This week, we had to say goodbye to one of our long time canine residents, Nori.
We lost him to cancer. He was an awesome dog that relied on Pets Alive to be his home. He wasn’t an easily adoptable dog, because he had some issues with aggression. Although the team here did their best to find Nori a home, the reality is that Nori lived almost his entire life at Pets Alive and Pets Alive Westchester as a sanctuary animal.  That’s not to say that his life was sad. He got to experience love and joy just like every pet. He had toys and fun and love. He had his own humans too – us. We became his family. Like any family, we loved Nori and when it was time to say goodbye to him, we wanted him to be comfortable. We opted for local veterinarian Josh Furman to come and do a home euthanasia here at the sanctuary. Nori passed away surrounded by his family – us – and in the comfort of a room he knew well, with his toys, and his blanket.  We cried and talked about Nori and celebrated his life together like any family would do.

Being present at euthanasia is not something that anyone ever looks forward to, and it’s not fun to talk about either.  Being present at a euthanasia is just what we do because it’s what you would do when ANYONE you love is passing.  You are there for them until the end. You support them and love them and send them on their way KNOWING that you did everything you could and that you would have done anything. WE would have done ANYTHING for Nori.

I’m telling you about Nori today and his death because I want to tell you about something else, too. In order for you to fully understand it, I want you to just close your eyes and think for a minute about how we said goodbye to Nori.  All of us in that room together, crying, and loving him. I want you to understand how much it takes out of us for us to say goodbye to ONE animal here at our sanctuary. I want you to think about how hard it was for YOU to read this story.

And now lets talk about PETA. Yup- People for the Ehtical Treatment of Animals.  I know, right? Didn’t expect that? Just stay with me. I recently came across PETA’s 2013 euthanasia numbers. In 2013, PETA took in 2175 dogs and cats at their facility in Virginia…and they euthanized 1792 of them. Yes. That’s right. They took in 2175 dogs and cats and they killed 1792 of them. Yes, I’m serious. They killed 82% of the dogs and cats they took in. Ok I’ll pause and let you think about that for a moment. Don’t believe it?  Here’s the REPORT

PETA kills animals because they say that euthanasia is the best option when an animal is “terminally ill” or “unadoptable.”  You can decide for yourself what you think, but to me, any shelter that has an 82% euthanasia rate isn’t trying very hard to do anything but be a slaughterhouse. There is literally NO shelter where 82% of the intakes are unadoptable. We’ve proved this with our adoption numbers over and over again. We PRIDE ourselves on placing hard to adopt animals. It’s what we DO. We know how because we LEARNED. We TRY.
I would go so far as to say that any shelter that kills 82% of their intakes is not treating animals ETHICALLY.

Those 2013 numbers really resonated with me. I want to tell you why.
At our combined facilities in 2013, we took in 1158 dogs, 523 cats, 22 rabbits and 7 farm animals. And we adopted out 1167 dogs, 531 cats, 21 rabbits and 8 farm animals. No really. We ADOPTED OUT 99% of the animals we took in. You can see our 2013 Annual Report. We did lose some to terminal illness, but that can happen when you are trying to save the animals that need you the most. Those that are in the worst situations. Those that have no one else.
What does PETA claim? To be a voice for the voiceless?  To advocate? To PROTECT animals? To step in when others will not?
PETA LIES. They have been lying, they will continue to lie, and if you ask them about it they will lie to your face.  They are not ETHICAL. They are not ADVOCATES. They are not RESCUERS. They are MURDERERS.
And people are paying them to kill animals. People that they have deceived with their expensive ad campaigns that are designed to make you believe that they step in when no one else does.
We could never do that here at Pets Alive. Our hearts would be destroyed.  We go home from each and every euthanasia in mourning. Our hearts break every time we have to say good bye. And they should. If they didn’t we wouldn’t deserve to do this work.  That is the future of animal rescue, and the future of no kill. It’s the future we believe in.
On their 990 in 2013, PETA claimed 34 MILLION dollars in income. Yup-not a typo  34 MILLION DOLLARS see that HERE on Guidestar (you can sign up for a free account).  They got paid nearly $19,000 for every animal they killed. Their payroll is well over 7 MILLION and they spend on average nearly half a million annually on fundraising. Talk about an incredible return on investment. At Pets Alive we struggle for every penny we raise. We constantly have to make really tough decisions on staffing, fundraising, repairs and improvements to our facilities, benefits for our devoted employees. Why? Because we have to save more animals. We have to be their safety net. We have to utilize every resource we have to ensure that we can give them all of the medical, emotional, and behavioral rehabilitation they need. Our employees don’t drive fancy cars or fly around the country spewing status quo rhetoric to the masses of how its better for an animal to be dead then to find them appropriate and loving homes.
Our employees show up to work in an ice storm to make sure their animals are cleaned, fed, medicated and loved every single day. Our employees come in on their days off, volunteer their time in other departments, join groups or committees, they give their time, their hearts, their pride to the animals in our care. They bring their children to help socialize and play with the animals (and yes we do use them to kid test!!) Our employees are the heros in animal rescue yet each one of them would be mortified to see their names in lights.
Just think about what Pets Alive could do with 34 Million dollars. How many animals could we save? How much more do we care? How much harder would we work to achieve a no kill nation? Which group would make the bigger impact? I’m not going to lie- it’s been a tough year at Pets Alive. Even with all of the incredible life saving rescues and happy forever homes we are struggling to continue to pay the bills that are always mounting. We spend about $60,000 a month in animal care and operating expenses. While we continue to work on reducing our budgets there are some things we refuse to put limits on- like veterinary care for our animals. That will never happen here. It just can’t. We are one of the few true NO KILL rescue and sanctuary in the country. Our animals are our family and we promise each one of them to do WHATEVER it takes to give them a second chance. We know you believe in us. We know that you agree. We need you now more than ever.
When you look at such a major national organization like PETA and compare them to Pets Alive take a moment and think to yourself- who is more ethical? Who believes that life is precious and that it is our duty to be the voice for the voiceless. To be their protector, their guardians, their friends, their family.
Know where your money goes.
Donate to Pets Alive and YOU WILL SAVE animals.