Category: Animal Shelter Operations

Posted on

Dog Sitters

One of the greatest difficulties when planning a vacation is finding a dog sitter.  Sometimes, family members or neighbors are pressured into the task of caring for a vacationer’s pet(s).

While working in Roanoke Virginia, I was shocked at the number of incidents in which pet sitters began turning in the pets (in their care) as strays.  In many incidents the pet sitter got tired of the task or just felt bullied into the job.  In most cases, the owner decided to extend their vacation without consulting their pet sitter.  In most of the cases, the pet sitter did not make the owner aware that their pet had been turned in to the shelter.

When surrendering a pet as a stray, the shelter staff conclude that the owner is unknown and will eventually discover their pet missing and will start the search for their lost pet.  If the owner is unaware of their pet sitter’s deeds,  It is possible, even likely that the animal could find a new home prior the to owner’s return.

The lessons to be learned here are:

  1. Make sure your pet sitter wants the job of caring for your pets and that he/she is reliable.
  2. Leave clear instructions with your pet sitter as to how to handle any emergency:
    1. Someone to call as a back up pet sitter.
    2. Which veterinarian to use.
    3. Your phone number.
  3. Although I am not a fan of microchips, microchip your pet.  If the pet sitter is thinking of abandoning your pet, he/she will likely take off a collar.
  4. Leave a description (with photo) of your pet with the animal shelter prior to going on vacation with contact information.  It would not hurt to introduce your pet to the shelter staff and the front counter so that they might recognize your per should it arrive “as a stray”.
  5. Check in periodically with your pet sitter and discuss any changes to your return date.
  6. Have a neighbor confirm that the pet sitter is on the job.

One of the best ways to ruin a vacation is to come home and find that your pet is living in another home.  When planning your vacation, plan for your pet as well.  Above all else, never force some unwilling person to care for your pet.

Posted on

The Hazards of a Fostering Program

In the era of increasing live release rates, creating a fostering program is a no brainer… or is it?  Here are some of the problems associated with fostering:

People want to foster highly adoptable animals.   Placing the animal in to a foster home, removes the animal from finding a permanent owner.

People who want to “test drive” an animal.  People want to have an animal in their homes, without the cost of pet ownership.  If they can talk a shelter into fostering the animal to them, the shelter picks up the costs of food and medical expenses.

There are a surprising number of high maintenance foster homes.  In one of these homes, the foster parent will panic over small issues and run up large medical costs for the shelter.

Foster parents who refuse to relinquish the animal when adopters are found or want to interrogate the prospective adopters.

Posted on

Memorial Day

I want to thank all of our military service personnel for their service protecting our country.  While serving in the Philippines, my patrol partner was a military working dog.  I would like to thank my service dogs  Ralph and Bourbon for the months that they walked with me.  Ralph was a sentry dog and Bourbon was a patrol dog.  Sometimes we forget the role that dogs played along side our military personnel.  I’ve never had more loyal friends.  Thank you for your service.

Posted on

Euthanasia

The hardest part of our profession is administering euthanasia.  We do this mostly as a result of bad pet ownership.  Euthanasia is a two part process: determining which animals are placed on the euthanasia list and then administering the euthanasia.  This is an area of our profession where we are overwhelmed with arm chair quarterbacks.  It is a very volatile part of our business and as a result of the hostility that results in the decision process, I always made the final decision.

It is tough enough for the employees who have to kill the animals that they have cared for; it would be unfair that they have to suffer the consequences for having to decide which animals are selected.  Although people, including volunteers, think that the decision process is abritraty, it is really a thought out piece of engineering.

Euthanasia is the most contentious issue for animal shelters.  It frequently pits volunteers against staff.  At my last shelter, the volunteers went to war with staff over the decision to euthanize two dogs that had become aggressive over their lengthy stay with us.  The dogs would act friendly to a few volunteers, but show aggression to the staff caring for them.  Euthanizing the dogs angered the volunteers and they called into question our decision making process.  The went to board meetings to verbalize their anger.  The board put together a group to investigate our euthanasia process and issued a report.

