Thinking like a retailer - follow up

A few months ago, I wrote a blog posting about a new program being run by Ft. Worth Animal Care and Control division in cunjunction with Petsmart Charities in which FWACC is running adoptions out of a local Petsmart store.  Ft. Worth was using the retail concept to reach many more potential adopters than they were getting at their normal shelter location.

The initial results from the retail-location adoption center were great -- with more than 100 dogs and cats being adopted in just the first 12 days -- more than double the amount that would have normally been adopted at the shelter during that timeframe.

While the initial results were great, the longer-term results have been even more amazing.

From May 1 (when the retail location first opened) to September 19, the shelter had adopted 689 dogs and cats from the Petsmart stor location. Counting the animals adopted prior to May 1, and the ones adopted from the shelter location, FWACC had adopted 1,142 pets for the year through September 19 -- more than double the number that were adopted out in the same period in 2009 without the retail location.

Because of the huge increase in adoptions, the shelter has not killed a healthy, adoptable dog or cat since May 1st.  By creating a high-traffic location for their adoptables to be found, and thinking more like a retailer, they were able to more than double adoptions, and save the lives of all of the adoptable animals that came into their shelter. 

Those are results worth celebrating. By taking an innovative approach to creating more adoptions, the shelter has been rewarded with great success.

I'm really grateful that the great folks over at American Dog Magazine have decided to run this story. They have picked up my original blog entry, with a few edits and updated numbers and are running it in the Winter edition of their publication -- you can check out the article and its entirety here.

It looks to be yet another great article in a great magazine -- the Winter edition also contains a feature on No Kill Advocate Ryan Clinton and 10 ideas to increase adoptions from Nathan Winograd.

It is great that the retail location concept is getting such positive results -- and hopefully others will find ways to mirror this concept in their own communities.

The Winter issue of American Dog Magazine will go on sale on November 10th.

*****

Update: Since many people seem to have the same question but are not seeing it in the comments, I'm going to post an update here. There seems to be a lot of concern about whether or not Ft. Worth is a no kill shelter and it seems that there is a lot of reason to believe they are not. The info came via email from the person involved with Petsmart Charities, not the city, and it seems likely that she meant that no animals that entered their program had been killed, not within the entire FWACC. Regardless of that, this is still an outstanding program that IS dramatically increasing adoptions via a retail concept -- which is pretty cool -- even if there is a lot of work to do there. 

Comments

[Brent]

Valerie,

I agree with your statement -- and probably wasn't clear in my original comment. I was thinking about several cases in particular (a couple in my area) where fairly high-kill shelters have made the "decision" to be "no kill" but really didn't change any of their practices beyond being limited admission.

That really didn't help anything at all.

So instead of having (for example) 2 shelters killing 2,000 animals apiece, we have one that is "no kill" and the other killing 4,000 animals a year because they're getting all of the animals being turned away from the other shelter. In fact, they've made it even worse, because now they are getting donations that previously went to the other shelter -- and so the high-kill shelter has less revenue and more animals to deal with -- causing higher kill rates.

I guess my point is that being a "no kill shelter" shouldn't be the end goal....being a no kill community should be.

[kmk]

Valerie - you make some excellent points, but per Nathan Winograd's definition of no-kill, shelters must be open admission to meet the true definition of no-kill. the idea, as Brent said, is to establish a no-kill community. All shelters and rescues should work together to achieve no-kill, along with encouraging municipal ordinances and policies that don't contribute to the problem by removing pets from perfectly good homes because of BSL, MSN, or limit laws. Those policies suck up FAR too many resources in our area.

Private shelters and rescues can do whatever they choose, provided they aren't getting any taxpayer dollars. If they're completely private they can turn every last animal away and refuse to adopt pets to people who wear white shoes before Easter and after Labor Day. I really don't care. I do believe importing animals from overseas is insane and the laws need to be changed to make that completely illegal.

However, I get testy when my tax money is involved. One local shelter advertises on their web site that they achieved no-kill by going to a limited admission policy, and that just makes my head hurt. That is NOT "no kill". That is called, "Someone else is killing these animals but it's not us". This is a large shelter with tons of money. They claim to be private but have received a large sum of tax dollars from the county every year (that may end, which is another story). I have a problem with this shelter turning away desperate pet owners that live in the county that's donating the tax money while they "cherry pick" more adoptable dogs from other area shelters.

Public, taxpayer supported shelters are well within their right to only accept animals from the municipality they serve. But, they do NOT have the luxury of saying, "Sorry, we're full" and sending their own taxpayers elsewhere in order to make their euth numbers look better. As I've said, there's plenty of room in the Mayor's office for crates. :-) The goal should be to enact programs that decrease intake. Or, just bite the bullet, build a bigger shelter, and kill more animals if that's the city's goal.

[EmilyS]

Shelters always have, and always will, "game" their kill/euth decisions and statistics. At least from the beginning of the Sue Sternberg era, "temperament" has been used to identify dogs as "unadoptable". And then they don't go into the "adoptable" stats. A shelter can claim they kill/euth "no" adoptable animals, and still kill plenty. And the whole "no kill" definition-by-Winograd has ALWAYS accepted the killing/euthing of some animals (but only the ones that are truly "suffering" of course). Every shelter/sanctuary that has any legitimacy kills/euths some animals.

Instead of playing the "who's the real no-killer" game of recrimination and one-up-manship, shelters and people should focus on what's important about the so called "no kill" agenda: and that is reducing-to-a-genuine-minimum the killing of animals, killing only the irredeemably suffering and being 100% open and transparent about shelter policies and statistics.