Up until just a couple of years ago, pounds were able to explain away poor performance simply by saying their community was ‘irresponsible’; that they were bad pet owners, that they were buying the wrong pets on impulse, that they were not desexing their pets, that they were giving up and abandoning pets too easily, or that they simply didn’t care enough to adopt. And that was why pounds killed pets.

And the community enabled their poor performance by swallowing these excuses without question.

However, in 2011 something has changed forever.

We’ve been able to find out that we, as Australians, are overwhelmingly responsible and loving pet owners. That we rarely buy the wrong pets on impulse. That we nearly universally desex our animals. That only a tiny percentage of us give up our pets. And that given half a chance, we’d love to adopt.

So we’ve had to dig a little bit deeper for the reasons why pets don’t survive being impounded. Whats more, we’ve been able to compare the performance of one pound with another. With transparency like never before, we’re able to see the single determining factor in a pound’s success in saving the lives of pets; is whether or not they reject killing as a function of animal management.

Historically, it has been high kill, low adoption shelters who peddled the idea that there was ‘too many animals and not enough homes’. But these conclusions weren’t based on numbers of animal intakes vs potential pet adoption market size – instead they were applying simple, unsubstantiated reverse logic; pets are killed in pounds therefore there is too many.  The mythical ‘pet overpopulation’  was then used to protect pound management and hide their ongoing failures from the public.

Today, if we’re looking for real answers, we need to look at the facts, not the fiction – we need to look at the data and the experience of successful shelters.

Around 500,000 pets enter shelters ever year. Kill shelters will say there is no way to find homes for all those animals. But the good news is most of them don’t need adoption. A large number are untame or semi owned cats who need to be kept out of the shelter with TNR and ‘Secret Cat’ programs. More than 80% of the dogs are simply lost & could be reunited with their families if the shelter emphasised redemptions. Others are going to go to rescue groups. While a few are going to be hopelessly ill or injured & will need to be euthanised. Rather than need to rehome all the pets, we really only need to find homes for about one in five of them.

Is it possible?

Are there 100,000 people looking to bring a new cat or dog into their homes this year?

The answer isn’t just yes, but yes, and many, many more times that. Based on the number of pets who pass away naturally, over half a million homes open up each year with loving owners looking to replace their cat or dog. While some are already committed to getting one from another source like a breeder, if we can influence just some of the others to adopt their next pet – we CAN save every adoptable animal. We potentially have half a million people vying for just 100,000 available pets, or in other words, even if 80% of people get their pet from a source other than rescue, we could still zero out the killing.

And that is simply the organic numbers. This doesn’t include people who are getting a pet for the first time. Or people returning to pet ownership after a break. Or people expanding from a single to a multi-pet household. Or people who’d be willing to care for a community cat. Or temporary homes that would foster a pet for a time.

All shelters and pounds have to do to harness this market is decide to stop killing. There are tools to make it happen. There is a model to follow. The numbers show that we can be a No Kill nation.

Ending shelter killing is not only possible, but a certainty once we reject the excuses and demand those in charge of running our animal shelters and pounds comprehensively implement the proactive lifesaving policies & procedures of the No Kill equation. It is community pressure which will force pounds to improve adoption & reclaim rates. It is concerned individuals finding others in the community, to apply pressure to *their* pound in *their* neighbourhood which will ultimately save the lives of pets.

The pound system we get, is the one we accept. If you are an animal lover who wants better for homeless pets than a convenient death in an animal shelter, don’t wait for government to fix the problem. Don’t think animal welfare groups have it in hand. Don’t join a Facebook group & think it will be enough to bring about change. You must activate. Get involved.

The No Kill Revolution Starts with YOU

The No Kill movement gains momentum in Oz.

Resident action group forms to effect change at Campbelltown Animal Care Facility

Activists to pound for a change at Blacktown

GAWS & The LDH – The times they are a-changin…

Earlier in the year I wrote about the stats coming out of NSW, which showed that not only does dog ‘overpopulation’ not exist in the state, but that small changes in council policy could see shelter killing eliminated overnight. However, the figures I was quoting were being collated by independent groups which can sometimes mean they’re discounted as inaccurate by those pushing the ‘overpopulation’ angle.

But the NSW Government has now made public a hefty set of stats which come directly from council pound records; Analysis of Council Data Collection System for Seizures of Cats and Dogs 2005/2006 to 2009/2010, a complete breakdown of all pound intakes in NSW. It gives a in-depth snapshot into both public behaviour and pound performance, which really does confirm what we knew all along – the biggest predictor of whether a dog will die in a pound isn’t the animals breed, behaviour or the owner’s profile, but simply which pound impounds the pet.

.

Less than 10% of dog intakes are surrenders

The average percentage of dogs surrendered according to the report is 9.8%. So the idea the pounds are overflowing with callously dumped pets is simply untrue. What’s more, in all apart from the very largest pounds, the number of intakes of surrendered dogs are only a couple of dozen a month; and really not adding much to the shelter load. Programs which help pet owners keep their pets; community dog training schools, behaviour helplines, dog socialisation opportunities and help for owners who rent, all help cement bonds between pets and owner and could be used to reduce abandonment.

So if the dogs aren’t being surrendered, where are they coming from?

.

80% of dog intakes have owners looking for them

The average percentage of dogs returned to owners according to the report is 43%. It is fair to assume those pounds with lower rates (23%, 28%, 30%) do less to reunite pets with owners, than those who have higher rates of reclaims (50%, 52%, 53%).

But what is *really* interesting is the Sydney North entry; 82% of their dogs went home.

So why do Sydney North dogs do so well?

