Kirby, Texas is a community of about 8,000 people in the San Antonio metro area. The city has a municipal agency, Kirby Animal Care Services, that handles animal control and sheltering for the city. The shelter describes itself as open intake and states that “no animal from our community in need is EVER turned away.”
The city hired Christie Banduch in June of 2011. Before Banduch was hired, the shelter had a live release rate of 4% (that’s not a typo). In an e-mail to me, Banduch described the challenges she faced when she took over as including workload (she was the sole employee at that time for a facility with an intake of up to 100 animals per month), location (the shelter was hard to find and did not show up on GPS), and sanitation (the shelter was filthy and there were no cleaning supplies, vaccines, or dewormers).
Banduch was able to turn things around right away, and statistics she sent me show that in her first full year running the shelter the live release rate shot up to 83%. In Banduch’s second year running the shelter (July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013) she reported a live release rate of 92%, with an intake of 839 animals. If animals who died or were lost in shelter care are included with euthanasias, the live release rate was 91%. The shelter has good relationships with rescues, who pulled 215 dogs and 240 cats during the fiscal year.
Banduch recently sent me uploadable statistics for calendar year 2013, which show an intake of 1040 cats and dogs, with a live release rate of 95%. There were no animals lost in shelter care in 2013. If animals who died are included with euthanasias, the live release rate is 94%. Here is a link to the 2013 statistics: Kirby TX 2013 statistics
Kirby, Texas, was originally listed by this blog on July 5, 2013, based on their 2012-2013 fiscal-year statistics. This post is a revision and update with calendar-year 2013 statistics.
Comentarios