What does NO KILL mean?
Rescue Response: “No Kill” is a term that was coined by Rich Avanzino in the 1990’s that is designed to make distinctions between the various types of organizations in the animal welfare movement. The term is a bit of a misnomer since for the vast majority of “No Kill” organizations what that “No Kill” really means is “very rarely kill”. The most important distinction here is that “No Kill” groups do not euthanize because they have run out of space (and therefore need to euthanize animals to make room for the non stop influx of animals abandoned by their owners). Virtually all “No Kills” however, will euthanize an animal that has shown repeated aggression towards people or other animals, or has a terminal illness that significantly impacts the animal’s quality of life. While all “No Kill” organizations euthanize in rare cases, when they decide to euthanize vs. decide to continue working with the animal varies from organization to organization. Every year RESCUE is faced with making a h
