516 | Shelters, No-Kill would put the number of salvageable dogs and cats at roughly 3.6 million on the low end and 4.5 million on the high end of the spectrum But even at the high end this means that, nationally, shelters only need to increase their adoption market by 2–3 percent in order to eliminate all population control killing Today, there are about 165 million dogs and cats in homes Of those, about 20 percent come from shelters Three percent of 165 million is 4.9 million, more than all the salvageable animals being killed in shelters (Keith, 2007) This is a combination of what statisticians call stock and flow In layman’s terms, some of the market will be replacement life, that is, a companion animal dies or runs away and the owner wants another one, some will be expanding markets, that is, someone doesn’t have an animal companion but wants one, or they have one but want another But it all comes down to increasing market share, that is, where they get their companion animals from No-kill advocates believe that these same demographics show that every year about twice as many people are looking to bring a new dog into their home as the total number of dogs entering shelters, and every year more people are looking to bring a new cat into their home than the total number of cats entering shelters (Winograd, 2007; Merritt, 2007) Moreover, not all animals entering shelters need adoption; some will be lost strays that will be reclaimed Some cats are feral or wild and need sterilization and return to their habitats Vicious dogs, and animals that are irremediably suffering or hopelessly ill/injured will not be eligible for adoption From the perspective of achievability, no-kill advocates point out, the prognosis is very good Third, many downplayed the significance of San Francisco’s accomplishment for other communities by arguing that such a result could only be achieved in an urban community, not a rural one, because of poverty and antiquated views of animals When No-Kill was achieved in the rural Tompkins County, New York animal control shelter, it was argued by some that it could not be done in the South When it was achieved at an animal control shelter in Charlottesville, Virginia, these same groups claimed it could not be similarly achieved in developing communities that are seeing tremendous population growth and urban sprawl, because the influx of new people and animals would overwhelm the infrastructure of animal control, forcing shelters to kill The 90 percent rates of lifesaving in the communities in and around Reno, Nevada, a more than 50 percent drop in killing and doubling of the adoption rate in less than one year, despite rapid population growth and approximately 16,000 dogs and cats entering the system annually, disproves that, too (Brown, 2008) These and other cities have either achieved No-Kill, are close to doing so, or have begun moving aggressively in that direction by implementing the programs and services of the No-Kill Equation Building the capacity to save lives after years of failing to so may take time, but that does not obviate the fact that shelter killing is a result of shelter practices and not pet overpopulation Furthermore, nokill shelter advocates say, the argument that success in less affluent, more rural, or Southern areas is precluded by some peculiarity of lack of caring is not only wrong, elitist, and mean-spirited; it is simply another example of making excuses It ignores the success in rural Tompkins County It ignores the tremendous suc-