I hope those members see the light and quit donating, but some people just cannot stand to accept the truth.

That could be a new regular piece “From the Desk of…”

Is poor Wayne losing his contributors? BOO HOO!
What will he do to keep his retirement pension income?

When is the 2009 H$U$ tax return supposed to be available to the public?  Does the H$U$ always file an extension so that they can “play” with the numbers as long as possible?

One thing I am sure of, they will not be able to hide from the public how much of the public’s donations they continue to waste.

The calendar I rec’d from Wayne yesterday in the mail is nothing but cats & dogs - carefully balanced to have 5 months with dog/puppy featured, 5 months with cat/kitten featured and 2 months with both a dog & cat in the main shot. 

The really odd thing is how many times Wayne asks that I mail confirmation of having received the calendar & assures me that if I have not rec’d it or it was damaged to please let him know so he can personally send another.

The text of the letter is written to insert my city within the sentence because Wayne is just as concerned as I am with the cruelty to animals right here in “River City”.

At least 5 places the contents are printed with H$U$ 7 steps to a happy pet.  They left off number 8: H$U$ losing non-profit status.  Go ahead & be a lobbying organization but be open about it & what your true agenda is!

BARF!

“It came from a ZIP code in Mount Pleasant, Iowa and included a reply envelope addressed to Phoenix, Arizona.”

Funny they chose Mount Pleasant, Iowa - they have a nasty pit bull ban there, and I almost got into serious trouble there a couple of years ago when I brought my pit bull there to do a location shoot for a film! My dog could have been confiscated and killed. I didn’t find Mount Pleasant as… pleasant. Especially not for dogs with short hair and half-rose ears!

I have the 2009 Financial Operations Report and will quote from it below.  HSUS in 2009 spent almost 6 million dollars on research and education, over 12 million on field and disaster response programs rescuing suffering animals in puppy mills and other severe abuse situations, almost 8 million on domestic cruelty prevention programs, over 10 million on wildlife programs, over 11.5 million on animal care facilities, over 26 million on advocacy and public policy, and over 7.3 million on international animal programs.  Yes, they have administrative and fundraising costs.  Their CEO makes good money but it’s .22 percent (less than a quarter of one percent) of their budget.  Yes, they advertise that they help kittens and puppies.  If you don’t want to donate to them that’s your business, but HSUS spends the most money to help animals of any of any anti- animal cruelty group, period.  Please do donate to your local shelter or to another reputable charity organization.

As a followup to my comment earlier questioning the always delayed release of the H$U$ annual tax return, I believe Louise may have answered the question for me.  It seems the H$U$ needs time to ramp up the propaganda machine to prepare the “glossy annual report” before the “real” numbers from the tax return are made available to the public. 

Consistent with their history of telling half truths all of the time only to see the truth come out after the fact, I’m sure the H$U$ needs time to “spin doctor” their own effectiveness in the area of animal welfare before the truth comes out for all to see.  When the 2009 tax return for the H$U$ becomes available to the public, I am sure we will see that the published “annual report” is again just a glossy waste of paper.  Sadly, it will also probably show that another year has gone by where the H$U$ has pulled the wool over the eyes of those people who unsuspectingly donated to them in hopes of providing real care to animals in need.

Louise,
If their CEO really cared about the animals would he be taking that much money?
I know people who donate the majority of their time to the animals in shelters and they never receive a dime. I have no doubts that they do it for their care of the animals.
Someone making the kind of money Wayne makes—I have serious doubts he cares about the animals and is in it more for the money and to try and force his screwed up way of life on the rest of us.
Oh and they aren’t an anti-animal-cruelty group. They are an Animal Rights group. Big difference.

Shelly:
I don’t think rescuing and providing sanctuary and healing for abused animals, at facilities such as the Duchess Sanctuary in Oregon,or providing emergency care to injured ill or orphaned wild animals at the Cape Wildlife center in Mass., constitutes forcing a screwed up way off life on people. But if you do, that’s your business.

Isn’t the duchess sanctuary where there was a video on this site of horses that were kept in just as bad of conditions as some of the horses they’ve stolen?

