April 27, 2025
Why No Kill is Failing: The Case for a Smarter Approach to Rescue
The no-kill movement promised to revolutionize animal sheltering by saving lives and ending unnecessary euthanasia. But behind the catchy slogans and glowing statistics, a different reality lurks – one that’s rarely discussed. In this eye-opening conversation with animal welfare expert Daniel Ettinger, we dig deep into the issues plaguing some shelters striving for that elusive 90% live release rate.
As a rescuer myself, I'm experiencing a system overwhelmed by its own ambitions. Shelters don't have a clear understanding of what it means to be no-kill, and communities are not set up to provide all the realities needed to make no-kill work. Instead, shelters are closing their doors when full to avoid euthanasia and maintain high live-release rates, finders are stuck with animals they can’t keep, and rescues are buckling under overflow. Even worse, some animals are warehoused for years, leading to questionable quality of life. Daniel shares a more balanced alternative – SMART (Saving More Animals Responsibly Together), an approach that addresses the root causes and focuses on community resources, transparency, and responsible care.
We discuss how the relentless pursuit of arbitrary statistics, like the 90% live release rate, has led to dangerous consequences, including the adoption of unsafe animals and public safety issues. We also explore why adopting more pets isn’t the solution and how real change starts with accessible veterinary care, housing policy reform, and community education.
This episode challenges the black-and-white thinking surrounding animal rescue and offers a fresh perspective on how we can all contribute to more sustainable, humane solutions. Tune in for an honest look at the no-kill movement and discover why we need a smarter approach to animal welfare.
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Thanks for listening to Muddy Paws and Hairballs, your go-to resource for all things pet care. From dog training, behavior, and socialization to cat enrichment, pet adoption, and tackling behavior problems, we provide expert advice and real talk to help you create a happy, healthy life with your pets. Whether you're dealing with dog anxiety, looking for puppy training tips, or exploring enrichment ideas for your cat, we've got you covered. Be sure to check out all our episodes!
00:00 - No-Kill Movement's Unintended Consequences
03:59 - Defining No-Kill: The Industry Confusion
11:09 - Closed Doors and Warehouse Sheltering
18:23 - Introducing SMART: A Better Approach
23:15 - Balancing Public Safety and Animal Welfare
36:22 - Community Support and Adoption Advocacy
49:28 - Working Together: Building a United Future
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You've seen the memes, you've heard the slogans, but what if I told you the no-kill movement isn't working like we thought it would and in fact, it's quietly hurting the animals we claim to protect?
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In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on what's really happening in shelters and rescues and why it's time for a better way forward.
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Stay tuned, way forward, stay tuned.
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Hey there, and welcome to Muddy Paws and Hairballs, the podcast that skips the sugarcoating and dives straight into the messy, meaningful and sometimes maddening world of pet parenting and rescue.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and today we're going there.
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The no-kill movement started with good intentions Save more lives, stop unnecessary euthanasia and push for change.
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And that sounded great Until shelters started closing their doors to animals, not because they didn't care, but because they were trying to meet the public's demand for a 90% no-kill live release rate.
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That number may look great on paper, but what about the fallout?
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It's leaving finders stuck, animals dumped and some shelters warehousing animals for years with no real plan for their future.
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My guest today is Daniel Ettinger, an animal welfare professional, former animal control officer and host of the Keep it Humane podcast.
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Together, we're digging into what's broken in the no-kill model, why saving them all isn't always the most humane choice or the safest for the public and how we can start shifting towards a more honest, balanced and truly humane approach to animal welfare.
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So if you're ready to rethink what rescue should look like without the PR spin, then this episode is for you.
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Daniel, welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me.
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I appreciate you coming on here.
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Like I was saying before we got started, this is a topic that I've wanted to address and I've kind of dropped some little hints along the way, but I feel like, you know, getting it out there in more detail would be beneficial, and I'm seeing people more and more in rescue and, you know, just seeing that smart infographic.
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That basically that's how I found you is because I saw that infographic and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's exactly what we need.
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People are getting a little bit more brave about putting it out there and basically talking about no kill and where it's working, where it's not, and maybe there might be a better option.
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So just to kind of kick things off, because you're the expert, I think everybody's heard of no-kill, but what does that mean?