According to the report, the Sydney North entry is made up of; Hornsby, Hunters Hill, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Manly, Mosman, North Sydney, Pittwater, Ryde, Warringah and Willoughby

The largest council – Hornsby – sends their pets to the Sydney Dogs and Cats Home, a No Kill shelter in Carlton. The rest of the pets (about 60%) are impounded at local vets (Pittwater Animal Hospital, Collaroy Vets, Warringah Animal Hospital, North Shore Veterinary Hospital and Vetfriends Veterinary Practice), while a handful go to Blacktown.

Why is this significant? Because vets have all the proactive procedures we beg pounds to implement; friendly customer-centric animal loving staff,  convenient locations and opening hours and a motivation to reunite pets with owners.

Could it be that the best performing pounds, aren’t pounds at all?

82% is a figure which reflects what we suspected all along; with the right systems in place, the majority of people can be (and want to be!) reunited with their pets. Because their reclaim rate is so high, their kill rate is an inspirational 3% and shows what can be achieved, when those processing pets look beyond killing as a solution.

.

When relationships with rescue save lives

Central Coast (made up of Gosford and Wyong) have discovered an efficient way to bring down pound kill rates; do something other than kill. Not only do 53% of dogs go home, more than 12% of them are adopted direct to the public. But what is truly inspiring, is that through relationships with the community 22%, or more than 1 in 5, are released for rehoming by a rescue group.

This has allowed their kill rate to drop to an admirable 8%.

Only once a council puts the excuses for killing aside and start to develop relationships with its community, can the killing end.

.

Using smart advertising to save pets

While not a feature of this report, there has been another breakthrough in a NSW pound worth mentioning. Back in January, Camden Council made a commitment to their community’s homeless pets by supporting a year-long trial designed to increase the number of pets adopted from their tendered pound (Renbury). In 2009/10 131 unclaimed cats and 66 unclaimed dogs were destroyed, while only 12 cats and 65 dogs were adopted in the same year.

The approach was two-fold. Four animals should be selected each week to feature in colour weekly  ‘Adopt a Pet’ advertisements in the local newspaper (The Camden Advertiser) to improve awareness of adoptable pets. Council would also pay the $24 a day per animal in accommodation cost to hold the pet up to six days over its impound period.

The proposal was raised by deputy mayor Lara Symkowiak as a way to reduce the killing rate of impounded animals.

“The number of impounded animals is certain to increase due to the dramatic growth in population our [council area] will experience,” she said.

“This campaign is a proactive measure by council to raise awareness of Renbury Farm and promote responsible pet ownership.”

“It would be a fantastic outcome if Camden Council could boast that it does not [destroy] any healthy, re-homeable animal.” ~ Cr Lara Symkowiak

.

The program started in January this year.

.

By March they were seeing results:

“Renbury Farm staff have told me that the weekly advertising is generating more enquiries and people come into the shelter to view an animal they have seen advertised. In some cases, our advertising has drawn people into the shelter, but the person has ended up adopting an animal that has come from Bankstown, Fairfield or Liverpool council. Although the person has adopted an animal, it is not reflected in our statistics as a “Camden” animal was not adopted. This is still a huge win as it is our advertising that has drawn someone in and an animal has been adopted that would normally have been euthanased. So we are getting wins even though not all of these are reflected in our stats.”
Cr Lara Symkowiak

.

And last month:

Camden Council’s Adopt a Pet initiative has had its most successful results yet with not one dog at Renbury Farm Animal Shelter being put down in the first week of June.

Deputy mayor Lara Symkowiak said advertising Renbury Farm’s Adopt a Pet program in the Camden-Narellan Advertiser each week was showing positive results.

“To have that week less than six months into the campaign is good,” she said.

.

“Good” is obviously a huge understatement by this awesomely proactive councillor. Not one dog is a kill rate of 0%! The result show that simple, compassionate changes by councils lead to huge benefits for pets and amazing successes like this invigorate staff and the community.

.

So what about ‘overpopulation leads to shelter killing’ can we finally put that to rest?

From the stats above we can see that shelter killing can be overcome with the right mix of procedures – so what about ‘overpopulation’? Is there evidence of it within these stats?

Based on the table above we can see that 48,321 dogs were processed by pounds over the year. While this includes the majority of intakes by major animal welfare groups (RSPCA, AWL NSW, SDCH etc), there would be a percentage of pets going direct to community rescue groups. This would not be a high number however, as most groups are only able to take on limited private surrenders.

According to last year’s Contribution of the Pet Care Industry to the Australian Economy (2010), there are 1.1 million dogs living in NSW. That means less than 5% of dogs are using pounds or shelters. If half of them are collected by their owners, just 2.5% of dogs are needing to be rehomed each year.

Christie Keith introduced a new concept with her recent blog post at Pet Connection; ‘low hanging fruit’

She suggests that we’ve got desexing rates to a rate of saturation;

Although there are places in the country where there’s still a good amount of lifesaving potential in increasing spay/neuter accessibility and prevalence, in most communities, we’ve already harvested the low-hanging fruit. Most pet dogs and cats are already spayed or neutered, and spending huge resources chasing down the tiny number who aren’t is going to result in ever-dwindling returns, particularly when it’s done at the expense of better sheltering and better adoption, as is so often the case.

.

And that now our energies need to be turned to those areas where we can make huge percentage increases; ensuring lost pets are going home, and that pounds are either rehoming unclaimed pets, or are supporting rescue groups to save them.

It would take a very small increase in that rate — to save the lives of every healthy pet, as well as every pet with a treatable or manageable health or behavior problem, in every shelter.

.

‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who only sends 20% of pets home. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who blocks access to rescue groups. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to open at times that allow working families and adopters to visit. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to list lost pets online, or keep lost pet databases. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to advertise available pets in local media in a positive way.

