KC DOG BLOG

Reasons to Vote YES on Question 3 in Kansas City on April 4

   
On April 4th, Kansas City Missouri voters will get the opportunity to support three General Obligation Bond (GO Bond) initiatives at the polls. 

Question 1 is a $600 million bond that designates money for roads, bridges and sidewalks. In addition to the much needed infrastructure repair, this bond shifts the financial burden of sidewalk repair from the city's residents back to the city.

Question 2 is a $150 million bond that designates money for flood control. This money is needed to match for $550 million in federal funds that would create substantial upgrades to flood control in the city.

Question 3 is a $50 million bond that would designate approximately $14 million to the much-needed building of a new city  animal shelter as well as necessary upgrades to many city buildings to get them up to ADA compliance.

I support all three bond initiatives for these needed infrastructure upgrades. While we can all bicker about why we are so behind in infrastructure repair, the reality is that these are needed and necessary improvements and the only way they will be addressed in a timely manner is through passing a large bond package.

But I most particularly want to talk about why you should support Question 3.

History

The Kansas City animal shelter is at 4400 Raytown Road and is operated by Kansas City Pet Project (in full disclosure, I am a co-founder of KC Pet Project). While other Kansas City area communities have upgraded their shelter facilities in recent years, most notably in Independence and Lee's Summit, Kansas City has not upgraded its facility. And while newer facilities exist throughout the metro, the KC Pet Project-run facility is the only one in the area that serves Kansas City Missouri's homeless pets.

And while there are newer shelters around the metro, it is a ridiculous notion that any of them has the capacity to take in 10,000 animals from Kansas City, MO residents instead of building a new shelter.

The current facility was built in 1972. It originally served as a maintenance and storage building for the workers building the Truman Sports Complex. When the sports complex was complete, the city decided to convert the building into a "temporary" animal shelter. It has served as the city shelter for 45 years in a "temporary" capacity. 

Prior to 2009, the city operated the shelter -- and at that time, the shelter maintained a roughly 35% live release rate at the shelter. In 2009, the city opted to privatize the shelter and under the direction of Half-Way Home Pet Adoptions the live release rate increased. However, the city decided to issue another RFP in 2011 for operations. KC Pet Project won the bid at the time and has been saving more than 90% of the pets since July 2012, and finished 2016 with a greater than 94% live release rate.

Location

The area where the shelter sits is far from ideal. It is far from the road and barely visible -- especially during summer. It sits behind a large empty lot that is an uncapped, former city landfill. The shelter building sits high on a hill because the shelter is on a flood plain. And the hill behind the building used to house a state penitentiary and a tuberculosis hospital. 

So when the animal shelter was first established, taking animals to the shelter was seen as something between disposing of the trash, and locking up felons. Fortunately our view of animals in society has improved a great deal over the past four and a half decades, but the shelter location does not reflect that.

The current facility

The current shelter facility is approximately 14,000 square feet. It's capacity was very much reflective of historic "Catch & kill philosophy where animals would be kept for a minimum amount of time and then killed for space. This is not indicative of the current progressive mindset of animal sheltering in the U.S., or that of KC Pet Project and current city leadership. Because everyone now agrees that pets should be given the opportunity to be rehomed to start a new life, the shelter is roughly 1/4 the size that is needed. 

In addition to the small size, there are other inadequacies.

All of the dog kennels are in one large room. The high concentration of the dogs in one space makes for a very noisy and stressful housing situation for the dogs at the shelter. Also, due to the size of the shelter, for each kennel generally designed to house 1 dog, usually contains 2 dogs, with a guillotine door separating the two dogs, leaving each dog with about 1/2 the space as would be recommended in a typical shelter.

The original cat kennels for the shelter were actually in the same room with all the dogs. This would obviously be a horrifying situation for cats. Thus, since KC Pet Project took over shelter operations in 2012, several former offices have been converted into cat housing areas. While this is a huge improvement for the cats, most are still contained in cages. Most modern shelters have "free-roaming cat rooms" that provide a much more enriching environment for the cats. Free-roaming cats space isn't something the current shelter has room for.

Also, because many of the former offices have been turned into animal housing areas, many of the KC Pet Project staffers now office in hallways or in the basement of the old building -- which is definitely not ideal for the employees.

The shelter's HVAC system is also not up to modern recommendations. Most newer shelters are equipped with HVAC systems that bring in entirely fresh air many time each hour. The fresh air helps control odor, and prevents spread of air-born diseases in the animals. The current shelter HVAC does not do this as often as it should, which allows for odors to linger and for the spread of disease.

The current drainage and sewer system is also not adequate and the city and KC Pet Project just spent substantial sums of money to get the kennel drains up to a minimum standard. 

The shelter lobby is also very small and can get quickly congested on busy days.

The shelter was also designed with a very small veterinary clinic (roughly 400 square feet). This was not sufficient to treat the more than 10,000 animals that come into the shelter each year, as well as provide animals vaccinations and spay/neuter surgeries. To offset this, KC Pet Project raised more than $350,000 (thanks in large part to a grant by the Petco Foundation) to put a double-wide trailer in the staff parking lot that created a veterinary clinic that is 4x the size of the one in the shelter. While this is a much-needed upgrade for now, the trailers are only a temporary solution to this problem. 

Additionally, the current facility does not have any space for public education. Modern shelters in other communities have become community centers for pet-lovers. And educational rooms can provide inviting places for public meetings, volunteer training, dog training classes and youth education classes. Kansas City has fallen woefully behind in public education opportunities, and we all benefit from having a public educated about good pet ownership. No one wants to live in a neighborhood with a chained up dog barking all night long, or with loose dogs chasing kids on their way to school. Good pet ownership education improves neighborhood livability -- for pet owners and non-pet owners alike.

