I recently attended an animal welfare conference and it was a great opportunity and I am extremely grateful for the scholarship I received so that I could attend.  I learned a lot, met some amazing people, and truly do not regret going one bit despite the lack of sleep.  But there was a noticeable difference with some of the speakers and a few of the attendees there then at other animal welfare conferences I have attended.  There was a negativity a small, put powerful, minority had towards those not exactly like them.  Several speakers were openly against the movement and words “no kill” which I get can be uncomfortable since the opposite of no kill is kill.  But instead of feeling targeted or threatened by those terms, shelter and rescue leaders should instead see it as a challenge to work towards better programs and policies to help increase adoption and retention and decrease euthanasia, strays and surrenders.

We all want the same thing.  We all want less animals killed and more animals in loving homes.  Whether you want to call that “no kill” or “no more homeless pets” or an “adoption guarantee”, I really do not care.  And neither should you or anyone else for that matter.  Why are we wasting so much time, energy and resources on this ridiculous in-fighting?  We should instead focus our attentions on doing the absolute best we can for these amazing creatures that depend on us and continuously strive to improve.  We should be sharing our successes and failures so that others can learn from the victories and mistakes.  There are lives at stake, so we cannot afford to waste a single moment on anything other than saving them.