Whenever a shelter kills a homeless animal entrusted to its care, it has profoundly failed. And animal shelters fail, as a general rule, fifty to eighty percent of the time. Put another way, animal sheltering is an industry whose leadership mostly fails. Unlike any other industry, however, these directors still retain their positions, are pillars of their communities, and are tapped as “experts” by the large national groups. That credibility, and esteem, has been seriously threatened by the No Kill movement. In other words, animal control directors — fearful of being held accountable for failure — are putting their own interests ahead of the lives of the animals.

The second possible reason is guilt. Having killed hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of dogs and cats, convinced there was no other way, shelter administrators are not able to face the fact that the vast majority of the killing they do is unnecessary.

Another possibility — and perhaps the most likely — is the most disturbing of all: some shelter directors don’t care enough about the animals. Killing in the face of alternatives of which you are not aware, but should be, is unforgivable. It would be like a doctor who refuses to keep pace with the changing field of medicine, treating pneumonia with leeches instead of rest, antibiotics and fluid therapy. Killing in the face of alternatives you simply refuse to implement, or about which you remain willfully ignorant, is nothing short of obscene.