State Recommendation

In 2008, the Missouri Department of Agriculture (which inspects the shelter each year) strongly recommended the city build a new animal shelter. In its 2008 inspection report (and several subsequent reports), the state noted:

"The city should seriously consider improving or replacing the current animal shelter. This particular facility falls behind municipal shelters within communities of similar size. Most of the problems that are being encountered, and that will continue to be encountered, are simply due to an aging facility. At the least, there should be some community discussion on this issue. Statistics files each year within our office show a regular increase in the number of animals handled by animal control each year. Without some type of community involvement, including a plan to improve or replace the current animal shelter, dogs & cats impounded under the authority of Kansas City will see a decline in standards of animal welfare."

Folks, that was nearly a decade ago. And while there have been other attempts to build a new shelter, this is the first time the public has had the opportunity to vote on the issue -- and it is way past time to make this happen.

The Petco Foundation agrees on the need for a new shelter. "I've been telling them for years they need a new shelter," said Susanne Kogut, executive director of the Petco Foundation. "It's not only the age, but is the space for the animals. It's very unusual to see large dogs in small cages and not having their own kennels. They're doing amazing work with what they have to work with, but they need more to work with."

The Kansas City Star recently called it an "embarrassment of a structure."

The Opportunity

KC Pet Project has earned national recognition for its life-saving efforts on behalf of Kansas City's pets. They have a fantastic base of donors, volunteers and supporters that help KCPP provide services far beyond the scope of the city's contract. However, a new shelter will allow them to build on those services, and
provide something that Kansas City could be proud of for generations. It would also put Kansas City on par with the types of modern shelters other communities are building (some non-KC Pictures appear in this section). 

Kansas City is in the heart of the Animal Health Corridor. Animal Health companies make up a substantial part of our city's economy. Having a modern shelter facility will continue to improve the city's image as an animal health hub and overall livable city. And this city loves their pets, and the shelter will reflect this passion.

The vision is to build an approximately 60,000 square foot building on 7 acres in Swope Park -- near both the Kansas City Zoo and Lakeside Nature Center.  The location will be inviting to the public and centrally located so that the shelter may continue to serve the needs of Kansas City residents.

It will have proper housing for both dogs and cats - -including free-roaming rooms for the cats. It will include suitable office space for the shelter staff. 

It will include proper plumbing and drainage, as well as modern HVAC to maintain adequate air flow. It will have a modern veterinary clinic so that sick & injured animals can get the treatments they need. It will have special isolation areas for treating contagious diseases.

It will also contain a public education space that will allow KC Pet Project to increase the services it provides to the public -- including providing vaccinations, training and educational programs, reuniting lost pets with owners, and remaining the most popular adoption center in the metro. 

And the cost is only $14 million to the taxpayers -- while the private community is raising an additional $10 million to cover extra expenses. 

 This is a much-needed improvement for our city. The timing is right. The opportunity is right.

Vote Yes on Question 3 on April 4th.

First four photos are of the current Kansas City Animal Shelter.

The last three are images of new shelters from around the country, including:

Lobby of the Lynchburg Humane Society, Lynchburg, VA

Modern dog kennels, Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter, LA

Exterior, Miami Dade Animal Shelter, FL

 For more information check out:

The Northeast News: Why the KCMO animal shelter seeks new digs

RaiseTheWoofKC

Support for Question 3:

Progress KC

The KC Business Journal

The Kansas City Star

Yael Albourhalkah

Kansas City Area Chamber of Commerce

Starlight Theater

Kansas City Royals Pitcher Danny Duffy

 

My man Valentino and his buddies need some more room! #RaiseTheWoof for a new animal shelter for Kansas City! Be sure to vote on April 4th. pic.twitter.com/9BJ49wZVO2

— Danny Duffy (@Duff805) February 20, 2017

Tips on decreasing length of stay in your shelter or rescue

On Monday, I spent a bit of time discussing two important concepts in creating and maintaining an open-admission no-kill shelter in your community: 

1) Focusing on saving animals so that the number of positive outcomes = the number of animals coming in

2) Decreasing length of stay as a way to increase the number of animals your shelter can care for effectively throughout the course of a year.

The first idea is pretty simple, and while the second idea is also simple, the question may be, "Sure, but how do we decrease length of stay?"

So below are some ideas of things that you and your organization can do to decrease length of stay at your shelter or rescue:

1) Be Open. People can't adopt from you when you're closed. So step number one is to be open. At KC Pet Project, we are open for adoptions and RTOs 363 days per year (we are closed Christmas and Thanksgiving). Being open maximizes the speed at which we can move animals.

Being open includes being open on both weekend days (which should be your busiest adoption days because more people should be off work and available to adopt those days). 

It should also include being open on holidays such as Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and New Years Day -- this seems crazy to me to be closed on those are days when people are off work. Holidays tend to be our highest adoptions days!  Be open so people can come to adopt. 

This also includes being open on all weekdays as well. I know a lot of shelters are closed to the public on, say, Mondays, as a "regroup day" after the weekend. We stared off doing this at KC Pet Project. But one day Michelle (my wife, and fellow co-founder) was talking about the impact it was having on animals length of stay at the shelter. In Missouri, our stray hold for animals is a mandatory five days (the shelter must be open for the day to count).

By being closed on Monday, we were actually causing every animal that came in on a Tuesday - Sunday to serve an additional day of stray hold that didn't count toward its stray hold time. So they were serving 6 days at the shelter without being available for adoption or being sent to rescue. This accumulated to more than 8500 kennel days just in extra stray hold for our animals.

Being open is important. Be open.

#2 Increase Adoption Traffic - Obviously the more adopters you have, the faster they'll adopt animals. But you can't just open your doors and expect adopters to come. Promote that you are there. Open a permanent off-site adoption center. Showcase your animals. Be involved in your community. If you can afford to advertise, advertise. If you can't afford to advertise, put flyers in apartments, coffee shops, etc. Hand them out at parades. Take pictures of your pets for adoption and put them on your social media feeds*. And your website. Encourage people to share them. Maximize the exposure for your pets any and every way you can.

