In previous posts we have explained that the No Kill movement is a change in attitudes and policies that strives to save the lives of all healthy, treatable, and rehabilitatable animals that enter our open admission municipal shelters. Once thought of as a target, but now considered only to be a milestone, reaching the 90% save rate is a good sign that the shelter is on the way.
Municipal shelters with high-kill attitudes and policies have been using an arsenal of excuses to account for their low save rates. The most common of these is that there are supposed to be "Too Many Pets, Not Enough Homes". Using verifiable data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Pet Products Marketing Survey, plus a little simple arithmetic, we have shown that this is simply not the case. The data for Prince George's County, for example, reveals that the Animal Services Facility takes advantage of only about 4% of the market share for pets demanded by Prince George's County residents, while killing about 6,000 animals each year.
In this post, I would like to expose three more common excuses, plus one other condition that is a valid concern.
Excuse:
"We Can't Be 'No Kill' Because We Are 'Open Admission' "
This is an easy one. A "No Kill Shelter", when referred to in the No Kill movement terms, is a government-run facility that MUST be open admission (take all animals presented to them by residents of the jurisdiction), or a non-profit organization with a contract with the government which has those same requirements.
There are more than 150 jurisdictions which fit this definition (including being Open Admission). Being Open Admission did not prevent them from achieving a 90%+ save rate.
Excuse:
"We Can't Be 'No Kill' Because Our Facility Serves A LARGE POPULATION!"
There is no doubt that Prince George's County, for example, is big. With a population of 863,420, it is the 58th largest County in the U.S. That factor, by itself, however, is not significant.
Right behind Prince George's County in size, Austin, TX has 790,390 residents. In 2011, Austin became the largest city in the U.S. to report a 90% or greater live release rate, with a 91% live release rate for the year.
The county of East Monmouth, New Jersey, has a contract with a local non-profit organization to serve that county of 630,380 residents. Their annual report for 2012 shows a 94% live release rate for the year.
Then there is Seattle, Washington, with a population of 608,660, which operates a coalition of government and non-profit organizations to achieve a 91% live release rate in 2010.
The Kansas City, Missouri, shelter serves a population of 459,787. In January 2012, with a live release rate of 68% (a bit better than average, but not great), the facility was placed under new management. Only six short months later, in July, 2012, a live release rate of 91% was achieved. The annual report of the fiscal year 7/2012-6/2013 shows that 91% was maintained for the year.
Then there is Williamson, Texas, with a population of 422, 679. The live release rate for 2012 was 94%.
Washoe County, Nevada (including Reno and Sparks), has a public-private partnership for animal control and animal sheltering to serve a population of 421,407. The partnership published a joint live release of 94% for 2011.
All of these jurisdictions are large, and yet, with the proper leadership, they have set out to reach, and have surpassed the milestone of saving 90% of all animals presented to them. The large number of residents in their jurisdiction has not prevented them from saving lives.
(Population statistics are from the U.S. Census 2010)
Excuse:
"We Can't Be 'No Kill' Because Our Facility Takes In A LOT OF ANIMALS!"
Yes, Prince George's County's Animal Services Facility does take in about 10,000 live animals per year. but, again, that factor, by itself, is not significant. Let's just look around the country.
The Washoe County, Nevada shelter took in 15,516 animals and had a 94% live release rate.
Our friends in Austin showed on their last annual report that they took in 15,079 animals. They achieved a 91% live release rate.
(Each of these two jurisdictions take in about 50% MORE than Prince George's County Animal Management Division.)
The shelter in Boulder County, Colorado increased from a 91% live release rate in 2010 to 93% in 2011. They took in 8,547 animals.
The live release rate of 94% was reached in Williamson, Texas, in spite of taking in 6,834 animals.
All of these shelters take in a lot of animals, yet they have been able to maintain a 90%+ live release rate. The number of animals that they take into the shelter has not prevented them from saving lives.
A Valid Concern
It's obvious that the size of the population in the jurisdiction, by itself, and the number of animals taken into the shelter, by itself, are neither factors that will preclude saving 90% or more of the animals in the shelter. The examples demonstrate that it is possible to save lives in spite of these two factors, individually.
Taken together, though, they can give an indicator of how difficult it would be in a given jurisdiction to achieve a high save rate.
