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« Are shelters euthanizing the wrong dogs for aggression? | Main | Very Good Sentences...Opinions »

April 09, 2012

Comments

Dianne R.

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.

JLGauntt

Another extremely component is for a municipal shelter to work with local breed rescue groups.

lynne

Cities should also operate a low-cost accessible spay-neuter clinic.

John Richardson

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.

kendrickmoose

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

Rose Henderson

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

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