PETA & Shelters: No Movies Celebrating Dogs!

Here we go again. Just as occurred when Disney re-released 101 Dalmatians, shelters mired in traditional dogma are saber-rattling over the recent release of Beverly Hills Chihuahua. They are claiming that the movie will lead to the neglect, abandonment, and death of dogs as people flock to buy Chihuahuas, tire of them, and then relegate them to the shelter, where shelters will kill them.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says that “impulsive purchases that ensue mean that the dirty backyard-breeding market booms. Ultimately, animal shelters overflow.” As a result, PETA claims, the movie will mean “a death sentence for dogs in animal shelters.”

In the San Francisco Bay Area, several shelters have issued a joint press release claiming to be bracing themselves for the onslaught of Chihuahuas because of the movie. Outside the Bay Area, some have called the release of the movie “irresponsible.”

In a relatively recent article in Newsweek, a PETA spokesperson says she,

still remembers the re-release of the Disney classic "101 Dalmatians" and the tragedy that followed. First there was a spike in sales of the famous spotted breed. Then, in the months that followed, shelters took in hundreds of Dalmatians from disillusioned pet owners around the country. "As soon as the puppies outlived their cuteness and the kids didn't want to scoop the poop anymore, the dogs were dumped in shelters," says [Daphna] Nachminovitch, vice president of cruelty investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). "Many of them had to be euthanized, because there was simply no place for them to go."

There’s only one problem. The viewpoints are not only misguided, they are wrong. If there was a spike in Dalmatians being surrendered, none of them had to be killed. It is not that “there was simply no place for them to go." If Chihuahuas are killed in shelters, just like if Dalmatians were, it is because shelter directors order them to be killed, despite readily available lifesaving alternatives. It is not because of a movie celebrating or featuring them. Nor is it because people are irresponsible, because of pet overpopulation, or because shelters are doing the public’s dirty work. It is because shelters are mired in killing, fail to embrace the programs and services which obviate the perceived “need” to kill, and because they find killing easier than doing what is necessary to stop it.

This is not a defense of Disney. First, I am no proponent of the Walt Disney Company. In 2005, they rejected a humane group’s effort to neuter and release stray friendly dogs living around the parking lot of the Hong Kong Disneyland, who were cared for by construction workers. They also refused to find them homes. Instead, they had the dogs rounded up and killed by local dogcatchers in the run up to the grand opening of Hong Kong Disneyland. In fact, since that time, my family has not visited Disneyland, we have not purchased Disney products, and we haven’t paid to go see Disney movies. I simply refuse to give money to a company that kills dogs.

Nonetheless, in the end, if there is a lesson in 101 Dalmatians, it is that the wearing of fur is morally reprehensible—a core PETA campaign. If anything, PETA should be providing free copies of the movie to whoever wants it because there has been no better condemnation of wearing fur done before or since. (They should do the same with Bambi as part of their anti-hunting campaign, and Dumbo in their protest over circuses. And if they truly cared about dogs being killed by the pound, throw Lady & the Tramp into the mix!)

In fact, Disney has gone one step further with Beverly Hills Chihuahua, stating both on the homepage of the movie website and at the end of the film that dogs are a lifelong responsibility, and encouraging people to adopt rather than purchase an animal. To that end, they explicitly state:

Owning a pet is a major responsibility. Dogs require daily care and constant attention. Before bringing a dog into your family, research the specific breed to make sure it is suitable for your particular situation. Learn about and be willing to undertake the serious responsibilities of dog care. Always consider adoption from a reputable shelter or rescue program.

Second, there will always be some irresponsibility. If some people see the movie and if they go out and get Chihuahuas, and if they ultimately surrender the dogs to shelters, shelters need not kill any of them. I am suggesting our anger is misdirected at the wrong culprit. We should not be angry at Walt Disney. We should be angry at the shelters which will use Disney as their latest in a long line of blame shifting strategies as they kill Chihuahuas in the face of lifesaving alternatives.