If we put as much effort into pursuing ‘Low hanging fruit’ in our own communities and at our local pound, as we do in beating the ‘desexing’ drum, the ‘anti-impulse buy’ drum, then we could make enormous inroads into saving lives.

Once above scrutiny and allowed to hide behind a plethora of excuses for poor performance, today’s pounds and shelters are being held accountable to provide the community’s pets a healthy animal management system.

This new level of answerability is never more evident than when animal lovers join together to develop solutions for their local companion animal issues, only to find that their council pound has been killing nearly every. single. one. of the unclaimed animals they were encharged to care for. Deeply entrenched in a culture which blames the public & absolving themselves of even the most basic responsibility in saving lives, these underperforming shelters buck the trend of compassion and instead choose to kill behind close doors. That is, until the community finally understands the premise of the No Kill model & stands up to apathetic management & heartless local council policies.

It’s hard to hide in the internet age; it’s nearly impossible to keep secrets from an empowered community. More and more it’s backlash from the public driving the change that for decades has failed to materialise.

Rockhampton’s slaughterhouse

Rockhampton (QLD)’s pound has a problem with flooding, and a problem with pets being stolen, and a problem with parvo and a problem with facilities being a run down pile of crap:

“As far as the location of the Rockhampton city pound, it is in a flood prone area beside the sewage treatment works and it’s not a very nice location,” says (Councillor Tony Williams). (ref)

But mostly they have a problem with animals ending up dead;

(Compliance officer Chris Phillips) admitted just 11% of cats survive a spell at the pound and during April only seven of the hundreds of animals taken to the pound were rehoused by the council.

Council killed 300 of the 436 pets impounded in the month of March alone, but it’s not their fault – obviously – the killing is the public’s fault;

… several councillors used a debate this week to blame society. Cr Cherie Rutherford said it was disturbing to see what little regard people had for animals and Cr Graeme Brady said everywhere you went in Rockhampton wandering dogs were a problem. (ref)

Cr Tony Williams said the problem was that some people treated pets as a disposable item. “Pets are for life, not just three months, but sadly not everyone sees it that way,” he said. (ref)

And the killing most certainly has nothing to do with the pound being open for adoptions one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon and lost pets only being held for 72hrs before being destroyed.

After receiving a bollocking by the community’s pet lovers and the local media “…meetings were held between RSPCA, Capricorn Animal Aid, and Council to look at improving rehoming rates.”

Ironically, only because of backlash by the same ‘irresponsible public’ so quickly condemned by Council, is the pound being held accountable. For the first time in decades, pets may given the chance to survive an interaction with the pound.

Parkes Shire Council unashamedly killing

Just four hours out of Sydney, Parkes Shire Council Pound has a problem; they get in one pet a day and gosh darn it, they have to kill it;

Parkes Shire Council has expressed concern regarding the number of dogs and cats being impounded and euthanized on a weekly basis within the district.
…
Last month a total of 28 dogs and six cats were impounded of which 26 were destroyed.

Despite a requirement in the NSW code of practice for pounds & shelters to make an effort to rehome healthy pets, Parkes’ remarkable effort to kill just about every pet that comes through their doors is explained away simply in their annual report;

“Council does not have any practical alternative available to rehome dogs and cats. During 2009/10 no dogs or cats were rehomed.”

108 cats and 337 dogs were killed in the 2009/10 financial year. Given its very hard to adopt a dead animal, these guys were never given a chance.

After the plight of pets being highlighted in the media, there was outrage from the Parkes’ community. Parkes Council was unrepentant – it’s the ‘irreponsible owners’ dontchya know?

Parkes Shire Council wants the state government to conduct a public awareness campaign highlighting the obligations of owners.

Pressure on Blacktown pound turn the wheels of change

Early last year the repulsive Blacktown Pound (NSW) ‘bidding’ process and pound procedures came under the scrutiny of the local community. Not only were small desirable breeds being sold undesexed to the highest bidder (often breeders who could recoup costs from selling pups), but potential adopters were being sent away empty handed when their bids were unsuccessful. Despite dozens of bidders on some animals, in 2008, 1419 dogs and 3146 cats were put down at the council facility.

Thanks to persistent public pressure, the council is now looking to make significant changes to their operating procedures;

Blacktown councillors voted to adopt recommendations made in two reports about pound operations and policy.

Former veterinarian and RSPCA boss Mark Lawrie compiled the reports, which say the desexing of animals given new homes may reduce the number of unwanted offspring returned to the pound.

Dr Lawrie says the tender system, which requires prospective pet-owners to outbid each other, should be changed to a fixed-price system.

He also said pound buildings and animal housings are run-down.

Dr Lawrie’s reports said it would cost a lot, but that newer facilities should be built.

Advocates will be watching with interest to see if Council implement the changes as recommended, or continue to allow thousands of pets to be killed unnecessarily while potential families flock to more cooperative sources of pets; pet stores and trading post breeders.

Don’t stop fighting

In the US, where animal welfare reform is well and truly underway, animal control agencies are slamming door on public scrutiny. We’d do well to learn from their experiences;

FixAustin.org’s Ryan Clinton, who has seen his community go from killing the majority of its homeless dogs and cats to saving more than 90 percent of them for six months in a row this year, sees such activism as democracy at its best.

“It should be uncontroversial that an agency doing the work of the people, and paid for with the people’s hard-earned money, should reflect the will of the people,” he said.

“But too often, animal-control agencies facing calls for reform behave more like authoritarian regimes than arms of a democracy, circling their wagons, deflecting blame, and becoming less rather than more transparent.”

He said the only reason any organization would take such actions is that it assumes the animal-loving public will give up.

“While that does happen in some places,” he said, “in others the public only fights harder. I think the lesson from Austin is that if a community of animal lovers fights inhumane sheltering practices long enough, smart enough and tough enough, that community can prevail.”

