Discussions »Activities

Nathan Winograd recap

Ms Moxie on Activities - Tue, October 09 2007

First of all, I'm sorry that I didn't get to meet any of you last night. I didn't get there until late and probably wouldn't have recognized most of you anyway. That said, I need to apologize. I did not mean to give the impression that this was going to be a "To Do" list on how to make a No kill commmunity. This event was NEVER promoted in that manner. It was a book promotion and signing event. Move to Act is hoping to get Mr. Winograd to return sometime in the spring for an actual presentation on how to make Indy a No Kill community. I'm very sorry if I indicated that anyone would walk out of the room last night knowing all the answers on how to go No Kill. That being said, I think Mr Winograd was an excellent speaker. I did not notice him repeating himself nor did the event really last that long. He did what he came to Indy to do-talk about himself and promote his book. We learned about his background and experience(lawyer, shelter director, etc). We learned about the history of the animal shelters and how wrong they've gone over the years. And we got to hear how several communities have made it right and been able to be successful No Kill communities. One really needs to read his books or explore the website www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/index.html in order to better understand his vision. We need to quit blaming everybody else and start doing something about it. All of the pieces of the puzzle need to fall into place before we can be a No Kill community. It's not enough to do SOME fostering and allow SOME breed rescues to take dogs. It's a tough way to go but it's the right way. It's what is best for the animals and I think that's what we all want. Someone mentioned volunteering in an earlier post and that's true. We all need to step up and do what we can to help. Not everybody can foster or go to adoptathons every week but there are plenty of other things that can be done and are necessary. Volunteers are the backbone of the No Kill Revolution. I really don't feel like Mr Winograd was trying to say that shelter workers enjoy euthanizing animals. What he said is that we need to realize there is another way. Don't just stand by and be complacent and say "Well at least they died a good death". Instead ask Why they had to die. It may be true that it was a better death than some but let's make sure they don't even make it to that place. Instead of making excuses, try making a difference. Marsha Boden was interviewed for this article http://www.nuvo.net/articles/a_no_kill_equation/
Personally, I feel that people that donate to places such as HSI need to know how and for what purpose their money is being used. I would much rather see that $110,000 being spent on the animals than on a Director that allows needless killing of our pets. Please educate yourself on this issue before forming an opinion. I think the most interesting comment of the night was the difference between animal Control and animal humane societies. Animal control was put in place to protect the people from the animals. Animal humane societies were in place first and they were made to protect the animals from the people(I like that one the best). Let's get back to the roots of the American Humane movement and protect our animal friends from bad people. I would be more than happy to discuss this on here in more detail if people are interested. Thanks for listening, Ms Moxie

Mama Muttblood^..^ on Oct 09 at 11:21 PM

That's pretty much the take away message I heard. Thanks for adding your thoughts. If we all work together we should be able to make this a reality.

Beverly on Oct 10 at 05:57 AM

I didn't go with any expectations, so I wasn't disappointed in the least. I found it to be encouraging because, to be honest, I had been discouraged and had started to believe euthanasia was an unfortunate necessity, at least for the next several years. The seminar gave me hope! It made me believe we could do it. Before, I had very little faith. I thought steps would have been helpful, but I understand it wasn't the whole point of the evening. It was a very useful seminar to me personally. I did buy the book, so I'm going to get started on reading that today!!

Dixie LuLu on Oct 10 at 07:09 AM

Bravo!!!! So very well said Moxie! That is what we walked away with but poor momma gets so passionate and mixed up with feelings she never would have been able to put it so well. Thanks for putting her thoughts into words. I don't think you are to blame for what people expected from this. If they educated themselves about what the event was about then they would have understood you weren't going to walk away with answers, but hopefully faith that it CAN work, even here. Beesides, it was a BOOK signing, he isn't going to give it all away. That would leave no reason for anyone to READ the book. Mom is reading just as fast as she can and is so wanting to absorb everything. Thanks again Moxie!

Blitzen on Oct 10 at 08:18 AM

I agree that it was a great evening. I was already familiar with Nathan Winograd and the No Kill concept. I was very excited to see him in person. It's always great to put a real live person to a name. I hope they can bring him back in the spring to tell us more. In the meantime, I'm about halfway through the book and getting more excited with every page. I'm ready to run out and try to do it all(which obviously I can't do by myself). I guess I'll take baby steps. I was glad to see so many people there although I too did not see anyone from the big two-ACC and HSI. Maybe I'll send them copies of the book:-)

Beverly on Oct 10 at 09:02 AM

I think the volunteer coordinator from ACC was there.

Grace on Oct 10 at 10:39 AM

Thanks for your recap; we couldn't make it to the speech. Could you please be a little more specific on what each person can do to help? You know, like 1)... 2)... 3)...

Lolan on Oct 10 at 12:17 PM

There were two people from ACC there at the event and even the board president from FACE. ACC reps seemed to be happy to hear Nathan's word and move forward with helping reduce their kill rates. I know Move to Act personally invited Martha and even went to HSI to hang signs. The signs were never hung and NO ONE from HSI was present. I agree with Ms. Moxie- I hope people think twice before supporting HSI and Matha's paycheck!
It was great seeing so many group presents- I hope this excitement continues and leads to change!

Alena on Oct 10 at 01:53 PM

Well...that does offer some explanation if it was intended for a book signing and overview.

What, you guys think $110,000 is too little???? LOL! JK! When you work in Animal Welfare and you make 6 figures a year, you better be doing a damn good job, giving extensive seminars about how well your doing around the country, etc. Holy Crap! The majority of the Drs. I work with don't make near that much!!!!!! And it's all grant money too! I went over the move to act website and the one thing I took from it was that Nathan redesigns shelters to make them more accessible to the public--putting money towards making them more asthetically pleasing and comfortable for both people and animals and advertising the animals more in a variety of ways--those are great things that I think need to change. When I think of "advertising" animals at humane societies, I think of education. I don't think putty $20,000 towards 2 voluntary seminars a year about spay/neuter does any good. Putting that money towards treating treatable medical conditions in dogs is beneficial--or finding another way to advertising the, etc. That's what we need to do.

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