Author: David

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Shortcuts to No-Kill

Disclaimer: Although this blog is intended to be a joke, it doesn’t mean that animal shelters have not used these techniques.

Never announce your plan to become no-kill. The City of Austin is a good example of being too eager to announce to the world that they’ve become no-kill. When the word got out, pet owners from surrounding counties began delivering their pets to them. Austin had to throw tremendous resources out to maintain their no-kill status and eventually had to build a new animal shelter to meet the new demand.

I’ve seem incidents in which the announcement of having an adoption event created the problem of pet owners seeing your adoption efforts and decides that this is the best time to surrender their pet to their animal shelter. The best way to keep your animal shelter free of guilt-ridden pet owners is to constantly remind them that you are “a kill shelter.”

The formula for becoming a no-kill animal shelter is that your live outcomes have to equal or exceed your live intakes. Obviously, dead intakes don’t count. If you are one of the few remaining animal shelters that do not sterilize your animals before adoption, you might as well give up on becoming a no-kill shelter. The spaying and neutering of animals is the primary tool towards no-kill. Of course, if you don’t spay or neuter before adoption, you probably are not so progressive to be thinking no-kill anyway. Sure sterilization costs money; but you cannot trust adopters to shoulder the responsibility to perform this task on their own. Sending a shelter pet out to reproduce more animals is just insane.

Years ago, we were going to put a State initiative out to require animal shelters to sterilize pets prior to adoption. The jurisdictions with the greatest populations were all for it. The smaller jurisdictions claimed that it would require higher adoption fees and thus reduce adoptions. We passed the law based on the “class of the city.” It was a worthless law because the larger jurisdictions were already sterilizing their animals and it appeared that the smaller jurisdictions would not. They were blinded by the fact that they were just adding to the problem in their communities.

Create a policy that you’ll only allow intakes when you have an open cage. Of course this means that your animal control officers will be unable to pickup stray dogs. I remember reading about the outcry of citizens in a large Texas city that complained about packs of dogs were running their streets because their animal control officers were ignoring them. Fortunately, Texans are not opposed to carrying guns for their own protection.

Delaware was one of the first States to ban euthanasia for space. The reasoning was that as long as cage space was available, euthanasia was unnecessary. The didn’t have the foresight to realize that banks of open cages would be necessary for animal control officer to drop off animals. It didn’t make sense that animals would have to remain out in the trucks until space was made for the animals. This is the mistake that politicians make listen to animal rescue groups who don’t have a clear picture as to what the real world is really like.

Forgive me, I am now going to go off on a tangent. It’s my blog, so? Politicians in Utah were convinced that pet liability insurance should be the same for all animals. They were convinced that the cost of Pit Bull insurance should be the same as Poodles. They turned a blind eye to the fact that one breed was outweighing the insurance costs of other breeds. So, if you live in Utah, you will have to pay more for pet insurance to cover the cost that result from Pit Bull ownership. I guess you could liken it to the cost of groceries in which we have to pay more as a result of those who cater to thief. Okay, I got that out of my system…. let’s move on…..

Delay responding to dogs hit by car (HBC). The animal will either die or possibly picked up by a good Samaritan. Although there is a risk that the good Samaritan might think to bring the animal to the animal shelter. Put up the Closed Sign and hope for the best.

Destroy your night drop off cages. Night drop off cages are a great way to increase your intakes; you don’t want that. I worked at a location that we placed a camera to record the nightly drop offs. We witnessed an animal control truck, from another jurisdiction, dropping off animals. I have no idea as to how they report that in their monthly statistics. We once pulled out a homeless man from the same cages; which were protected from the weather. Fortunately for us, the guy walked off; I have no idea how we would have reported him on our statistics.

Require appointments for animal surrenders. This was one of the first “go to” policies when no-kill became a thing. The policy stopped last minute notions of people wanting to get rid of their pets; but saw an increase in the number of people turning in “a stray” animals. Policies frequently backfire.