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I mean, what is it in a nutshell?
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I think that's part of the problem.
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To be honest, amy, I really do, and I've had this discussion with many people, not even people that are in the industry, not shelter workers, not rescue workers.
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One of the trips that I've been on recently took me to good old San Antonio, texas, I think that's how you're supposed to say it, san.
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Antonio, Texas I think that's how you're supposed to say it San Antonio.
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And while I was there, I was teaching a group of social workers for the military and the first question that I was asked in that training was are there any shelters that are not no-kill left in the United States?
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Wow, shelters that are not no-kill left in the United States Wow.
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That's.
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The problem is, we don't know what it means.
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In her mind, she thinks that every animal gets to either live out the rest of its life in a shelter or sanctuary and that we adopt out pretty much any and every animal we can.
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And I wish that was the case, amy.
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I really do.
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It's not Right.
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So the definition is I just don't know.
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Yeah, and we hear that a lot around here when I was volunteering at Animal Control you know it was are you no kill?
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And it's like, okay, I kind of think of it as a show game.
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It's like it depends on what you consider kill, no kill.
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You know, is euthanasia part of the equation?
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I mean, it just becomes this very complex thing.
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But it's not as black and white as everybody lives, or they don't.
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There is a need for euthanasia, and if anybody says there's not, they are delusional, I'll just throw it out there.
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And if anybody says there's not, they are delusional, I'll just throw it out there.
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I'm just going to be blunt about that.
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There is a need, there's a behavioral need and there's a medical need.
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Now, was there a time, is there still a time, where euthanasia happens for time and space?
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It hasn't happened in my world in the last 16 years that I've been in this profession, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
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It hasn't happened in my world, and so I think the intention behind it was good.
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Amy, I think that you know, but it depends on who you ask and what you ask.
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Organizations and I'm not talking just one, I'm talking big and small that may have used that terminology to help fund their mission or their goals, because it's just a genius marketing term.
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Yeah.
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So you know, I think the intention behind it is good.
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I think the intent to say we shouldn't be euthanizing for space, we shouldn't be euthanizing if it's avoidable, healthy, adoptable animal, and I believe that.
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But I think the other thing that people need to consider is that there are a lot of factors that feed into the whole animal sheltering, animal rescue, animal welfare world that need to be in place just so in order to create that reality.
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Like I had a lady the other day that posted when I had said something no kills not working.
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Her comment was it's working in my neighborhood.
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I said what do you mean?
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Well, you know, we've really helped a lot of feral cats by doing trapped neuter return and it's like okay, so trapped neuter return is working in your neighborhood, great, so it's like you know, and she's right.
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I mean that's a piece of the puzzle.
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Like ideally you'd have all these pieces in play and then you wouldn't be in as dire a situation for euthanizing healthy, adoptable animals.
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But the reality is especially here in Texas I don't know what it's like in California is that those other pieces aren't in play.
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Trap neuter return is in many, even though the state has made it legal.
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There are municipalities that say you can't release an animal because that's putting an animal at large and that's illegal.
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There are communities that don't want that in their community because they don't want cats, you know, climbing on their cars.
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And so if that one piece doesn't work, what are the other pieces that aren't working?
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You know, what are you seeing?
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That are the pieces that are missing to make that work.
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I think, first and foremost, the terminology creates this divide in our community.
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And in that creates this divide in our community and that's taking away from other avenues where we can truly create a kind of a harmonious, working, just animal welfare world where we're all trying to chip in to help people, help animals.
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We say that on our podcast all the time help people, help animals.
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And people ask well, what does that mean?
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And it's we don't do enough to focus on what the community actually needs.
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We try to meet this arbitrary number and that's that 90% live release rate.
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That is a very arbitrary number and data will support that.
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I think the community needs access to care.
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So low-cost bayoneter, low-cost vaccinations, low-cost services.
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So if I have a dog that needs a hip replacement, or I'm not just giving it to the shelter, or a dog with pyometra, I'm not just giving it to the shelter.
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Or a puppy with parvo, right, I'm not euthanizing it or giving it to the shelter because I can't care for it.
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So we need to find those mechanisms.
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And then that second piece, that second tier to that, is we need to find appropriate rules for housing.
