Reflections on “Redemption”, on the goal of No Kill and Horse rescue (part 2)

I’ve finished reading Nathan J. Winograd’s book “Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America”, which continued to make me think right to the end.  To read reflections on the first section, see Part 1 of Reflections on “Redemption”.

The second and third parts of the book talks about how changed was being instigated in the animal sheltering movement, and the steps necessary to keep more animals alive.

Changing Behaviour

The movement to create a no-kill America, an America where only dangerously aggressive or incurably suffering animals are euthanized, struggles to get the existing shelter community to change their behaviour.  Even with models of success to follow, the shelters stick to what they have always done though they claim they are working to save more lives.  Despite overwhelming evidence of the inefficacy of existing laws, they continue to push for new and tougher laws.  Because blaming the public has been internalized by the leaders in the sheltering and animal welfare, they keep coming to the same conclusions — they need stronger laws to punish the naughty public.

The problem of course, is that laws focus on the small percentage of people who are irresponsible; the same people who ignore the existing laws.  Laws can’t make people act responsibly.  What laws can do, though, is alienate people who would otherwise be willing to help the animals.  Laws that ban feeding of stray cats actively stop people from helping them live a good life on the street.  Laws that limit the number of pets in a house (put in place to stop hoarding) mean that even if people have space and time they may not be able to take in another animal.

As the author points out, to change behaviour, the animal welfare groups should focus on incentives instead of punishment.  Make it easy for people to do the right thing.  Honour and reward the people who are helping you out.  Focus on the ways the general public can help the animals, and make it easy for people to participate.

In most horse neglect and abuse cases animal shelters work with rescues, leaving seized horses in their care. Due to a lack of resources to house and care for them, the horses seem to get off lucky in comparison to dogs and cats.  They end up in the hands of people who have never been involved in animal control to have it impact the way they view the animals in their care.  In the horses case, resistance to change might be a weapon in their favour.  Though talk of euthanasia has become more frequent, it is still very much a last resort consideration.  Nobody wants to resort to putting down a healthy horse, and so euthanasia discussions always turn quickly  to alternatives. So far people usually seem to come up with some other option for that particular horse.

Confirmation Bias

How can people continue to believe false statements in the face of evidence?  They dismiss information that doesn’t agree with their beliefs.  This is called confirmation bias.  It is powerful, and it is hard to overcome. It may be impossible to overcome if the people around them continue to repeat the things they “know” to be true.  Things they have been told over and over again, and have come to believe.  They assume that there must be evidence somewhere if everybody is repeating it.  The statement can’t have come out of nowhere.  Unfortunately, many of these statements are ideas that spread because they sounded reasonable.  There is no evidence to back them up.

It can take more than studies and evidence to overcome confirmation bias.  Case studies are easy to dismiss as extraordinary.  Evidence can be suspicious, particularly to those who don’t understand statistics.  And statistics are often manipulated by both sides so that they end up claiming the same evidence shows completely opposite results. To overcome some of these falsehoods, it will need to be shown over and over again, in one visible case after another, that the “facts” are wrong.

Overpopulation?

The author says that pet overpopulation is a myth.  His evidence is reasonable.  There are plenty of shelters all over the place with empty cages.  Breeders, who are running profitable businesses, continuing to breed their animals.  Pet stores, also profitable, continue to sell pets. If breeding and selling pets is still profitable, and all shelters aren’t full and overflowing, can overpopulation exist?

Horse overpopulation is definitely an idea that gets repeated frequently.  It is blamed for horses going to slaughter, it is blamed for rescues being full, and it is used as a reason for groups managing wild mustangs to round them up.

It is a fact that horses are getting slaughtered.  It’s hard to know if that can be blamed on overpopulation though.  Facts that speak against overpopulation being the reason for horse slaughter are:

1. Some rescues use calls of imminent shipment to slaughter to raise funds and place large numbers of horses.  At one point these appeals seemed to come weekly, and every week they claimed to save all but one or two.
2. Less horses seem to go to slaughter these days, but  not because there are less horses available.  The “kill buyers”, people that buy horses to ship to slaughter, have their pick of the auctions these days.  The slow down seems to be a result of a decreased market for horse meat, instead of a decrease in the available horses.

As to rescues, they are frequently full.  Even with wide fostering networks, rescues often have difficulty finding space for new horses that need help.  It’s hard to know if this is because of overpopulation, though, because many of the rescues do a bad job getting the information about these horses out.  They put the horses on their websites, and expect the adopters to come to them… but many in their local horse community don’t even know they exist.  Some also have a problem with unreasonable adoption requirements, which is discussed more below.

I don’t know that much about wild horses and how they are managed, but I plan to look into that in the future.  I do know that horses tend to get rounded up when they are eating down the land alloted to them and have to roam farther afield to eat.  Less horses would need less land to survive, so it’s possible that this is a valid case of overpopulation.