So…. require an appointment to turn in a stray dog! Of course, that causes an increase in the number of dogs abandoned in the community or tied to the front door of your building. But, as I suggested earlier, don’t patrol for stray dogs.

Let’s not forget about cats. Cats make up one of the largest groups that lead to euthanasia. Many shelters started limiting their intakes to “domestic dogs.” I guess they were worried about some non-domestic dogs showing up.

I think you are now catching the drift: stop any process that takes in live animals that will render them dead. You can start with stopping the euthanasia service you offer to pet owners. Veterinarians provide this service as well and don’t have to report it as a statistic. Due to the notion that pets are personal property, many pet owners believe that they can have their pet killed on a whim. I always had a policy that pet owners could surrender their pet to the animal shelter, but could not demand the euthanasia of the animal. I would explain that in order for my shelter to kill an animal we had to own the animal. As the new owner of the animal we would decide the animal’s fate. This stops the notion that a person can demand that they pet be killed so that no one else could have it. I know, this sounds crazy, but it has happened many times. I am not going to kill a puppy because the owner doesn’t want anyone else to own it. Now, if the puppy has eaten a couple family members, I might reconsider.

Keep in mind; I am not suggesting that you do any or all of these things; I am just reporting options that are available to you. After all, we have a reason that we call this dark humor.

One of the problems that I’ve faced with animal control officers is that many of them prefer to impound an animal rather that return the animal back to the owner with a ticket. I hate to say that I’ve had these officer working for me and I did everything that I could do to get rid of them. The problem is worse when the animal control officers are not employed by the animal shelter, but are employed by the local police department. This is quite common and poses quite a problem. One of the last places that I worked, the animal control officer intentionally over stressed the animal shelter by identifying colonies of sick cats and delivering them to the animal shelter. Obviously, it hurts your statistics when you have to euthanize the animals as well as it impacts other healthy animals in your facility. I only bring this up to show that not everything is under your control. Outside forces will influence shelter statistics. As well as inside forces.

When I first started in the business, City Council members started noticing that I was listing animals available for adoption in the local newspaper. One of those members reported to the Chief of Police that I had listed the same animal multiple times. I got called into the Chief’s office and was told to euthanize any animal that was over its stray hold time even though space was not an issue. The lesson to learn is that if you work for a bunch of buttheads, give your animals new names when they are listed in the newspaper.

Probably the most effect way to move animals out of your shelter is to give rescue groups sufficient motivation to take your animals. The first step is to prepare the animal for adoption. Give the animal all of its vaccinations and perform the sterilization of the animal. If that isn’t enough to stimulate rescues to take your animals…. pay them.

Maddie’s Fund offered community grants in which they allowed us to pay our rescues to take our animals. Oddly, we may have been Maddie’s Fund’s only success story. Because Maddie discovered how difficult it is to get animal shelters to work with one another. It seems, for them, anything you got two shelters together, all they did is fight. Our group in central Florida was a different story. We overcame our issues to work together to get animals adopted. It was a noble cause and money flowed. Maddie’s Fund extended our grant numerous times because, I think, they liked to have a project that they could point their finger at that was successful.

It is too bad that more shelters couldn’t get along. One success story failed to keep that funding going. Maddie went off in other directions. Humane groups cannot seem to get along with one another even when money is at stake and animal’s lives are at stake.

Some of the national humane organizations provide funding for animal transport services. The notion is that if you can’t adopt animals in your community, maybe they would be welcome somewhere else. Unfortunately, Pit Bulls have pretty much saturated the country.

This is when I dust off my harebrained ideal of forcing pet owners to sterilize their pets. I think that anywhere an animal shelter is overcrowded with 50% or more of a specific breed that the community should force the owners who have that breed to sterilize their pet. People who are selling the breed should be forced to sterilize the dogs that they sell.

Let’s face it. Pit Bull owners are still some of the most irresponsible pet owners around; otherwise, why are they still being bred when our animal shelters are overwhelmed with them?