#3 Embrace Open Adoptions - I'm not going to get into open adoption policies and practices a lot in this post -- I have an entire post on Open Adoption Policies here and another here. But if you are doing the work to promote your pets to potential adopters, and the adopters show up to adopt, you also have to be sure they leave with a pet in order for the process to work!  So if you are denying people from adopting because they don't live in the right zip code, are a minority, don't have a fence, have a fence, work too much, work too little, have a child, don't have a child, or whatever reason you came up with to deny them -- second guess your adoption policies. All of them. You are driving up length of stay for your shelter or your rescue group and decreasing the number of lives you save.

#4 Increase the number of animals returned to their owner -- The only way a pet can safely leave our shelter in less than 5 days is by being returned to its owner. While the average length of stay for a dog in our shelter is about 14 days, the average length of stay for one returned to its owner is 3. RTO's are the best and fastest way of getting pets out safely. Just increasing the RTO rate three percentage points makes a difference of nearly 4,000 kennel days at our shelter.

Get pictures of lost pets up on your website and Facebook page immediately upon intake. Scan for microchips. Check for tags or other identification. It's important. And the fastest way to move animals out of your shelter quickly.

#5 Get animals altered and ready to go immediately -- So, one thing a lot of shelters do is wait for a pet to be adopted before they go through the work (and expense) of altering the animal*. So someone comes in and adopts on a Saturday, and the shelter will then put the pet on the spay/neuter schedule for Monday or Tuesday and the adopter comes back and gets the pet on Tuesday or Wednesday. Meanwhile, that pet, which has a home, just took up a kennel in your shelter for three days.

Alter them the morning the end of their stray hold and put them up for adoption immediately.

I realize this can't always happen. Sporadic veterinary hours sometimes means a vet isn't there every day. Or, often in a shelter environment dogs come down with kennel cough and it's not safe to alter them until they've had a couple of weeks to recover. In those cases, send the adopted pet home with the owner with a scheduled appointment time for their surgery. Call them a couple of days before the appointment time and have them come back for the surgery. We have had extremely high compliance with this at our shelter (most people WANT to have their pets altered) as long as we do the follow up calls. And don't worry about the "time" it takes to make the calls -- because making a phone call takes less time than caring for that animal for 3 days while you wait for the surgery to happen. 

#6. Make a plan for your  animals -- When an animal comes into your shelter, make a plan for that animal of how you expect that animal to positively leave your shelter. Does it have identification or a nice collar? Then that animal is likely to leave via RTO.

Is the pet of a certain breed that you have a good breed-rescue partner that you can plan to get the dog on day 6 when it's available for transfer?  Start making plans on day four for the transfer (80+% of our RTOs happen within 3 days, so starting to call rescue groups on day four for conditional rescue pull is appropriate).  

Is the pet highly adoptable at the shelter (or one of your satellite adoption facilities?) then by all means, promote the pet and adopt it out! 

Do you think the pet needs behavior modification? Then start it immediately. 

But more than likely, with about 2 minutes of thought, you can have a pretty good idea of what the most likely outcome for a pet is in your shelter the second it comes in. Start making a plan for it . Sure, adjust accordingly, but don't find yourself looking at a dog that has been in your shelter for 30 days and then start wondering what the plan is for that dog - that plan should have been started 25 days ago.

#7 Shorten Length of Stay for Long-timers too -- Yes, getting animals out quickly and safely is important, but in each and every shelter there are some animals that are going to take a little more time than others. Maybe it's a breed that is difficult to adopt out in your area due to high population of the breed or breed restrictions in your community. Maybe it's an animal that is not terribly well socialized. Maybe it's one that is a little jumpy and mouthy. Maybe it's an animal that came in with a bad injury and needs time to recover. Whatever the case, we've all seen these animals that end up at shelters for a fairly lengthy amount of time before being adopted. That's OK.

The important thing is to be sure that these long-timers are somewhat few, and that we do what is necessary to decrease their length of stay also.

Playgroups and other behavior modification plans can provide enrichment for these animals while they're at the shelter, and also help them become adopted more quickly. A good veterinary treatment program can help with disease.  A little additional time spent on marketing the long-timers (or potential long-timers) can also help. The important thing is, again, make a plan -- and help these animals that will be there for a longer stay than others are there for 30 or 60 days, and not 365. 

#8 Treat fosters with urgency too -- Your foster homes are kennels space for pets too. So getting animals in and out of foster home quickly can help keep fosters for you longer, but also opens those foster homes to being able to take in new shelter pets that need help. So while getting pets into foster is good, getting them out is also important.

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These are just a few of the ideas and programs that we've implemented to help decrease the length of stay for pets at our shelter so that we can maximize the number of positive outcomes and also maximize the number of animals we can care for at our shelter. Decreasing the length of stay can help your shelter or rescue group too.

I think it's so important for rescue groups to focus on these policies also because by moving animals in and out of rescue quickly, they get the pet into their permanent home more quickly AND enable the rescue to help decrease the length of stay at the area shelter too -- helping them save more lives.

It's good policy, and good practice. And it works. 

* I am aware of quite a few shelters out there that don't do a lot of life-saving practices because of fear of what might happen to the animal. They don't alter pets before they are adopted because they don't want to go through the time and expense of altering the pet because it >might< end up euthanized. They also resist putting a pet's picture on their social media to showcase it for adoption because of the fear of euthanizing the animal. If you are afraid to do things that would help save that animal's life because you may later euthanize that animal, you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

2014 KC Pet Project - The Year in Numbers

In January 2012, KC Pet Project embarked on a journey to take what once was a high-kill Kansas City municipal shelter and turn our city into a No Kill Community.

In July of 2013, we celebrated our first 12 consecutive months at operating above a 90% Live Release Rate. 

In spite of many challenges in 2014, KC Pet Project had another amazing year of growth, success and recognition.

In March, KC Pet Project opened a second satellite adoption facility. This one, a 2,000 square foot space inside a Petco retail store. 

This location, along with our first satellite adoption facility in Zona Rosa Shopping Center, have been crucial for the increase in adoptions, and thus lives saved at KCPP.

In November, our Zona Rosa location celebrated its 3,000 adoption -- in less than 2 years of being open. 

