Chapter One

Chapter One

The word shelter as it is used in reference to the many buildings across the country where
animals are housed presents a grave and troubling contradiction for me.

Prior to working on this project I associated the word shelter with places of safety.
When I heard someone speak of this or that shelter, I imagined protective havens and
sanctuaries of all types, where people and non-humans could take refuge if they had
nowhere else to be.

The research required to put this story together exposed my own ignorance of a very
present and ugly reality, and my previously held notions of shelters, specifically animal
shelters, were shattered.

Kill Versus No-Kill

In the world of animal rescue and transport, volunteers use the terms kill-shelter and
no-kill shelter to differentiate between which shelters routinely euthanize animals to create
space for in-coming homeless animals, and which ones do not.

Some people take issue with the term kill-shelter - asserting that this terminology unfairly
indicts individuals who participate in the grim task of euthanizing completely adoptable
animals. But even a softer term like euthanizing-shelter if it were to be used cannot provide
a thick enough gloss to conceal the disturbing, awful truth.

Animals who are euthanized or "put to sleep" do not wake up, ever. Whether they are
euthanized by lethal injection, gassed, or destroyed by other unspeakable means, they are
no longer with us when the process of euthanizing them is complete. They cease to eat,
drink, cry, bark, meow, play, and feel. They are gone.

Left Behind

For many animals, their troubles begin and end when they are brought or "surrendered" to a
shelter.

Lorraine Ehrhart and her group of doting volunteers regularly engage in the
head-banging and hoop-jumping necessary to spare the lives of approximately sixty animals
a month (sometimes more, sometimes less) from Miami's Animal Services facility.

When asked why animals are surrendered, Lorraine's frustration with anyone who would
purposefully leave an animal behind eventually gave way to profound sadness.

"We have heard every reason in the book for an animal to be surrendered to the shelter…

The animal has brown fur and I've bought a white couch and he sheds, and he doesn't
match the furniture anymore.

There was a woman surrendering a little dog, a little female dog, cute as can be, and I said
"Why are you giving this dog up?" And she said, "She's in heat." And I tried to explain to
her that there's something you can do about that, but no, she was in heat…

Very often it's "We're moving, we can't take the dog."

"The dog got too big, we liked it when it was a puppy."

"We're getting a divorce."

Sometimes it's just sheer hatred at the other spouse. They'll come and take the dog and
dump it at the shelter, just to get back at a spouse.

Some people will have an older dog. The dog's not feeling well, so they take it to the vet,
and the vet says this dog has cancer or this dog has some disease that's expensive to
treat, so instead of treating it, they take it to the shelter.

The reasons are far flung. But people don't realize what happens to their animal when it
goes to the shelter. I've heard people say "Oh no, they're gonna find a home," (for this big
black mutt) and it's just not going to happen.

The true story is that when the animal comes in, they're processed and put in a kennel, and
held. If it's a stray, the dog is held for six days, waiting for the owner to come. If it's an
owner-surrender, there's no mandatory holding period for that dog.

The vast majority of them are not adopted, and they get sick. They're missing their family,
they're sick, they're scared, they're hungry because they won't eat because they're so
stressed - and then they end up on the euthanasia table and they get put to sleep.

For the vast majority of dogs and cats, that's what happens to them."

Lorraine Ehrhart
Director
Miami-Dade Rescue Railroad