Last week, the No Kill Advocacy Center released a new report entitled "The Economic Benefits of No Kill Animal Control."
The report, which is 12 pages long seems to be in reponse to an article in USA Today recently that talked about how "costly" no kill shelters were for cities to run, along with the reality that this is a seemingly common thought.
So it appears that we have a little bit of conflicting information. So what gives?
There is one major distinction that I want to make between the No Kill Advocacy Center's report, and the USA Today article -- and that's the difference between creating a No Kill Shelter and creating a comprehensive No Kill Animal Control program.
Some cities separate these two functions. Some don't.
When the two work together, they can definitely not only improve public safety, but can save lives -- and with minimal if any fiscal impact. Unfortunately, many cities try to create No Kill Shelters, while still maintaining their status quo approach of punitive animal control. If this is the case, then yes, maintaining a no kill shelter can be costly to absorb the influx of animals that comes from the animal control side. However, if animal control is operated under a no kill philosophy, then the two can work very well together.
Let me talk a little about the no kill animal control.
When it comes to creating a No Kill community, the math is really pretty simple. In order to save them all, you have to increase postive outcomes (adoptions, sent to rescue, Return-to-owners), and lower impounds. When positive outcomes = impounds, you are no kill. So while increasing positive outcomes is essential to success, lowering impounds by keeping animals from ever coming to the shelter is just as effective.
And that's where no kill animal control comes in.
This isn't about being negligent with public safety and allowing dogs to roam the streets freely. But is about making smart decisions that can minimize impounds.
This means not seizing animals when someone is over the city's pet limit (or repealing the city's pet limit).
This means not seizing dogs because of the way they look based on a city's breed ban (or repealing that law)
This means no seizing animals that are unaltered because of a city's mandatory spay/neuter law (or repealing that law).
This means allowing animal welfare advocates to trap, neuter, and release community cats as a means of population control instead of spending resources trying capture them and house them at the shelter.
This means that if a stray animal is caught by animal control, if it has identification, returning it home without even taking it to the city shelter.
This mean working with pet owners to keep animals in homes whenever it is feasible and possible. Obviously, in situations where animals are in abusive, or neglectful situations where owners should be cited for animal cruelty, these animals should be safely and immediately removed from the cruelty in which they live. But in most cases, animal control officers should work to keep animals in homes by referring them to low cost spay/neuter clinics, pet food pantries, or just allow owners the opportunity to keep their pets vs taking them to their homes.
As Reno's Chief Animal Control Officer Mitch Schneider says, "Don't punish people through their pets, because the pets lose". Most cities have enough homeless pets without their shelters having to also spend time handling and killing animals with homes.
The side benefit of animal control not taking homed animals to the shelter is that they then get to focus their time and efforts on dealing with truly aggressive dogs (a public safety issue) and prosecuting cruelty/neglect cases (an animal welfare and public safety issue) that will lead to improved public safety.
Then, on the back side, the shelter has fewer impounds, so they can focus their resources on better care for the animals and finding them homes. So all sides win.
This is why sometimes cities mistakenly think that having a no kill shelter is more expensive -- it can be -- but not if both animal control and the animal shelter are thinking, planning and acting with a no kill mindset to truly build a no kill community.
Mitch Schneider, IIRC he said (at No Kill Conf last year) they had an 80 % redemption rate IN THE FIELD. The dogs never make it to the shelter, they go home.
Posted by: Dianne R. | April 10, 2012 at 08:50 AM
Another extremely component is for a municipal shelter to work with local breed rescue groups.
Posted by: JLGauntt | April 10, 2012 at 01:31 PM
Cities should also operate a low-cost accessible spay-neuter clinic.
Posted by: lynne | April 14, 2012 at 10:17 AM
Our dog reclaim rate is about 60% and our overal "live exit" rate for dogs is 89% or so and improving. Our cat side stats are a completely different matter. Reclaims are about 2-3% and while adoptions and rescue pulls for cats have actually exceeded those for dogs this year, it is nowhere near enough to keep up with intake. So yes, lowering intake is absolutely critical. Besides the obvious issue of having fewer animals to try to place, there will be less disease coming in (so many easily transmitted diseases can be lethal to cats and especially kittens), hence fewer DIC cases and less euthanasia done in the name of disease control.
But it's no easy task to get everyone aboard on this. Fewer kittens dying in the shelter doesn't necessarily mean fewer kittens dying and it is hard to imagine their chances of long term good health and happiness increasing if they are allowed to roam. So even some cat activists I know have major concerns that TNR is being oversold. Add to that the many people who consider roaming cats anywhere from a nuisance (eg gardeners) to a real threat (lots of birders and other wildlife enthusiasts)and it can be a real challenge to change the status quo. Currently, only 6 of 40 of the municipalities in our county even ALLOW TNR.
The rebuttal is that what we are now doing is simply not working. We are spending a lot of money spinning our wheels. The same towns that were bringing in the most cats years ago are still bringing in the most cats. High trap rates have not resulted in lower populations and it would seem low trap rates have not caused any of the other towns any population boom crises.
I would like to see our county change some of these policies. But it won't be easy.
Posted by: John Richardson | December 19, 2012 at 11:40 AM
I am really glad that you wrote this. The topic is very intriguing and comparing these costs is something that people ought to consider when they are choosing some sort of method of animal control. Thank you for posting this. http://animalcontrolspecialists.com
Posted by: kendrickmoose | June 18, 2013 at 09:13 AM
I realize no kill shelters are more expensive, but I prefer that so much over the alternative. My friend had a dog who had gotten out of her house. He had a collar, but it must have slipped off somehow. By the time she found out where he was he had been euthanized at a shelter.
http://www.chanimalcontrol.com/Home_Page.html
Posted by: Rose Henderson | November 14, 2014 at 07:35 AM