In May, several folks from Kansas City Pet Project were invited to San Diego to receive a major award. KC Pet Project was honored to be selected by the Petco Foundation to receive the first ever Paul Jolly Compassion Award.

Paul Jolly was the founder of the Petco Foundation 15 years ago -- with the idea that he could leverage the strength of the nation's largest pet retailer and help pets in the process. Mr. Jolly passed away earlier this year due to ALS. The Petco Foundation chose to create the Paul Jolly Compassion Award to give to individuals or organizations that turned their compassion for animals into action -- and KC Pet Project was the first ever winner. I couldn't be more proud. 

KC Pet Project also was invited to present our story at the Best Friends Animal Society Conference, American Pets Alive Conference,No Kill Columbia, 1 Million Cups, and at the Missouri Animal Control Association Conference. We also received the Community Engagement Award as a part of the ASPCA 100K Challenge. We received generous grants from Best Friends, ASPCA, HSUS the Petco Foundation and generally our number of donors and donations have risen substantially.

The Numbers

But all the recognition doesn't mean a lot if we aren't also doing the right things by saving the lives of the animals that come into our care. And with that, it was a banner year also.

For the year 2014 (these number respresent dogs & cats only):

Total Intake: 9,476 (6,029 dogs, 3,447 cats)

5,986 Adoptions (3,391 dogs, 2,595 cats)

1,244 Pets returned to owners (1202 dogs, 42 cats)

1,024 Transferred to other rescue groups (688 dogs, 336 cats)

8,450 total positive outcomes

In total, we performed 650 euthanasias for health or behavior resasons and 94 owner requested euthanasias.

Our Assilomar Live Release Rate for the year was 93% (93% for both dogs and cats). Our modified Live Release Rate (which includes those that died in our care) was 91% (92% for dogs, 88% for cats). 

The Challenges

The biggest challenge this year was handling the 16% increase in total intake (+10% on dogs, +28% on cats) on the year. This number was MUCH higher earlier in the year (it was more than 21% YOY in July) and finally tapered off toward the end of the year. 

While animal control impounds still make up most of our intake (45%), the  vast majority of the increases were from Owner Surrenders (+53%) and public stray dropoff (+16%). 

And generally, our very small, outdated, 42 year old shelter continues to be a challenge as, at 14,000 square feet, is roughly 1/4 the size of a shelter that would be necessary for an intake of roughly 10,000 animals.

We also continue to struggle with the large number of breed bans in our region that are causing many pit bulls to become unnecessarily homeless and also eliminate many potential homes for the ones that are in the shelter. 

We are also seeing more and more shelters in the area make it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for people to surrender their pets which is pushing more people toward KC Pet Project. It is a huge concern for KCPP that if intake continues to increase at the current rates, that the size of the shelter, and the significant increase in intake (now up 40% in just 2 years) will put a huge strain on our ability to save lives at the current rate.

Major Successes

While they were many, one of the major successes was a 33% increase in adoptions. In 2014, we doubled the number of adoptions compared to our first year in 2012.  

We also increased the number of animals returned to owner by 17%. 

Another major success was a decrease in the number of animals that died in our care by 25% (In spite of the increased intake). Improvements in our training programs, veterinary clinic, parvo ward and in our ability to find even more good fosters for juvenile kittens has really improved our success there. 

Overall it's been another great year at KC Pet Project and I'm very proud of the success and growth of the organization as a start-up organization just 3 years ago. We continue to get a lot more community support, adopters and volunteer support, which has been, and will continue to be, huge for us. 

And I'm very excited for the year to come as we have a lot of new initiatives that we are looking forward to sharing.

KCPP Opens Second satellite adoption location

When you read information from different people about how to increase adoptions, one of the first things that people will say is to do off-site adoptions.

While, generally I agree with doing off-site adoptions (because, more adoptions are almost always better), we have struggled to move a high volume of adoptable animals at off-site events.

However, the basic notion of off site adoptions is to take the animals TO the people, not just make people come to you.

One route that we've found extremely beneficial is by making a permanent off-site location by opening a permanent satellite adoption center at the Zona Rosa shopping center. In 2013, this 2,000 square foot adoption center handled more than 1600 adoptions for KC Pet Project. 

Well, the news has gotten even better. Over the weekend, KC Pet Project opened its SECOND retail adoption center -- this time as a full-sized adoption center inside a Petco Store. I couldn't be happier about this new location. First of all, the space is amazing, and at 2,000 square fee and offers plenty of housing for cats & dogs, a meet and greet area, and an indoor play area.  I really want to thank Petco for this amazing space. This is a fairly new concept for Petco, I think there are still less than 10 of these locations inside stores, but they are great.  I also think they will be mutually beneficial as I think not only will the adoption center increase exposure for our adoptables, but I think we will help drive traffic to their store as well.

We had a great opening weekend -- with nearly 20 pets being adopted in the first 2 days we were open.  And I'm hopeful that the early success will translate into even more forever homes being found for the animals of KCPP. 

And here's a short video that was also shot at our new location.

Also, the news stations made it out -- and here is a great report from Fox 4 KC that covered our grand opening (thanks Fox 4!).

This is a great opportunity for us, and one that I highly recommend for anyone looking to adopt out more animals from their shelter. A special thanks to Petco for making it possible.

Some thoughts on Kansas City's law mandating the spay/neuter of pit bulls

Recently, and organization in Missouri (who's executive director lives 200 miles away in St. Louis), has been making some false claims about the "success" of Kansas City's law mandating the spay/neuter of pit bulls. Given these misleading, and erroneous statements, I feel like I need to officially state for the record, the impact the laws have had here.

The law has not been effective -- at reducing intake of pit bulls, at decreasing shelter euthanasia, or at improving public safety. While it is true that total shelter intake has decreased following the passing of the ordinance in August, 2006, and that euthanasia has declined considerably, it is because of the hard work of organizations in the area in providing low cost spay/neuter services, and the new shelter operators under the direction of Kansas City Pet Project and more progressive animal control policies that help keep pets in homes vs being seized - -Not the law, that has created this success.

