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« A case of the Mondays | Main | Some positive Pit Bull Press »

January 09, 2013

Comments

EmilyS

fantastic progress!
What accounts for the dramatic drop in "intake", do you know?

Rhett

Impressive increase in transfers, congratulations. I assume you started courting the local rescues or some sort of outreach to rescues. I did notice a 1% point drop between 2011 and 2012 for percentage of transfers to rescue. That led me to wonder if there was a plan, involving rescues or not, going forward to sustain transfer rates?

Rhett

Most shelters are down from 2011 to 2012. His numbers are similar to the numbers I've seen where I am in 2 similar open admission, one larger and one smaller.

Rhett

I should say when I say most I mean most of the ones I know. I don't think any national statistics are out yet.

Brent

Emily,

The decrease in intake would be largely two-fold:

1) We had a low cost spay/neuter organization that started up about 10 years ago, but really began solid growth about 6 years ago. They're doing things the right way, with targeted outread in the lower-income parts of the inner-city. They have certainly helped.

2) We have had a change in management of animal control. AC used to be run by a former police chief who used to confiscate animals for EVERYTHING -- over the limit, not licensed, etc. New management, while they still have a ways to go, the new management is evolving toward more humane animal control which is also helping.

It's impossible to know how much of the decrease is from each source, both, seem to be working well.

Brent

Rhett, please note the note right under the numbers. We actually have probably been less reliant on rescues this year than in the past -- but because of some record-keeping differences, it looks like we're overly-reliant on rescues. We definitely still work with them and need them, but we have not seen the increase that the numbers might suggest. Previous operators "adopted" animals to non brick-and-mortar rescues to circumvent a mis-interpretation of a local ordinance. We've fixed that now, but the numbers look a little off because of it...

Dianne R

Good job! If you are in DC anytime, let me know and I'll give you a tour of WARL.

Brent

I'd lvoe that Dianne.

Rhett

I completely missed that whole paragraph. Thanks!

Cindy

Organization is key. Second is funding. Kudos to all of you who are making the difference and change.

Something to consider..

6,000 + taken in and 955 released back to owners.

Considering dogs are stolen / missing every day. Dogs are easily transported out of the local area... you have to wonder how many are euthanized/ adopted out that are family pets who are lost/stolen?

What we need is a nationwide clearinghouse. A centralized list/posting of pictures of missing and found dogs.

Stolen Horse International aka Netposse has such a setup for horses.

How many more could be returned to rightful owners if we had such a mechanism in place to help reconnect them?

Ashley

This is awesome! Hopefully by next year you can officially be a no-kill shelter!

Peter Wolf

Very impressive numbers!

Other than a mention of barn cats on the KCPP website, I don't see any information about how "community cats" are handled by the KC shelter system. Am I missing something?

Peter J. Wolf
http://www.voxfelina.com

Brent

Peter. Under the city law in KCMO, releasing cats back into the community is technically illegal. So instead of doing this (as many communities do) we find barn homes for them where they can go live. It's our humane alternative while working within our legal confines.

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