STOP KILLING THE LONGVIEW TX ANIMALS!

I don't know how to start this post. It may seem jumbled, but I'm desperate to speak for all these poor creatures who can't stand up for themselves. They are all at the mercy of a "shelter" that DOES NOT believe NO KILL is even feasible so they continue to KILL!  On whose authority do they justify these deaths? This archaic method of animal control is inexcusable.....ALL THE ANIMALS AT LONGVIEW TX HIGH-KILL SHELTER WANT TO LIVE! ALL OF THEM!

The collage below was made and posted Friday night, Aug 10th of animals in the URGENT album at Longview whose "time was up". Tomorrow when the shelter officially reopens, I will recheck all their statuses to see who made it out alive from this picture. Here's the BEFORE ....(I can tell you right now though that Snow, Sally, Liz and Raquel were all DEAD by Saturday....)



 I will update the status of the animals in the above collage by Wednesday evening.

16 BLACK BEAUTIES OF LONGVIEW

Following are 3 picture collages of 16 of the 18 black animals currently in the URGENT album at Longview. Nine of these animals are black lab mix. Statistics show black animals have a much harder time getting adopted or even rescued out of shelters. And now that Longview has also recently cancelled long-term fostering, cancelled free adoptions to military and raised the adoption fees of cats from $50 to $75, the black animals' chances of living are even slimmer....

This is a STUPID statistic, but it's true. Several people have been posting the past few days actually pleading and begging Longview to do a "special sale" or even give these black animals away FREE all this next week to prospective adopters. I'm posting the 16 black animals photos here in 3 separate collages. One of the shelter's most infamous excuses is, "I can't give these animals out to just anyone." Yep, shelter folks, we GET that and we agree....BUT DEAD IS DEAD! Keeping these animals, denying offers to foster, keeping them just to end up KILLING THEM is SICK!!! 

IF the interim director of Longview is seriously committed to saving these animals lives, she will do ANYTHING to save these animals lives. Because the same old tired and archaic excuses for killing are NOT ACCEPTABLE!

Look at their beautiful faces and memorize their names! ALL THE ANIMALS AT LONGVIEW DESERVE TO LIVE! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE PERFECTLY HEALTHY ADOPTABLE ANIMALS!

PLEASE LOOK AT ALL THE ANIMALS AT LONGVIEW IN THE URGENT ALBUM. SHARE THEM! SAVE THEM! GET THEM OUT OF THERE! THEY NEED ALL OF US WORKING TOGETHER! NO MORE EXCUSES! NONE!

 

KILL SHELTERS = DEAD ANIMALS.....ONE TRUE FACT!

It's true that kill shelters means you will have dead animals. Anyone who says different is fooling themselves. It's also true that NO KILL does not mean NO DEAD ANIMALS! It means 90% or more of all animals saved and 100% of all adoptable animals saved!

Pictured here are 12 sweet perfectly healthy adoptable animals killed all on or around July 27th, all KILLED at Longview Shelter in Texas. (NOT put to sleep.....these animals are NOT SLEEPING....THEY ARE DEAD!) The EXACT date is "unknown" because like many kill shelters this shelter is particularly secretive about details of when and how many are KILLED.

Rest in Peace All You Sweet Creatures......Noodles, Gidget, May and Fay, Lounger, Baby Ollie, Tux, Blueberry and Muffin, Marmalade, Baby Strawberry and Cookie. YOU WERE LOVED by many and we pray you're at the Rainbow Bridge awaiting your true forever people......the ones who didn't have time to find you before your lives were unceremoniously taken away.

To end this post......I want to say I recently received two LOOOONG messages from an employee of this shelter who told me my posting about the activities at this shelter was "hard on the people who actually do the euthanizing" (I can't believe they still call it euthanizing.....sigh). I wanted to type back really fast....."I bet it's a LOT HARDER on those poor animals you're killing!"

But I didn't type that. Instead I tried to talk to this employee about NO KILL. I prayed really hard this employee would finally "get it" and know that killing these animals can never be justified. NEVER EVER EVER.......

LONGVIEW TX NAY SAYERS GET OUT OF THE WAY!

This post covers two topics...

First topic: City Council meeting last night. Here are the video minutes of that meeting where a group of advocates with one elected spokesperson attended on behalf of the area animals. Start watching at 5 minutes until approximately 12 1/2 minutes.

Basically, the city council is interested ONLY in a private/public partnership. And that boils down to $. If the PRIVATE sector doesn't have half the funds ready, the Mayor says he WILL NOT ask the public to vote on a special election. Watch the minutes and take notes.

Second topic: REGARDLESS whether a new facility is built or not, if management and especially the director of the shelter are not pro NO KILL, then 80% of the animals arriving will continue to DIE! They won't be put to sleep, they will DIE!!!

Brand new facility, or not. No matter how shiny the building, or how spacious, if you aren't NO KILL then YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Get yourself educated on what NO KILL entails. Be prepared to ask yourself some really hard questions. If you still haven't read it, here is the NO KILL 101 PRIMER. It's quick easy reading.

NO KILL is not technical. NO KILL means you have to be organized, you have to have lots of volunteers and YOU HAVE TO HAVE COMPASSION FOR THE ANIMALS! And YES, it CAN BE CHANGED OVERNIGHT! It's being done by many shelters across the United States! (AND YES, many are open admissions also!)

And yesterday, (probably while folks were attending that city council meeting) these are just 6 of the animals who were KILLED at Longview shelter. *( 

RIP Dobbie

RIP Terrance

RIP Fluff

RIP Sarge

RIP Butter and Scotch

So advocates, I'm asking you to COME TOGETHER ON THIS NO KILL and COME TOGETHER TO WORK FOR THE ANIMALS! If you're a nay sayer, you don't know what NO KILL is. And if you don't know what NO KILL is, you are of no use to these animals!

