In the 1990s, I worked at the San Francisco SPCA. My job was to defend the animals threatened with killing, expand the safety net so we could save more, and promote the new and innovative programs the San Francisco SPCA was creating, which transformed San Francisco into the safest community for homeless animals in America. Part of that work involved exporting our success across the country. To that end, I worked closely with Senator Hayden on a groundbreaking shelter reform law.

Of its many provisions, the most important legacy is a provision that makes it illegal for California pounds to kill animals that rescuers are willing to save, unless those animals are irremediably suffering. Over 2,000,000 animals have been saved rather than killed in the 23 years since the Hayden Law was signed by the Governor. And one of them is sleeping comfortably beside me as I write these words. One day away from being killed in a pound that refused to work with any rescue groups until the Hayden Law forced them to, my dog Oswald — underweight, fearful, and suffering from a painful eye injury — was transferred to a rescue group that provided the medical care he needed and adopted him to us.

Today, the San Francisco SPCA — the shelter that helped create the Hayden Law, that empowered and emboldened me to take a job at an open admission animal control shelter and create the first No Kill community in America, which in turn led me to found the No Kill Advocacy Center to replicate that success, and which finally led to a 95% decline in killing nationwide — is a leading opponent of the very revolution it started.

It wants “shelters” in California to kill more dogs, despite non-profit organizations and No Kill shelters ready, willing, and able to save them — dogs like Bowie. The same day rescuers expressed interest in Bowie, Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care & Control — labeling him “behavior” and “unadoptable” — killed him. Instead of a new beginning, the little 10-pound terrier who should have had his whole life ahead of him, who never tried to bite, who posed no threat to anyone, was injected with an overdose of poison and turned to ash. He was barely 15 weeks old.

To prevent these kinds of killings, rescuers sued Los Angeles County under the Hayden Law. And in a significant victory for rescuers, the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that under that law, California shelters cannot kill dogs “based upon its determination that the animal has a behavioral problem or is not adoptable or treatable.” But Los Angeles County has petitioned the California Supreme Court for review.

It is asking the state’s highest court to overturn that ruling by fear-mongering that unless it does so, dangerous dogs will “threaten [the] life, health, and safety of humans and fellow animals.” Despite such fear-mongering, there are no studies or other evidence to support their assertions of danger to public safety, and there is ample evidence to the contrary. Moreover, as I explained to the Justices, shelters are not competent — and ought not to be trusted — to determine that a dog is “unadoptable.”

But Los Angeles has a powerful new ally — and the animals a powerful new enemy. The San Francisco SPCA hired one of the largest law firms in the world and filed an amicus brief to amplify L.A. County’s fear-mongering.

The San Francisco brief:

• Misrepresents the ability of shelter staff to determine whether a dog is aggressive;
• Misrepresents the motivations of shelter employees;
• Rehashes arguments made in opposition to Hayden’s enactment in the first place, which were rejected by the Legislature in 1998, disproven in the years since, and not the province of the courts;
• Claims that shelters will be forced to give “dangerous and vicious” dogs to rescue organizations, even though “dangerous and vicious” dogs are explicitly exempt from the rescue rights mandate; and,
• Engages in scare tactics by claiming children will die.

Ironically, a report by an attorney at the same law firm analyzed over ten years of data and found “no evidence that the problems predicted by some when the [Hayden] law was considered, such as… exposing the public to dangerous dogs, has ever materialized.”

If the Court grants the Petition, more dogs like Bowie and Oswald will die. But that is not the only harm. In addition to saving nearly 100,000 animals a year, the law has led to positive shelter culture changes. Before enactment, for example, an employee at the California pound where Oswald entered hosed down the cage of a dog that had just had puppies, resulting in puppies being swept down the drain and drowning. The shelter not only neglected animals, it also refused to work with rescue groups, killing animals instead. The pound was a prime example of why the rescue access provision was so essential, despite the myth that shelters would never act irrationally and immorally by killing animals that rescue groups were willing to save. Thanks to the Hayden Law, the number of cats and dogs rescued from that shelter immediately increased from zero to over 1,200 cats and 2,500 dogs annually. After rescue groups gained legal access and no longer feared retaliation, they successfully lobbied for overall improvements in shelter operations.

Other species entering shelters also benefit from the Hayden Law’s rescue access provision. While rabbits are the third most popular pet after dogs and cats, most shelters in California did very little for them before the enactment of the Hayden Law. The Hayden Law places cats, dogs, and small animals on the same footing. Thus, the Hayden Law establishing mandatory rescue access for small animals, cats, and dogs has helped create a more vibrant and professional small animal rescue community. As a result, more rabbits and other small animals are getting out of shelters alive.

By contrast, in states with no equivalent of the rescue access provision of the Hayden Law, rescuers have a much more difficult time trying to save lives and improve shelters. In the absence of any legal mechanism requiring shelters to work with rescue groups, rescuers fear the shelters’ power to retaliate against them. The result is that animals who are neglected and even abused in shelters are more likely not to be helped, and animals that rescuers would otherwise save are killed instead.

As Carl Jung, the father of analytical psychology, argued, if you want to understand why someone is arguing or doing something, look at the consequences, and you can infer the motivation. If this is true, that is what managers at the Los Angeles County Pound and the San Francisco SPCA want, and they are not alone.

The San Francisco SPCA’s brief arguing that more dogs should die in California is signed by:

• The Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek, CA;
• Central California SPCA;
• Fresno Humane Animal Services;
• Humane Society of Ventura County;
• Inland Valley Humane Society & SPCA;
• Marin Humane;
• Pasadena Humane;
• San Diego Humane Society;
• San Gabriel Valley Humane Society;
• SPCA Los Angeles;
• Valley Humane Society; and,
• Ventura County Animal Services.

These and other organizations — including Best Friends, Austin Pets Alive, and the ASPCA — even fought against legislation that would have codified the court ruling into law. AB 595, Bowie’s Law, was introduced to ensure that animals like him, who have a place to go, would be spared by requiring California shelters to notify rescuers before killing an animal.

And given that such notifications are possible through shelter software already used by these facilities or available for free, complying would have required nothing more than a stroke on a keyboard: one click to notify rescuers that a life needed saving. Because of their opposition, the bill died in committee. The organizations that used to be protectors of animals are now leading the effort to harm them.

But the animals are not without friends. The No Kill Advocacy Center filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to deny L.A. County’s petition. We asked the Court to preserve the right of rescue organizations and No Kill shelters to save dogs these regressive agencies are intent on putting to death. In doing so, we continue a tradition of protecting animals that groups like the San Francisco SPCA and Best Friends used to but no longer do.

What the Justices will do remains to be seen…