Category: Animal Shelter Operations

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Tough Love

A half of a (my) lifetime ago, we entered an era that changed the way that dogs behaved. The harsh methods of training our dogs turned from disciplining our dogs when they did something wrong to rewarding them for when they did something right. Many people just didn’t do anything to control their dog’s behavior and thus started the golden age of animal control.

Because owners did not play a role in stopping their dogs from becoming a menace to society, animal courts started becoming a big thing. More and more disputes divided neighbors. These same techniques parents applied to their children.

Spanking children in public places for disruptive behavior became frowned upon and eventually, we stopped disciplining them at all. At the same time, video games entered the stage and kids would rather play games than joining the Boy or Girl Scouts.

Scouting was a necessary step in child development. Scouting taught children to rely on themselves and to leave the world a better place.

That era of bad parenting turned out undisciplined dogs and children. Many of the dogs were later turn into animal shelters and the children turn to protesting. They could turn their violent gameplay into real-life looting and damaging property and people.

We can only thank ourselves for how things turned out.

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Determining Adoption Fees

Most shelters have a price list for charging fees for the animals that they routinely adopt from their shelter; but, on a rare occasion, an animal come into the shelter that isn’t on the fee schedule. Usually, the animal is an exotic bird or reptile.

Over the years, I discovered that the easiest way to determine the fee to adopt an animal is one-half of the market value. When you are ready to adopt the animals, you call three local suppliers that sell the animal and then charge one-half of the average of those three vendors.

The problem that you face is that pet stores are disappearing and getting three estimates is becoming harder. Fortunately, you have the internet to help you determine the fee. Keep in mind that other factors enter in as to the health or condition of the animal that will decrease the animal’s fee. If the prospective adopter is going to face large veterinary fees, you might consider decreasing the fee to allow for the cost of owning the animal.

When it comes to exotic animals, you need to consider the skill that is necessary to care for the animal. You should not adopt to anyone who comes into the shelter on a whim to adopt an exotic animal; and, of course, you should not adopt wild or venomous species AT ALL.

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The Joy of Fostering

I came across an old photo of my wife playing with a litter of foster puppies. The photo reminded me of one of the joyful hazards of working in an animal shelter. I was a sucker for taking foster animals home. Based on the number of photos that I found, I am reminded of the large part they played in my life.

The animals are the reason that many of us get into the animal welfare profession, but our contact with people seems to overshadow that during shelter hours. It was so nice to come home to my foster children.

It is too easy to get caught up with the “work” of animal welfare, but by living as a foster family, you never forget why you are doing what you are doing. If you ever get overwhelmed, find an animal to cuddle with.

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Volatile World

Even on a good day, the animal welfare profession is volatile. I’ve seen videos of animal control officers having a dog sicced on them as they approached the front steps. In another incident, an officer spoke with the owner, on his front porch, concerning an issue with his dog and he calmly walked back into his house and blew his brains out. Those were issues from years ago. People today have much shorter fuses.

Portland Oregon is a good example that people have been raging for such a long time that they don’t know how to stop. The greatest worry that we have as animal control officers is looking like a police officer. Police officer are being shot just for doing their jobs.

I’ve always said, “People are looking for an opportunity to express their rage.” That is truer than ever before. It has become increasingly more important for our employees who work with the public to avoid alterations. Today, minor altercations seem to lead to violent attacks. Be aware of the tools you have available to you to protect yourself. If you don’t carry pepper spray, now is a good time to start. You are likely to get into less trouble by using pepper spray than using your catchpole to protect yourself from another person.

If you don’t feel right about a situation, always keep in mind that you can walk away.

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Detroit Dog Attack

Recently a four-year-old was attacked in Detroit. There is nothing new about this attack, we see articles about dog attacks every week.  What is interesting is the wordsmithing calling the dog a mastiff shepherd.  Is this someone’s attempt at avoiding the term Pitbull mix?  As of this writing, no owner has come forward.  

Also interesting is Detroit’s Animal Control pronouncement of reducing the number of dog bites from  400 to 200.  This going to be extremely difficult because we are coming out of the Pandemic in which children have been isolated for a year.  Many of us are coming out of locked doors to enjoy the fresh air.  There is something about playing children and loose dogs that don’t mix.  

