondered if that was why some of the dogs looked frantically at me when I passed their cages. They seemed to be saying, "Get me out of here," and "I don't belong here!" Sometimes, I wonder if No-Kill is the way to go if an animal has to stay in an indoor cage for a year or more. I guess it is like jail for humans. Some humans would rather stay in jail for years and live, while others would rather die. I wonder, if animals had a choice to live or die in shelters would they choose to live or die?

I volunteer at a shelter that isn't no-kill. I actually assumed it was when I first started there.

They don't ever reject an animal. The cat room can be full of cats, and they will continue to stack cages on cages of cats or find more foster volunteers to make sure that no animal is turned down.

However, if a dog bites - it has to be put down because that dog could bite or harm a child...

We have a no-kill shelter here, and they also have a thrift shop; so I go there fairly often. I always seem to see the same dogs outside in the dog runs, and I think theey must not adopt many of these dogs out. it seemed to me like the dogs are just there as kind of a token reason for people to donate money and items to be sold in the thrift store. They charge well over $100 to adopt a dog; and never take in new ones, since they just tell people that the shelter is already full. People have to rehome their dogs using Craigslist, or give them to animal control, where they are usually put to sleep if they are not adopted right away.
Except as a money-raising project, I really can't see where this particular shelter does much to help any animals.