Why No Kill can not fail

Albert Schweitzer once said:

“A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.”

 

Not so long ago I was asked the question “when does No Kill fail or when does somebody declare No Kill as failed?”. At that moment I did not know the answer and I said “I don’t know”. I went home that evening and the question got stuck in my head. I thought about all the things I had learned about No Kill in the last 18 month, thought about all the things I have read. The tragedy from Austin, TX,  that unfolded in May 2012, came to my mind. I thought about all the challenges a No Kill shelter has to overcome, hour after hour, day after day, month after month. The challenge when 22 dogs are being  left at the front door over night or the challenge that a Court of Appeals forced up on a animal shelter when it rules that every Pit Bull and cross-bred Pit Bull is declared inherently dangerous.

The answer actually is very simple and it has nothing to do with numbers or statistics. No Kill will fail at the moment we stop trying, it will fail the moment we give up and surrender our morals, ethics and the respect and value for life itself. This is the advantage we have over a kill shelter, we try. Always.

The dog in the above picture  is Charlie. He was the first true survivor at the Allegany County Animal Shelter. Charlie would have been killed in the same week people stepped up and stopped the senseless killing. People have tried and Charlie survived.  Later on, many hundred animals followed Charlie in to a new life just because somebody tried and didn’t take a “no” for a answer.

The No Kill movement is full of people with  moral and ethics, people that value life, people that at least try.

I’m looking forward to see you all at the No Kill Conference August 11/12 2012 in Washington D.C.