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So if you rent, if you're a renter, you may know how difficult it is to have pets as a renter and that I don't know what percentage that would change Like if you polled people that currently can't have a pet because of their apartment.
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How much would that go up?
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And what I mean by that is, if I want a pet, I'm going to have a pet Like, regardless.
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I'm going to either make it an emotional support animal or I'm just going to live with it in my apartment.
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And they better not say nothing because if they do, I'll just keep my pet and they'll have to evict me, right.
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So there's that.
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I don't know if that's going to give us like a 10% increase in adoptions from the shelter or a 50% increase, and I don't know if there's a mechanism to truly track that, but we have to find ways to soften that so we can have just around, all around for all animals, all pets, just better resources in general.
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All animals, all pets.
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I have a dog that I need to give up, or I found a dog I need to do this, or whatever it might be.
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It's like why?
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What is the situation?
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First, and oftentimes it does come down to lack of resources for medical treatment, which we provide in many instances, or the housing situation.
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That's a whole nother.
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I mean, we could do a whole episode on that in and of itself.
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But the challenge is and you see, people you know you made the comment about, you know, having the alternative is turning it into a shelter Around here, the way that the shelter so this is the ripple effect that I was trying to explain, apparently not very eloquently on Facebook the other day is that you know, all of these shelters in our area, the municipal ones and the non-municipal ones, even if they don't want to call themselves no-kill because they don't want to be held to that standard, they're all trying to live to that standard.
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You know they're very proud of putting out their live release rates and I think those numbers, like you mentioned, I mean, what is a live release rate?
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What is 90%?
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What's included in that?
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What's not included in that is a whole shell game in my book.
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But what they do is they basically close doors.
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So, whereas a municipal shelter, who I would think their role is to keeping the community safe and you know safety would include not allowing dogs running down the highway because it can cause a wreck, if nothing else, sure that they are flat out saying no, we can't come get it because we're full.
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But they've got that 90% live release rate.
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And why are we judging the success of any individual, or shelter or rescue, on their live release rate?
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It should be much more than that.
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Yeah, but that's what people have stuck in their head.
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I mean people will literally call us as a rescue and say, are you no kill?
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Or they'll say well, I don't want to adopt from a blah blah because I'll refer them Like you should go to this shelter, oh, I don't want to adopt from them because they're not no kill.
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But when you want to help them more kill.
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That's exactly who you should be adopting from is the highest kill shelter you can find.
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The mindset is just people are just delusional.
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They don't have a clue what's really going on.
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What blows my mind right is you can get a plaque that says I don't even know what the plaque says it comes from and it says, like in 2024, you are a no-kill shelter or whatever.
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I think that's what it is.
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That's all they're looking at.
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They're not looking at.
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How many community events did you do?
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Did you do spay and neuter services?
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Did you offer low-cost vaccinations throughout the year?
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Are you giving away microchips for free?
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Are you working in schools doing humane education so we can tell the youth what's important, Like?
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Are all we looking at to get that plaque is a number?
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Do you just have to hit 90%?
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Yeah, wow, yeah, yeah.
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And that's the sad thing and you know, even the owner surrenders I mean, that was the first to go around here is that we can keep our numbers down by not taking owner surrenders, and so I always find it funny.
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But people say, well, I'll be forced to take it to the shelter.
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And I want to laugh and say, yeah, good luck with that, because there's not a shelter in the area that's going to take it.
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Or people will be again very proud that such and such an organization is no kill.
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And it's like, well, it's easy to be no kill if you put all kinds of parameters on what you take through your doors.
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Like I only take, you know, pink poodles that are between the ages of two and four years.
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You know what I mean.
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It's like, yeah, then it's easy because those are the highly desirable ones.
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It's the other ones that don't have any choice about what they take in that end up with those animals that sit and sit and sit.
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So there's just so much that feeds into that that the public's not aware of, and they just kind of go along and drink the Kool-Aid 100%, that's the term we hear a lot.
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They're drinking the Kool-Aid.
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Yeah.
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So what are you seeing as far as the impact?
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I know for me what we're seeing here and just in my little small world.
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We're seeing finders, just as an example, basically being stuck with animals and, like I found a husky on the side.
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No, this is a good one.
