What really started the "no kill" movement?

The Facebook group "No Kill Nation" posted an article from the San Francisco Gate.com today called "Saving Sido - How One Dog Sparked a Movement" - and it, I don't know - irked me a bit - because to me, it's almost like the "No Kill Nation" and Nathan Winograd organization have completely co-opted the "no-kill" moniker - like as if no one else ever thought of the term before they did.

Not to say I don't LOVE Nathan Winograd and everything he and his underling organizations stand for - from the moment I first heard of him and everything he stands for - I have been prostelytyzing everything he's ever uttered - but the article just kind of grabbed me a bit - because I KNOW that "no kill" existed before Nathan Winograd and Richard Avanzino.

San Francisco came from Ed Duvin - and his ideas in the document "In the Name of Mercy" - which I was SO lucky to have read right at the very beginning of my own inititation into the world of rescue - it is a document that was written back in 1989 - and is a must-read for anyone who is in the world of dog-politics.

Michael Mountain talks about it in an article called "To Kill or Not to Kill" - and in it he says -

"In 1989, animal lover and commentator Ed Duvin wrote a landmark article that highlighted this dark paradox and served as a wake-up call to the humane community overall. Underlying the entire "humane" movement and its "shelters," he said, "is the dark secret that it is, in part, little more than a vast killing machine." Ed Duvin's article became the subject of much discussion, and many traditional shelters began focusing more on spay/neuter and adoption programs, and on community education. Some of the nation's biggest SPCAs began to switch to a no-kill policy. One of the earliest of these was the San Francisco SPCA. They switched to a no-kill policy themselves,and then started working to prevent any homeless animal in the city from having to be destroyed."

There is so much more to the world of "no kill", and so much more history to it - than just Richard Avanzino and Nathan Winograd - as much as I - and we, in the movement - love them - and I don't think that should be forgotten - because there's so much good stuff that's been written by them that shouldn't be lost.

All the history that's been done by Best Friends, even if they are going through some changes at the moment, Ed Duvin, all those activists who were fighting against Sue Sternberg - remember those people? I wonder where those people went... does anybody even remember who Sue Sternberg is? Because she is the god mother of horrible temperament testing - and those things have killed a lot of dogs too...

But anyway - I had to get that off my shoulders on a Sunday night, even though I love Nathan and Richard Avanzino - I also love Ed Duvin - as I'm sure a lot of other no-kill advocates do. ba-dump-ba.