KC DOG BLOG

Should shelter operations and animal control always be separate?

While I'm talking about the going's on in Kansas City....

At the SNKC open house last week, the topic of Kansas City's new animal shelter came up.  Three months ago, Kansas City, MO made a decision to privatize the Kansas City animal shelter. While animal control will still be run by the city, the shelter operations after the 5 day state mandatory holding period have been turned over to a group that is calling themselves Half Way Home Animal Adoptions.

The initial results have been pretty dramatic.

Prior to privatizing the shelter operations, KCMO was killing about 65% of the animals that came into the shelter system -- which amounted to about 7,000 killed dogs and cats each year in the shelter (which is roughly 1/3 of the total kills in the metro).

I won't make excuses for the KCMO shelter that was under the city control. It was a poorly run shelter situation, in a crappy location, with poor support from their managment. The animal control department's primary concern was having officers on the streets, and everything that went on in the shelter was an afterthought by the management -- at best.*

*I do want to note that there were a couple of people in the shelter that actually did work really hard, and cared, but had so little support that it made things very difficult.

Since the privatization, everything has changed. While I don't have official numbers (and when I do, I'll make them public), from the feedback I'm getting and the outreach I've seen, I have no reason to doubt the rounded numbers.  Since the privatization, the total number of adoptions from the KCMO shelter has gone from about 60 per month, to about 250 per month. Over the course of a year, this will account for 2280 more animals adopted from the shelter than before. I am also hearing a lot of positive reviews from rescue groups that are saying that getting dogs from Half Way Home is much easier -- which will also help reduce the city kill rates.

Animals that are up for adoption are readily available to be viewed via petfinder, and a "new arrivals" section is helping rescue groups and owners who may still be trying to reconnect with their dogs.  They are also actively seeking volunteer support, and groups are doing fundraisers to help them off-set costs.

Interestingly, the city is SAVING nearly $200,000 a year by privatizing the shelter instead of managing the shelter themselves...in part because of the ability of the new group to raise money through fundraisers, but also because the new group is reportly saving nearly $8000 a month in euthanasia costs.

I think the dramatic difference is that once the shelter privatized, the mission changed. The city always funneled resources toward the enforcement issues with their job, at the expense of the shelter.

With the new, privatized shelter, every single dollar of their resources goes directly toward helping the animals.   And the early results are sounding great. While spay/neuter is an important part of creating a more humane community, it will be impossible for us to achieve anywhere close to No Kill status without aggressive adoption programs -- as 7 of the top 10 reasons animals end up in shelters have nothing to do with spay/neuter. So while aggressive spay/neuter programs definitely help, aggressive adoption programs are imperative to eliminating killing in our shelters.

And all of this leads me to the question, is should animal control and shelter operations always be kept separate?  It sure seems like each group doing their own job and working together as much as possible is a much better practice than trying to role two often competing functions under the same group. 

In KCMO, separating the two appears to be working.  More to come I'm sure.

Urgent in Springfield, MO

Looks like a lot of good dogs are in need of adoption in Springfield, MO.  Some are in pretty bad shape, maybe from a Labradoodle mill, but some are obviously lost pets and have collars on.  People, get id tags on your dogs today!  And please, if you find a lost dog, try to find the owner yourself before turning it in. 

This situation today isn't any different than any other day in too many shelters across the nation.  And it doesn't have to be this way...get out there and adopt a dog people!  From Springfield or you local shelter...here are a couple in need.

Contact Ann at pet4u@sbcglobal. net to help. 

Here's a link to the rest in need:  http://www.ci.springfield.mo.us/health/database/animalcontrol/index.jsp

Puppy Mills in Missouri and Euthanasia numbers

Earlier this week, the AP released a story about puppy auctions in the state of Missouri. You can find it here and here (I'm providing two sources for the same story in hopes that at least one link will last awhile).

The article centers around a dog auction in which about 250 dogs were bought and sold...many were bought with the purpose of rebreeding these animals so the buyer could make back their money.   At this auction, a dog was sold an average of about every 58 seconds...and the average price was about $155.