Instead, the law has created an undue burden on low-income pet owners, and had a negative impact on the reputation of the types of dogs being singled out, as well as the potential negative health impact it has had for these breeds.

Given this, here are some thoughts and statistics on Kansas City's BSL/MSN that I feel are important to share with others so that people can understand the true impact the law has had in Kansas City.

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First of all, let me note that  Kansas City’s law mandating the spay/neuter of pit bulls is a poorly idealized law that unfairly targets low-income pit bull owners across the city and is not having the desired impact on minimizing shelter populations, and counter-intuitively, in our experience, makes the problem worse.  And at this point, there is almost no professional support for laws mandating the spay/neuter of any type of animal.

Based on data from the Humane Society of the United States, 78% of all owned dogs, and 88% of all owned cats, are currently spayed or neutered.  However, the numbers are very different when you look at underserved populations. For pet owners who have older animals (non-puppies), the primary reason that people have not altered their pets is because it’s too expensive.

When you look at many neighborhoods in Kansas City, MO, there are many where poverty rates are very high, and access to affordable vet care is very limited. Mandating spay/neuter doesn’t change the fact most in these neighborhoods cannot afford the surgery; it simply makes it harder for those with limited resources to comply. Many of these individuals live in overall “resource deserts”, where they have limited availability of all resources, including access to Veterinary Care.

According to the Humane Society of the United States Pets for Life Program, in a survey of more than 20,000 families they have touched through inner-city outreach programs, 77% of all people they connected with have pets that have never even seen a veterinarian. However, when those with unaltered pets were offered free or low-cost spay/neuter services, 74% agreed to spay/neuter voluntarily, with 90% following through on their appointments. Spay/Neuter Kansas City (our area low cost spay/neuter clinic) has seen an even higher rate of participation and follow through locally.

People generally want to spay/neuter their pets, however, punitive legislation makes this harder, not easier for them. Spay/Neuter Kansas City notes that only about 1% of all of their spay/neuter surgeries in 2013 were performed because people wanted to comply with the city’s mandating spay/neuter for pit bulls law. The other 99% were people voluntarily choosing their low cost services.

Take a family in Kansas City, MO that owns a pit bull. They care for their dog properly, but don’t yet have the money to alter that pet and very likely do not know there is a law mandating spay/neuter. If animal control discovers them in non-compliance, they will then not only have to pay for the cost of surgery, but will have to pay a $500 fine for non-compliance with the law on top of the surgery cost.  The end result is often that due to lack of money, the pet is surrendered to the shelter. This means that a pet with a home is made homeless and ends up at an already over-crowded shelter. The goal of mandatory spay/neuter is to reduce shelter intake and in most instances fails at that goal.

This played out dramatically in Kansas City after it passed its law mandating the spay/neuter (MSN) of pit bulls in August 2006. In 2005, KCMO euthanized 981 pit bulls at the shelter.

In 2006, KCMO euthanized 1353 pit bull type dogs -- with the ordinance in place for just 1/2 of the year. In 2007, the first complete year of the ordinance it euthanized 1,722; in 2008, 1002. This was at a time when euthanasia for all non-pit bull type dogs was decreasing, yet more than 1100 additional pit bulls lost their lives in the next 3 years mostly because their owners were unable to comply with the law and the dogs were taken from their homes and euthanized at the shelter. 

KCMO Dogs Euthanized 2005-2009

 

 

In 2009, euthanasia rates finally began to decline after the city chose to privatize shelter operations vs running it themselves. While the total shelter intake has dropped from about 10,500 per year in 2005 to 8,500 per year in 2013, the number of pit bulls that are impounded remains mostly unchanged.

According to the shelter data at Kansas City Pet Project, pit bulls make up 12% of the dogs that are brought in as strays found by the public, and 12% of the dogs that are brought in as owner surrenders. However, pit bulls make up 24% of the dogs brought to us by animal control. In other words, pit bulls come into the shelter at twice the rate from animal control officers as they do from the general public. 

In the first quarter of 2013, pit bulls made up 13% of all dogs impounded at the shelter. However, in May, we received notification that animal control was going to once again begin impounding pit bulls for non-compliance with the MSN law after a two week extension (instead of giving additional tickets for non-complaince).  In 2^nd quarter and 3^rd quarter, pit bulls made up 23% of the total dogs that were impounded. This dramatic increase, along with the timing of the notification from animal control seems like a very strong link.

Based on the data available, Kansas City’s MSN for pit bulls ordinance continues to be something that is causing unnecessary hardship for low-income pet owners in our community. When they are offered the opportunity for low cost spay/neuter services, the vast majority eagerly participate. However, the city’s punitive approach to targeting low-income pet owners continues to be a detriment to those living in these communities, as well as the relationship between animal control and the community.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City ordinance requires that all pit bulls be altered at 8 weeks -- which completely ignores the potential health impacts of performing the surgeries at such a young age.

What has been successful in other communities is to help service this family by providing low cost spay/neuter service. We are very fortunate in Kansas City to have a great organization like Spay/Neuter Kansas City (SNKC) to help with this service. But if the family doesn’t know about this service or the law itself, they may not come into compliance. A more effective solution would be to take the resources used to punitively enforce this law and use them to increase awareness of low-cost services. This has proven to be the most effective approach in communities throughout the nation.

Laws requiring animals be spayed or neutered are a punitive approach to animal control policy, that unfairly targets low-income people, most of whom want to spay/neuter their pets but lack the resources to do so. As such, nearly all respected national animal welfare organizations no longer support laws that mandate spay/neuter of pets. 

Claiming that Kansas City's ordinance is successful, which has cost thousand of homes their family pets, thousands of dogs their lives and still creates a hardship on the shelter and low income families, particularly in light of other, more successful models, is just reckless. And as such, all major animal sheltering and spay/neuter organizations in our area want the city's law to change. 

Hopefully it will someday soon.