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A guy said my son saw a husky running in the street and he picked it up and he brought it home and I can't find anybody to take it.
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Can you take it?
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It's like no, I can't take it.
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Well, what am I supposed to do with it?
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And what I really want to say is I guess you just better let it go, because if you can't keep it and you can't care for it and you can't find anybody to take it, what are you supposed to do?
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And then people get mad.
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You never should have picked it up in the first place.
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I mean, I don't know what to tell people, but people are getting stuck and they don't realize the ripple effect of the shelter is full.
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The shelters, you know, they're trying to maintain that number.
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They're full.
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Then they basically say well, we're full, call the rescues.
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Now I'm telling you I'm full because I'm taking all the overflow that they didn't take.
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And then people are being stuck in it.
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You know, it just creates this ripple effect of more animals just being left on the street or people finding animals and being stuck with animals that they can't care for, and that's just one impact.
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What else?
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What else is the kind of the downside of this attempt at playing this shell game?
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I take my time to answer these questions because I think I'll be honest, amy, I don't know if there is truly Like it's.
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It's all hypotheticals in some aspects because the data is not out there as far as like what's really happening.
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There's data out there that will support whatever goal or mission you're trying to accomplish, but what I can say from an anecdotal perspective would be that it's creating an environment where, like you said, people don't want to go to a shelter that's open in mission because they feel like they don't adhere to the no-kill policies, and then what happens is those animals are less likely to get adopted because people are angry or upset with that shelter.
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You have that aspect and, again, I don't know how accurate that is.
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That's just an anecdotal response to what I've heard or seen.
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You have people that are turned away from releasing animals or, excuse me like whether it's owner surrender or strays, that you know.
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There's some stories if you just Google what happens, and there's some really negative things that happen because of that, where animals are treated really, really, really poorly, which may include death because that person is frustrated and takes it out on the animal.
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Obviously we don't condone anything like that, because they feel helpless, they feel like we've tried and then you're turning us away.
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So the next best thing to do is X, which is not the next best thing to do, but it's an emotional response to an emotional situation and it's not rational.
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And I think, having those barriers in place, it's almost like we have to be tribal in this situation, and not that we intend to be, but that's what it is.
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It's like you either subscribe to the one tribe which is no kill, or you're against it, and I don't think that's the way that it should be.
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And again, going back to your initial question, I don't know if that was the way that it was intended.
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I think egos get involved and I think people run with certain things because their name's behind that and they want to see.
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You know, see it just continue to grow.
00:17:00.841 --> 00:17:06.821
There's a lot of other challenges that I have with the impact of no kill from organizations and we've done it too.
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We've had the dog or the cat that's been in our program for X amount of time and we're so proud of the fact that after 275 days, you know, I think the difference for me is that our 275 days, the animals living in a home, not living in a cage somewhere, for you know, five years of its life or whatever the case may be, and whether that's the best thing and what that, but I will say that the whole.
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I mean I've got a pit bull in my.
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She's not in my living room right now because I'm showing my house, so all of my pets are out in my dog kennel building that I built.
00:17:40.044 --> 00:17:52.436
But you know, I've had her in our program for two years because she's blind and she has other issues that make her not like the perfectly adoptable pet for just anybody.
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And it's like I often question myself and say is that the right thing or should?
00:17:56.691 --> 00:18:09.266
Because she's basically tied up a spot in my rescue for the last two years and how many animals who didn't have issues could I have taken in and turned over and gotten adopted out in them.
00:18:09.266 --> 00:18:27.207
So there's, you know, there's a lot of other factors that I think we could dive into as far as challenges, because we're trying to be no kill and do the right thing kill and do the right thing, but you know what else happens to.
00:18:27.247 --> 00:18:50.282
I didn't mean no, no, one of the things we didn't get into is you get people that call themselves rescues, right, and they do that because they there's a lot of factors, but they do that for whatever purpose it is, and then they go to these municipal shelters or shelters that don't use the label no kill and they'll take animals and then they'll warehouse them and then they become a problem in the community because now we have this excessive hoarding situation.
00:18:51.065 --> 00:19:10.468
Uh, we covered a really insane case out of colorado about, uh, louanne strickland, who in some senses was the queen of no kill um, in colorado, was a big, big supporter of that by the time of her death, when she was in upper eighties or nineties.