And we will prevail here in Australia too.

Coming soon; good news for pets – pounds who save lives

See also: How to save 110 pets in three days

From the comments:

I have to question your figure: “85% of dogs entering shelters in Australia are entering as strays”**

Here are the ACTUAL 08_09 and 9_10 NSW Council Stats:

YEAR COMPARISONS COUNCILS NSW
08_09 09_10 CHANGE
Total dogs arriving in Pounds

H Transfered to Pound 33,886 31,164 -2,722

J Surrendered Dogs 6,649 6,401 -248

L Dumped dogs 11,651 12,393 742

Total 52,186 49,958 -2,228

In the 09_10 year 38% of dogs entering NSW Council pounds were surrendered or dumped. That leaves 62% registered as “Transfered to Pounds” – this is a mix of “seized and strays”. A long way way from 85%, at least in NSW Council Pounds. The figure of 38% surrendered or dumped by the public is a serious concern. Regards Paul@deathrowpets

Death Row Pets has done some amazing work in compiling stats in their area (from the NSW DLG annual Council Pound summary) and presenting them in a format that animal advocates can use to assess the issues in the state. The problem is, that although the intentions are very, very good; when you’re an advocacy group with a particular viewpoint to present – in this case ‘overpopulation’ – it can make you square up your figures in a way that suits your theory, rather than in a way that presents the whole picture, warts and all.

But first

Let me start by saying I never intended to challenge the view of overpopulation. In my ‘other life’ I have a website that, if anything ‘proves’ there are thousands of pets entering shelters and rescue each year, and it would be very easy for me to move from there to a theory of ‘overpopulation’. But what I also discovered pretty quickly is that most dogs listed on the website have more than one applicant come forward to adopt them, potentially 20 or 30 applicants if the dog is a ‘desirable’ breed. Most cats listed get adopted; granted it is definitely slower and occasionally we’ll get the one that stays in care for a few months, but nearly all eventually move into new families. These cats are generally in foster care, so aren’t on ‘death row’; but as we know that there are very few proactive programs for cat management in Australia, meaning the majority of cats entering shelters are untame shouldn’t be doing so. Breaking apart cats and dogs, therefore becomes vital, as the solutions are different.

But on the whole, those pets made available for adoption get adopted. I’ve seen whole shelters empty themselves with clever marketing campaigns, which says to me people are willing to forgo the pet shops and breeders in favour of shelters if we just show them the way. I’ve also seen council pounds who either block access to rescue, or rely on them so completely that the groups become overwhelmed. Rescue groups crying out for support for puppies on ‘death row’ is a huge red flag; why on earth would, what would be considered highly adoptable animals lives be at risk? When you dig a little deeper you realise the pound doesn’t desex, doesn’t offer a proactive adoption program, doesn’t use the local media to get pets adopted, doesn’t list lost pets online, doesn’t run a volunteer or foster program of their own – all because they genuinely believe their responsibility for that animal ends once it is impounded. That isn’t ‘overpopulation’ either; that is a system that is failing pets.

But I digress

Let’s get back to the figures from the NSW DLG Council Pound Summary. Check out the headings; ‘transferred’, ’surrendered’ and ‘dumped’, to a total of a little over 52,000 dogs.

Not one of these categories was determined to be ‘lost’ dogs – as in ‘the dog got out and it was lost’, or ‘the dogs was found wandering and was handed in, therefore it is lost’. Is there even a difference between ’surrendered’ and ‘dumped’? Both terms refer to people who hand over pets to shelters. If we condemn both as ‘irresponsible’ we’re being misleading. While extrapolating that out to “all of these owners are ‘irresponsible’ and therefore bought their pets on a whim and gave them up too easily, and therefore pets are too easily acquired and therefore we have too many breeders, and therefore we have ‘overpopulation’” is simply creating work of fiction.

But what is really interesting, and not highlighted in these claims of ‘overpopulation’ and widespread pet ‘dumping’, is that by their own figures 20,000 of these dogs went home, or nearly 40%. Those guys ARE absolutely lost animals. They’re the ones that the system was designed for; to act as a safety-net to pets and owners. Pounds are supposed to exist to act as a central point to keep pets safe until their owner can be located.

From there, 6,000 pets were adopted and 7,500 went to rescue (13,500 or 25%). We can either assume that these guys were genuinely surrendered, OR we can assume these were social, lost pets who weren’t reunited with their owners. It’s probably some of both. What we do know is that when pounds run programs which increase reclaims (put photos on the internet, encourage people to register pets through benefit not punishment based systems, aggressive lost and found procedures including knocking on doors where the pet was found) they can get their reclaim rates up to 65%. That’s around 13,000 less pets to find homes for in this instance; or exactly the number presently being rehomed. Co-oincidence? Or a sign that these, friendly, adoptable pets probably had owners looking for them?

Finally, we have the 17,000 dogs in the pound who according to these figures are presently being killed (32%) <— remember this number :)

According to the latest pet industry report (Contribution of the Pet Care Industry to the Australian Economy) in 2009, the same time these figures were compiled, New South Waleians kept about 1.1 million dogs. That means every year, just 1.5% of the total dog population of NSW is dying in the pound.

Could we reduce that number by improving pound procedures, reclaims and rehoming rates? Sure. But can we bemoan an irresponsible public and a breeding system which is ‘overproducing’ using these figures as ‘proof’ – notssomuch.

And it doesn’t stop there

Even more astounding is that groups using these figures also like to extrapolate them even further; 52,000 dogs entering the pound system as ’surrendered or dumped’, mulitplied by 5-6 major states in Australia = 250,000 – 300,000 ‘death row’ dogs.

