Worthington and Trow, sitting in a tree ...

THS policy is to not kill healthy dogs, but to keep them alive indefinitely in hopes they'll be adopted.

Well put Peter Worthington, columnist for the Toronto Sun and constant supporter of Tim Trow's THS. That's the problem staring Worthington right in the face and he just doesn't get it.

That statement, as is, says nothing about how the THS is or should be managing the animals under its care. That statement, as is, can be just as easily endorsed by the great animal sanctuary Best Friends Animal Society or by the worst obsessive compulsive animal hoarder.

Let's take a look at how it applies to the Toronto Humane Society.

THS policy is to not kill healthy dogs ...

And apparently, they don't euthanize the sick and dying ones either. As Worthington himself reports, "37 died in their cages" - not that I trust any numbers supplied by the THS any more than I'd trust them not to misplace charitable donation receipts or to re-interpret other people's statements.

But let's say that number was 37. There are multiple accounts from vets, staff and volunteers who once worked or are still working at the THS about just how horrible those deaths are but there's no need to even read those accounts unless you want to be thoroughly disgusted.

Just imagine for yourselves, those of you that own pets, what it would be like if your dog or cat was deathly ill, suffering in pain with little to no chance of recovery and instead of giving it the medical attention it needed or humanely euthanizing it, you stick it in a cage and let it die in torment. What would you say to someone who could allow that to happen to an animal? How about someone who could allow that to happen to 37 animals (and that's just the dogs) in one year?

... keep them alive indefinitely...

There's no way anyone can say if a dog or a cat would rather be dead or rather be alive but spending its life in a cage. That's not the type of question a non-linguistic creature would have the capacity to ask itself. So, maybe it's okay to keep a dog locked up behind bars in a room full of other dogs constantly barking and under stress, with only little dabs of affections from humans every now and then, with no relief from the insanity that crawls into it's brain from the torturous boredom of staring at concrete and metal bars, with all the despair and anger that must come from constantly watching people pass by and being ignored, with living in shit and piss because there aren't enough people to clean up quickly enough, with getting sick and just suffering through it because enough medication and vets aren't available. Yeah, maybe all that's okay.

Or maybe not.

... in hopes they'll be adopted.

My guess is that adoption rates would probably go up if so many people didn't feel they get treated like criminals at the THS. Adoption isn't just about getting animals out the door. It's also about educating the public about the responsibilities and expectations of pet ownership. You don't educate by shouting at people. It's also about building the public trust so that they have confidence they're going to get the animal they were told they were going to get and not something sicker or less behaviourally sound. Then the animal just ends up getting returned two or three or more times (and I have to wonder how those multiple returns figure into the adoption numbers. Are they counted each time they are sent out the rotating door as a successful adoption?). It's also about better working relationships with local rescues and other shelters and not constantly denigrating them in the news for political points.

In the rest of the column, Worthington pulls the usual stunt taken from the Tim Troy handbook on public relations by throwing crap on other animal welfare agencies like the OSPCA and TAS. I don't know about the OSCPA but I do know the TAS euthanasia numbers game, which Trow and Worthington love to play out whenever attention needs to be deflected, is a misleading one. He may as well be claiming all vets are bad because they all do euthanasias. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if most vets euthanize most of their (animal) clients, eventually. That would be almost a 100% euthanasia rate. Holy shit! All vets must be evil! But of course that's stupid rationale. If someone reads those numbers without thought or analysis, then of course vets look bad. The real question that should be asked is why an animal was euthanized and was it for a legitimate reason? Apparently, that kind of analysis is beyond some people.

There is one thing I do agree with in Worthington's column. He writes, "There's no shortage of nutbars in the animal movement. They tend to feud and agitate, and actually harm animals they seek to protect." Yes, that may be true. Of course, the same can be said for newspaper columnists.