Homeless animals are dying! NYC Shelters need shelter reform now!

Petition to promote shelter reform within NYC Shelter’s

It’s estimated 2.4 million healthy, adoptable cats and dogs—about one every 13 seconds—are put down in U.S. shelters each year!
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/pet_overpopulation/?referrer=https://www.google.com/
That number is too high! Many of these animals would have become loving family members if given the chance! I’m urging all concerned to consider effective ways to combat this crisis! Saving the lives of our nation's abandoned animals deserves your judicious attention!

Governor Cuomo, I have been a longtime supporter of your family. I remember your father’s campaign slogan when he ran for governor back in 1982—“Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo, experience money can’t buy!” I even taught my daughter who was two years old at the time the slogan. Trust me she was a hit at the poles that year! I was very pleased when you decided to carry on your father’s legacy! As a supporter, I’m now reaching out to you, I’m appealing to you for help! Animals are dying unnecessarily. We are failing our nation's animals! They have enriched and even saved our lives! Our state and city shelters are in need of reform! That is the only way we can combat this problem. As our state leader you have the power to do something about it! In fact I am relying on it! I know that you won’t let the voiceless down!

Mayor Bill de Blasio, as the Mayor of New York City, the city‘s ACC falls under you! I know that you have the Mayor’s Alliance in place, and that agency has made notable progress in saving our city's animals. I have been in touch with Francesca Carson, the director of development for the Mayor's Alliance of NYC's Animals. She informed me that the Mayor’s Alliance now saves 87% of all the animals that enter their care. She can see the numbers reach at 90% by year's end. These numbers are commendable, however, some of your partner shelters have not been able to reach such success! These are in need of shelter reform. Until that is addressed, our companion animals will continue to die unnecessarily!

Sadly, many healthy animals have fallen ill within our broken system. This, I’m sure is the result of overcrowding in shelters! While I do note your efforts in treating these animals! It does not change the fact that their illnesses have made them less adoptable. Many people do not want to welcome a sick animal in their homes. As a result, these animals are killed more often! We are a state of animal lovers that would like to see more done to save our homeless pet population. No healthy companion animal, or those with illnesses that can be easily treated, should be put down for lack of a home! We put down thousands! Sir, we, your pubic, beseech you to act! We need shelter reform now! Please, be known as the mayor with a heart! Please take the time to review the material I have included in the latter part of this petition from the Animal Advocacy Group, it proves that shelter reform works! I have also included the links to view the entire ‘no kill 101’ reading and the Animal Advocacy Group site. They have heaps of information that will go a long way in helping with our city's shelter reform efforts. Your constituents await your response, and you’re effective shelter reform implementations. New York’s homeless animals are dying while we are waiting for change!

DOH commissioner, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, you have an impressive array of experience, and the great strides that you have made, have left me no doubt, that you are the right women to bring about shelter reform! Your noted work in the Zimbabwe AIDS crisis, and implementing, bans on smoking and trans fats in restaurants along with the requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts, are just a few of your accomplishments. You are obviously are a woman that gets things done! Dr. Bassett, NYC animals needs your help! I know that ACC falls under your budget. There’s a crisis within our animal shelters in need of your attention! I know that you, and the honorable Governor Cuomo, and Mayor de Blasio, can bring about a win, win situation for our abandoned animals. I have faith in your abilities!

We are not here to point blame because where would that get us? There has been too much of that already! Trust me, animal’s lovers everywhere are willing to work together with all of you on this! I read a letter from a NYS kill shelter manager, and it broke my heart! If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do. (The link is included in this petition) The letter gives an eye opening account of how it is for our companion animals in kill shelters.
I quote: “I think our society needs a huge "Wake-up" call. As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all...a view from the inside if you will.”
“First off, all of you breeders/sellers should be made to work in the "back" of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don't even know… Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down".”
“First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails. Until they get to "The Room", every one of them freaks out and puts on the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it's strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs depending on the size and how freaked out they are. Then a euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They will find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and screams. They all don't just "go to sleep", sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves.”

