No kill shelters result in animals dumped on the highway and tossed in the river because the rescues wont take them. That’s the part they never tell you.
Meanwhile the spca will take every animal, and if they have to euthanize them at least it will be done kindly and not via neglect or cruelty.
Because people in the notes are not getting this, let me explain:
No-kill shelters TURN AWAY animals. When they’re full - and they often are because most of these no-kill shelters are small - they stop taking them in. While they are “taking their time to find the right homes for every single animal”, many other animals never get in the door. Somehow they don’t count those animals, or track what happens to them. A success for them doesn’t include the ones they turned away. They’re taking their time because they can.
The No-Kills who brag about 100% adoption rates are the worst, because they tend to reject the most. The animals who will be difficult to adopt out? They just don’t take those. Special needs? Too old? If they’re going to be hard to adopt out, they can claim to be full, even if they’re not.
They are telling owners they absolutely cannot take their fifteen year old cat because they are full of litters of kittens. Adorable kittens that will turn over quickly, and boost their adoption numbers. So what happens to the fifteen year old cat? After days of being rejected at the shelters they get dumped on the side of the road somewhere, or worse.
You cannot imagine the VOLUME of animals that a city shelter deals with. The kill shelters are not allowed to turn anyone away. The difficult cases, the special needs, the elderly, the feral. The dog that bites, the cat that pees everywhere. Every animal is going to be taken in and treated with kindness. They are going to be assessed and treated for their fleas and conditions and behavioral problems. They will get their time on the adoption floor. They will get the best chance possible to find a new home. And if it’s not possible, they will be humanely euthanized, and that cage space will go to the next animal who is already waiting for it. It never stops. While you were working on the paperwork to adopt out 1 cat, three people brought in 4 more. It’s a numbers game that you cannot win if you aren’t turning people away.
A lot of times kill shelters get the animals that the no-kill shelters refused to take. Maybe their owners bring them. Or maybe they got literally thrown in the garbage, abandoned, or put in a bag and tossed in the river, when the no-kill shelter said they were full. The police and rescuers will bring these poor injured animals to the city shelter where they will be cared for. The volunteers will spend days and weeks trying to wash the tar out of their fur, or treat their broken bones, or whatever other horrible thing has happened to them. They will feed and house them. They will put most of them in new homes. They will save many many more animals, by orders of magnitude, than a no-kill shelter ever will. A no-kill shelter will brag about dozens or maybe hundreds of adoptions. Kill shelters are dealing in thousands of successful adoptions, and they still have to euthanize because it just isn’t enough. There are just so many animals to take in.
And then, after all this, the No-Kill Shelters get to claim the moral high ground somehow, and self-righteous types will refuse to adopt from the only shelter that takes absolutely everyone. It’s infuriating.
recently I’ve been thinking about how I think some (I repeat some, not all, not even most) of the reason behind why it’s harder for female characters to get popular enough to achieve real blorbo/The Character status is a kind of overcompensating reaction to a certain type of male gazey voyeurism in mainstream media. in my horror/tragedy niche I’m seeing six posts a day on my dash along the lines of “mmm I need that brunette bisexual man writhing around crying out in pain,” and, yknow, love that, strong agree, but I absolutely never see that kind of blorbo sadism posting where the vague character figure is a woman. the most discussion I ever see of female characters suffering beautifully/sexily is people making fun of booktok m/f dark romance; wanting to see a woman as that kind of “chew toy experiencing the horrors and accidentally being kinda hot about it” protagonist is treated as completely off limits. at best it’s laughable and at worst it’s a sign of rising fascism.
and I think that sucks! I think there’s a huge gap in the market in queer fandom spaces both for women who identify with that Eternal Suffering Era archetype and for people who are attracted to women in that “The Character covered in blood” way. I’m particularly talking to sapphics in the audience right now: I am very much not telling you to eat your vegetables, I’m telling you that you can eat desert without going directly to hell. that brunette bisexual woman can also be covered in blood while having the worst day of her life for five years straight and you won’t go to feminism jail for thinking about it.
THE advantage of memorizing poetry is that when somethings happening, maybe even you’re in a situation or a location, you can just go “ok. lady of shallott time” and boom. you reclaimed your mental space and attention for YOU for the next ten minutes
Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.
— Lemony Snicket, Horseradish
i know this is humorous but! i learned from one of my college friends (who learned from a therapist) that reciting a poem you have memorized is a great grounding & focusing technique when you’re spiraling into anxiety or panic. i can personally attest that The Tyger has staved off several panic attacks.
so like if said “situation or location” is freaking you out really badly, “lady of shallott time” can help reclaim your mental health too
Ok everybody share what poems you can recite in case we’re trapped in an elevator.
I’ve got the first 42 lines of The Canterbury Tales in Middle English, the first 10 lines of Beowulf in Old English, the first canto of Tolkien’s Lay of Beren and Luthien, and Sonnet XVI by Pablo Neruda (“I love the handful of the earth you are”). I used to have the Proem of the Kalevala but I’m a bit shaky on it it now and I think i’ve only got the first two sentences. Anda handful of others I half-remember which i could probably do if I were with someone else who half-remembered the same ones and we could prompt each other back and forth.
ALT