Except; about 30% of the population of Australia reside in NSW, giving them by far the biggest dog population, the biggest pound system and the most impounded animals. Victoria has about 25% of the population, so they’d be similar (so far we’re up to 55% of the population and around 100,000 dogs), so it in conceivable that the rest of Australia, at the very most has 200,000 impounds.

But as we’ve seen ‘impounded’ dogs doesn’t mean death row dogs (or at least it shouldn’t). If we use the actual figure of 32% of impounds to be likely at risk of death in the current system, that’s just 64,000 dogs for our whole nation. Or, to put it another way… the number of dogs truly on ‘death row’ is just 1.8% of the total national dog population of 3.4 million dogs.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

I’m a huge fan of gathering figures from pounds and shelters to help us solve our companion animal issues; I honestly believe without transparent figures we will continue to chase the bogymen and mantras of our industry and continue into a future that looks very similar to our past:

Kill pets, blame overpopulation and an irresponsible public; repeat.

But when we are given figures, we have a responsibility to present them to the public in an equally transparent and responsible way. We can’t blur impound rates and kill rates to prove our point. We should offer perspective along with our passion. And we should most definitely keep our minds open when looking at new data and allow it to challenge our beliefs.

While Death Row Pets may be one of the first to go there, they will be simply the first of many taking on this role of data-miner. As animal advocates we owe it to our public to resist following in the footsteps of major welfare leaders to date, by obscuring facts in favour of our own theories and holding back the truth believing our community is better off left in the dark.

We must be honest as to what our figures are really saying, whether we like it or not.

**“85% of dogs entering shelters in Australia are entering as strays” comes from a published JAWS study from Victoria of 20,000 dog intakes (What Happens to Shelter Dogs? An Analysis of Data for 1 Year From Three Australian Shelters (2004))

A lot of time is spent lamenting the ‘overbreeding’ of dogs in Australia and its implications to shelter and pound intakes. “Irresponsible pet owners access puppies too easily and then abandon them” the theory goes, “if we could restrict the number of puppies bred each year, less would end up in shelters.”

Anyone who reads this blog, know’s I love to put a good sheltering theory to the test. And as it turns out, this one was pretty easy.

Australia has 3,754,000 dogs (source: Contribution of the Pet Care Industry to the Australian Economy 2006). But for ease of our examination today, lets look at just 1,000 dogs and their likelihood of entering a pound.

Less than 5% of dogs ever need the services of a pound or shelter (source: The National People and Pets Survey 2006). So from our model 1,000 dogs 950 of these dogs will not enter a shelter, and 50 dogs will enter a shelter.

From that tiny 5% of dogs entering shelters, 85% of these are entering the shelters as strays (lost pets), or 43 of the 50 dogs.

Just 15% are owner surrenders, or around seven of the dogs. These are our so called ‘irresponsible owners’. (Source: What Happens to Shelter Dogs? An Analysis of Data for 1 Year From Three Australian Shelters (2004))

So, of these seven dogs, what could we be doing to stop them being ‘dumped’ at shelters?

No Kill advocates call a euthanasia rate for untreatably sick or aggressive pets as less than 10%. We’ll call that one dog of the seven.

Leaving us around six dogs entering the shelter.

Let’s give the public the benefit of the doubt and say half of them have genuine reasons for giving up their pets. So we have

Three dogs who were surrendered for genuine reasons
and
Three dogs who were surrendered by ‘irresponsible jerks’.

So in a wrap up – as animal advocates we need to consider that we have low resources, are short of time and really want to be working on programs which show maximum impact. By these calculations, if we work on programs to restrict breeding and pet ownership, for every 1,000 dogs, we’ll be improving outcomes for just three.

What do these figures mean in the real world? Remember our overall figure of 3,754,000 owned dogs in Australia? Approximately 188,000 of these dogs will enter shelters; which *does* seem like a lot. But when you consider the overall percentage of 5%, it really does reflect a pretty responsible community. While just a little over 11,000 dogs (from nearly 4 million!) end up in shelters because of truly ‘irresponsible’ owners.

While there are groups who are working hard to make dog breeding more humane and ethical (and I’m not meaning to pass judgment on their work, as I do believe what they are doing is important), when we look at it purely from a ’shelter intakes’ point of view, our work should focus much, much less on this. In fact, it could and should be prioritised as the following:

• 95% of resources should be invested in initiatives which help dogs and owners live healthily and safe in the community
  Dog training opportunities, dog parks, pet friendly accommodation, pet hotels, dog socialisation opportunities, improving acceptance of dogs in the wider community including cities, cafes and public transport.




• From the remaining 5% of resources:
  - The majority of this (around 85%) should be invested on improving shelter and pound collection rates: microchipping, getting photos of pets up on the internet, improving pound opening hours, pets being taken straight home and impound fees waived for ‘first offenders’, and education about pet ownership responsibilities.
  - While a smaller amount (around 15%) should be spent on a combination of helping owners retain their pets, targeting ‘irresponsible owners’ before pet purchase, and reducing risk factors for health and behaviour issues.

Which is definitely not how we’re prioritising things, when we focus solely on ‘reducing breeding’ or ‘restricting ownership’ as the solution to pound killing.

With the dawning of a new year, we have the chance to reflect on the ideas of the past and take a serious look at what has worked and what hasn’t. It makes sense that things that aren’t working get ditched – though this is often easier said than done. Some of our most unhelpful mantras are so pervasive, so ingrained, that we do not even recognise them as on the table for change. Here are my top shelter mantras that we should all chuck out in 2011.

“Banning pet shop sales is the only way to stop impulse purchases ending up in shelters and increase adoptions”

“As a society, we can no longer accept that thousands of animals in need of homes are being euthanased while profit-driven breeders continue to churn out puppies”

Pet shops are located in convenient places, where people go. Being visible the community attracts potential customers, while the animals are presented in clean, well lit and well ventilated enclosures, all at eye height to maximise impact.

