Two paws up!

Scout and Redemption, originally uploaded by dawnkua.

I read Redemption over the weekend and thought it was a really good book. It was thought provoking and a good summary of the No-Kill movement and what's been happening in the US. Not everything obviously is applicable to Singapore (I don't think we have an increase in homes wanting animals as in the US because of the HDB rule for one) but much of it is good common sense - for example, if you want people to come and adopt from a shelter, you need to be open at hours that they can come (ie after office hours) and not when they are working because then you're cutting out the people you most want - people with jobs. Obviously he says that the backbone of no-kill is having a low cost spay-neuter programme because people are much more likely to sterilise when it's cheap or free.

Winograd comes up with basically several steps to follow to basically be No-Kill but the most basic one is that there has to be a will to do it and not to be entrenched in what is commonly thought. For example - there are irresponsible people abandoning animals, hence we have no choice but to kill. He believes one does not follow the other - there ARE irresponsible people and thus shelters exist. However he believes in tapping into the community to try and find solutions - and that if the community knows a shelter is no-kill, then they are much more likely to want to help. Again, with smaller households and the no-cat rule, I think finding fosters is harder here too - but even if not every step can be replicated, certainly going down that road is a start.

Unfortunately I don't believe you can get this book in Singapore - I tried some bookstores yesterday. I ordered mine online and had to wait a while to get it but it was worth the wait. I am thinking of ordering a few more now!