I Object...

We have worked with and spoken with various Western NGO's and have an idea of the objections that might arise. We would like to address them here.

‘‘The government has to put laws first before we can give them ‘free reign’ about euthanasia, because it will just turn into slaughter’’

You think that because you have made a statement / recommendation from the West about what the best approach, it is in some way of going to tie the hands of the government and force them into analytical and effective mode? C’mon. You are that confident of your power to influence a developing country government? If one does not take into account the reality of their infrastructure and budget, what happens IN PRACTICE (not theory) is the following: they just find the easiest way out to sooth the public by giving them the easiest , most emotional Ask - the ‘getting rid of killings ’ usually followed up with giving public CNVR or stuffing all animals in shelters they dont control the quality of life in. Which is exactly what we have seen happen across several countries.

Here is an RSPCA ad from the 80’s. Here Euthanasia necessity / reality was USED to push legislation and social behaviour change in the UK ,  BEFORE good legislation was a reality. Which makes sense as people DON'T act till faced with harsh, cruel or urgent reality, shame and/ or disgust. When all is well the urgency for change is not there . If you think this was needed in the UK, where advocacy asking for more money / laws etc by the RSPCA (that was quiet old and respected by then) without reality taking hold - didn’t work, what do you expect in the developing world? This realistic development of matters is being denied and not practiced now due to desire to not hurt people's feelings. In the end - animals suffer.

’’We have said that CNVR should only be applied when the population is not against stray dogs on the street , we can’t be blamed if the activists didn’t notice it. We can’t help that they got the wrong impression about us recommending CNVR as the main method. It could be because they are less professional/ educated / able to follow the guidance to the dot.’’

Ok.. But did you recommend any other method and discuss it in detail , if the population IS against?

Let’s see how the large charities message is being weaponised and whether its just the ‘uncivilised’ countries animal welfare activists who misinterpret the message.. This is one of the largest US charities and an ICAM member:

https://www.hsi.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/pdfs/why_spayneuter_is_important.pdf

No one is arguing that spay neuter in itself, is not important. It’s this part below, that is being used by animal welfare activists in Eastern Europe to push for dog CNVR in law:

When effectively delivered and combined with vaccinations, spay/neuter provides humane and effective way to reduce the number of animals living on the streets, and improves the health of those remaining. Sterilizing street dogs and returning them to their territories on the streets allows for a natural reduction in their population over time and leaves the most socialized dogs on the streets. We have found that the public views these sterilized and vaccinated dogs (identifiable via an ear notch or other marking) more favourably and the human-dog interaction improves

It is very irresponsible to post such a thing for DOGS without clarifying that this can only work :

1)  in certain developing countries , not in developed. 

2) what to do if a country is going from developing to developed or somewhere in between

3) how much funds and years of commitment is needed to do it “effectively delivered’

This document was one of the things used as an argument in Russia to a) ban euthanasia on federal level (which turned out to be a disaster)  b) write in law CNVR for dogs at federal level without there being any public support (outside of animal activists) or capacity to do it financially in Russian cities.

We contacted HSI to reconsider their wording urgently before the law was being passed. This was their response across 2 emails:

As long as the situation remains with a large street dog overpopulation issue, HSI does suggest mass sterilization and vaccination. Spaying and neutering in place (with Rabies vaccination) does allow for a sustained population of dogs (already accepted dogs in neighbourhoods / society) in a territory for a prolonged period of time, without reproduction, and natural attrition to gradually reduce the population. Dog removal from the streets (whether to shelters or for euthanasia) does not work as there will always be re-population in time.  [How is that true when there was dog removal into open admission shelters across all of the Western world for decades and repopulation didn’t happen??}} And, the dogs that end up in shelters either live in overcrowded, substandard and inhumane conditions until the end of their lives or they are euthanized unless an adoption culture is created among a society [Or they are NOT euthanised because of the stigma of euthanasia you help increase ] . We have also found that reduced mating and litters may increase the level of harmony among street dog populations, and in turn, overall aggression, noise and negative interaction with the public decrease. This evidence is mostly anecdotal, unfortunately, but it’s also the logical result. [We have non-anecdotal actual research papers at the bottom of this article showing that this is non sense]