“When it all ends, your pet’s corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know and it probably won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always buy another one, right?”
“I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out and can't get the pictures out of your head I deal with every day on the way home from work.”
“I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that it will always be there unless you people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter.”
The entire letter can be found here: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/aus/960931196.html
Facts
ACC Outcomes 2013-2014
➢ Euthanasia except Requests: 4,844
➢ New Hope Placement: 14,883
➢ Public Placements: 6,149
➢ Return to Owner: 1,528
http://www.nycacc.org/pdfs/stats/2014/12dec/intake-outcome-2014_cats_dogs_v15.pdf
While your efforts are commendable, the euthanasia of one adoptable animal is too much. The life of an animal is as precious as any other! I have followed the death row pets featured on the urgent death row sites, and it breaks my heart to see so many beautiful animals with great prognosis for adoption, or slight behavior problems, that may need a little work be euthanized! These savable animals should have every opportunity to become family pets. Sadly many these lives are ended without a chance to actually know what it’s like to be wanted and loved!
I have also viewed the profiles of animals that were put down, some are never listed as adoptable. Even when it was stated they showed no signs of aggression during their exams or had an incurable illness. What’s that about?

Let me ask you a question: how would you react in an unfamiliar place, where you were alone terrified and unsure of your fate? I think many humans would revert to their flight or fight responses and since these animals can’t flee, then they have no choice but to fight! Many, however just withdraw in fear! Regardless of that, their lives were snuffed out like a candle flame blown out by a gust of wind! Didn’t they deserve every chance?

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi.
“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animals." - Proverbs 12:10

I had the pleasure to read a document written by the No Kill Advocacy Center-- A Primer on No Kill Animal Control Sheltering for Public Officials: No Kill 101. I have to tell you it’s the best formula for shelter reform I have come across! Some points of the paper are featured below:
In the last decade and a half, several shelters in numerous communities have comprehensively implemented a bold series of programs and services to reduce birth rates, increase placements, and keep animals with their responsible caretakers. As a result, they are achieving unprecedented results, saving upwards of 99 percent of all impounded animals in open admission animal control facilities.

Some of these communities are urban, others rural, some are politically liberal, and others are very conservative. Some are in municipalities with high per capita incomes, and others are in those known for high rates of poverty. These communities share very little demographically. What they do share is leadership at their shelters who have comprehensively implemented a key series of programs and services, collectively referred to as the “No Kill Equation.”

The fundamental lesson from the experiences of these communities is that the choices made by shelter managers are the most significant variables in whether animals live or die. Several communities are more than doubling adoptions and cutting killing by as much as 75 percent—and it isn’t taking them five years or more to do it. They are doing it virtually over-night. In Reno, Nevada, local shelters initiated an incredible lifesaving initiative that saw adoptions Increase as much as 80 percent and deaths decline by 51 percent in one year, despite taking in a combined 16,000 dogs and cats.
In addition to the speed with which it was attained, what also makes Reno’s success so impressive is that the community takes in over two times the number of animals per capita than the U.S. national average and as much as five times the rate of neighboring communities and major U.S. cities.
The difference between those shelters that succeeded and those that failed was not the size of the budget, but the programmatic effort of its leadership.
http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/nokill101.pdf

The data shows that every year there are six times more people looking to acquire an animal than there are animals being killed in shelters.
http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/nokill101.pdf

There is so much more to read in this publication. Trust me, for anyone that want to truly save the lives of our nation's abandoned animals, it’s a must read! Lastly, I don’t doubt you have a daunting task in your effort to place, care for and house so many homeless animals. I know that you are not responsible for the epidemic of homeless animals and you didn’t ask for the responsibly that has been put upon you. I also know that you encourage spay and neutering in an effort to reduce the abandoned animal population. To take it one step further you have TNR— Trap-Neuter-Return programs in place for feral cats. In an effort to reduce the number of feral and free roaming cats over time.
Now I’m urging you to take it beyond what you have done so far! Shelter reform is needed now. The nation’s animals have waited for it for so long!
Although we are not a perfect nation, I believe we are by in large a morally successful one! There is proof that other states have succeeded in saving almost 99 percent of their viable shelter intakes. New York City and State, being tend setting municipals have the ability to pave the way for the largest successful shelter reform to date!

I recall a quote from one of my favorite movies, Tennessee Williams a ‘Streetcar Named Desire’: “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers”
Our nation's animals not only rely on it, they wish for it every second of their lives! Please, please don’t fail them!