They offer convenient opening hours, 7 days a week 9-5 and ‘late night trading’ nights where they stay open 7pm and later. These extended hours attract customers who work, who have families (and money to pay for lifetime care!) and who are looking for a pet.

But even if pet shops stopped selling pets tomorrow, we wouldn’t see a surge in adoption – with the hurdles of of the way locales of most pounds, the inconvenient opening hours, shelter environments that are loud and confrontational and the difficulties in getting pounds to work with their communities, rather than against them – it’s a wonder that any pets get adopted at all.

Banning pet shop sales isn’t going to lead to more adoptions – people looking for a pet will just move to other, convenient sources of pets; newspapers, the internet and BYB. The only thing that can increase adoptions and reduce the killing of pets in pounds and shelters is, is shelters acting more like pet shops. And whether or not this happens, is in no ones hands except the shelter management.

Rescue groups also have a part to play in attracting and retaining potential adopters;

“… brick and mortar shelters quickly adopt out the highly adoptable, small fluffy dogs. Small dogs languish in rescue organizations longer than shelters – mostly because of the restrictive adoption policies imposed by the rescues on the adopters. The rescue groups still don’t seem to understand how this perpetuates the cycle. Denying adoptions and/or overly restrictive adoption policies drives people to the very same pet stores that the rescuers abhor. Many dog rescuers are pet store protestors on the weekend. This doesn’t make sense to me.”
~ Wisconsin Watchdog ~

If a potential adopter is not suitable for a particular pet, spurning their ownership capabilities, or simply ignoring their application is not helpful. In fact its counter intuitive to our mission to get pets out of shelters and into homes. Have a list of high-volume local shelters on hand that you can return mail, so that these potential owners aren’t lost and can visit to find a suitable pet.

Finally, there are a lot of good, ethical reasons to ban pet shop sales. But their existence does not prevent No Kill. Nothing will change in pounds and shelters, unless we change the pounds and shelters. Right now in some organisations, if you send them 100 pets, they’ll kill 90 – if you send them just 10 – they’ll still kill 9… it’s not about numbers, but a belief that the best and most appropriate response is to kill.

There are changes that could and should be made TODAY that would make our community pounds a safe place for animals. And its about pound and shelters taking on responsibility and accountability for their performance.

“Christmas surrenders are unwanted presents”

“Every year, people leave the unwanted animals they have received as Christmas presents. An influx of abandoned or unwanted animals over the Christmas period has put a strain on the shelter.”

While shelters harp on about ‘unwanted presents’ every year, despite there being little evidence that gifts are at risk of abandonment, a much larger issue continues to be ignored.

Nearly every animal boarding facility in Perth is booked out.

While those in Canberra were booked out months ago.

Chief executive of RSPCA ACT Michael Linke said the shortage of short-term accommodation was causing major problems for the Canberra organisation.

”We’ve seen a tremendous increase in the number of animals being surrendered over the last few weeks,” Mr Linke said.

”This problem will probably go until mid to late January.”

………

”We definitely need more [suitable pet accommodation in Canberra] at this time of year,” Mr Linke said.

”It would stop people giving up animals.”

The same problem is national – running a pet hotel in the off-season can be unprofitable, and then suddenly during the holidays there is a rush of bookings. Simply saying “you should have booked earlier” does little to help owners who have Christmas commitments make other arrangements.

So there’s the problem – what’s our solution?

“Pets are ‘dumped’ shelters by irresponsible owners”

“A kitten abandoned for playing with decorations is among those pets dumped at shelters since Christmas. And the excuses are flowing in almost as quickly as the animals themselves, as frustrated shelter workers predict more animals will be dumped on their doorsteps by the end of January.”

‘Shelters’ should be a place of safety for pets; the giveaway is in the name, an animal shelter. In Australia we also call them ‘pounds’, but the premise is the same – a place where pets go, where they are cared for, while we work out what we should do with them next.

If a women’s shelter said “our shelter is full because of ‘irresponsible’ women”, there would be an uproar. “These women should have made provision to not end up at the shelter, they should have made different choices, they should have cared more”. These kinds of beliefs run counter intuitively to the shelter’s mission as a place of safety for victims.

It seems crazy to us now, but it wasn’t so long ago that women were blamed for domestic violence as ‘they brought in on themselves’. The approach of offering judgment instead of compassion, blaming clients for their situation, rather than working to empower them to find a better future is Victorian and desperately unhelpful. And yet, animal shelters – the place we beg people to take their pets if they can no longer care for it – offer condemnation, describe the reasons people give for surrendering as ‘excuses’ and work to alienate their public by painting everyone who uses their services as simply and arbitrarily ‘dumping’ their pets.

One of the key differences, however, between open-admission shelters that continue to kill animals in high numbers, and those that dramatically reduce shelter killing, is that the progressive shelters don’t waste time blaming anyone for anything; they find it isn’t productive, and it certainly doesn’t solve the problem.

Instead of looking for someone to blame or shame, they look for a way to help.

Instead of shaming a local resident who brings in kittens from her cat, progressive shelters convince them to bring in the mom so they can spay her for free. Instead of castigating the public for failing to spay or neuter their pets, progressive shelters offer free and low-cost spay neuters. Instead of punishing someone whose dog escaped from his or her backyard, progressive shelters knock on doors and talk to neighbors in order to return the animal to its owner without removing it from the neighborhood and subjecting it to illness and stress at a shelter. And instead of embarrassing someone who considered surrendering a pet to an animal shelter, progressive shelters offer solutions to common pet problems and seek out positive ways to help keep animals in homes.
~ Ryan Clinton ~

And if all efforts to keep the pet in the home have failed and the animal must be surrendered, then that owner must be acknowledged as doing exactly what we asked them to – bringing the pet to the shelter. Not letting just turning it loose or giving it away free in the newspaper. I’ve even heard shelters say that owners should be made take the vet to have the pet killed themselves to ‘teach them a lesson’ – how incredibly unhelpful to be of the belief that an unwanted pet should be immediately killed, rather than offered a second chance at an animal shelter.