00:19:10.468 --> 00:19:11.330
She lived a long time.
00:19:11.330 --> 00:19:22.685
She was in possession of over 400 dogs and just deplorable living conditions, and so, like, where's that balance right?
00:19:22.685 --> 00:19:38.589
Like where's we don't want dogs living in horrid situations, but then, for whatever reason, for whatever reason, we play this emotional game of well, I don't want to have to put this animal down because of our own personal belief in death.
00:19:39.681 --> 00:19:39.820
And.
00:19:40.041 --> 00:19:44.734
I don't know if we want to take the podcast there, but I think that has a strong piece to it as well.
00:19:45.637 --> 00:19:46.519
Oh, yeah, 100%.
00:19:46.519 --> 00:19:55.925
I think there are things that are worse than death and being in a hoarding situation for your entire life or a huge chunk of your life.
00:19:55.925 --> 00:20:12.532
I think we spend too much time applying our human standards of life and death and our fear of death and applying that to an animal who has no fear of death and is just going to be here and not here, and so maybe that's better in some instances.
00:20:12.532 --> 00:20:14.061
But yeah, I mean that's.
00:20:14.061 --> 00:20:19.425
Another factor is the warehousing and the hoarding of animals, and that's not the point of a rescue.
00:20:19.425 --> 00:20:21.230
To me, a rescue is supposed to be a pipeline.
00:20:21.230 --> 00:20:44.787
Now, if you're a sanctuary for a certain type of animal, that's fine, but even then there's a limit to how much space that you have, and then you draw the limit and then you know when the animal dies of natural causes or whatever, then maybe you have a spot for something else, but you don't just keep stacking them to the ceilings, and I think that's what's happened, so that people and I think it's not even just the fear of death I think it's a huge piece of ego.
00:20:45.188 --> 00:21:00.403
One of the examples that I can't remember if I mentioned this because I did a very short podcast episode last week about why I'm personally getting out of the hands on of rescue and I think I did did share this story, but I'll just share it with you.
00:21:00.443 --> 00:21:08.553
It's like the person that finds an animal that can't use its back legs and can't urinate on its own, so it needs its bladder expressed multiple times a day and they're all in.
00:21:08.553 --> 00:21:16.126
They're going to do that four or five times a day for the rest of that animal's life and it's like, no, not on my watch, You're not, because that's not a life for that animal.
00:21:16.126 --> 00:21:24.143
You may be feeling like a hero and I think there's a certain amount of you know, hero complex, savior complex and even martyr complex.
00:21:24.143 --> 00:21:27.305
Like, look at what I've sacrificed for this poor animal.
00:21:27.305 --> 00:21:41.272
You know like I could put it out on social media and say how awesome I am because I expressed this animal's bladder five times a day for the last five years and it's like, yeah, that's just like I have a real big problem with that with that.
00:21:41.553 --> 00:21:53.380
So talk to us about SMART, because it's just a better way of looking at this whole mess that we've created in a much more balanced and appropriate way, for the best of the animals, I think.
00:21:54.441 --> 00:21:59.913
I knew that there needed to be something to I hate to say it counter no-kill.
00:21:59.913 --> 00:22:05.671
That was the whole idea, and so what I wanted was hey, are you a no-kill shelter?
00:22:05.671 --> 00:22:17.032
No, we're actually a smart shelter, and here's why I worked with Dr G, Dr Michelle Gonzalez, who has her own podcast called the Animal Welfare Junction.
00:22:17.032 --> 00:22:17.815
She's awesome.
00:22:17.815 --> 00:22:31.789
She's been a super big supporter of smart, and so she and I were, you know, just texting back and forth and it just landed saving more animals responsibly together, and it's just perfect, it fits.
00:22:31.789 --> 00:22:32.424
That's.
00:22:32.424 --> 00:22:33.640
That's what we're trying.
00:22:33.780 --> 00:22:53.607
All of us are trying to do without ego, like we're just trying to get in there and see how we can help people, help animals, like that is our goal, that should be our goal and that's that was the birth, that was like how it really started, and so it's really to kind of come along and embrace that there is a need for something different.