Given the volatility of creating a euthanasia list and the tremendous number of things that can go wrong as a result of euthanasia, I have created a few rules that I followed in making the decision:

Always keep an animal two days beyond the date that the animal is “supposed” to be euthanize, especially if you are waiting for an owner to reclaim the animal.  I have encountered countless incidents in which an owner shows up to reclaim their pet after the stray hold time has expired.  Although they don’t care enough to timely reclaim their pet, they will blame you for not acting on their schedule.  So whatever arrangement that you make with an owner to reclaim their pet, keep the pet a few days longer because that is when they will likely show up.

Document the animal’s condition when the decision is based on medical or behavioral condition.  It is not uncommon for a pet owner to surrender their pet as a stray to you because of an animal’s medical condition and try to adopt the animal back after the animal has been treated.  Many times the animal may be beyond treatment and the owner will return claiming that he/she has been victimized by you failing to treat their pet.

Always make sure that you use competent and caring staff to perform euthanasia.  The last few moments of a pet’s life should be as stress free as possible.  Since you are using a controlled substance in performing euthanasia, you can save yourself a lot of grief by having employees who can perform simple mathematics.  You would be surprise as to the number of staff that I’ve had who could not subtract numbers with a decimals. 

Don’t ever get talked into adopting out an aggressive animal.  Many shelters have offered an animal a second (or third) chance, only to be sued and raked over the media for putting their community at risk for making a careless adoption decision.  The best community preventative for an aggressive dog is euthanasia. 

Do not allow anyone to bully the staff who preform euthanasia.  It is a tough task and no one has the right to bully them. 

Posted on

Work and Social Media

Social media has become one of the greatest ways to destroy work relationships.  People post everything that happens to them and what they are thinking on their social media page and then claim they were victimized by a coworker reading their posts.  Some people have not figured out that when you post on social media, anyone in the world can read it.

Work was so much easier when we didn’t know every secret thought of our coworkers.  We knew when to keep our mouths shut; so why have people become so open on a public forum?  I got so tired of people coming to me to complain about what someone else said about them on social media.  Just because a thought goes through your head, doesn’t mean that you need to speak it or post it.  Going on anyone’s social media page, you will discover crap.  We produce a lot of it.

I worked with a human resource director who believed that every social media post had the basis of being rooted in some fact.  She could not understand that many posts have no basis in fact.  If it appeared on her social media account, it must be taken care of.  Do you have any idea how much time is required to manage baseless nonsense?  Social media has proved that our first amendment right is one that we so often abuse.  People feel free to say anything that they want on social media; at least in the old days when you would talk person to person, we developed some skills of diplomacy.  Deplomacy is a skill that our society is quickly losing. 

Many people take advantage of the fact that government employees cannot sue for slander that occurs as a result of their work place.  We just have to accept that suffering lies is a job requirement.  Because we cannot sue,  there is no opportunity for people to learn any lessons for slandering.  Even organizations that have government contracts are in the same situation.  If you are feeding at the government trough, you are facing the same restrictions as other government workers.

Social media is becoming a mechanism in which people are leaving behind their civility.  It is becoming evident in our every day lives.  We see people acting out in public places over the smallest of issues because we are becoming a society that doesn’t teach how to control ourselves.

Posted on

What is the Value of a Pet?

One of the most common issues that animal shelter workers face is pet owners relinquishing a pet due to the cost of ownership.  The most common practice is the surrendering of a pet due to medial costs.  Once a pet is surrendered, those costs now become the responsibility of the shelter.

When a shelter is faced with the cost of caring for an animal that has been abandoned by the owner, many factors enter in to the equations when determining the animal’s plight: resources, animal’s age, animal’s overall health condition, adoptability (breed, temperament, size) and story.