The programs and services of the No Kill Equation would allow shelters (and PETA, for that matter) to save these dogs (and all the others)—programs which they should be doing regardless of Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Because if there is a central lesson from the No Kill movement, it is that there is enough love and compassion in every community to overcome the irresponsibility of the few. The shelters in these communities have proven that they can find loving, new homes for all the savable dogs in their facilities, even despite any short or even long term crises that may arise, above and beyond normal intake. That is why some communities have still seen death rates continue to decline significantly despite an increase in impounds as a result of the housing and economic meltdown.

Despite the consistent drum beat by groups that there are already too many animals and not enough homes, a claim which flies in the face of a thriving puppy mill industry, the fact is that every year, there are twice as many people looking to bring a new dog into their home than the total number of dogs entering shelters. And on top of that, not all dogs entering shelters need adoption. When you add up those dogs who are lost strays and can be reunited with their families out looking for them, those who are irremediably suffering or truly dangerous, those not ready for adoption who need rehabilitation, the reality is that shelters have to find homes for a smaller percentage than total impounds and they can do so without killing because people love dogs, want to live with dogs, and if the message is correct and the opportunities available, will adopt dogs from shelters and rescue groups. This is even true with short term spikes in impounds—especially when that spike, if it really does end up occurring, involves Chihuahuas, a small breed beloved by the public and which the public would adopt in droves, with or without Walt Disney movies.

In the end, although I have not seen it and this is not a statement of either endorsement of the film or its content, I cannot accept the premise that there can be no movies celebrating dogs or particular breeds of dogs. Nor will I accept that the movie will be responsible for the deaths of Chihuahuas in shelters, no more than 101 Dalmatians was responsible for the deaths of Dalmatians.

Have we really come to the point where our false dogmas about an irresponsible public and the need to kill have convinced us that we cannot even highlight dogs in movies for fear that people will want to share their lives with them? Is this really what we want? A ban on movies about dogs? “Sssh, loving dogs is a secret. Let’s not talk about them, forget putting them in book, and, rule number one, let’s not show them in movies. And while we are at it, let’s ban Lassie, Old Yeller, Winn Dixie, Benji, The Call of the Wild, 101 Dalmatians, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and all the rest of them because, oh my god, people might fall in love with them and go out and get a dog!”

Nonetheless, PETA and local shelters are putting out press releases or public statements citing all the usual platitudes about “impulse” adoptions and how irresponsible people are; and that they are getting prepared for the onslaught of Chihuahuas. We can only shudder at what “getting ready” means for PETA, as they kill over 90% of animals they take in. But what does it mean for other shelters? Are they ramping up adoption promotions? Are they building foster care networks? Are they staffing more offsite adoption locations? Are they solidifying partnerships with rescue groups? Are they doing anything proactive? If history is any indication, sadly, the answer is no.

The reality is that shelters should be doing all of these things anyway and too many are not. In fact, in one shelter, staff and volunteers were fired for fostering nursing animals and bringing them back when they were old enough for adoption because the shelter director—a darling of the Humane Society of the United States—didn’t want a foster care program, even though two decades of experience has shown that lifesaving success is impossible without one.

It is this kind of thinking that led many of them—and continue to lead too many—to make it incredibly easy to surrender an animal but incredibly hard to adopt one. No one is good enough; They are better off dead. And therein lies what is underlying the latest misguided salvo by animal rights groups and animal shelters against a company that makes movie with messages that are anti-fur (101 Dalmatians), anti-hunting (Bambi and Brother Bear), anti-pound killing (Lady & the Tramp), anti-cat killing and pro-feral cat (Aristocats), anti-rat killing (Ratatouille), anti-fishing (Finding Nemo and Little Mermaid), and encourage respect for the environment (Pocahontas).*

In the end, this latest campaign is about nothing more than solidifying their self-proclaimed delusion that shelter killing is a function of the irresponsible public and has nothing to do with their own untoward actions. And because they falsely claim it is beyond their control and a fait accompli, shelter killing ceases to be an ethical or humane issue (hence a group can call itself, without the slightest hint of irony, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or Humane Society of the United States and support the shelter killing of healthy and other savable animals).

