The No Kill Movement's Contribution To Animal Suffering

The no kill movement focuses obsessively on an extraordinarily tiny number of dogs and cats that are mostly in shelters almost to the exclusion of everything else. Perhaps this is a way of avoiding larger, painful realities. Whatever the psychological motives, what is absent is true questioning regarding whether or not this movement has really helped animals. What is clear is that the animals killed to feed dogs and cats, including intelligent pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, goats, lambs, do not factor into their equation. If it did, no kill would be a term rendered meaningless. If dogs and cats were being fed to pigs and other animals, the outcry would be ear shattering
             Regarding dogs and cats, the exclusive focus of their concern, it is worth asking, does this movement contribute or lessen animal cruelty?  A strong argument can be made for how the no kill  movement has contributed to animal cruelty for a multiplicity of reasons, including the following:  1. Trivializing cruelty by equating it with humane euthanasia.  2. Diverting resources, time and energy from far more critical issues facing animals, including animal cruelty. 3. Diverting resources, time and energy from other far more serious issues facing animals, including the decimation of wildlife and biodiversity collapse.  4. Diverting resources from human needs, including child welfare, and failing to realize that the more children suffer, the more likely all the living creatures in their lives are suffering.  4. Animal hoarders, a disease that often masquerades as a desire to "save" and "help" animals, have been served well by this movement, which often fails to distinguish between hoarding, filth, animal collecting, and the obsessive desire that no dog or cat gets euthanized, no matter how much the dog or cat suffers, and no matter how horrific the conditions in which they live. 5. Ignoring or pretending to be concerned about, real cruelty and suffering, while doing nothing to address and at least try to ameliorate real suffering. 6. Ignoring the filthy and horrific conditions in which many animals live in the obsessive focus that all that matters is that no dog or cat gets euthanized. 7. Ignoring the hundreds of millions of dogs and cats that live in the worst of conditions homeless on the streets all over the world, many suffering from excruciatingly painful diseases, including sarcoptic mange that causes slow, agonizing deaths. 8. Ignoring not only how these street dogs and cats suffer, but the ways in which they transmit disease not only to humans, but also to wildlife, including marine life. 9. Ignoring also the death and destruction domestic dogs and cats, and outdoor cats in particular, exact from wildlife. 10. The obsessive desire that dogs or cats not get euthanized can mean many dogs and cats are getting placed in homes or situations where there is not adequate care, or they are in fact being abused. 11. Ignoring the horrific conditions and suffering of  animals, many in factory farms, that are raised and slaughtered to feed dogs and cats. No kill means some animal gets killed.
              If the no kill movement is not a cult, no matter how large, no matter how widespread, no matter how emotional are many of its adherents and how important and good the movement makes them feel, then it for once needs to open itself up to critical examination. So far, it has inflicted far more harm upon animals than good.