So? You have a shelter full of Pit Bull dogs and they are hindering your efforts to maintaining your No-Kill status. You begin paying a rescue from another State to come rescue your dogs. Let’s say that the rescue that you are using has a very poor live release rate. So in fact you are paying a rescue to come in and euthanize your dogs. In hind sight, I always looked at the live release rate of rescuers that I worked with; but that doesn’t mean that others do as well. The whole point of being No-Kill is that of your own statistics. No one really looks at the statistics of the rescues that you use. Well, until the news finds out about it.

Let’s face it. There is so much pressure on shelters becoming No-Kill that it is easy to see the shelter’s administration making stupid decisions. Many of those decisions become obstacles to the primary mission of the public animal shelter to protect the people of their community.

One of the risks that you face is that even when you meet the status of being a No-Kill shelter, volunteers will cause an uprising when you refuse to adopt animals that clearly would put the public at risk. The people who determine your employment might hold the volunteers in higher esteem than protecting the public. I’ve always said that doing the right thing frequently puts your job at risk, but keeping your community’s children safe is a higher goal than keeping your job.

Sorry, that must have hit a nerve with me.

Every shelter should do whatever it takes to find homes for the animals in their care, but you should not take that goal so far as to put the community at risk. Currently, animal shelters are full of unadoptable animals that remain in cages because the shelter is worried about its statistics. At some point, someone must point out that keeping an animal in a cage for the rest of its life is inhumane.

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No Kill Defined

I was recently reading an article in the local newspaper where one of our resident rescue organizations was enlightening the media and local residents that the term “no kill” was used incorrectly. It dawned on me that the term no-kill has been around so long that few of us remember when the term was first drafted. So let us go back more than a few years when the term didn’t exist.

Euthanasia used to be the end-all solution to animal shelter problems with keeping communities safe from dangerous dogs and surplus pets. Most animal shelters reported that they euthanized 70% of their animals. Even back then, it was a dismal statistic. For those who don’t remember kindergarten math, that is a 30% live release rate.

Someone suggested that shelters should stop killing animals. As much as that had a good sound to it; the question was raised as to how do you deal with dangerous, sick, injured, or aged animals? It was obvious that a 100% live release rate was impractical. So after many years of discussion, it was decided that a 90% live release rate was a wonderful number to strive for. It is the number that still exists today. So? Is no kill practical? Or better yet, is no kill the correct term to use? The answer is: It depends.

Through the years animal shelters’ mission got lost to the no-kill movement. We stopped caring about keeping our communities safe or providing a humane shelter environment; we cared only for our no-kill status. Above all else, we had to stop killing animals. We performed that duty by adopting aggressive animals into homes with children and introducing overcrowding into our shelters. Our mission was to keep animals alive at any cost.

Today, the 90% live release rate is more commonly reported in shelters. We reached that goal through poor adoption practices, shutting our doors to intakes, and pet sterilization programs. We successfully stopped providing a service to our communities and focused solely on our statistics; a noble cause to be able to call ourselves a “no-kill shelter.”

The people who object to 90% are the private rescues who don’t take in animals from the public. They don’t have to deal with the people who surrender their pets because medical costs are too high to save their pets. They don’t take in pets who have been hit by cars and are in pain. They don’t live in the reality of what it is like to be a public animal shelter.

I’ve always thought that we should have done away with the no-kill term and stop providing for pets as individuals and go back to our original mandate to serve our communities by providing safe streets and humane TEMPORARY sheltering.

There is a reason that I make a point of saying that shelters should provide temporary shelter. Looking at the size of cages and kennels, it is clear that animal shelters were not designed for the long-term holding of one animal, let alone three or four. And yet, we began stockpiling animals in inhumane cages.

We should celebrate the no-kill status of our shelter, but we need to look at the cost to the health and well-being of our communities and the animals themselves. Every time I hear about someone lambasting no-kill as being a lie, I want to ask them what they are doing to keep the lie alive.