KC Pet Project logs 12 months of No Kill Success

On July 1, 2013, KC Pet Project officially achieved 12 consecutive months as a no kill shelter.

Our little organization took over operations of the Kansas City, MO shelter in January 2012. The shelter is a completely open-admission shelter serving the entire city of Kansas City (population 460,000).  

The shelter had gone through a couple of different stages of management in recent years, some public, some private. As recently as 2008, 62% of the animals that entered the shelter were euthanized. 

While quite a bit of improvement had been made, there was a long way to go.

In our first year with the shelter, we finished 2012 with an 86% live release rate. This was a huge improvement over previous years. This also came after a run of 6 straight months above 90% at the end of the year.

Through the first 6 months of this year, the success continued. 

In the 12 months, July 1 2012 through June 30, 2013 KC Pet Project achieved a 91.3% live release rate for dogs and cats. During that time, we adopted out 3,730 animals (more than a 100% increase in adoptions), reunited 1,035 with their owners, and transferred another 1,280 to other shelters and rescue groups -- totalling more than 6,000 positive outcomes on the year.

By my best calculations, I believe the feat makes KC Pet Project the 4th largest open-admission no kill shelter in the country. 

We're no doubt thrilled with achieving this -- but I dare say we're in no place to say "mission accomplished". No kill is a journey, not a destination. As with any open-admission shelter, we continue to see a lot of animals coming through our doors. Our shelter is small, and very outdated, and these limitations add to the challenges. 

 We continue to need support from the community and our partners in helping us sustain. We continue to need the community support by adopting, helping keep animals out of the shelter, their volunteer time and their donations. We continue to need rescue support in helping us with the placement of dogs and cats -- particularly some of the the larger and more challenging ones.  And we have many neighboring communities that have very bad laws for pets (strict pet limits, prohibition of TNR, breed bans) that make for pet population issues in the area. Some of our own city laws are outdated and regressive.

I can't say enough about what a huge team effort this has been. We have an amazingly talented staff that works day in and day out at the shelter. We have continued to build a team that buys into the vision and mission of the organization and works miracles daily. Several of our team members -- you know who you are -- have been with us from the beginning; including some of the very rough early months. Thank you for hanging in there. 

And we have developed an amazing team of volunteers who never cease to amaze me with their spirit and dedication. 

And we've had a few friends, some old, some new, that have come in and provided a lot of guidance, advice and moral support. I'm not sure we could have done it without you.  

Thanks to everyone who has bought in, helped, laughed, cried and supported us along the way. 

Now, on with the journey.

It's why we're here

Yesterday, the television news crews came out to our shelter after word was received of a dog named Ace that was found with severe trauma on his head and thrown into a dumpster behind a school.

I think when the news crews arrived, they got more than they expected. 

On the floor in our vet's office was a beautiful Husky that had been hit by a car and had a wounded leg. 

Waking up from surgery was a chow chow -- that had also been hit by a car and had a bandaged leg. 

Then there was Ace, who had a severe wound on his head.

KMBC News covered them all in this short clip:

This is the life of an open-admission shelter: animals hit by cars, animals with bullets in them, and those that have been abused. We see these things all the time (although, not usually three in one day).  These are the ones we're here for: to get them well, and find them homes.  We have a very talented staff and veterinary team that is helping make sure they get the good medical treatment they need. 

When we formed the KC Pet Project we wanted to be a place to help Kansas City's homeless pets and it's animals like this that we want to be there to help.

I'd still like us to get out of the business of being forced to help animals that already have homes because our laws are taking them out of homes and bringing them to our shelter. That just takes resources away from dogs like Ace that really do need us to be there.

Our facilities are modest. The shelter was never really designed to save animals -- most built in the early 70s weren't. Our vet clinic is incredibly small for a shelter that takes in more than7,000 animals a year. And yet our team does some pretty amazing things.

I hope Ace pulls through OK. There are never guarantees in cases like this -- but we owe it to him to try. 

Thanks to our area news stations for covering Ace's story. I sometimes don't think our organization takes enough credit for some of the lives we save and so I'm glad the larger public gets to see it. And some of these cases really are miracles. 

More from Fox 4, and KSHB. 

I'll post an update on Ace as his treatment progresses.

 

 

Understanding Cause & Effect when it comes to Mandatory Spay/Neuter Laws

This topic has been coming up a lot lately, and once again I feel that laws people mis-understand the cause and effect of mandating spaying and neutering.

First off, let me state, that I think most people who support Mandatory Spay/Neuter laws (MSN) want to do so because they believe it will save lives. I think they believe that if they pass the law, more people will sterilize their pets and thus, fewer pets will be born, and thus, fewer will end up at the shelter, and thus, fewer will die.

This is a logical progression.

Unfortunately, mandating sterilization doesn't have the same effect. I've seen it in action. And it's really horrific.

Yesterday, former Los Angeles Animal Services Manager Ed Boks posted a blog about why he plans to support MSN targeted at pit bulls in his new role at the Yavapai Humane Society. Previously, Boks had posted "statistics" about the situation, and then asked for people's thoughts and seems to support MSN targeted at pit bulls because that's the type of dog he sees most in his shelter. Then, based on the responses, deemed that most of the people that read his blog and responded supported MSN for pit bulls, it must be a good idea.

It's not. 

Let's start with some of Boks' research. Boks relies heavily on national information provided by the magazine "Animal People". I've written a lot about the magazine's editor, Merrit Clifton, and how his information is egregiously inaccurate and misleading, including:

- Covering bites only based on media reports, which is not statistically reliable

- Somehow having more than 20% of all his "data" for his 29 year study occur purely within a 19 month window

- And blatantly using misleading data from several communities to support his desire for mandating spay/neuter of 'pit bulls' including such egregious ideas as comparing the live release rates of pit bulls in the Indianapolis shelter to other communities and saying Indy killed more pit bulls than the other communities because they DIDN"T target pit bulls. The fact was though, that Indianapolis had a policy against adopting out pit bulls, meaning they didn't save ANY, which drove up their kill rates.