The ability to pay a major medial bill is the most frequent hurdle in making the decision to treat a pet; after all, it is the most common reason that the pet was surrendered to the shelter.  It is not uncommon that a pet owner will surrender their pet seeking free medical care and attempt to adopt the pet back after the care has been provided.  The decision to move forward on an animal is always a difficult one.  Many shelters opt to set a maximum allowance for each pet.  That maximum allowance is determined by the cost at hand and the frequency that pet owners in your community burden you with this problem.

Young animals will be given more weight that senior animals; although their life is no more valuable, we tend to want to offer a young animal a chance at a longer life than treating an animal that doesn’t have much longer to live anyway.

Determining what is wrong with an animal will make the decision much easier.  Are you dealing with a one time injury or is this an injury that is going to have ongoing need for treatment.  Is the illness or injury costly to treat?  How long will recovery be?  Keep in mind that cage space is an issue and recovering animals are a good excuse to create a foster program to deal with the long term care of an injured animal.

Is the dog a pitbull?  I hate to mention breed but the fact is pitbull dogs usually represent over 50% of the dog breeds in our shelters.  Due to rent agreements, they are one of the most likely dogs to never get adopted.  Do you want to throw hundreds of dollars into a dog that will eventually be euthanized?  I would suggest that if a dog has a history of aggression, there is no reason to consider the dog for adoption.  The last thing you need in your shelter is an aggressive dog that has no hope of a future outside your shelter.  Small dogs are the easiest to adoption, so they should be consider first to receive medical treatment.

And finally the animal’s story.  Many of the major animal welfare organizations live off of the donations they receive by posing a pitiful animal on national television.  If it works for them, it can work for you.  Anytime I use the media to ask for funds to help an animal, our intake of funds would always be more than the cost of treating the animal.  It is easier for a person to focus on a specific animal than to donate for a general cause.

Making life and death decisions is the hardest part of our profession.  I helps when you go in with a plan.

Posted on

Cat Grooming

I was recently asked about muzzling a cat so as to get at the mats in the cat’s fur.  Anyone who has ever attempted to engage in a behavior that is disliked by the cat that you are holding, you know the speed of the cats ability to use its teeth and claws.  Any attempts to control the cat’s head will result in cat paw-like speeds approaching the speed of light.  Like the wind, you see what remains of your hands and arms without seeing the paws move.  These actions will quickly deplete the contents of your first aid kit.

The first rule of grooming a cat is to have someone else do it.  There are professionals who do this for a living and the costs associated with performing this function compensates themselves for engaging is a dangerous activity.  I have done some dangerous things in my profession, but few are more dangerous than grooming a cat.

I once thought that it would be a great idea to put claw covers on my cat’s nails.  This was at a time that I learned that no first aid kit is ever property stocked.  There is no greater feeling of success than to see the angry looks of the cat as each paw is showing a separate color.  Then after a few days, you begin to see each claw bead falling off one by one until it is time to approach the cat with a towel to attempt the process all over again.

I am constantly reminded about my misadventures in animal welfare each time I look at my first aid kit, that is now large enough to stock a small hospital.

Posted on

When Fools Dive In

I was browsing the news feed for Google when I saw a headline: “Saving a dog from the dogcatcher.”  The feed was from reddit where people owning a laundry posted a sign (I am printing it as it reads): “NOTICE ‘STRAY DOG’ INSIDE THIS LAUDRY SHOP.  We are currently saving this innocent dog from the dog catcher since they will be put to SLEEP/KILL if they’ve been caught.  We understand that you will feel uncomfortable with this situation and you are welcome to go to another laundry.  Thank you!”

This bothers me on several fronts.  The store owner is making several assumptions: the owner of the dog will just happen to go inside this laundry and identify his dog, and of course the obvious, the animal shelter should be the first place a person goes to find their lost dog.  I am not even going to address the idea that all stray dogs are put to sleep, I don’t know where this is; but it is unlikely.

I’ve always hated the terms “dogcatcher,” and “pound” until I moved to places that have it formally written into their code.  The words commutate meaning that may and may not exist.  At some point we just have to get over it.