The truth of the matter is that animal rescue groups find advantages in having a public animal shelter killing animals in their community. They have someone to point at with the notion of claiming that they are better than that shelter; you just need to donate to us. It is not uncommon for a rescue group to bring their sick and injured animals to the public animal shelter so that they can claim that they were not the ones that euthanized that animal. All the while still pointing that finger of disgust at them. It didn’t take long for the no-kill movement to make ugly monsters of animal rescue groups. The fact is that someone has to kill animals and the public animal shelter takes on that task so that the rescue groups in their community don’t have to. And yes, taking on that task hurts our statistics.

So, the next time someone starts pointing a finger at the public shelter’s no-kill rate, it is that way because the shelter takes in injured animals from their owners and the public. They decide that a dead dangerous animal is better than an adopted dangerous animal. They decide that the kennel space is too small for one animal, let alone three or four. They do it because it is still the humane thing to do.

To compound the issue, rescue groups like to “rescue” the most adoptable animals in public animal shelters, leaving the marginal ones behind. When I left the profession, I was directing an animal shelter in which 70% of our dog population were pit bulls. More than any other breed, pit bulls are one of the hardest to get adopted. Our neighborhood humane society felt it was necessary to bring in dogs from out of State because we didn’t offer an acceptable variety of adoptable breeds. I can’t blame them; they too were worried about their statistics and couldn’t care less for the pit bulls that remained in the public shelter.

So, one of the most contentious issues was about that 10%. Questions arose as to whether they were “adoptable animals.” It became necessary to “grade” the animals. That grading came about as the Asilomar Accords. I decided to cheat and asked an AI to explain what the Accords were:

“The Asilomar Accords are a set of guidelines and principles that were developed in 2004 by a group of animal welfare leaders in the United States. The purpose of the Asilomar Accords is to promote collaboration and transparency among different animal organizations and to reduce the euthanasia of healthy and treatable dogs and cats in shelters.
1. The Asilomar Accords provide standard definitions for categorizing the health and behavior of shelter animals, as well as a common format for reporting shelter statistics and calculating live release rates.
2. The Asilomar Accords are voluntary and not legally binding, but many animal shelters across the country have adopted them as a way to measure their progress and impact on saving animal lives.”

So, the notion was to keep healthy and treatable animals off of the euthanasia list. The Asilomar Accords were an important part of record keeping and were used widely by organizations dishing out financial grants.

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Responsible Parents (Pet Owners)

The news is full of accounts of young children running amuck.   Our first cry is, “Where are their parents.”  Does this sound familiar?  Animal Control is constantly picking up stray animals that have gone amuck and we often cry, “Where are their owners?”   It appears that the same people who don’t control their pets are the same ones raising children.

Unless you are the President’s pet (or child), eventually there will be a reconning.  Tragically many pets are destroyed due to the owner always looking the other way.  Children are facing the same threat that parents are leaving it to the “system” to correct their children’s behavior.

For those who haven’t figured out how the President got thrown into this blog post:  his dog has bitten eleven Secret Service personnel.  He is another example of how our political leaders fail to provide a good example of human behavior.  Any other person in this country would have been held accountable.  Those of you who have been responsible for taking dog bite reports know that the number of actual bites is usually two or three times higher than the number of reported bites.

Okay, you’re right.  I spend too much time watching the news.

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Budgetary Constraints

More than at any time in history, governmental animal control organizations and animal shelters are going to face the harshest competition for funding.  We have entered an era in which the need for human services is going to outstrip the need for animal services.  City/County funding is facing a crisis in meeting the needs of the homeless and illegal migrants.  Animal shelters are likely to see budget reductions; all the while communities will be demanding increased adoptions.  We always looked to donations to fund budgetary deficits, but inflation is reducing the amount that people are able to donate.  More than ever, you will need to use your funding wisely.

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No Speak English

We are seeing an increase in the number of people who are non-English speaking in the United States.  More and more companies give priority to hiring bilingual applicants because of this problem.  It is difficult to carry out our jobs when the problem dog owner is claiming to be a non-English speaking person.