- Clifton claims that pit bulls make up only about 3% of the overall population of dogs in the US -- however, when you add up the numbers for all of the breeds he includes in his report (which includes 18 of the 20 most popular AKC dog breeds + many more breeds) he only accounts for less than 42% of the total dog population.

Boks fails to really analyze this information though, and then uses the latter report to justify why targeting 'pit bulls' might be a solution. According to Boks:

"Is there a way to end this disproportionate killing? Three US communities have tried two different solutions. San Francisco, Denver and Miami have each enacted breed-specific legislation. San Francisco requires pit bulls to be sterilized; Denver and Miami prohibit pit bulls....Cumulatively, San Francisco, Denver and Miami kill about 40% fewer dogs of any breed than the US National Average."

The "data" here comes from Clifton, and the cities were interesting choices.

Denver, which re-enacted its ban in 2005, has long been criticized for its mass killing of pit bulls. During a 2 year period, nearly 1500 pit bulls were systematically rounded up and killed at the Denver shelter, and reporters in the area captured pictures of piles of dead pit bulls as a result of their ordinance (warning, the pics at the link aren't for the faint of heart).

 Meanwhile, just yesterday, the city of Miami continued to look at passing a significant new tax in order to help fund low cost spay/neuter services as the community still is having very high intakes into the city shelter (btw, I'm not necessarily against this new tax, but just pointing out that things aren't all groovy in Miami).

These are interestingly two of Boks' success stories.

However, he also mentions San Francisco, and actually seems to prefer taking their approach of mandating the spay/neuter of pit bulls as his third case study. I do want to dive a little deeper into that one.

Why People don't spay/neuter their pets

First off, let's note that after years of education about the importance of spaying and neutering, most people spay/neuter their pets. According to HSUS numbers, 78% of owned dogs, and 88% of owned cats are currently altered. However, when you look at "under-served" communities, roughly 80% of pets are unaltered and of those people who say they haven't altered their pet, 53% of them have actually never taken their pet to a veterinarian before (usually because of lack of money, lack of veterinarians in their community, or lack of transportation to get to the veterinarian -- or a combination of the 3).

These numbers are similar to the numbers from a Petsmart Charities study that notes that only 34% of pets are unaltered. According to this research, the three most common reasons people haven't altered their pets is:

1) Pet is too young for this operation (41%)

2) It is too expensive (32%)

3) Haven't gotten around to it/haven't had time (21%)

So in other words, if you provide people with affordable options, and make it convenient for them, they will alter their pets once they are old enough. No law required.

Failure of BSL/MSN in Kansas City

In 2005, Kansas City, MO passed a law mandating the spay/neuter of 'pit bulls' in an attempt to reduce the killing of pit bulls at the shelter.

During the next 24 months, the city saw a 76% increase in the number of 'pit bulls' killed at the city shelter. And while the number of dogs of all other breeds being killed was dropping, the number of pit bulls killed nearly doubled.

While the Kansas City area was growing its low cost services, there wasn't nearly enough outreach resources available. People didn't know about the law and didn't know about the services. So when people were found with unaltered dogs, they were rounded up, and taken to the shelter, where they were, more often than not, killed. Because of the increase in pit bull impounds, the law caused more than 2,000 incremental pit bulls to be seized and killed over a 2 year period than had things remained static. It was tragic. It was slaughter.

Most of these dogs came from homes in the inner city where resources are limited and had people been given the opportunity for services, they would have willingly complied. Unfortunately, with the mandatory law, their dogs were seized, and destroyed.

Lest anyone think that Kansas City was alone in this, Fox 16 in Little Rock captured excellent footage a few years ago of Little Rock Animals services and police rounding up pit bulls for non-compliance where they were taken to the city pound, and also killed. In the first year of having the ordinance, pit bull killings in the Little Rock shelter increased by 44%.

 San Francisco

So let's get back to San Francisco.

There has been a fair amount written about San Francisco's breed-specific MSN. Some places have called it successful, while others continue to say that it has been at best, mixed results (most everyone I talk to close to the scenes have reported that things are definitely not as rosie as the reports would indicate).  Here are the numbers from the first 19 months.

Even if we were to take San Francisco as a "success" story, it would appear that it would be more of the exception than the rule -- and this is in part to a lot of other factors involved in San Francisco -- including, a poverty rate of 15% which is below the state average, combined with a median HH Income that is 20% higher than the state average. So, there is more money in the community than normal, and less poverty - -meaning fewer people needed the low-cost services, and there was more available money to help subsidize it. Meanwhile, it's worth nothing that because of no kill efforts going on in the community, San Francisco, at the time, had one of the most well-developed low cost spay/neuter programs in the country, as well as one of the best pit bull outreach groups in the country.

So the availability of resources in San Francisco helped keep the law from being the disaster it has been in other places.

From examining dozens of cities across the country, one thing becomes completely clear. If there are substantial enough low cost spay/neuter services in a community, people will comply. This works with, or without a law. A mandatory spay/neuter law will not necessarily fail if there are significant low cost resources available -- however, if there are not enough resources, then it will be a complete and udder failure. So there is no value in passing the law because if the services are available, there will be success without it.

This is something Ed Boks should be familiar with. When he was in Los Angeles, he helped pass a law mandating the spay/neuter for all pets in the community. The law has not been a success. And the lack of availability of low-cost options for compliance created a disaster in the community, and in part, led to Boks' firiing at that position.

Cause and Effect

Recently, many of us in Kansas City were discussing the enforcement of the mandatory spay/neuter law for pit bulls in Kansas City (which, unfortunately, still exists). And the sad thing is, there is no "good" way to enforce it.

If people who don't comply have their animals seized, then animals with homes end up in a shelter where they have to be rehomed -- that's no good.

If people are given tickets, well, the primary reason they likely didn't alter in the first place was because of lack of money, so giving them a ticket only makes that situation worse, and more likely they'll have to surrender their pet.