The reason why TNR projects fail is because people do not know how many dogs of what type (controlled pets, uncontrolled pets, unowned strays) they have to sterilize and they do not continue in a systematic way for years (at least five but preferably 10 to 15 years). Managing dog (and cat) populations in a humane way requires consistent and sustained efforts. It can be done without data on the dog populations but data is very useful when approaching the authorities and supporters. { Which population is going to commit to large population of dangerous stray dogs on the street for 5 + years , let alone 10-15 years? Which animal welfare organisation in the developing world is going to have funds and people and sense for long term data collection, without large foreign funding from Western organisations? The capacity and desire to objectively ASK this question? Forget about funding for 10-15 years of proper CNVR by governments of poor countries. If you want to be useful, let’s be real about things and not talk about great hypothetical scenarios.]

We agree that laws that are not backed by public support or the necessary funding will not work.  We also agree that catching and killing dogs will not work.   The World Health Organization has also made a statement to that effect.   [Whether it works, what catching or killing and where and how has been addressed in the main article on this substack. Here we are just pointing out that CNVR is what is being pushed as the main method and this is understood not just by uneducated people in poor countries who are not always professional and objective, but also by employees of ICAM member organisations.]

Let’s look in more detail at the idea that ‘ activists should first check that the population is not against stray dogs before doing CNVR’. Ok. Great disclaimer. Have you thought about:

• That by being OK with stray dogs do you mean by that annoying but manageable number that they have seen now, whilst some kind of catch / kill/ euthanise system kept the population at a reasonable number, or do you mean the increased number you are going to naturally have in the first 5 years of CNVR? How are the people supposed to predict this? What does logic say - will they be ok with large packs of stray dogs making daily passage for children / cyclists and elderly dangerous? How would your neighbours feel about it or you when you are droppping your kid to school in the morning?

• What is the likelihood of an honest evidence-based assesment of this question by animal welfare activists who have been primed in these documents to view euthanasia as last resort?

• How likely are these activists going to spend money and time , that is already sparse , to do the research in this particular direction? When they can look around in their own , perhaps relatively wealthy and civilised neighbourhood, and infer from it the attitude in the whole region, using their natural bias to reach a conclusion? Basic human nature at work here.

So the questions remains… are the guidance and documents written to achieve a result or are just written to write?

““We are not responsible for the crazy ideas the public gets . ““

This extract below is from head of the most successful municipal shelter in Ukraine, which managed to best solve the stray problem , only one who has practices open admission policy and euthanasia till it was banned across all of Ukraine in 2021.

‘From 2019 we started publishing reports about euthanasia numbers on our website.

We kept this information private (for official use). We responded to all public enquiries that this was confidential information related to the company's financial economic activities. The public sued us, trying to prove that this information should be public. But until 2019, we managed to prove that this is still classified information.

But even in this situation, the pressure on the employees of our enterprise was enormous - zoo fanatics stole photos of our employees from social networks and spread information to the entire animal protection internet community, that our employees are animal killers, sadists, etc. They pasted up flyers with such texts near houses of our workers that all neighbours knew who lived near them, some absolutely crazy even appealed to schools and kindergartens, informing that the child of sadistic animal-torturer etc. is studying here. Do you understand the scale of the pressure on our shelter? Of course in the aftermath all of our employees have deleted or closed their accounts in social networks, refused to participate in video and photo shoots, etc.

Because of the huge number of caught dogs that we were unable to conceal compared to the initial small number of adoptions, because we kept secret information about the number of euthanasia , unfortunately, the crazy fanatics managed to spread the myth about our shelter being a cruel slaughterhouse all over Ukraine. They have been spreading the fake news in social networks, saying that our trappers are performing experiments on animals, ripping animals out of their owners' hands, stealing animals by trespassing on private property, claiming that we are killing animals to get income from the city budget, and many other disgusting and black lies. When people, brainwashed by these people, came to us to ‘rescue’ the animals from torture, they were shocked to see that there was nobody to save, that all the animals were well taken care of, and when they saw the groups of schoolchildren with whom we held humane education lessons in the shelter, they saw the workers' attitude towards the animals, and so on. And if after that, the visitor started to stand up for the shelter in social networks, the crazy animal welfare brigade immediately attacked them, mercilessly harassed them and drove people to nervous breakdowns.

Our workers do not advertise where they work, though our company still remains the best shelter in Ukraine for European standard and the welfare of animals in the shelter.’