The line of thinking goes as follows: “Because people are bad, they can’t be trusted with pets, and so we have to kill them because the alternative is worse.” The matriarch of this “catch and kill” philosophy, the late-Phyllis Wright of the Humane Society of the United States, said it herself in countenancing an animal control mentality that worries about saving animals but not killing them:

I’ve put 70,000 dogs and cats to sleep… But I tell you one thing: I don’t worry about one of those animals that was put to sleep… Being dead is not cruelty to animals.

It is this view that cries about the dangers of “impulse” adoptions and the need to otherwise kill without the data to see if it is even true. In fact, despite that shelters and national groups have historically railed against offsite adoption programs (in which shelters take animals into the community such as malls and other high traffic areas) because this would lead to impulse adoptions, twenty years of data show that there is no factual evidence to support the claim; that animals adopted from offsite adoption venues are less likely to be surrendered to shelters (considered “failed adoptions”) than those from other places. But even if it was true and people adopted on impulse, why do we always assume the worst? According to Bonney Brown of the Nevada Humane Society, whose community shelters are saving over 90% of all dogs despite an intake rate over two times the national average: “Humans are capable of many good and noble impulses, including adopting a pet and giving them a loving home.”

The San Francisco SPCA, one of the shelters who also issued a press release stating they were concerned about the film, goes even further, citing a dubious statistic for a dubious proposition: that 15% of the dogs they placed last year were Chihuahuas and the movie will just intensify that. But what is the relevance of this? And is it even true? The reality is that this particular shelter actively sought out small dogs from out of its county jurisdiction because they claim that is what the public wants and because they ran out of “adoptable” dogs within the county. If 15% of its intake is the Chihuahua, it is because they went out to other counties looking for them in response to the high public demand for smaller breeds of dogs. This does not sound like a crisis. This sounds like success. We are, after all, in the business of adoption.

It is time to put to bed the absurd notion, repeatedly so often by those who blindly regurgitate untrue clichés put out by the national groups, that we want to “put ourselves out of business.” (Truth be told, HSUS wants to raise money forever. It has no desire to put itself out of business.) The reality is that people love dogs, will always want to live with dogs, and therefore, unless we want to increase the number of puppy mills rather than put them out of business, there will always be a need for rescue groups and shelters and we should always be there.

Moreover, assisting and rehoming dogs is the mission of these shelters. It is why they exist in the first place. There will always be a demand for them—just as there will always be orphaned and homeless animals in need of assistance. It is therefore the duty and obligation of animal shelters to put into place effective and humane ways of handling the intake of these animals that does not involve killing them, as has been shown to be possible at shelters in communities which have rejected killing and put in place the most innovative sheltering protocols in the country.

Some of these communities are urban, some rural, some in the North, some in the South, some in what we call “liberal” or “blue” states, and some are in conservative parts of the country (at least one is in the “reddest” part of the “reddest” state.) Demographically, these communities share little in common. What they do share, however, is shelter leadership committed to saving all the lives at risk.

That groups like PETA and shelters mired in traditional dogma are already bemoaning killing they say they will have to do is not only untrue. It is obscene in its defeatism given success in these other communities, and given how monumentally the predicted outcome fails up to live up to the mission which they exist to fulfill. It is also both an embarrassment and a self-indictment of their failed leadership and model.

During the late 1990s, the San Francisco SPCA was the crown jewel of the No Kill movement, a beacon of truth in a foggy world for shelter animals dominated by half-truths, mistruths, and outright falsehoods put out by other shelters and the large national groups. Has it fallen so far that it too now uses misinformation and dubious claims for purposes of fear mongering? Are we really to a point in this movement that we don’t want any movies about dogs?

And given the public’s insatiable desire for small dogs, if there is an increase in the number of Chihuahuas surrendered, shelters should have no problems placing them. I am not saying it would be a good thing if this were to happen. Broken bonds aren’t a good thing for dogs. Going to any shelter is not necessarily a good thing for dogs. But if the dog isn’t being given the love, care, attention and life he deserves, shelters can and should provide these dogs a better alternative. That is why they exist. That doesn’t mean the obscene act of killing per HSUS’ Phyllis Wright, which is now championed by PETA and others. It means a loving, new home. I am suggesting here is that if some people do act irresponsibly, as some people will do—if there is an increase in dogs surrendered to shelters because of the film—no Chihuahuas should or need be killed.