Then, there are a few people who simply, for whatever reason, don't want to alter their pit bull. So what then? Do we ticket them until they wrack up fines they can't afford and then end up with a warrant for their arrest?  Or should the dogs eventually be seized and taken to the shelter?  And if they are, does that stop their desire for having an unaltered pit bull as a pet?  And is that driving up the demand (and price) for pit bull puppies causing more to be bred, not less?

In the end, the idea of seizing pets and bringing them to a shelter in the name of enforcing a law designed to limit the number of pets coming into the shelter is counter-productive.

There is no good solution to it. Which is why I oppose the law which has already proven itself to be a failure.  It's also why nearly every humane organization in the country mandating spay/neuter, in any form.

The solution that has proven itself effective in every situation is to provide adequate, accessible and targeted low-cost spay/neuter programs. Until people start basing their support of legislation based on results, not on what they "think" might work, or what "a lot of people who responded to my blog post think" or based on misinformation provided by numnuts, then we will continue to have to fight this battle. We must do better.

Related: Knowing what to expect from proposed animal control laws.

Sway Love - Ed Boks floating the idea of mandatory spay/neuter for pit bulls

Progress as Promised: 2012 Final Report from KC Pet Project in Kansas City, MO

For decades, the Kansas City, MO Animal Shelter resembled many public animals shelter facilities. It was old. Outdated. And had a very high kill rate.

As recently as 2007 the shelter killed nearly 7,000 dogs and cats. As recently as 2008, the shelter killed more than 60% of the dogs and cats that entered.

Everyone knew we could, and had, to do better.

In 2009, the city made the decision to privatize the operations of the animal shelter. While there were significant improvements made, not everything was going as well as everyone had hoped. In April, 2011, the city took over the operations from the private contractor while they searched for a new vendor.

In January, 2012, the Kansas City Pet Project began the operation of the city shelter after a lengthy search by the city for a new partner. KC Pet Project is an organization I'm very proud to be a part of.

It's been a wild ride -- but we have an amazing team with talented and compassionate staff and volunteers that have been working their butts off to create an amazing story for Kansas City. The shelter is still small. And outdated. And clearly not designed, in its location or layout, for lifesaving. But we're making it happen.

Honestly, there's a lot I could say about the changes, but I think the best story I can show is by showing the numbers over the past 7 years.

 

One quick note on the numbers:  In 2009, 2010 and the first half of 2011 the operators of the shelter logged all rescue transfers to non-brick-and-mortar rescues as "adoptions" instead of "transfers" - so many of the "transfer" numbers for those years are much lower than they should be and "adoption" numbers are much higher.

For the year, we had a total 85.7% live release rate. It was 87.1% for dogs, 82.4% for cats. Since July 1, it's been better than that: 90% for dogs, 85% for cats -- for a total of 89% live release rate. The live release rate was calculated using the Asilomar Accords and Maddies Fund formula -- however, our euthanasia numbers include owner-requests for euthanasia (which most shelters don't include).

I've opted to include just information about dogs and cats -- but KCPP is an open admission facility and takes in everything from animal control -- so we have saved more than 250 chickens, goats, alligators (I'm not kidding), ferrets, pigs, owls, rats, and snakes over the past 12 months also.

We have a lot of work still ahead of us, but the progress is certainly there. I'm really proud of our team.

I also want to thank Susan at No Kill News for the kind words about our organization.

KC Pet Project update -- November 2012

As regular followers of this blog know, in January, 2012, an organization that I am very proud to be a part of took over the operations of the Kansas City, MO Animal Shelter. The city decided several years ago that it should get out of the "sheltering" business, and instead to contract the management of the shelter to outside organizations.

After 2 years with a previous vendor, they parted ways and set up a new RFP -- to which the KC Pet Project was chosen to operate the shelter. We operate the shelter as an open-admission shelter for the city of Kansas City, MO, with an annual intake of about 8,000 animals.

Over the past several years, the shelter save rate has improved -- from 38% in 2007 to 63% in 2010. In 2011, 68% of the animals were saved, but mostly because the city quit impounding as many animals during the interim period of management.

Since January, KC Pet Project has been working hard to increase life-saving and the quality of care for animals in the shelter and I've been posting occassional updates along the way.

While we take in a host of animals at the shelter; pigs, birds, reptiles, goats, chickens, oppossums, racoons, zebras (jk), etc, the numbers below only reflect our dog and cat numbers only. So here are the numbers for the month of November:

Intake -- 517 -- 405 dogs, 112 cats

Adoptions: 294 -- 218 dogs, 76 cats

Returned to owner: 70 -- all dogs

Transferred to other shelters/rescue groups: 58 -- 42 dogs, 16 cats

Euthanized: 53 -- 40 dogs, 13 cats

Save Rate: 94.3% (for both dogs and cats)

This is the 5th consecutive month that we have had a save rate of more than 90%.

The dog adoption numbers reflect our highest adoption numbers thus far -- much of this is from help by opening up a temporary adoption location in Zona Rosa shopping center for the holidays. In just 3 weeks, we have had an additional nearly 100 adoptions from the secondary location and has been the source of a wealth of great news coverage of our organization.

For the year (through the end of November):

Intake: 6,531 -- 4,470 dogs and 1851 cats

Adopted: 2700 -- 1896 dogs, 804 cats

RTO: 895 - 879 dogs, 16 cats

Transferred to other rescue groups; 1,451 -- 909 dogs, 542 cats

Clinic out: 11 dogs, 2 cats

Euthanized: 891 -- 575 dogs, 316 cats

Total positive outcomes for the year (so far): 5,059 -- which is 1,350 more than in the same 11 months a year ago.

Save rate on the year: 84.3% (and rising)

It's been a tremendous year thus far -- and I'm eternally grateful for our outstanding staff for living this every day and for the 15 animals they save every single day. I'm also grateful for our outstanding volunteers (including several professional photographers) and rescue partners who are helping make it all possible -- especially given that we're now serving 2 different locations. It's an incredible group of dedicated and talented individuals we work with.

I'll have a year end recap, as well as a final recap of our Zona Rosa location after the first of the year....