On Animal Wise Radio
I was a guest on Animal Wise Radio on June 8, talking about the Tompkins experience and the movie premiere. Kelly Jedlicki of Shelby County No Kill Mission spoke about her experience creating a No Kill community in Kentucky and her reaction to the film. If you missed it, you can listen to the podcast of Animal Wise Radio from June 8, 2014.
One thing we got into was the similarity between how ‘shelters’ that kill animals are similar to perpetrators of domestic violence. Sometimes perpetrators of domestic abuse will harm or kill or threaten to harm or kill the pets of someone they are seeking to control. Rescuers and volunteers, and sometimes members of the public are familiar with this type of scenario in the context of animal sheltering, with the shelter and its staff in the role of abuser, and the rescuers, volunteers, pet owners and pets in the role of targets or victims. I’ve written about this sort of thing in the past, and it has been making the news lately in Georgia, specifically in Clayton County. I mentioned the writings of Patricia Evans, probably the world’s leading expert on verbal abuse. Most of her writing concerns verbal abuse in heterosexual relationships, but is well worth reading for the light it can shed on what goes on in animal welfare. I’ll be exploring this important and fascinating subject in future posts.
And don’t forget to get your tickets to the Atlanta screening on August 21. More information about the film and screenings in other cities here.