I could understand the concern if shelters and animal rights groups were questioning how the dogs used in filming the movie were treated and what became of them after filming was complete. I could understand if there was concern over where they came from. Were they purchased from puppy mills? Was their training humane? I have not seen the movie, and again, do not speak to its content. Nor do I know what the answers to these questions are. I want to know, and truth be told, it is why I avoid these types of movies. But these are not the arguments being made.

Instead, shelters have created such a hatred and distrust of the public, who they erroneously blame for their own failures to stop killing, that they have essentially embraced the premise that we can never highlight dogs or make movie about dogs because then people will go out in droves and buy them, neglect them, and ultimately dump them in shelters where shelters will kill them.

In reality, however, we are largely a nation of dog lovers. Collectively, we share our homes with seventy-five million of them. We talk to them, keep their pictures in our wallets, celebrate their birthdays, travel with them, and greet them upon coming home even before saying hello to the spouse and kids. We include them in holiday celebrations and take time off from work to care for them when they are sick. And when it is time to say good-bye, we grieve.

Every year, we spend more than forty billion dollars on our animal companions (including cats and others). And we provide billions more to charities and shelters that promise to help animals in need, with the largest of these having annual budgets in excess of one hundred million dollars. Most Americans today hold the humane treatment of companion animals as a personal value, reflected in our laws, the proliferation of organizations founded for animal protection, increased per capita spending on animal care, and great advancements in veterinary medicine.

Instead of the fear mongering based on draconian stereotypes, platitudes, and mistruths, how about a campaign to appeal to what is best in the dog loving American public? How about picking up where Disney left off with their lifetime responsibility and adoption disclaimers, and putting in place a comprehensive pro-active and positive message that says to people:

CHIHUAHUAS ARE GREAT. ADOPTING ONE IS EVEN GREATER.

If you walk out of the movie in love with Chihuahuas or dogs in general and want to add one to your family, educate yourself about proper care, common characteristics, what you can expect, and what your responsibilities are. Then if your family determines this type of dog is right for you and your family is right for this type of dog, please adopt one from a shelter or visit any of the number of breed rescue groups in your community.

To that end, we are providing a list of groups and shelters which can help you find your new best friend, regardless of whether he or she is a Chihuahua or any of the other great purebred and mixed breed dogs waiting for someone to fall in love with them in your community shelters and rescue groups.

Now that is a campaign I could get behind.

I could even get behind telling potential Chihuahua families that buying from pet stores who feed the puppy mill industry will be fueling overbreeding, inbreeding, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of human socialization, overcrowded cages and the killing of animals by those facilities when they are no longer profitable. I could get behind a campaign looking at where movie companies get dogs used in filming, how they are trained, where they are kept, how they are treated, and where they go after the filming is done.

I could get behind a lot of campaigns around this issue. What I cannot get behind is the dire foreshadowing, and pre-emptive apologia for the totally unnecessary killing of Chihuahuas. I cannot get behind organizations which see phantoms of doom rather than opportunities to seize upon the educational and lifesaving potential created by people’s love of dogs and our popular culture’s reflection of that love. I cannot get behind shelters and national organizations which are unwilling to stop a kill-oriented outcome of their own creation, which they alone have the power to prevent. We should be better than that as a movement. And one day—when the current slate of dinosaurs that run shelters and national animal advocacy groups are swept aside—rest assured, we will be.

* In fact, as Animal People pointed out ten years ago, Walt Disney himself believed in animal rights, attended a humane education conference in Chicago, and all in all, has done more to promote the concept of animal rights than most other organizations: “No one has done more to further those ideals than Disney, who in Bambi, 101 Dalmatians, and Dumbo indicted the cruelty inherent in hunting, the fur trade, and circuses… defended coyotes against predator control trapping… and in countless other ways redefined cultural perceptions of how humans should relate to animals.”