The Humane Society of Boulder Valley (HSBV) serves the city and county of Boulder, the consolidated city and county of Broomfield, and the cities of Lafayette and Superior. The HSBV service area has a population of over 350,000 people. HSBV reports its statistics to the Colorado Department of Agriculture each year. In 2012, the shelter reported taking in 9049 animals, including 5548 dogs, 3132 cats, and 369 small mammals, reptiles, and pet birds. The live release rate was 93%. The live release rate is unchanged if animals who died in shelter care are included with euthanasias. The shelter also posts 2012 Asilomar-format statistics on its website for dogs and cats only. These statistics differ slightly from the state statistics for dogs and cats, presumably due to differences in the reporting formats. The Asilomar statistics report an intake of 8545 dogs and cats, including animals surrendered for owner-requested euthanasia. The live release rate for dogs and cats was 93% (91% if owner-requested euthanasias and dogs and cats who died in shelter care are counted with euthanasias). The 2013 statistics posted on the HSBV website show an intake for dogs and cats of 7525, with a 92% live release rate. The live release rate was 89% if owner-requested euthanasia and animals who died or were lost in shelter care are counted in with euthanasias. HSBV is particularly notable for its reclaim rate for dogs. In 2012, the shelter reported to the state that it took in 1040 stray dogs and returned 940 dogs to their owners, for a return-to-owner rate of 90% of stray dogs.  The actual reclaim rate may be somewhat lower because it isn’t clear if reclaims of confiscated dogs are included, but nonetheless the reclaim rate is very high. (A traditional reclaim rate for cats cannot be calculated based on the data submitted to the state because the return-to-owner category for cats includes feral cats returned to their colonies.) Boulder County, Colorado, was originally listed by this blog on December 18, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Merritt Clifton recently started an online animal news service called Animals 24-7. An article he posted on that website called Why We Cannot Adopt Our Way Out of Shelter Killing has attracted some interest. In this blog post I will set out Merritt’s arguments, as I understand them, and discuss why I think that statistics do not support those arguments. Merritt begins by arguing that adoptions from shelters can never be more than 50% of pet acquisitions because shelters don’t produce pets, they just rehome them. Leaving aside the merits of this argument, it is addressing the wrong question. The real question we need to answer is not what is the maximum possible market share for shelter adoptions, but whether shelter adoptions can make up enough of market share to accommodate the animals in shelters today who need homes. The American Pet Products Association national pet owners survey estimates that in 2012 there were 83 million owned dogs and 96 million owned cats in the United States, or a total of 179 million owned cats and dogs. About 85% of people state that if their pet dies they will acquire a new pet, and in addition there are new pet owners joining the market as new households are formed. Even if we assume that people replace a pet only once every 15 years (and the average replacement is probably far more frequent that that), and if we assume that demand is stagnant, that would mean that there is a market for 12 million cats and dogs each year. In reality, the market is not stagnant and replacement is probably about every 6-7 years on average, so demand for dogs and cats is probably on the order of 30 million or so per year. Regardless, since only about 6 to 8 million dogs and cats enter animal shelters each year (and some of those are reclaimed), there are more than enough homes available to adopt our way out of killing. Merritt does not address these numbers directly. Instead, he makes a series of observations that he appears to believe add up to the impossibility of adopting our way out of killing.  For example, under the heading “Total Adoptions Are Down,” he argues that adoptions have fallen in the United States nationally and in New York, San Francisco, and the Seattle metro area. As for the US as a whole, shelter reform advocates do not argue that old-fashioned, traditional shelters have increased their adoptions – instead, shelter reform advocates argue that they could increase their adoptions if they had good marketing and outreach programs and sufficient community engagement. As for Seattle (LRR 90%+), New York (LRR 80%+) and San Francisco (LRR around 85%), those communities are already close to saving all healthy and treatable animals, so criticizing them for not showing increases in their adoption numbers would not appear to be justified. Merritt predicts that Seattle, New York, and San Francisco will have further decreases in adoption numbers in the future if they are unable to import as many animals for people to adopt as they have in the past. But this appears to cut rather strongly against his argument. If adoption numbers drop because there is not enough supply to meet the demand, then voila, we have adopted our way out of killing. The argument that Merritt appears to rely on most strongly is his claim that adoptions nationwide will never exceed more than 10 pets per 1000 people for a sustained period of time. There are approximately 318 million people in the United States currently. An adoption rate of 10 pets per 1000 people per year would mean that we could adopt out 3,180,000 shelter pets each year. It’s estimated that about 6 million of the animals who come into shelters each year and are not reclaimed are adoptable. So, we