CITY COUNCIL MEETING - JULY 26 - MAKE A STAND FOR THE ANIMALS!

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER 

Advocates, volunteers, fosters, rescues....anyone who works with or advocates for the animals of Longview TX shelter.....ANYONE who wants the insane amount of killing to stop!

BE AT THE LONGVIEW CITY COUNCIL MEETING THURSDAY JULY 26th AND MAKE A STAND FOR THESE ANIMALS!

MEETING BEGINS AT 5:30 PM AT 300 COTTON ST IN LONGVIEW. PLEASE DON'T BE LATE AS DOORS WILL CLOSE PROMPTLY AT 5:30 PM.

 IF YOU'D LIKE, MEET AT THE LONGVIEW PUBLIC LIBRARY NOT LATER THAN 5:10 PM AND WALK OVER WITH THE GROUP AS A SHOW OF NUMBERS!

There are SO MANY of you that live there that are sick of the killing, but please know YOU ARE NOT ALONE! You people have the power to change things for the animals. You can work together to educate the public and show them how it's done, how they can also help the animals!

Voters are powerful people! Let city council know enough is enough......these archaic outdated methods of animal control are shameful! 

And be armed with knowledge.....

1.  The Longview shelter is a privately owned business since 1972. (40 years doing it and it still isn't working.....time for a change!!!)

 

 

2.   The Longview shelter is called the Humane Society of North East Texas, but it IS NOT a part of the National Humane Society. Many shelters just use that terminology in their name, but this shelter abides by their own rules.

 

 

3.  The shelter building is also privately owned, which is NOT a good thing for the animals. It gives way too much control to the shelter board and shelter director. For instance, even though the shelter operates primarily on taxpayer funds...since the building is privately owned...the shelter management could decide to block volunteers or even the public from coming in to take pictures of the URGENT animals.

 

 

4.   Apparently, the shelter director, Cathy Sells, resigned from her position a week ago. We don't know if she is still "working" at the shelter or gave a notice or what...but someone is still giving the KILL ORDERS. :(

 

 

5.  Please read the Longview city council minutes of last Aug 2011, there is a lot of information regarding the shelter contract with the city of Longview (including contractural figures) for anyone who is interested in changing things for the animals. It's all publicly available online at this link: http://administration.longviewtexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/city-gov/minutes-2011/8-25-11%20RS%20Minutes.pdf  pay particular attention to pages 2, 3, 5 and 6

 

 

6.  In the past two weeks despite apparently greater increases in intakes, the shelter instilled these policy changes we are aware of: no more long term fosters, no more free adoptions to military personnel, they raised the adoption fee of cats from $50 to $75........all this just makes it all the more difficult to get an animal out of that shelter alive.

 

 

7.  The shelter itself admits there is only a 30% chance of an animal getting out alive. The odds are heavily against the animal. 700 to 800 perfectly healthy animals are KILLED in Longview every month! (They aren't "sleeping"......THEY ARE DEAD!)

8.  The shelter's one-year contract with the city of Longview is coming up for renewal very very shortly! It is important that advocates keep the ball rolling FOR THE ANIMALS!

Since the meeting nearly a year ago, there has been some activity with those working to push a NO KILL, but those folks need YOU! Those ANIMALS NEED YOU! Don't let another year pass, don't let another month pass (that's 700 more animals killed per month and MORE)....make the change NOW!

 

 

9. PLEASE get yourself educated about what NO KILL is really about. I had to educate myself on NO KILL. For example, NO KILL is NOT 100% survival. But it IS 90% or more survival. Here's Nathan Winograd's definition of NO KILL.

And NO KILL is being done in communities with OPEN ADMISSIONS (like Longview)....So don't let shelter reps pull that old falsehood on you!

 

 

10.  The current contract with the city of Longview was for $162,500 per year PLUS the shelter receives free water, sewer and trash collection which adds considerable more value to the contract. Add to this the other communities served by the shelter....those individual cities pay their own $ to the shelter management. Finally, add to this the $ recieved by the shelter in adoption fees, donations of monies and supplies...it all adds up.

Did you know IT IS CHEAPER TO GO NO KILL THAN IT IS TO CONTINUE TO KILL? (Yes, a fact and yet the shelters continue their needless killings). :(

For all the current volunteers of the shelter in Longview and the EMPLOYEES of that shelter....we are NOT pointing fingers at ANYONE except for the MANAGEMENT of that shelter. Let this be your guide.

But no matter how new or shiny or large a shelter is, if the management doesn't accept the NO KILL equation, those poor animals will continue to suffer daily. And it will be OUR FAULT for allowing it to happen!

 

 

WE should all be on the ANIMALS SIDE.....THERE IS NO OTHER!

Good Luck at the meeting. Stand strong FOR THE ANIMALS! Remember these faces and names.....these are a tiny tiny fraction of the healthy adoptable animals KILLED at Longview in the past month. Just a very tiny portion...... :(  

DO IT FOR THEM! DO IT IN MEMORY OF A BELOVED ANIMAL! JUST PLEASE DO IT!

Why Don't You Do Something?

"I looked at all the caged animals in the shelter...the cast-offs of human society. I saw in their eyes love and hope, fear and dread, sadness and betrayal. And I was angry. "God," I said, "this is terrible! Why don't you do something?" God was silent for a moment and then He spoke softly. I have done something," He replied. "I created you." ~The Animals' Savior Copyright Jim Willis 1999 ~

for everyone out there struggling to fight the old school slaughterhouses.....YOU ARE NOT ALONE!