“Dogs go into shelters because we’re breeding too many of them”

“It seems inconceivable that as a society we have come to accept the killing of thousands of healthy companion animals for whom no homes can be found—rather than demanding proactive solutions by government to stop the unrestricted breeding and selling of companion animals.”

If shelters were full of puppies and pet shops couldn’t sell a pup, then ‘there are too many puppies bred’ would have some credibility. But this isn’t the case. The dogs entering shelters go there for many reasons, just off the top of my head;

The owner can’t find pet friendly accommodation – the owner can no longer afford the pet – the owner can’t find a solution to issues like digging, escaping, barking or inappropriate toileting – the pet needs vet care the owner cannot afford – the owner has holiday commitments and cannot find a pet hotel – the owner doesn’t really like the pet – the owner got the wrong kind of pet for their lifestyle – the owner’s relationship has split – the owner has a new child – the owner has less time for the pet – the owner moves to a place where less pets are allowed – the owner loses their house/job/spouse – the owner gets sick and goes into hospital – the owner dies – the owner doesn’t realise the importance of pet desexing and has an unwanted litter/behavioural issues – the owner neglects to go to complete basic training/socialisation – the owner’s circumstances change and the pet is no longer wanted – the owner’s neighbours are making it hard to keep the pet – the owner had unrealistic expectations of living with the pet type they choose – the owner has lost interest in the pet – the owner tried to fix a behavioural problem with or without professional assistance and made the problem worse – the owner thought it would be more like in the movies – the owner took the pet from a friend/relative and it was the wrong match…

Notice I’ve framed all of these as ‘owner’ problems – which they all are – so as not to be seen as ‘letting owners off the hook’, but by realising that all of these are issues with different solutions, we can see how naive the idea of shelters being full because of ‘too many pets being bred’ really is.

Solutions include pre-purchase education on choosing the right pet, early intervention with good training options, after purchase support, taking in pets in crisis situations, recognising that 15 years is a long time and sometime things just come up and other times people make bad choices (just like in human relationships) and that the relationship between pet and owner is never going to work.

But the biggest reason pets enter shelters? Because they’re lost. Surrenders make up just 15% of dogs entering shelters, with 85% entering as strays. Proactive redemption strategies including; putting photos of impounded animals up on the internet, returning animals with identification directly to owners, and eliminating hurdles to collection like breed bans, high impound costs and fines and inconvenient opening hours, are vital to reducing shelter killing. Getting pets home is core – reducing surrenders is very much a secondary role.

“Cats go into shelters because we’re breeding too many of them”

“Only by eliminating the indiscriminate breeding of cats, can we stop the the annual destruction of tens of thousands of unwanted cats and kittens by animal welfare organisations.”

Contrary to popular belief, it is not a “cat breeding problem” causing high levels of killing in shelters – it is a cat shelter intake problem causing high levels of killing in shelters. Presently, the only option we have for unowned and undomesticated cats is death in a shelter. Until we’re willing to provide services which keep cats out of shelters we will always see high kill rates. Why? Because without these programs (TNR, semi-owned cat desexing and free-roaming cat programs) which give options other than death for these cats, we will not see a reduction in killing. With enormous numbers of undesexed, unowned cats breeding in the environment, the only solution to cats being killed in shelters, is finding other solutions for these animals.

“We should be trying to reduce the community’s need for animal shelters”

“If people were responsible, then perhaps we would need shelters less, and they would truly become safe havens.”

We cannot aim to ‘fix’ the community to the point where we will not need shelters. Nor should we aim to. What we can do is change the wider community’s regard for us and our animals. We can become a resource for pet owners needing assistance. We can change our policies to be proactive, rather than reactive. And we can follow the path of others who have found success by embracing their public.

If anything, pounds and shelters need to play a larger part in their communities. Shelters should be a place of refuge and help, providing a safety net for animals. Our mission, to serve our communities, and our community’s pets.

Yes, there will always be deadbeats and jerks, and yes, sometimes people could have done something sooner, or harder, or better. Who the hell cares? That’s just the reality of the world we live in. Our communities need to help people and animals as they ARE, not as we think they should be.
~ Christie Keith ~

Will 2011 be the year Australian pounds and shelters embrace their public…

… dropping unhelpful mantras and replacing them with progressive solutions?

I guess we’ll wait and see!

When we work with pet owners, we implore them to only take on as many animals as they have the physical and financial resource to care for. If a pet owner does make the mistake of taking on too many, we ask that they seek help from friends, their community and rescue and shelters to work to find solutions so that pets aren’t allowed to suffer, aren’t killed unnecessarily and are given opportunities for a positive future.

Another ‘commitment’ we expect pet owners to make is that if they find themselves in the position of wanting to ‘get rid of’ their animal, that they don’t only get professional help to assess the pet’s suitability for rehoming, that they also commit to giving the pet whatever rehabilitation is required to get them to the point of being ready for their new family. Only in the cases of extreme, unmanageable or dangerous behaviours, with a poor prognosis for successful rehabilitation, would we consider euthanasia a suitable outcome for this unwanted pet – basically we want death to be a last resort, not used for the owner’s convenience.

If an owner makes the mistake of taking on too many pets and needs to reduce the number they have, we wouldn’t look kindly these pets being killed rather than this owner working to find alternatives for them. In fact, if they were to take the pets to to vet to be killed rather than seek treatment for them – like rehabilitation, alternative homes, or rescue – we would likely think them lazy and unethical. We would want this owner to live up to the commitment they made when they took in these animals.

