Jun 14 2011
Perception Versus Reality
In case you missed it, the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote about HumaneWatch on Sunday after we recently placed two ads in the paper. The Times confirmed what comes as a shock to many animal lovers: The “Humane Society” of the United States shares less than 1 percent of its budget with hands-on pet shelters.
But the Times also took issue with our ads, calling them “misleading.” Ironic? Absolutely. The only misleading piece of this puzzle is HSUS’s advertising strategy.
HSUS populates its ads with tear-jerking pictures of dogs and cats, even though it shares mere pocket change with homeless pets. The Times seems to suggest that this is okay, justifying it with the argument that HSUS “never claimed that its mission is to fund local animal shelters.”
This “HSUS never said” argument is worth addressing, in part because partisan HSUS supporters repeat it ad nauseum as an excuse for HSUS’s practices. Which is a huge cop-out.
We’ve mentioned how one recent HSUS TV ad (the one featuring Jenna Elfman) included images of 44 different animals—42 of which were dogs or cats. That’s 95 percent, and it’s no fluke.
In HSUS’s “Countdown to Stop the Suffering” ad (featuring Wendy Malick), 29 out of 32 animals (91 percent) are dogs or cats. The pet-count in HSUS’s “Silent Victims” ad (also featuring Malick) is 30 out of the 32 on-screen animals (94 percent). HSUS’s “The Future is in Our Hands” and “All Around Us” commercials both have similar numbers.
Nowhere in these commercials does HSUS tell viewers that so little of its budget goes to shelters like those that actually help find “forever homes” for dogs and cats. HSUS doesn’t run any disclaimers saying that it’s not a pet-shelter umbrella group. None of the ads’ voice-overs mention the lack of any affiliation between HSUS and “humane society” pet shelters. There’s a disclaimer buried somewhere on HSUS’s website, but donors who dial into the number that appears in some of HSUS’s ads probably won’t read it. And even those who find HSUS’s carefully crafted disclaimer won’t be told that the amount of HSUS’s budget granted to shelters is less than one percent.
It’s true that HSUS does do some things that donors expect it to. Operating an “animal rescue” team, for instance, is laudable. We wish the animals HSUS “rescues” weren’t generally dumped at hands-on shelters without the resources to care for them, but we imagine HSUS would consider such objections a hair-splitting exercise.
After all, where is the money for pet shelters going to come from? Each of HSUS’s 30-plus full-time lawyers is a mouth to feed. And the $16.3 million accrued to HSUS’s pension plan won’t divert itself. (That’s more than HSUS gave in grants to pet shelters during the same years those pension dollars flowed.) And spending half of your budget on overhead (according to one charity watchdog) isn’t a formula for funding other needy organizations.
And don’t get us started about all of HSUS’s lobbying, some of it spent in order to “get rid of” animal agriculture.
HSUS is welcome to raise money, but it should do so ethically. Using images of dogs and cats (which presents Americans with a specific impression) to mask animal-rights campaigns and questionable spending doesn’t qualify.
Comments
Thanks for the work you do!! It is shocking how few people are aware of what the HSUS does with it’s resources and what their real political goals are. Blind faith in big companies that they should be doing the right thing is scary. Please continue! We are listening!
Well, operating ‘rescue’ teams MIGHT be laudable, if they stuck to rescuing animals that needed to be rescued. Of course, if that were the case, they probably couldn’t justify keeping the teams around, because the reality is that abuse is NOT the norm, it is NOT common. In most of these cases, the owners are either acquitted of all wrong doing when they finally get to a courtroom. Of course, in some of these cases, the prosecutor has been unable to find any legitimate charges to file against them when it came to it.
Sadly, by the time the owners are acquitted, their animals which aren’t dead have been dispersed across the country, and no records kept.
So I have to disagree with your position that there is anything laudable in their ‘rescue teams’.
If the HSUS were serious about clearing up any msiconceptions about their mission, wouldn’t they change their name? Yeah, like that will happen. We know that they INTENTIONALLY mislead.
Every attempt I make to play the Youtube video of the “Countdown to stop suffering” ad featuring Wendy Malick is unsuccessful as the video is marked “private” Why is the video marked “private” unless there is something on the ad the HSUS wants to hide?
How long of a commercial would it be if they could only depict animals in need for 0.47% of the length of the commercial? How about they have to advertise in proportion to the distribution of their funds…like 30-odd percent for hedge funds and pensions…a huge percent for raising more funds, etc?
Why can’t we forward some of these articles to local Humane Societies and encourage them to change their name so perhaps they could get the donations that mistakenly go to HSUS! This would certainly cut down on the confusion.
I allready give,and have for years.I also feed homeless animals on a daily basis,and have never,ever,missed a day.If they need medical,they get that too.I take care of homeless animals,animals in distress,and animals in need of medical attention,and I allready know I will NEVER stop!!! I get up at 2AM every morning 7 days a week,and have’nt slept in,in years.It takes me hours.to make sure every bodys belly is fed.I love what I do!!!
the other day in comments on a NY Post article, an HSUS employee from the emerging media department stated that every single animal in the HSUS commercials was one they helped.
really?
really?
I asked her to please prove that point and got crickets as a response.
I wonder, has she been drinking the kool aid (and cashing the checks) so long that she doesn’t realize the truth?
Ski Ostrowsky - If you really care about the animals, you be better giving to your local shelters, not to HSUS, ASPCA or any other national ‘animal protection’ organization.
These groups do *not* support local shelters; HSUS gives less than 1/2% of their income to shelters.
If you want to give financial support to animals, give locally. You might want to support your local no-kill shelters, as they get nothing but local support at all. The animal rights organizations actively OPPOSE no-kill sheltering.
Donate locally. Then you know your donation is supporting animals.
@ Dannielle - Since they dump all their rescues in underfunded public shelters which generally have high kill rates before the newcomers arrive, the only logical conclusion you can draw is that they support animals by killing them.
I don’t think that’s how the rest of us would do it.
I wonder how many of those animals in their tear jerker ads are actually dead long before the ads air?
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These ads are all pretty explicit about the fact that HSUS does much more than assist with pet-overpopulation.