During the Pandemic, we were so focused on mask-wearing that pet owners did not take this opportunity to discover the art of responsible pet ownership.  The best way to bring about a reduction in dog bites is to put more officers on the streets to round up stray dogs.  I don’t know how this is going to play out when we have entered an era of defunding the police.  Many people will see the need to take up firearms to protect themselves, but, let’s face it, an inexperienced gun owner is more likely to hit the child than the dog.  And shooting a dog that is loose seems excessive.

I don’t know what prompted Detroit Animal Control to announce efforts to reduce dog bites.  Isn’t that something that they should have been doing all along?  Was this announcement just a response to the media when asked what they are doing to keep children safe?  We all know that the only way to keep children safe from dogs is for the dog to have a responsible owner.  Unfortunately, dog owners are not moving quickly towards this end.  Whatever Detroit’s plan, I wish them every success.

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Use of Force

One of the worst things for the public to see is the use of a catchpole on a dog that has never been on a leash. Even the most experienced Animal Control Officer will receive criticism on a perfect capture.

One of the animal trainers from another humane society complained to me about the excessive force used by one of our Animal Attendants. As things usually go, the complaint found its way to our Executive Committee. Fortunately for us, we had cameras throughout the facility that allowed us to show the incident for all to critic.

This incident showed that the animal trainer was looking for an excuse to criticize our organization. Although the criticism was unfounded, we still had to ask ourselves if it is necessary for that particular animal to be walked on a catchpole, rather than a leash.

The decision to use a catchpole is dependant on the person’s experience and training, as well as the potential behavior of the animal. Although I hate seeing animals on catchpoles, I know that animals can be unpredictable and the safety of my staff comes first.

When you decide to use a catchpole, you should always be alert to the amount of pressure of the noose. Nothing will freak out an animal more than being choked. The noose should be only sufficiently tight enough to prevent the animal’s escape. If an animal begins fighting at the other end of your catchpole, you should not fight the animals, but rather use the animal’s movements to herd the animal to your truck. Once at your truck, position the animal muzzle away from you so that with your free hand you can lift the animal up into your truck. At this point, the catchpole is to be used to safely position the dog to prevent you from being bitten.

It is generally never a good idea to attempt to use a catchpole on a cat; however, sometimes you might be faced without the proper equipment. Always try to place the noose around the neck and one leg. Attempt to keep the cat on the ground until you can scoot a carrier or place a net to further secure the cat.

We live in a world of cell phones. If you think that your capture is going to look bad, call for additional help. Having additional assistance will aid you in a humane capture. After each capture, critic yourself. Each capture will help you decide if you are properly equipped to handle your next capture.

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Reoccurring Theme with Dog Bite Incidents

A recent incident of dogs attacking and killing a New Jersey child causes me dismay as the dogs’ owner failed to heed previous warnings about the danger his dogs presented to the community.  These cases continue to arise because pet owners are not held accountable for their dog’s actions and as such are not properly charged with reckless endangerment or homicide.  Prosecutors need to understand that simply having the animals euthanized is insufficient justice.  The animals had to pay the price for bad owners; now the owners need to feel the hand of justice for the terror they unleash upon their community.

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Who Do You Serve?

One of the greatest challenges that you’ll face is the constant question as to who do you serve?  Many people getting into the animal welfare profession will tell you that they are “here for the animals.”  That is a noble cause, but are animals all that you serve?

When you start your job, you are going to find competing demands as to who you serve.  You’ll have to have some loyalty to the bureaucrats who hired you, after all that in addition to the salary that they pay you, they control the purse stings for your organization.  You will find it critical to your cause to quickly respond to commission or council members.  Having friendly folks on your commission/council will be advantageous at  budget time.  I had a County Manager in Florida who wanted to drastically cut our budget; fortunately we have several “friends” on the Commission who stopped him and in the end our budget was increased.

Do not forget that you have your community to serve.  Don’t worry, there will be plenty of them to remind you that they pay your salary.  No matter how demanding that they can become, they are your primary responsibility.  Every thing that we do much insure the safety of your community.

