Let me preface this blog with a disclaimer. I am technically NOT a New Yawka. I was born in Connecticut, New York’s bedroom state. I have worked in New York, owned businesses in New York, paid taxes in New York, and spent a lot of time here. I truly LOVE New York. I would live here if the taxes weren’t so high and the government wasn’t so insane.
When I used to travel for business people used to ask me where I was from. When I said Connecticut they would say “where’s that?” So I just started saying New York. New Yorkers are different. We are tough, we are driven, and we are brash. We don’t sit on our front porches and sip sweet tea and fan ourselves with shell-shaped fans. We get stuff done. Competition is tough and fierce and if you make a mistake you get eaten alive. New Yorkers are very fair and have the most well defined bulls–t detector I have ever seen. Having spent a lot of time in other parts of the country it became obvious to me that as a New Yorker I could run rings around most of my competition, because truly, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

Best Friends has failed here.
Instead of saying “Hey…we could have handled this better.  In January we will get behind you guys just as we should have in the first place,” Gregory Castle, who I thought knew better, issued a self-serving press release yesterday basically bashing Pets Alive and Nathan Winograd, and saying that this is about personalities.  The press release was littered with outright lies.
Here are the real facts:
1.    In 2007, Best Friends rescued a failed and dilapidated Pets Alive sanctuary by investing over a million dollars and 8 months of a rotating cadre of Best Friends staff to get the organization back on its feet.
The amount of money Best Friends allegedly “spent” at Pets Alive keeps growing like the size of a weekend fisherman’s catch.  We never said we didn’t appreciate what they did, but it certainly doesn’t make them any less wrong.  Best Friends didn’t buy us, nor did they buy our conscience.  This is a shameless attempt to make us look ungrateful.  We’re not.  We’re not the ones forsaking animals lives for money.
2.   Best Friends was instrumental in the survival of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals and We have worked with Ed Sayres since his days as President of PetSmart…
I was personally appalled to find that Best Friends would include two people personally responsible for the killing of thousands of animals a year as allies.  Hoffman and Sayres are not believers in the no-kill movement, nor are they friends of animals.  And truth be told Best Friends gave them cover in killing Oreo’s Law and supported them in not stopping the killing of 25,000 animals a year. Period.
3.   Our desire to pursue a mutually satisfactory resolution to what became the Kellner / Duane fight was as much an effort to heal a rift among people we still believe should be working together rather than sniping at each other.
Oh please. Best Friends never really understood New York and New Yorkers. This ain’t some rinky dink little town in Utah. If you want our money you need to actually get off the fence and take a stand. We’re tough and we’re smart. You don’t get a pass because you’re Best Friends, and you can’t spin your way out of your mistakes. We bent over backwards on Oreo’s Law to meet demands we thought were frankly, ridiculous. And then you reneged on your promise to support Oreo’s Law and went silent. You’re getting called on it now. If you want to keep spinning instead of doing the right thing and admitting your mistake and supporting the right side of this, you do so at your own peril. You might want to save the civility card for Best Friends Europe.
Welcome to New York.
4. The Kellner / Duane bill never fully conformed to this despite our collaborative efforts with the bill’s sponsor, Micah Kellner.
I spoke to Assembly Member Kellner personally and at length about your “collaborative efforts,” and I’m going to leave it to him to characterize them, but I think we both know that Best Friends is being disingenuous here. You supported the Hayden Law, which is almost word for word Oreo’s Law, but you are parsing words and picking nits here. You’re not fooling the people who count though. And your actions are directly responsible for killing animals. You have failed.
And you have lied and mischaracterized and spun and played politics with the lives of animals.
In fact, what makes me the saddest is the chest pounding and self aggrandizement. Heaping scorn upon us lesser organizations, reminding us that we would be nothing without them. Admonishing us that they bought us with their assistance and we should shut up and move on sounds just like the other humane organizations that have jumped the shark like the ASPCA and HSUS.
Personally I am beyond disappointed and will no longer support Best Friends. I’ve listened to the arguments that Best Friends deserves a pass because of all the good they’ve done. I agree they’ve done good. But that doesn’t give them the right to hold it over our heads, nor does it give them the right to play politics with the lives of the animals they claim they are going to save. Best Friends was the only organization other than Pets Alive that was in my will. I left them a substantial amount of money that I now redirected to Pets Alive.
In my opinion if you’re going to be part of the no-kill movement, let alone a leader of the movement your moral responsibility can’t be part time. Either saving animals is your mission or it isn’t.
As Judge Judy (the consummate New Yorker) would say “Did you think you were coming here for a tea party?” People give us part of their hard earned money to protect and save animals. They don’t want excuses or bull. Especially not New Yorkers.
The assertion that Best Friends didn’t get more involved because, God forbid, there was a clash of personalities is laughable and proof that Gregory Castle signs off on the drivel his communications department puts out without reading it.
So as they are putting the needle with the blue liquid into the veins of 25,000 animals in New York we can say “sorry you’re dying little guy, but Best Friends decided they couldn’t save you because Nathan Winograd called Ed Sayres a jerk.”
Here’s a piece of advice. The buck stopper for me is trying to put my words and actions in the context of one of our supporters. I choose a particular supporter. I’ll call him Bill. Bill is a retired New Yorker and on a very tight budget. Every month he sends me two one dollar bills along with a personal note thanking us for what we do and telling me he wishes he could send more. I always try to think of what Bill would say about whatever it is I’m contemplating. Tell me gentlemen…does Bill care about the nuances and personalities (really egos) of the people involved here? How do you feel about using his two dollars, which means a lot to him, to withhold support for a law you know will save animals to appease a tyrant who happens to be the key to the checkbooks of well-meaning people who have more money than Bill?
I can’t betray Bill’s trust and I can’t waste his money. If you read your own Facebook page (before someone deletes the negative posts of course) you will see that your supporters are telling you the same thing.
I could go on, but I still believe Best Friends is saveable. One more time Francis and Gregory…you need to be on the side of the animals, regardless of the political cost. Yes, we are friends. But don’t take advantage of that friendship, and don’t believe for one second that I wouldn’t throw you under the bus to save an animal, let alone 25,000. In a New York minute. And once upon a time you would too.
And if you’re going to play in the big time then you need to start standing on your principles.
Own up to your mistake and get on the right side. Or maybe you should choose another area of the country to prime for donations.
Welcome to New York.