We never thought we’d wade into the politics of pet shelters, but the decidedly unethical treatment of a van-load of pound puppies in 2005 by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employees radicalized us. Despite PETA’s habit of killing upwards of 90 percent of the dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens it takes in, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk conceded in 2000 that her organization “could become a no-kill shelter immediately.” (Such a shift of budget priorities, of course, would require the jettisoning of some of PETA’s more obnoxious campaigns and obnoxious campaigners.) The image of PETA blissfully slaughtering adoptable pets is a fair definition of hypocrisy. But just when we thought we had heard the worst of it, along comes Nathan Winograd.
Winograd’s book, available for purchase this month, is titled Redemption. He argues, quite effectively, that the concept of “pet overpopulation” in the United States — that bogeyman that PETA and the Humane Society of the United States constantly use to justify an inordinate focus on dispatching dogs and cats to the great beyond — is a myth. Every year, Winograd claims, there are actually more Americans looking for pets than animals needlessly killed in shelters.
We read Redemption and we absorbed Winograd’s prescriptions for change. We were touched. We asked the author to answer some tough questions about his claims. And he said yes.
Click here to read the Consumer Freedom interview with Nathan Winograd. And click here to buy his book. It’s the one thing PETA and HSUS are hoping you won’t read this year.