Missouri has long been known for being very lax on commercial dog breeders.  This lax attitutude has caused the number of commercial auctions for dogs to rise from 10 in 1995, to 28 in 200o to 67 in 2005. 

At a time when euthanasia rates are falling throughout the country, according to the Missouri Animal Control Alliance, the Missouri Euthanasia rates are going up.    In 2007, Missouri has seen a 4,000 animal increase in the number of animals killed at licensed shelters throughout the state.  This is nearly a 10%  increase over the same timeframe in 2006.

While kill rates are a reflection of the commercial breeding that takes place in the state, there also may be another factor at play.  2006 saw three of the state's four largest cities implement some form of Breed Specific Legislation -- two cities, Springfield and Independence passed outright bans on "pit bull" type dogs, while Kansas City, MO passed a law mandating the spay/neuter of all "pit bulls".   There is little doubt that this led to the death of thousands of dogs in these cities.

What can you do to help?

1) Adopt a dog from your local shelter and encourage your friends to do the same.  Cutting off the $$ supply to commercial breeders will end the commercial breeding.  It's a supply and demand game.

2) Tell your current city to not enact Breed Specific Legislation that causes the the needless killing of dogs.  If your city has it, work to get it repealed.

3) Volunteer at your local shelter and encourage them to do more to adopt out more dogs with off-site adoption events.

It's important that we reverse what is a very negative trend of increasing the kill rates in Missouri. 

Making it hard to do the right thing

This is going to be a little out of character today for me.  I'm going to provide some constructive criticism of a group of people that I think do some of the finest, and most noble work you can do.  But I feel like I need to say something, because they're making it harder than they should be.

Animal Shelters and rescues do a lot of great work.  It is VERY difficult to see so many animals that need homes, and you can't find homes for them. I can't even imagine having to, sometimes daily, make decisions on which dogs are no longer "adoptable" and having to euthenize them to create space for more animals.  I also know how hard it is to bring a dog into your life, or your shelter, and then see the animal leave to a home.  I know how easily and quickly you can get attached to animals.

However, there was a letter to the editor in yesterday's KC Star that struck a cord with me.  The woman who wrote in the letter was denied a cat adoption because the shelter was concerned about her already having 2 outside cats and 3 outside dogs (apparently there are no pet limits in rural Wellsville).  She told the Humane Society that she was looking for an indoor cat, and yet they still declined her application.

From what the woman says, it sounds like she is a solid pet owner, and would take good care of the cat.  I can see from the Humane Society's standpoint that the home may not fit the "ideal" home (most Humane Societies and Shelters prefer animals kept indoors). 

I also know from working with our rescue group, that we work really hard to find good homes for owners.  Given that a large number of our dogs are bully breeds, the last thing we can afford to do is have one of our dogs end up on the news somewhere because we place it with an irresponsible owner.

But sometimes I think the rescue community makes it too hard for people to adopt animals.  There are slow response times, and turned down applications because the home isn't "ideal".  Yet the reality is, that if the dog doesn't go to that home, a) another dog will have to be put down because there isn't room at the shelter/rescue and b) the person will find a dog somewhere else, maybe bought from a Back Yard Breeder or pet store that gets puppy-mill dogs. 

I know that it's a tough gig.  Trust me, I know.  But sometimes people need to realize that in many cases, less than "ideal" is still perfectly fine.  There are many instances where outside dogs are just fine (we had an outside "farm dog" for years that slept in our garage and was scared to even be inside and she had a wonderful life).  Few bully rescues will allow same gender placements, and yet, I've had 2 females in my household for 8 months because of a long-term foster, and have had a third there this week, and it's almost never a problem.  While opposite sex placement is generally the best idea, if you have two dogs with complementing temperaments it can work just fine.  Even opposite gender placements don't work out based on gender alone.

I'm just saying that maybe they could make it easier on themselves by not turning down every non-ideal application.  There are a lot of ways for animals to have good homes, and maybe by realizing that "less-than-perfect" is still better than euthenasia we can help solve a bit of our problem.