I'm about halfway through Winograd's second book,
Amazon.com: Irreconcilable Differences: The... .
All I can say is that it's very disturbing. He claims that most shelters are horribly run, and don't accept that they could save more than 90% of incoming animals because they don't want to acknowledge their incompetence.
This guy is a zealot, no question. I need to read more before I can really assess his position.
I hope this thread gets more views, because if what he is saying IS true, it is completely revolutionary -
NO MORE ANIMALS KILLED IN SHELTERS.
Also, I wanted to share some information from this book, because it clears up some confusion I had about the ASPCA, HSUS, PETA, and the garden variety "pound".
It appears that the ASPCA was founded in 1866 in New York, and the name says it all: it was a society dedicated to preventing cruelty to animals. For instance, it provided water troughs to over worked horses.
At the time New York was concerned about roving dog packs, and instituted
animal control to pick up these dogs and exterminate them. This is the kind of pound that's portrayed in the movie 'The Lady and the Tramp'. I won't even describe how dogs were killed by the pound back then, because it's too gruesome and depressing. The ASPCA was very vocal in its opposition to these practices, and instrumental in mandating more humane treatment of dogs (for instance, people were paid to bring dogs in to be destroyed, no questions asked).
Then, in 1910, the New York government contracted out its
animal control department to the New York SPCA. The large majority of SPCAs since then have followed this model, and that's why the SPCA is synonymous with the city pound - your local city pays your local SPCA to do ALL TYPES of animal control, including round up of strays, licensing, checking on reports of abuse, etc.
Winograd argues that these contracts for animal control have led most SPCAs tragically astray, putting them in the business of killing stay pets, when they should be fighting to protect them.
He argues that in certain cases, local SPCAs should stop taking these contracts. He also points out that in many cases, the government underpays on these contracts, and the SPCA makes up the difference through charitable contributions. So basically, if your SPCA runs a kill shelter, you should not donate to it, as you are subsidizing horrific treatment of pets. I found this contention shocking. I always thought that of all the controversy out there about animal rights, you could at least be safe giving money to the ASPCA.
Similarly, it appears that in a few cities, PETA has contracted with the local government to do animal control. That's why there is sometimes news about PETA taking shelter animals in.
Most SPCAs run according to HSUS's written guidelines.
Anyway, I found this very helpful, as I did not really understand the difference between government mandated animal control, and SPCAs. I didn't realize that SPCAs can turn down these contracts, in which case, either animal control is run by the local government, or it is contracted to another private organization. I hope this is helpful to someone else here as well.