00:22:54.529 --> 00:23:12.997
The biggest thing that I see, with no kill this is just a personal opinion Like nothing, I say is other than my own personal opinion is that we all search for an identity, whether that's individually or collectively or in a professional setting, whether it's the shelter we work for, whether it's our own lives, etc.
00:23:12.997 --> 00:23:17.759
And no kill was a great way to create an identity.
00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:19.326
I'm a no kill shelter I'm part of this big group, we are no kill was a great way to create an identity.
00:23:19.326 --> 00:23:19.442
I'm a no kill shelter.
00:23:19.442 --> 00:23:21.589
I'm part of this big group, we are no kill.
00:23:21.589 --> 00:23:24.849
And I think that really helped support that movement.
00:23:24.849 --> 00:23:34.374
And as I sit here and realize that the only other true identity out there was socially conscious sheltering, try saying that three times fast in a sentence.
00:23:34.775 --> 00:23:35.255
Yeah, really.
00:23:36.722 --> 00:23:44.890
It was a great concept and I know some of the people that were involved in the background of that and I think that it was rightfully.
00:23:44.890 --> 00:23:48.545
It was great timing, just bad, poor name management.
00:23:48.545 --> 00:24:02.321
Truthfully, and I mean that with all due respect, as we now have this ability to like, focus and move forward, smart creates an identity for all of us as we work together.
00:24:02.321 --> 00:24:13.292
And the fun fact, the little side note the thing that I like the best about smart and it wasn't intentional when it was created was our industry and how we used to operate.
00:24:13.980 --> 00:24:25.744
We were dealing with dumb animals, and when I say that that was the terminology used in the 1800s to describe dogs and cats, they were dumb, right, even horses dumb.
00:24:25.744 --> 00:24:40.865
The Denver Dumb Friends League has been a very popular shelter for many, many, many, actually a century, and they finally changed the name to Humane Colorado, which is great Good for them.
00:24:40.865 --> 00:25:02.250
But to to bring it full circle, we've taken it from dumb to now smart and the goal is to really provide that identity, provide an opportunity for us to share resources, network together as a group, but then come up with other ways that we can work in our community to help people, help animals.
00:25:02.250 --> 00:25:03.212
Yeah.
00:25:04.394 --> 00:25:08.942
So are there some basic tenets of the solution that SMART is proposing.
00:25:10.045 --> 00:25:16.842
First and foremost, it's just creating that environment of a community right.
00:25:16.842 --> 00:25:23.731
It's also creating an opportunity to work with your public health officials and One Health model.
00:25:23.731 --> 00:25:27.164
I don't know if you can hear my dog, but he's saying hello in the background.
00:25:27.987 --> 00:25:28.910
It's a pet podcast.
00:25:28.910 --> 00:25:30.820
It's okay, that's how we do it.
00:25:30.881 --> 00:25:42.976
He sees a skateboard, I'm sure, and in that aspect it's really just trying to use practical applications on how we can help as a community.
00:25:42.976 --> 00:25:47.211
So, again, I can't stress enough the access to care piece.
00:25:47.211 --> 00:25:50.619
I can't stress enough that 90% doesn't mean anything.
00:25:50.619 --> 00:25:57.693
It's a made-up number with truly arbitrary and controlled data to make it what it is.
00:25:57.693 --> 00:26:02.042
Arbitrary and controlled data to make it what it is.
00:26:02.042 --> 00:26:06.333
It's that transparency piece to make sure that we're communicating with everyone, not just our staff but the community.
00:26:06.333 --> 00:26:08.285
And then responsible treatment.
00:26:08.285 --> 00:26:10.454
So what does responsible treatment look like?
00:26:10.454 --> 00:26:25.772
It's that aspect of truly making sure no animal is suffering due to behavioral issues or medical issues, and so it may sound a lot like what no-kill is, but it removes some barriers that are in place.
00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:29.192
And you know it's interesting because I do see bits of like.
00:26:29.192 --> 00:26:39.068
There are several organizations in our area who are very, very focused on that and they're getting utilized Like a spay-neuter clinic, and they neutered 100 dogs this weekend.
00:26:39.068 --> 00:26:42.851
They're fully focused on that piece of it, because that's a piece of the puzzle.
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