Shelters, No-Kill | 517 cess in Charlottesville, Virginia It goes against a study by a South Mississippi humane society that found 69 percent of people with unsterilized dogs or cats would get them spayed/neutered if it was free, a fact which is not surprising for a state with some of the lowest per capita income levels in the United States (Winograd, 2007) Fourth, no-kill shelter advocates note that these arguments mimic the claims in other areas of animal rights that reject practical or utilitarian considerations over ethical or rights-oriented ones Just as the animal rights movement rejects other ideas that violate the rights of animals even in the face of some human benefit or other practical consideration, it too should reject the idea that killing them is acceptable because of the claim, even if one were to accept it as fact, that there are too many for the arguably too few homes which are available What the Future Holds Since No-Kill is a nascent movement, it is still undergoing a turbulent period prior to acceptance and sustainability It is also highly dependent on the actions and success of committed individual leaders For No-Kill to succeed in the long term, advocates believe that shelters must build a culture of accountability and lifesaving that allows agencies to continue on their path to No-Kill even when their visionary leaders move on to other pursuits To that, shelters need to create a nokill-oriented board of directors, staff, and volunteer corps, and share their success publicly until the community accepts it Shelter reform legislation, which lays out the roles and responsibilities of shelters, must also be codified and enforced This will provide a defense against backslid- ing later, by creating the expectation of lifesaving among a shelter’s board, volunteers, and the community at large The more successful this effort is, the more No-Kill will shift from being personality based, a result of the efforts of individual leaders, to becoming institutionalized as the doctrine of the shelter and the expectation of the community Given the increasing acceptance of broader animal rights issues, even when people not have a personal connection or relationship to the animals involved, the long-term prognosis for the success of the No-Kill paradigm is good Underpinning the philosophy is the building of a new consensus, which rejects killing as a method for achieving results But even within the philosophy, there are some contradictions and challenges which need to be resolved and which will increasingly rise to the forefront Animal activists are not suggesting that hopelessly ill or injured sheltered animals be put up for adoption, and few, if any, are calling for truly vicious dogs to be adopted into homes in the community Under the prevailing No-Kill philosophy, these animals would not be counted under killing for purposes of population control (Keith, 2007) While more than 90 percent of dogs and cats entering shelters are neither hopelessly suffering nor vicious and would fall outside this limited range of exceptions, however, it does not follow that the remainder should be killed The reality is that, while fewer than 10 percent of shelter animals are ineligible for adoption, the vast majority are not suffering and as long as they are not suffering, their killing raises a host of ethical issues In fact, not only are some unadoptable animals living without pain, they enjoy a good quality of life and can continue to