SALVATION IN SALVISA…Alternatives to Animal Euthanasia

By Rob Hulsman, ACE Magazine, Feb. 4, 1998
Reprinted courtesy ACE Magazine

When Gilbert the pig fell from the back of a truck in Louisville, he was a mess--and just this side of a frying pan--as opposed to the proverbial "hog heaven" at a no-kill animal shelter in Salvisa, Kentucky.

"Gilbert's the star, you'll need a picture of Gilbert," advises Stan Petrey, co-founder of Salvisa's Home At Last Animal Sanctuary.  Petrey knows that a picture of Gilbert eating grapes is just the sort of image that could boost fundraising for his shelter, one of the few truly no-kill animal shelters in the state.  He's a natural for this sort of thing, given an extensive background in advertising and television.  Petrey worked in local television and for KET throughout the late 70's.  He's started his own ad agency and worked for USA and Lifetime.  It was just that role in producing a television show at Kanab, Utah's Best Friends no-kill shelter that changed Petrey's life.

"The spirit of healing, refuge, and just the spirit of the place itself is magical," says Petrey of the 1,500 animal shelter.  The experience stuck with him.  He returned to Kentucky and with the help of Margie Gill and Darlene Cook started Home At Last.  "Late last winter we started talking about it; we had a few meetings to gauge interest last January; and fences started going up in spring.  We were operational by summer."

The almost entirely volunteer operation includes five areas for dogs, two for rescued farm animals (Gilbert's new home) and a planned "cat palace' for the feline members of the sanctuary.  All animals--cats, dogs, ferrets, pigs, you-name-it--are treated equally in this furry nirvana, allowed to roam the huge expanse of Home At Last.  The shelter is truly no-kill, in that all the animals housed there are vegetarian.

"We know it would violate the spirit if we fed Gilbert's kind to the dogs or cats," writes Petrey in an impassioned editorial in the latest Home At Last newsletter.  Petrey and his associates make the cats' food themselves, but Clear Creek dog food helps to subsidize the canines' diet. [Home At Last dogs have been fed Natural Life vegetarian since spring of 1998.]

Realistically, there is no getting around the fact that countless animals must be euthanized every day of every week of every year.  Euthanasia methods have become far more humane by leaps and bounds, but not every part of the country abides by these methods.   Lethal injection is the most common method, followed by gas, however bullets are still used much too frequently, especially in rural parts of the state.  The Lexington Humane Society is celebrating, relatively speaking, a 49 percent euthanasia rate for 1997.  Even though the number is close to half of all animals brought to the shelter, it is much lower than the previous year.  Just at the beginning of the decade in 1990 the number was 62 percent.  The shelter uses injection to put down unadopted companions but has a relatively high adoption rate of 25 percent.

The National Humane Society's official stance on such matters reads: "A limited-admission organization's fund-raising solicitations should acknowledge that the shelter's ability to choose not to euthanize homeless animals depends in part upon the existence of animal shelter that do so.  To fail to be forthright about the realities of pet overpopulation is to create in the public's mind the false and harmful perception that every animals shelter could choose to end companion animals euthanasia without disastrous animal suffering. Resulting from that decision."

"As far as we're concerned, no-kill shelters are wonderful when done well, and Home At Last is done well.  The only downside is the huge public misconception--no-kill shelters don't mean animals don't get killed, just the animals in that shelter, " agrees Cindy Rullman of the Lexington Humane Society.  "The reason we have shelters in the first place is irresponsible pet owners."

Virginia Morris, director of the Bluegrass Animals Welfare League also agrees.  Her organization works with public schools and science teachers on a weekly basis educating children on the importance of spaying or neutering pets.  The