But what if I’m an owner without the physical and financial resources to hold and care for the number of pets I have, and instead of reducing the number of pets in my care, I actively seek out to bring more pets into this already dysfunctional situation?

Obviously, that’s bad.

People who not only keep too many pets without the means to care for them, but who also seek out more pets to collect, leads to disastrous results – as anyone whose ever had to try and find solutions in a warehousing situation will know – but what if the person ‘collecting’ these animals was government sanctioned and paid by local council taxes?

Good shelters know when to stop

At the Lost Dogs Home’s major shelter in North Melbourne they have capacity for around 50 cats and around 150 dogs at any one time. They have a small team of foster carers (less than 40). But they hold 18 pound contracts with local councils with the majority going to this, their major shelter. With intakes of around 70 pets a day, it’s not hard to see the pressure on resources created.

The Lost Dogs Home’s North Melbourne site took in 24,426 pets last year.

3,101 were adopted, while 13,594 were killed (3,242 dogs, 10,352 cats).

With such a low rate of adoption, this organisation uses ‘killing’ as their primary method of solving their pet issues. But just like a pet owner, they have complete control over how they care for their pets. They choose the outcome they pursue on behalf of each pet. They are a private organisation and are under no obligation to take on more council contracts (and therefore animals) than they can reasonably care for and rehabilitate. But, they choose to run overcapacity, killing 55% of all intakes and offering only limited treatment and rescue options for pets.

If we wouldn’t accept killing the pets as a reasonable solution for a pet owner, why should we accept it from an animal welfare organisation?

The Lost Dogs Home have claimed this year has been a year of revolution for the shelter. They claim these kill figures are not as bad as we’re making out. They claim that it’s not fair that they’re judged on ‘last year’ and that this year will be better. All of which could potentially be awesome.

Until you find out, they’ve just bid for and won the City of Casey’s pound contract for 2011.

The City of Casey have been working with the RSPCA Peninsula for 15 years. The RSPCA shelter is now looking at downsizing in response to the loss of this tender.

The Lost Dogs Home which offers less than a one in two chance of being rehomed for unclaimed dogs (1,940 adopted, 3,242 killed), and a less than one in 9 chance of being rehomed for unclaimed cats (1,161 adopted, 10,352 killed) is actively seeking to take in extra pets into its ‘care’, adding an extra 2,500 animals into its already swelling impoundment figures.

With the organisation using death as a first, not a last resort for its animals, how can it reconcile seeking to take on thousands more animals with its claims of wanting to reduce its kill rate?

If this were a pet owner, we would be screaming bloody murder at their ‘irresponsibility’. However, The Lost Dogs Home continues to collect more and more council contracts and homeless animals and kill them without account, hiding behind claims that the animals themselves are ‘unadoptable’, or that there are simply ‘too many of them’ and that killing is the only option.

At what point does a shelter need to live up to the same commitments we place on pet owners to treat, rehabilitate, care for and rehome those animals it has taken responsibility for? At what point is a ‘lack of resources and space’ a reflection of bad shelter management, rather than a genuine pet ‘overpopulation’ issue? Are the animals still considered ‘rescued’ if the overwhelming majority of them are simply killed?

We need to ask the hard questions of shelters who are taking on these council contracts – especially when they seem to do so at the expense of the animals.

The RSPCA Peninsula (VIC) have lost the tender to the City of Casey’s pound services after a 15 year relationship;

RSPCA state chief executive officer Maria Mercurio confirmed its tender was unsuccessful.

“What we don’t know yet is why we lost it, nor do we have any idea when the new tender will take over, so at the moment we’re in a state of limbo,” Ms Mercurio said.

She said the centre would explore other avenues and had no short-term plans to make staff redundant.

“We have a strong commitment to the community and we certainly won’t be walking away,” Ms Mercurio said.

“It’s a shock to staff but we need to step back and reassess the future of the site.”

So with such a ‘commitment to the community’, how has the pound been performing? From the City of Casey Animal Management Plan 2008/11:

Unclaimed dogs – 672
Rehoused – 247
Killed – 425

Unclaimed cats – 636
Rehoused – 47
Killed – 589

Certainly, with Casey killing more dogs than they adopt, and saving a fraction of the cats impounded, the community won’t be missing much – while the pets might be better off if they were to go to an organisation with a greater life-saving commitment.

With the council remaining tight lipped on whom the valuable new pound tender will be allocated to, let’s all hope the City of Casey has made a compassionate decision.




See also: The City of Casey – a case study in cat management

The San Francisco SPCA have begun featuring adoptable dogs and cats at Macy’s in San Francisco’s Union Square as part of the 24th annual Macy’s Holiday Windows, which will run through to the new year.

The pet display has been a winter staple since 1987. During that time, more than 2,000 animals have been adopted and $250,000 has been raised to support the SF SPCA’s hospital, shelter and community initiatives. This year, the goal is to find homes for 320 animals. Almost 300 were adopted last year as part of the event.

The environment is temperature controlled and has comfortable spots for catnaps, according to SF SPCA. They even have a live webcam feed .

Some pictures from this and previous years;

Image: http://sfcitizen.com/blog

Image: http://sfcitizen.com/blog

Image: www.newyorksocialdiary.com

Image: www.newyorksocialdiary.com

Image: www.newyorksocialdiary.com

Image: www.newyorksocialdiary.com

Image: www.newyorksocialdiary.com

Image: www.ptank.com/blog

Image: www.sfgate.com

Image: www.sfgate.com

Image: www.sfspca.org

Image: www.sfspca.org

Image: www.sfspca.org

Image: www.sfspca.org

Image: www.sfspca.org

Image: www.sfspca.org