Is any of the large , ICAM organisations standing behind Yulia , the brave woman running this shelter? Are examples like these included in papers? Is craziness like this amongst animal welfare people frowned upon and discussed as something to be avoided , when the Western charities write long guidance for how to do animal welfare? The answer is NO - the people and organisations doing this are not vetted for their radical views on euthanasia - they sometimes even get grants from western orgs, to feed strays and implement CNVR .
Only nice , bland and vague things are included in ‘guidance’, whilst the “unpleasant” reality is ignored.

Let’s look at something else :

https://dutchreview.com/culture/how-did-the-netherlands-become-the-first-country-to-have-no-stray-dogs/

’How did the Netherlands manage to eradicate its stray dog problem?

Not through euthanasia! Hurray!

The Dutch achieved it through the CNVR programme (Collect, Neuter, Vaccinate, and Return), a nationwide, government-funded sterilisation programme. The World Animal Protection Agency believes it’s the most effective way to combat a stray dog population.’

This article has been copied and spread on many other resources / websites and widely used to argue the case for CVNR for dogs. The thing is its completely false - no dogs were released back on to the streets in Holland. The article is a complete fabrication. We have had meetings with the lovely people at WAP - they are absolutely not pro CNVR for dogs in Eastern Europe and are pro euthanasia as part of a comprehensive approach, as are we. However, if one does a basic google search of their views ONLINE - it is not surprising for someone to pull this line out and use their Authority to argue legislation.

This is the manipulation that becomes possible if one does not say things as they are. This creates a further net of lies.

“Euthanasia is a sensitive topic publicly and it will damage are fundraising.”

Now we are getting somewhere. The above, whilst can be understandable, has to be explored deeply to decide if its actually true. This perception was not always present - public was understanding in the past about the need to euthanise those animals that people didnt have the desire/ ability to take care off and those who were not ‘adoptable’ (a very broadly used term) . Yes public doesn’t like it and public doesn’t want it anymore, but for that to be a reality, public needs to go through a natural growing up process of more responsible animal ownership and larger support of animal welfare organisations. You can’t put the cart before the horse in Western Countries and you surely can’t do it in developing or quasi-developing.

Somehow Peta managed to maintain multimillion $ annual fundraising over the years, whilst speaking the truth:

No Kill shelter policies killing animals : https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/animal-shelters/no-kill-policies-slowly-killing-animals/

There is a way to write about difficult subjects in a way that you can’t be attacked by the majority, only by very shallow people. It requires effort and thought. One thing is clear - reducing the quality of information to the level of the shallowest online troll i NOT going to produce good outcomes. Better say nothing at all then.

Thank you for reading. Any comments and feedback can be left in the discussion at the bottom of the article or at winter5000@gmail.com .

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Below are papers showing that neutering does not make dogs less aggressive as commonly believed and spread as anecdotal evidence that then is considered truth. (whilst at the same time we are very pro neutering of owned/ shelter dogs. In this context we are addressing one of main pro CNVR myths) :

Borchel P.L. Aggressive behaviour of dogs kept as companion animals: Classification and influence of sex, reproductive status and breed // Applied Animal Ethology 1983, 10(1-2), Р.45-61

Wright J.C., Nesselrote M.S. Classification of behavior problems in dogs: Distributions of age, breed, sex and reproductive status // Applied Animal Behaviour Science 1987; 19(1-2), Р.169 - 178

Podberscek A.L., Serpell J.A. The English Cocker Spaniel: preliminary findings on aggressive behaviour // Applied Animal Behaviour Science – 1996. – 47(1), P. 75-89.

Guy N.C., Luescher U.A., Dohoo S.E., Spangler E., Miller J.B., Dohoo I.R., Bate L.A. Demographic and aggressive characteristics of dogs in a general veterinary caseload // Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 2001; 74 (1), Р.15-28.

Perez-Guisado J., Munoz-Serrano A. Factors Linked to Dominance Aggression in Dogs // Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances 2009; 8(2): Р.336-342.

Kim HH, Yeon SC, Houpt KA, Lee HC, Chang HH, Lee HJ. Effects of ovariohysterectomy on reactivity in German Shepherd dogs. // Vet J. 2006 Jul;172(1):154-9.

Yuying Hsu, Liching Sun Factors associated with aggressive responses in pet dogs // Appl Animal Behav Sci – 2010. – 123(3), P 108-112