The National Average
Let's start here for perspective, using two numbers:
The U.S. Census counted 308,745,538 people in the USA. Think of that as a very large jurisdiction. The last I heard, the HSUS estimated that about 7 Million pets enter shelters in the USA every year. That's a lot of animals entering in to the shelters in the USA jurisdiction. That's about 23 pets entering shelters per 1,000 residents. This is the nationwide average for population-to-shelter-intake ratio.
Now, there are actually TWO reasons why the relationship between the population of the jurisdiction and the number of animals taken in will effect how difficult it may be to improve the outcomes of the shelter. They occur:
1) On Intake
If the shelter has an unusually high number of animals per capita entering the shelter, that is an indication of a pet retention issue. This does NOT mean that people are uncaring, irresponsible, or just plain evil. It more likely means that there is a lack of educational resources in the jurisdiction. Many pet owners experience problems because they lack the information to solve them. This is one of the responsibilities of an effective shelter. It could also be due to economic circumstances like loss of employment, having to combine households to make ends meet. This is also an area in which an effective shelter could help. There are other causes of a high intake per capita.
2) On Outcome
This is the flip side of the intake problem. If the shelter has a high number of animals per capita in the shelter, that makes the placement of those pets in homes all the more difficult, because there are relatively fewer homes to take them. This means that in order to achieve a higher rate of positive outcomes, the shelter must aggressively market their pets. An effective shelter will make their pets more available by increasing the number of hours that they are open, staying open on weekends and holidays when people can visit. They will have pets available for adoption at multiple sites around the jurisdiction. They will take into consideration that it costs money to hold an animal only to kill it, and offering pets at lower, more affordable adoption fees can actually save lives and increase shelter income. There is much, much more that can be done.
The Effect of This Factor
So, how big a problem is the ratio of population to pets in the shelter? Let's remember that the national average of pets in shelters per capita is about 23 per 1,000, and let's look at the situation in some of the jurisdictions that we have mentioned above.
Washoe County, Nevada has a population of 421,407 and took in 15,516 animals. This is 36.8 animals for every 1,000 people in the jurisdiction. That is a significantly higher ratio than the national average, meaning that a larger than average number of pets were taken in at the shelter, and there are fewer homes as candidates for adoptions. Even so, they maintained a 94% live release rate.
Boulder County, Colorado has a population of 294,571 and took in 5,374 animals, a ratio of 87.8 animals to every 1,000 people. This is extremely high, yet they had a 93% live release rate.
Take a stretch and wipe your eyes, now. I think you are getting the point, so I'll make it a bit easier to read.
Austin, Texas had a bit easier job than the national average of 23 per 1,000. Austin's ratio was only 19 per 1,000.
Williamson, Texas, Seattle, Washington, and Kansas City, Missouri enjoyed very favorable ratios of 16, 15, and 15 per 1,000.
So, how difficult is it in Prince George's County, at least as far as the ratio of number of shelter animals to the county population? A great question. Prince George's County took in 10,173 animals last year in a county of 863,420 people -- a ratio of 11.8 animals per 1,000 people. Prince George's County is a highly favorable environment in which to do animal sheltering.
Knocking Down The Excuses
Prince George's County Animal Management Division can not claim that No Kill is not possible because AMD is open admission. All No Kill communities are open admission municipal shelters, by definition.
AMD can not point to the size of the population of the county as a reason. Several jurisdictions that are nearly the same size are saving 90%+ of all animals.
AMD can not point to the number of animals that they take in as a reason. Several jurisdictions take in more than AMD does and are saving 90%+ of them.
Not even the possibly legitimate reason -- that there is a high intake to population ratio. This might make it harder to save lives in other jurisdictions, but in Prince George's County, the low ratio actually makes it far easier to save lives than in most jurisdictions.
Why does Prince George's County Animal Management Division kill 6,000 animals every year? There are several reasons why, but it is none of these excuses.
We'll look at additional aspects of animal sheltering in Prince George's County in another post.
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Tim Saffell is the President of Prince Georges Feral Friends, SPCA, www.PGFerals.org, which sponsors No Kill Prince George’s County MD www.NoKillPrinceGeorgesCountyMD.org .