Feb 16 2010
That Whole Name-Confusion Problem
Up in Cody, Wyoming (yes, the town founded by "Buffalo" Bill Cody), the Humane Society of Park County is renaming itself the Park County Animal Shelter.
Here's the organization's leader, talking to The Cody Enterprise:
Board president Leigh Dvariskish said unhappiness with the Humane Society of the United States led to the change.
“The HSUS political agenda has created grief for us locally,” she said. “We’ve tried to get the message out that we don’t receive funding and aren’t connected to them, but it hasn’t worked.”
Dvariskish said the HSUS has a multimillion-dollar budget but operates no shelters. All their funding is directed at lobbying for the issues they support.
“Their intention is to push their political ideas, and some of them aren’t popular here locally,” Dvariskish said. “They lobby against hunting and other ag issues, even sometimes pets, and that makes people paranoid about where their money is going.”
Dvariskish said the board wants people to know their donations only benefit the local shelter.
This is odd, don't you think? We've heard of local shelters thinking about legal name changes because they didn't want donors mistakenly sending their checks to HSUS.
But here the concern seems to be that the Humane Society of the United States is known in Wyoming as being against hunting, livestock agriculture, and even pet ownership. And the locals don't want anyone's bad feelings about HSUS to rub off on them.
Could we be seeing the flash-point of a trend? Has your local animal shelter considered changing its name? Let us know.
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Comments
I understand what this site is intended for, but I would hope that mentioning another organization by way of making a point wouldn’t be a problem.
Not at all—I just don’t have time to take on another group right now! 
But if you want to start “ASCPAwatch.org”, I’ll read it with great interest.
fascinating so far to see what you leave in and what you leave out of comments, and what comments you decline to post. Not exactly open and honest exchange.
One would think that if a group wanted to be completely honest about what they were (and were not) they would make it abundantly clear in all their emotional junk mail they send out, huh? The H$U$ relies on the very confusion their name implies…poll 10 ordinary people and ask them what they think the H$U$ is; the vast majority, if not all of them, will tell you that they are ‘over the animal shelters’ in this country.
Of course, if Wayne were to stand up and be truthful (if that’s possible) and say, “hey, we spend millions every year lobbying for laws to eventually turn all you abusive meat-eaters into vegans” or “we really want to end all pet breeding”...how many dollars do you think they would get?? Zero comes to mind; or at least not enough for their top execs to wear Rolex watches.
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The Humane Society of the United States took that name about 50 years ago to distinguish itself from local shelters. Hence “of the United States.” Like SPCA LA is different than ASPCA. Did I miss where you criticized ASPCA for using the same initials as some local groups? (Although it should be the other way around since ASPCA was the first…). “humane society, “SPCA,” “animal welfare league” etc are generic terms, like “animal hospital.” And the definition of a “humane society” by the way is not limited to a group that shelters pets. I’ve always found HSUS to be very clear that they don’t operate local shelters. And that’s not what they were set up to do by the way.