Being a vegan, wanting the end of domesticated animals, wanting to end all hunting, the end to wearing wool, leather, yeah that’s a screwed up way of life imo. Because you see I like to eat meat the way God intended. I also like my dogs to eat meat the way God intended and not the bag of veggies that HSUS sells. I like owning dogs and I like to wear leather shoes/boots. I also am satisfied with my life and don’t want or need to force Wayne to not eat his tofu or force him to own a dog the same way in his screwed up life he thinks I should be forced to not eat meat and not own a dog.

As to a wildlife sanctuary I have one of those not far from where I live. The funny thing is they were having a hard time keeping their doors open because of lack of money. They contacted the HSUS and were basically blown off, the HSUS never sent them a dime. Although they had helped the HSUS in the past by taking some of their wild animals. But it remained open because people who like to own animals and even some that like to breed animals and raise animals for meat and those mean old hunters who kill animals donated money, food and held fundraisers.

So you see I’m honest about where I stand. I’m 100% anti-HSUS or any AR group because I believe animals should be treated humanely, but I do not believe an animal should have the same rights as me or my child.  Are you a donating member to HSUS? Do you believe I shouldn’t be allowed to own a dog? Do you believe I shouldn’t be allowed to eat meat? Do you believe an animal deserves the same rights as a human?

If you’re only a donating member then I ask that you would quit following them blindly and do your research if you want it to remain a right to own an animal.

If you believe the rest of the crap that HSUS believes then your wasting your time and mine by having a discussion with you. Because my goal is to end all AR groups and your goal is to end all animals.

“APPLAUSE TO SHELLY”!
Louise - You are so outnumbered and embarrassing yourself as usual.

I have worked for several not for profit organizations and they ALL have their wicked secrets kept in the computers of the CFO and CEO. None of them are what they appear to be. I have worked for two different “Christian” Charities and they both stole from their members. I was the one asking for donations and became sick of how much money the CFO and CEO of both organizations made and how they moved money around to make it look as if they were allocating their funds properly. I was what some refer to as a “whistle blower” for one of them and was -of course- fired for telling the truth about their sex, lies and video tapes that lead the public to believe they were out only for the good of the people. They were-and more than likely still are-out for themselves. Just like a Church, they are a Business first. I don’t have for the Humane Society locally or nationally. They do some good, but they could do a whole lot better. Locally they have no heart and hire people with no concern for the animals left there. And, my son contacted ASPCA by phone one day when his dog ate a tube of A&D ointment. He asked what he could do in the mean time before leaving for the emergency vet. They asked for a credit card number! They were going to charge him $35.00 just to tell him to make her drink a little peroxide to induce vomiting. He hung up on them after a few select words. They rushed her to the emergency vet and they induced vomiting. She is fine. I personally called the SPCA in Dallas to help with a dog that I found on the streets. They wanted $30.00 to make an appointment to interview the dog. Then another $20 if they decided to keep her in the shelter. So, they make $50.00 off of the people who leave a stray (or other) there and then make more on the adoption fees. Please keep in mind she was spayed and I got her shots so that wasn’t a charge they would incur. Give your money to individuals and small groups around your town who spend their time and money (and what little donations they get) to ensure the safety of abandoned dogs and cats. There are plenty of them out there. I rescue and spend my own money (and I have very little) so that a dog won’t be killed.

People please keep in mind that Annual Reports are for the public and the board members, not the government. And in a lot of the cases, the Board Members do not question the CEO or CFO.  Most of the time what is in the Annual Report doesn’t jive with what is really going on with the money.

Give locally to small groups and/or individuals. Demand lower salaries for the CEO and CFO or you won’t donate. In 2002 the CEO of VOATX was making over $140,000 that he “claimed.” That was in 2002! Eight years ago. The CFO made $100,000 and the Human Resource person made $80.000 Yet the people who worked with clients made barely over minimum wage and raised the money made an hourly rate.

