The Problem Isn’t the No Kill Label. It’s the Misunderstanding

A recent blog published by Cathy Bissell of teh bissell Foundation is the same story I have heard since my entry into the No Kill Advocacy world.  And it still rings hollow. I expect more understanding from those in the animal welfare community.

The strongest point in the statement is that shelters should not be judged by one number alone. That is fair. A shelter’s performance should also include disease control, length of stay, housing quality, pet retention, foster care, redemption, and overall care. In fact, the No Kill framework itself is built around a 11 programs and services, not just percentage, including foster care, rescue partnerships, pet retention, proactive redemption, adoptions, sterilization/return for community cats, and medical and behavior rehabilitation.

The blog becomes misleading when it implies that “No Kill” is basically just a 90% live release rate. Defining No Kill states that 90% is a milestone, not the finish line, and that a 90% rate alone does not mean a shelter is truly No Kill. You can find that and more at the No Kill Advocacy Center.  Calculating an Animal Shelter’s Live Release Rate says the same thing even more plainly: 90% is the start of reform and modernization, not its realization.

So if BISSELL is arguing that a single metric is too simplistic, that is not really an argument against No Kill. It is an argument against reducing No Kill to a single metric, which serious No Kill advocates reject.

The “morals over metrics” framing is also rhetorically clever, but false in the way it sets up the issue. Metrics are not the opposite of morals. Good metrics are one way morality becomes accountable.  Does Bissel measure how many Spay/Neuters it funds?  Does it use that metric as evidence of success?  I think it does.   

Without transparent outcome data, shelters can hide killing, exclude categories of animals, or manipulate reporting. The humane position is not “forget the numbers.” It is use honest numbers, and pair them with rigorous standards of care.

The claim that No Kill pressure causes overcrowding, disease, and unsafe adoptions also needs more nuance. Poorly run shelters can create those problems under any philosophy. But the evidence is that the solution is better operations, not more killing. One example in Defining No Kill describes a No Kill animal control shelter that reduced disease by 90%, cut killing by 75%, kept animals exercised and socialized, and did so while operating at capacity. 

Save Rates for Open Admission Shelter in Canon City, - the Humane Society of Fremont County.

That directly undercuts the idea that lifesaving necessarily causes poor welfare. Likewise, No Kill 101 cites research from Austin finding that higher live release was achievable municipally and was associated with no increase in serious dog bites, but a decline in severe bites.

The section about large municipal shelters handling the hardest cases is true as far as it goes. Open-admission shelters do face harder intake pressures. But again, that is not an argument against No Kill. Open-admission shelters can be No Kill, and many already are.