Unadoptable

Some animals are being put down at shelters because they are considered unadoptable.  What makes an animal unadoptable?  It seems to be a matter of judgement. There are no well defined guidelines on what is unadoptable.  It is a judgement call, which is dangerous if that judgement is not based on fact.

It’s true that animals sit in shelters for days unadopted… does this mean they are unadoptable?  not necessarily. Part of the problem is that the adoption process is too difficult.  Adoption centres with limited hours, hostile staff, and out of the way locations decrease the number of animals that get adopted.  It is a type of unadoptable that has nothing to do with the individual animals, and it is this type of unadoptable that appears in the horse world.

Almost all horse rescues require adopters to sign an adoption contract.  These can range from short and reasonable, to long rambling and overly demanding.  Many rescues don’t transfer ownership of the horse right away, some don’t transfer it at all.  Some of the craziest rescues not only do not transfer ownership, but add into the contract the right to seize the animal if they decide you aren’t caring for it to their standards.  Usually unreasonable standards that the rescues does not even live up to when the horses are in their care.

Some adoption contract clauses that can make it difficult to get horses into loving homes include:

• Horses must have a minimum number of hours of turnout per day:  While ideally all horses would get to spend most of the day outside, this clause can be a deal breaker for people who board.  Boarders don’t have control over paddock time. And plenty of horses live happily and healthily in programs that involve less turnout, especially when their owners who make sure to get them out of their stall in other ways.
• Horses must have a stall:  Again, this can be a deal killer for some people.  There are plenty of pasture board situations with adequate shelter where horses thrive.  Stalls are a convenience for humans.  Many horses happily do without them.  Requiring a stall cuts out a large group of potential adopters who would provide wonderful homes.
• Horses remain property of the rescue:  This scares off people who have had horses yanked out from under them in the past, as can happen when leases go bad or school horses get sold unexpectedly. It also chases away people who hear about rescues taking horses from others for reasons like a lack of stalls where other shelter is available.  If the rescue retains ownership of the horse, they can take back control over an unrelated dispute.  In a community rife with rumours and unreasonable grudges, it is understandable that people want a chance to own the horses they care for, even if there is a mandatory trial period first.
• Restrictions on use:  In cases where horses have chronic injuries, the rescues often define what the horse may and may not be used for in the future.  While I understand the reasons behind these clauses, they become a problem when they are based on temporary injuries.  Some rescues write usage clauses as though horses never recover.  These clauses also show a lack of trust in the judgement of the adopter, which considering the adoption approval process they go through, is an insult to them, and the vets, farriers, and professionals that act as their references.

The adoption approval process, while important, reduces the pool of available adopters even before weeding out the bad ones.  Adoption approvals require references, which can make it difficult or impossible for first time owners or those returning to horse ownership after a long break.

Helping the Horses

There are a few things in the last sections of the book that could be used to help horses and horse rescuers going into the future.  There traps that rescues need to work to avoid, and there are programs that rescues could use to bring their load back under control.  Programs that would free up space and resources so that they can stop worrying that the next horse will be the one they don’t have the resources to help.

Things to watch out for

Myths: It is important to examine common assumptions to make sure that there are facts behind them.  Things to constantly examine and keep an eye on are the ideas of horse overpopulation, the spaying and birth control options for mares, and what in horse care is a requirement that should be written into adoption contracts.

Blame: Demonizing a group of people for all the problems in the horse community means that people who could be helping with the problem walk away in the face of hostility.

Laws/Punishment:  Resorting to punishment is never an effective way to handle managing an effort that will require large numbers of people cooperating.  Instead horse rescues need to focus on ways to reward and encourage the kind of behaviour that will help horses end up in loving homes.

Programs to Implement

Volunteer PR: Some rescues already rely on volunteers to help get the word out about animals.  They choose advocates for a certain horse, and that person is in charge with keeping up to date with foster homes, having pictures and videos available, and putting the horse in front of as many people as possible.  Most rescues do not do this… instead they post the horses only on their websites, expecting those looking to come to them.  More rescues should look into recruiting volunteers who can help them get the animals out the door.

Animal Retention: The author suggested an interesting program for pets that to my knowledge is not used in horse rescue.  An animal retention program is designed to help people find ways to keep their animals.  In horses, this might mean sending out volunteers to help new people overcome behaviour problems, it might mean nutritional advice or advice on thrifty horse keeping practices (something rescues have tons of practice at).  Basically the idea is to help keep horses in their homes, if at all possible, so that they don’t need to end up at a shelter.

The goal is to reduce the number of horses that need to be brought into the shelters, and to increase the number of horses going out the doors.