We are living in an era in which technology can come to our rescue.   There are cellphone apps that provide translational services.  You might opt for an app that translates text, but you run the risk that the person might not be able to read in his/her own language.  If you search for an app, look for one that can translate conversations.  If the person has children, you might have greater success in using the children as translators; frequently, children might speak English when their parents can’t

Keep a list of translation services when you are trying to bridge the gap of understanding.

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Rabies Test

This morning, I read an article claiming that a dog was euthanized after being tested for rabies.  On the surface, that seems reasonable because rabies is 100% fatal.  However, the rabies test is also 100% fatal.  The rabies test requires that sections of brain tissue be sectioned for viewing under a microscope for infected cells.  The process of accessing those cells in the brain caused the animal’s death.  The media confuses the issue when reporting the news of a rabies test, making it sound like a simple procedure.

In most cases, health departments that conduct rabies tests don’t want to dispose of the animal’s body and ask that the sample be delivered to them containing just the head.  Only the head.  So, it is clear that animals are not euthanized “after” a rabies test.

This is one of the risks that pet owners take when they decide not to vaccinate their pets; should the animal bite a child; the only way to see if the child didn’t contract rabies is to “test” the animal.  And now, we know what that means.  A rabies test is a surefire way to stop an animal from biting any more kids.

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Stumbing Block

Do not let your love for this world become a stumbling block to the next…

… So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.  1 Corinthians 2:5

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An Accident Waiting to Happen

An accident waiting to happen. That is what you think when you are called to a home where aggressive dogs are jumping at an ever-weakening fence. I have experienced this so many times in my career and remember wishing that at that moment the dogs would escape and attack me. You see, I am much better equipped at taking on a couple of aggressive dogs than any of the neighbors. But that never happens and I know that my words of warning will fall on deaf ears when discussing the issue with the owner. To put it bluntly, after a career of working with dog owners, the owners of dangerous dogs are pretty stupid when it comes to trying to get them to see their dogs as they really are. But I feel obligated to tell them anyway.

If you have worked in the animal control field, you have experienced this many times yourself. Since dog owners refuse to work in the present, I decided to change my tactics and work in the future. Each time I received a call like this, I treated it like a crime scene: getting witness statements, and photographing the dogs and the fence. Although I could not intervene at that moment, I could document the scene for a pending lawsuit. I wanted the documentation to highlight the negligence of the dog owner after receiving many warnings. As an animal control officer, I could do this.

Each additional complaint would reference the previous complaints. Each additional complaint would further illuminate the extreme negligence of the owner. The reports had to be well written because you are playing a part in making one of the neighbors very wealthy. And who knows, maybe sending the owner to jail. So, put a lot of emotion into it.

After each complaint, I would send the report to the owner along with copies to each of the current and past complainants. I also provided information as to how Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests were handled in the city/county. Keep in mind that I clearly document for the owner that this report is being shared with the neighbors. I also offer words of advice as to how neighbors should protect themselves from any harm that may (or is likely to) arise from the dogs escaping their enclosure.

When it dawns on the owner that I am assisting the neighbors in creating a healthy lawsuit. Many times, the dog owner begins to view his dogs with different eyes. Sometimes they even fix the problem. Time has taught me that scaring the dog owner works so much better than trying to talk some sense into them.

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Proverbs 4:6-7

Don’t abandon wisdom, and she will watch over you; love her, and she will guard you. [7] Wisdom is supreme — so get wisdom.  And, whatever else you get, get understanding.

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Be a Good Steward

As the director of an animal control/sheltering organization, I encourage you to be a good steward. Being a good steward goes beyond being frugal, it means making the best of your resources.

Community

Be a good steward of your community’s resources. Use your tax dollars wisely. Create laws that keep the community safe from animals and keep animals safe from humans. Make the laws fair and balanced. At the end of your budget year, return unused funds, or set them aside for future emergencies; don’t go into a buying frenzy to increase your surplus. I understand that this is difficult to do because future budgets are weighted against past spending. Government budgets cater to excessive spending to prevent a shortfall in a future year. Budgets fluctuate from year to year, but government budget processes don’t adapt to fluctuations.