And let’s not forget about The United Way! What a waste of your money. They are Nothing more than middle men/women. They take your money, put a lot in their pockets and then decide where and how much to donate of your money. I could go on and on about the so called non profits. ALL that means is that they cannot show a profit at the end of the year, that doesn’t mean they don’t make money for themselves. You want to give money to an organization that does what it says, give to Best Friends Animal Society or local groups who put their heart and soul into their work. Stop enabling these organizations to help themselves to your money.

I used to give to the HSUS until I volunteered for a local shelter and sat on their board.  I found out that they received ZERO dollars from this group.  In fact, they were struggling so much, that they had to turn to Petfinder.com in order to display their animals because they had run out of room.  They are a local SHELTER and it is run solely on donations.  Once they ran out of space, they had no choice but to euthanize the older animals with behavior issues or illnesses that would keep them from being able to adopt them out as easily.  It was sad for everyone.  After I left that board I got involved with a no-kill shelter and organizations that raise money that DOES go to local shelters.  Instead of giving money to HSUS, which is really a front in some ways for extreme animal activism not even related to animals in the US - buy some paper towels, buy a bag or two of dog or cat food, buy some kitty litter, take old, clean rugs that you’re going to throw out, take newspapers—- these rescues NEED these things all the time.  And they go directly to care for pets - not Zebras in Africa.  I love all animals, and I am not saying that Zebras should be knocked off any list - just saying - IF YOU ARE TRYING TO SUPPORT CATS, DOGS and PET ANIMALS, the HSUS is NOT the way to go.

@ Michael A - but they aren’t wasting the public’s donations, by their reckoning, and if you watched the broadcast clip from youtube, they do acknowledge, if reluctantly, that they give little money to hands on animal support. Their position is they lobby for laws to eliminate animal abuse. People don’t seem to realize these laws actually just restrict animal ownership. The horse slaughter law is the clearest illustration of their callous attitude toward the animals themselves.

@Louise - how does legislation which steadily shrinks the number of people who can own pets and other animals, help animals? Or do you seriously think that the majority of pet lovers - themselves a solid majority of the population - are animal abusers?

To HSUS and the other AR organizations, animal ownership = animal abuse. It’s that simple. They seek to legislate animal use of all kinds out of human lives. They don’t have to actually outlaw animal ownership (and couldn’t if they tried to do it openly; only extremist activists want that), all they have to do is make it impossible for ordinary people to meet the bureaucratic requirements.

So far as their sanctuaries are concerned -  the Black Beauty sanctuary which was the first and which was a bequest (they weren’t looking for it) was mothballed for years. They have begun using sanctuaries mostly, I believe, as a defense against the charge that they do no hands on animal care. Though sanctuaries are not shelters in the public sense of the word, they serve to refute that argument. Likewise, Pacelle himself now owns a cat, poor creature. Sanctuaries do work much better for them than conventional shelters, however, in that once an animal hits a sanctuary, it will never again have a one-to-one home with humans. Though there are some animals for which this is a reasonable answer, for most domestic animals it is just another way to separate people from animals.

If you doubt this, ask yourself why, after thirty years of legislation designed to ‘get rid of puppy mills’, we have more puppy mills than ever. Clearly, their goal is not to ‘get rid of puppy mills’, nor is it to reduce animal cruelty and neglect, or their animal control laws would seek strongly to reform shelter and rescue environments, which are often worse than those they remove animals from. But these facilities are exempt from the legislation they support, as are most commercial facilities. They don’t care about the animals, and don’t know any more about them than they need to to sponsor laws destructive to the public’s right to own and breed animals.

Agriculturally, any time agriculture gets close to catching up with their demands, HSUS moves the bar.

Their goal is to regulate animal ownership and use out of our lives, not to impact animal neglect or cruelty, of which there is little, unless you concede that animal ownership is in itself abusive.

@Shelly - thumbs up. Thanks.

Right now HSUS charges my credit card every month. How do I get them to stop. I am at the point where I want to donate locally and have stopped with HSUS and United Way for the reasons stated here. Help!!

Thanks.. I just cancelled!! Now to find some local areas to give..

@ Kim - no-kill shelters are the neediest. Animal rights proponents hate them, and they often do support individual animals for years.

Enjoy!