Twice in my career, I was hired to take over the animal control program for jurisdictions that had previously been contracted out to the local humane society. In both of those cases, the humane societies had a very high euthanasia rate. They saw that having a high kill rate was not conducive to being recognized as a humane organization. They also knew that so much of the available funding and grants were dedicated to no-kill organizations. They dropped the anchor that was holding them back from funding sources: running a public animal shelter.
I was constantly surprised that these organizations would then resort to lambasting the shelter while the shelter fought with overpopulation. Eventually, we were able to bring the euthanasia numbers down to a very respectable number. Some of the board members of one humane society, seeing our high save rate, would call me and complain that I was saving too many animals that should have been killed. We live in a fickle world.
The other organization got upset that they no longer had preference for the highly adoptable animals and sought animals outside the area. This is a common practice in animal welfare; organizations will cry out about high euthanasia rates at their local shelter while bringing animals from outside their area. Instead of wanting to save the animals in their community, they just want access to the highly adoptable animals that they can sell (adopt). Yep, I did say “sell” because many humane societies act no differently than a pet store selling animals. You really can’t blame them. With the high rate of Pitbulls entering our shelters, it becomes increasingly difficult to find adopters.
Once in my career, I was hired to reduce the euthanasia rate of a shelter, only to find that the obstacles to adoption were from the shelter’s staff. It is difficult to operate an animal shelter when staff oppose allowing people to come into their facility. It was bad enough for the staff to have to allow pet owners to come into the shelter looking for their lost pets, but it was too much to accept allowing volunteers in. They wanted to do what they do without being watched.
The purpose of this blog is to show those who enter the field of animal welfare that obstacles await you, but the reward is great.