Protect your community from dangerous animals; do not adopt potentially dangerous animals into your community. Protect your community from pet overpopulation; make sure that all adopted animals are sterilized prior to being adopted. You cannot trust the pet’s new owners to fulfill that duty. It is your duty to keep the owners of dangerous animals in line.

Too often, animal shelters lose their first priories to protect their community. We are under such pressure to adopt any and all animals that we forget that our first priority it to protect our community. It is a hard lesson, but the most effective way to protect the community is to euthanize potentially dangerous dogs. Anytime you consider the adoptability of an animal, you must weigh it against the animal confronting a neighborhood child.

Hire the right staff. Many staff enter our field to protect animals and they need a strong Executive Director to prevent them from making stupid careless mistakes. As an Executive Director, you will often feel alone because the people you hire do not always share your priorities.

Animals

Be good stewards or the animals in your care. Keep them safe and provide for their basic needs. If you cannot provide for their continued health, then give them a humane death. Do everything that you can to ensure that stray animals are returned to their owners. Teach their owners what is necessary to be a good pet owner.

Do not adopt good animals to bad owners. The worst that you can do for an animal in your care is to give it to a family that will abuse it. You have a greater priority to keep your citizens safe over any obligation to an animal.

Always remember that your job is to provide temporary care of animals. As such it is a waste to buy the most expensive pet food; but you should not provide the cheapest. Find a well-balanced pet food. And realize that the long-term holding of animals is inhumane. Often our statistics get in the way of being humane.

Integrity

Be a good steward of your organization’s integrity. Be open and honest with people. Too often we lie about an animal’s prospects to spare the family’s conscience. If we make it too easy for a family to give up their pet, then they are not given the chance to see how the decisions they make have consequences.

When dealing with the media, do not report the good image that you want people to see; but, report the truth. You have to make tough decisions; so, let the media know how irresponsible pet ownership impacts you and your organization. If your shelter is overcrowded, then report the consequences of having an overcrowded shelter. Shelters are more than a “feel good” place, they are frequently the places of tragedy.

Staff

Be a good steward to your staff. It is becoming harder and harder to find people willing to work. Today’s schools are teaching students to perform at the level of the lowest performing student and thus are not preparing them for the workforce. You need to quickly identify low-performing workers so that they do not become a burden on your higher-performing workers. The quicker you terminate low performers, the faster they can learn what the world expects from them in the workplace.

The most important resource at your animal shelter is your staff. Although budgeting for your staff was the most difficult task at budget time. The greatest gift you can give to your staff is staff training; but, staff training funds are always the first thing that is on the chopping block. Since training resources are scarce, it is important to let your staff know when attending training that they are an ambassador of your shelter at conferences. I had a whole group of staff attend a conference that embarrassed themselves. I don’t remember ever allowing them to attend another conference after that.

We are experiencing a time in which some employees feel a sense of entitlement to their jobs and feel victimized when they are fired for not doing their job. Your priority is first to your community over that of your staff. It is important to weed out early potential staff who wish to push their own personal agenda over that which is good for the community. The same is true of volunteers who work at the shelter. I’ve gathered an entire chest of war stories about volunteers taking extreme risks with dangerous animals. Again, it is the Executive Director’s job to be engaged enough within your organization to see the warning signs.

There is plenty that can go wrong in an animal shelter. You need to take time to reward those employees who are not trying to drift the shelter into the rocks. Within the groups of employees who are opposed to working, there are members who just live day to day to push their own agenda or look for opportunities to claim they have been victimized. Just get rid of them. Otherwise, you’ll be spending all of your energy dealing with them and not managing your shelter.

Yourself

Be a good steward to yourself. Do what is right and live a guilt-free life. It never hurts to have God watching your back.