Category: Animal Shelter Operations

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.

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.

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

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.

In my adventures in the field of animal welfare, I found many resources within my community. Follow me as I discovered them.

I started my career in Pullman Washington. This location is one of the best locations to start any adventure. With Washington Veterinary School in my backyard, I found them a wealth of knowledge and resources. I learned the handling of birds and the use of chemical immobilization from them. The school was involved in nutritional studies and I reaped the benefit of having access to pet food that was left over from their studies; for example, they were conducting a calcium study on Great Danes. They used pet food with low, medium, and high concentrations of calcium. By mixing the bags of food, I had a perfect blend of food for the animals in my shelter.

I also engaged in a program with Alpo in which they would offer free dog food to animal shelters participating in halftime adoption events at basketball games. The audience would vote by clapping as to which shelter brought the “best” dog. The winning shelter would receive a large amount of food and the other participating shelters would receive less. Alpo would provide coupons and you could pick up the food from your local grocer as needed. I once found myself with excess food, so I traveled to other animal shelters in my area and distributed my newfound wealth.

In Pullman, I worked in the Police Department. I didn’t have a very good working relationship with our Chief of Police. He had developed a three-year phase-in of computers within the department and the animal shelter was scheduled in year 5. I desperately wanted to use a computer to track the intake of our animals, but it was unlikely that I would get one from him. I approached him and asked about monetary donations to the animal shelter to move the shelter higher on his phase-in plan. He told me that any money donated to the animal shelter was a “police donation” and would unlikely be used for the shelter. So, I found someone in the community who bought a computer for the shelter. That resulted in one of the longest chewings that I ever encountered by a boss. The same lady also provided all of the cat food for the shelter.

Drug manufacturers offer free drugs to veterinary schools. They hope to get veterinarians in training used to their drugs for when they get out into the world to open their practices. The Veterinary College provided me with free vaccinations for the animals at my shelter.

If you have a Veterinary College near you, become their best friend.

In Portland Oregon, our shelter provided a pickup service for dead animals from veterinary clinics in town. Oddly, it was a very popular service. In exchange for picking up the dead animals from the clinic, the clinic became obligated to handle any animal emergency brought to them by one of our animal control officers. It was very convenient for the officers because emergency assistance was always nearby. I remember an incident in which a veterinarian was not fulfilling his obligation. He was turning away our officers. I wrote him a letter and explained that since he was not living up to the agreement, we would stop picking up his dead animals. He came in person to beg me to change my mind. It just so happened that we were dealing with a hoarding situation so I told the veterinarian that if he would assist the officers in making a court case in the hoarding case that he could earn his way back into our good graces.

It is important that animal shelter staff attend local meetings of the veterinary association to see if you can find ways to help one another.

While in Fairfax Virginia, we began working with a Vet Tech College. We gave the students the opportunity to work directly with animals and as a result, we got free veterinary care.

Also in Fairfax, we develop arrangements in which our animals were adopted through various companies in town. We had arrangements at Pet Smart Stores, Veterinary Clinics, and even feed stores.

In Gainesville Florida, I was fortunate to be working near another Veterinary College. Due to a grant from Maddie’s Fund, the College started a shelter medicine course. Veterinary students would visit the animal shelter several times a week to provide veterinary services.

Another advantage of having a Veterinary College nearby is to have access to specialized medical treatments. If an animal came into the animal shelter with serious medical issues, we frequently passed the animal to a Veterinary College to be used as a class assignment. Usually, a vet student would come forward and adopt the animal after treatment.

Once you have uncovered all of your local resources, don’t forget about national resources. Suppose you are engaged in a national disaster. In that case, Pet Smart Charities, American Humane, the Humane Society of the United States, and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are extremely valuable. I don’t know what I would have done without them when we were forced to seize nearly 700 cats in Gainesville.

One of the things to keep in mind is that in my career of directing animal shelters, I encountered jurisdictions that prohibited fund-raising. The mindset of these jurisdictions was that by asking for money for the animal shelter, you are announcing that the animal shelter is not properly funded. You can see where public officials might get upset. So, before you start advertising that you are accepting donations, check with your bosses as to how they feel about that.

Times are hard, but resources are closer than you would think.

One of the things that I hate more than seeing animals in cages in an animal shelter is seeing them all running loose.  My good friends at Best Friends Animal Society opened an animal shelter in Bentonville Arkansas that allows the animals to run loose.  What could go wrong?  A whole lot!

It is a widely known fact, at least to me, that animal shelters were never constructed for holding animals for long periods of confinement.  They were originally built to house stray animals for a few days for their owners to find them.  In the beginning, animals were held for three days.  As owners became increasingly irresponsible, the holding time grew to five days and then ten.  Of course, that holding time varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.  So, if you wait nine days, don’t go pointing a finger at this blog claiming you had another day.  Most places have a three-day stray holding period.   Don’t balk, that is two days more than you should need.

The no-kill movement changed everything and animal shelters began holding animals way beyond the point where the animal goes cage crazy.  I can understand the mindset of wanting to turn them loose.  But, an animal shelter’s first obligation is to protect stray dogs for their holding period.  After the holding period, the animal becomes lawfully owned by the animal shelter.  As shown below, it makes sense to NOT mix stray dogs with adoption animals.

Many of those stray animals have no evidence of vaccination or behavior history.  Allowing these animals to mix puts the entire population of animals at risk of disease or injury.  It is foolish to just turn an animal loose in your shelter hoping that it isn’t an aggressive animal.  If you are admitting pit bulls, you are going to have issues.  Period.  Most animal shelters have to deal with pit bulls making up 70% of the dogs within their facility.  It makes it impractical to allow them to run loose.

Introducing a toddler to a mass of over-active dogs could be a terrifying experience.  The toddler’s actions might incite the dogs to bite.  If one dog in a pack goes nuts, a good many of the other dogs will go nuts as well.  Even experienced staff will not do well in a frenzy of dogs.

I get it, announcing that you are freeing all of the dogs makes for a good newspaper article.  It worked.  But, how are you going to explain to the community that most of your bites come from people visiting your animal shelter?  What are you going to say to the lost parent of a small dog who comes to pick up their puppy, but you can’t seem to get the puppy out of the mouth of another dog?

Calling this facility an animal shelter is technically true, but when I think of animal shelters, I think of public animal shelters.  Bentonville already has a public animal shelter, so in my mind, this is a private animal shelter; we call them humane societies.  The primary difference is funding and intake policies.  Animal shelters are funded by local taxpayers and have the expectation to take in stray animals.  Humane Society builds facilities to supplement the public facility and depends on donations; they may or may not accept stray animals.  The Best Friend’s facility, as a private animal shelter, can better control the population of its shelter and thus keep the population low enough to allow for a limited number of animals to be able to live outside of cages.