Your volunteers may expect that they become your primary focus.  In Virginia we had volunteers that wanted to “drive the boat.”  They wanted animals to supersede our mission to keep our community safe.  They were very vocal  in our community.  In previous posts, you will see that this was a problem for many shelters in Virginia.  Too many shelters gave in to the forces that wanted them to adopt potentially dangerous dogs.  Many of them later faced lawsuits for failing in their duties to protect the public.

Above all else, you have to serve yourself.  You have to protect your personal and professional integrity and that of your organization.  I got into a lot of hot water with my Board because they didn’t like condescension caused by volunteers not getting their way.  Sometimes even your Board of Directors forget who they are supposed to serve.  You must be willing to risk your job in order to keep your community safe.

The most important factor in your career is to constantly maintain the balance to those who you serve.  “Be true to thy own self.”

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Getting into their Heads

As animal control professionals, we spend a lot of time trying to get into the heads of the animals that we are preparing for adoption.  When we are not inside the heads of animals, we are inside the heads of their previous owner.  All of this “head time”  frequently leads us down the wrong path.  We often mistake signs of behavior problems to incidents of abuse.  It is much easier to excuse an animal’s behavior, if we wish to believe that the animal was abused.

Claiming an animal is abused frequently helps us on the adoption front whether or not the animal was actually abused; the animal could simply be stubborn.  A prospective adopter would be more willing to accept an abused animal into their household than accept a stubborn one.  We live in a society in which people are in constant search for public praise, so posting to social media that they “rescued” an animal carries more points that claiming they “adopted” an animal.  More points are given to those who take in an “abused” animal.

Shelter staff recognize this social media obsession with “likes” and we feed into that that.  We are quick to post that an animal has been adopted on our Facebook page and even post a photo of the person leaving the shelter with their new pet.  This social media posting does two things: it celebrates one fewer animal in our shelter and it sets the stage of making it more difficult for the new owner to return  the animal.  For a society that seeks praise, we have a low tolerance for people disliking our actions.  Believe me, people can be pretty cruel to other people when their adoption doesn’t work out.

To understand a failed adoption, we have to get inside the minds of an adopter.  Social media has created a group of people who rescue animals in order to receive public praise.  Only in actually adopting an animal does the person find that caring for an animal requires more than praise, it means work; more work than is  necessary for posting on social media.

Too many people adopt animals for the wrong reason and when they find out that they are not ready to bring a new pet into their family, they have to face the wrath of their social media “friends” for turning the animal away.  This social media craze makes it all the more important for adoption screening; but the earnest desire for public approval will cause the worst candidate for adoption to appear as one of the best.  Adoption screening is more necessary than ever and adoption staff needs to look beyond moving an anima out of the shelter to making sure that they are placing animals into the best homes.  Our screen process must consider the possibility that the adopter’s purpose is only to seek out the public approval that the adopter is desperately seeking; these people generally make poor owners and then have to later face a public beating.

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Shelter Photos

One of the most important aspects of an animal shelter’s operation is the quality of the photos that are taken of the animals entering your shelter.  It speaks volumes of about your public image: some people will equate the quality of the animal’s photo to the actual care you take of the animal in your care.

I would get frequent complaints about animal control officers photographing cats through livetraps or the plexiglass doors of feral boxes.  Let’s face it, a photo on your website sometimes determines if an animal will be found by its owner; many owners will not make the effort to look for their pet at the animal shelter.  Pet owners will always have an excuse to not search for their pet; today’s pandemic has finally given them a good excuse.

When an animal first enters the animal shelter, a photo should be take of the animal’s head and body for the purpose of identification.  If you cannot safely get a good photo, then describe why in the animal notes and go the extra mile in writing the animals physical description and where the animal was found.   Once the animal has settled down, you’ll want a better photo to encourage the animal’s adoption.

Getting the glamor shots is a good job for volunteers.  Most volunteers will take the animals out on bright sunny days so as to set the  camera’s exposure to gain the greatest depth of field.  Active animals will require the brighter days so as to catch them at a faster shutter speed.  On gloomy days, many shelters will set up studio lights in the shelter to photograph the animals under the better lighting conditions.

Photographing animals can become a contentious issue with volunteers; as they compete against one another for first “photo” spot.  I have had incidents in which the volunteers become hostile against one another.  The purpose of the photos is to improve the chances of an animal being found by its owners or getting adopted; the best photos that you post on your website should depict the animal’s best side and not who took the photo.