I would have felt better about the posting if the dog’s finder had done more that post a sign (with commentary) on their door.  We have other ways to communicate: call the animal shelter, post a found ad in the newspaper, and even post on Facebook (I know, it is a shock that I would suggest that, but we are trying to get a dog home), and you can post flyers in the neighborhood.

Anytime something like this happens, I also post the negligence of the owner who has no exterior identification showing.  Let’s face it, most people are not smart enough to take a dog to a veterinarian or the shelter to have it checked for a microchip.  I have always  called microchips the worst secondary form of identification.  They are better than nothing, but just barely. 

Just as there are responsibilities of pet owners to keep their pet from getting lost, there are responsibilities of people finding pets.  It is not enough to take in a dog and make little or no effort to find the dog’s owner.

Posted on

Volunteers Gone Wild

I used to think that volunteers were the best thing that could ever happen to an animal sheltering organization; then I moved to southwest Virginia.  I understand the vested interest that volunteers have in the success of an adoption program; but, I found a place where volunteers thought that they should drive the organization.

It all started when one of the local animal welfare organizations infiltrated our shelter with their own volunteers.  One of their volunteers sat in a County Commission meeting on the first day of my arrival to lament me being hired.  This same volunteer would sit in on many County Commission meetings, using her status as a volunteer (as being in the know), to misrepresent information about our euthanasia rates.

This is the first organization that I have ever directed that did not have an adoption program.  All animal were placed through other rescue groups and that is the way that everyone wanted it.  We could be the bad guys and they could be the good guys.  Well, that was going to change. 

I decided to start adopting animals from my shelter.  The volunteers that came from the other rescue organization all quit.  They staged a walkout when we started adopting pets.  What a stupid thing to protest.

We started seeing an immediate increase in our placement rate.  Dog adoptions were over 92 percent.  We had an incident in which  a couple dogs that were loved by a few volunteers started showing aggression to staff and visitors.  I have a rule that any time a dog starts trying to eat the hand that is feeding it, it is time for that dog to go.

The two dogs were euthanized and the remaining volunteers decided to organize a protest by picking the shelter and bullying us on social media.  They brought in the local media and wanted to show the shelter staff the trouble they can cause if we don’t do what they tell us to do.

Although the volunteers would never be able to bully us to adopt out aggressive dogs, they were successful with those who oversaw our organization.  They didn’t like drama and they felt that giving in to the volunteers would decrease drama.  From my view point, they were more concerned about keeping the drama to a minimum than protecting the public.

I am sharing this story to show  you that in the animal welfare business, you can be on the right side of an issue and still lose.  Throughout my career, I always said, “If you are going to get into trouble, get in to trouble doing the right thing.”  In this business, your first priority is to protect your community.

For a volunteer program to be successful, it is important that your volunteers are on the same page that you are one.  Feelings can run high between organizations, understand the motivation for those that claim to be your friends. 

Posted on

No Kill Announcement

One of the greatest desires of an animal shelter is to announce that they have met the criteria to call themselves No Kill.  It is a feel good moment for the shelter.  But there is often a backlash to such public declarations.

Many years ago, a shelter in northern Florida announced that it had gotten to the place where all healthy (without medical or behavioural problems) animals were being adopted.  The public misinterpreted this to mean that the shelter was no kill.  This misinterpretation lead to an increase of owner surrendered animals.  Owners are relieved of their guilt my surrendering their pets to a no kill facility.  We became overwhelmed.

The City of Austin experienced problems early on when they announced that they were no kill and all of a sudden they were being overwhelmed by people bringing in animals from surrounding countries.  So the tax payers in the City were taking on the expense for animals that were coming in from outside their jurisdiction. 

Sometimes we are so eager to announce a joyous occasions that we forget to prepare for its impact.  Many animal shelters announce that they are having an adoption event and frequently they will intake more animals than they adopt because people see an adoption event as a good time to surrender their pet guiltfree.