would need to have an adoption rate of about 19 pets per thousand people in order to find homes for all the adoptable animals. Adopting out 19 or more animals per 1000 people is not only possible, it is being done in many communities all over the United States. I have a spreadsheet with population data on all the communities listed in the right sidebar. Of the 100 public shelters listed for those communities in 2012, I have adoption data on 89 of them. Of those shelters, 33 reported adoption figures that met or exceeded 19 per 1000 people. And 54 of them reported adoptions exceeding 10 per thousand people. This is an impressive record when you consider that it is only in the last few years that some progressive shelters have started to take full advantage of modern marketing techniques. You might be wondering why, since the shelters I list in the right sidebar are all saving 90% or more of intake, they don’t all have adoption rates of at least 19 per 1000 people. The answer is that there are other methods besides adoption for assuring live outcomes. The estimate that 6 million shelter animals (translating into 19 animals per 1000 people) need adoptive homes each year is based in part on current rates of redemption. If a particular shelter has higher than average rates of return-to-owner or return-to-colony, the number of adoptive homes needed goes down by a corresponding amount. The fact that many shelters can achieve a 90% or better live release rate without an adoption rate of 19 per 1000 people demonstrates by definition that the 19 per 1000 people rate probably overstates the number of adoptions needed. But the fact that many 90%+ shelters have adoption rates of 19 or more per 1000 people proves that such rates are possible if needed. Merritt acknowledges that there are shelters with consistent adoption rates that exceed 10 per 1000 people, but he discounts those shelters for various reasons. For example, he argues that Washoe County (including Reno), which consistently has an adoption rate per thousand people of over 20, is pulling adopters from all over Nevada, and this distorts its numbers. He does not give us his reasons for thinking that Washoe County is finding adopters outside of its jurisdiction and, looking at the map, his claim seems highly unlikely. The only substantial population center close enough to Washoe County to be a reasonable driving distance for potential adopters appears to be  Carson City. I have been told in the course of my researches for the blog that Carson City is doing quite well at saving homeless animals, which it could not do if it were losing adopters to Washoe County. Another place with a high rate of adoptions that Merritt critiques is the state of Colorado. The state of Colorado had an adoption rate of 16 per 1000 people in 2012, based on reports made by public shelters in the state. Merritt dismisses Colorado by arguing that it imported many of the animals it adopted out, and without the transfers its adoption rate would not have been so high. This argument fails for the obvious reason that, if we are looking at adoption rates, the relevant data is not where the animals come from but where they go. If they go into adoptive homes in large enough numbers to produce a high live release rate, then that is evidence that we can adopt our way out of killing. The fact that Colorado can find homes for animals transported in simply means that Colorado (which had an 85% live release rate statewide in 2012) is not only able to adopt its way out of killing, it can help its neighbors do so too. A more serious argument is that in the case of cats, who are not bred for profit in large numbers the way dogs are, there is no significant commercial market share for shelters to capture. Thus, this argument goes, when shelters increase their adoption numbers for cats they are taking homes that otherwise would have adopted a neighborhood cat, or a kitten from a friend or relative’s “oops” litter. This argument has two flaws. First, if a shelter can adopt animals at the rate of 19 per thousand people or more, then it can find homes for all the animals coming in to the shelter, including the neighborhood cats and the “oops” litters. Indeed, it’s better for those animals to go through the shelter rather than directly into homes, because in a good shelter they will be vaccinated and spayed or neutered. Second, the modern thinking about cats is that in many cases shelter-neuter-return is the appropriate course, and in the future we may see intake of cats in shelters greatly decreased. This is already happening in many communities. Merritt argues that efforts by shelters to do more marketing are futile because shelters have already made a “tremendous investment in rehoming” without increasing market share. While it is true that many shelters are making more of an effort at adoptions than they used to, and are participating in events such as Home 4 the Holidays, most shelters that have live release rates under 80% are not making a “tremendous investment in rehoming.” A comprehensive marketing program means more than having a Pet of the Week and taking kittens to the pet store on Saturdays. To sum up, in order for Merritt to prove his claim that we cannot adopt our way out of killing he must show either that (1) there are not sufficient homes available for the number of shelter animals who need adoptive homes each year, or (2) even if there are enough homes available, shelters cannot capture those homes. Merritt’s article does not demonstrate that that the requisite number of homes is lacking and does not show that shelters are incapable of marketing their animals to those homes. In fact, the evidence goes the other way, as I have shown. Why am I taking so much time and space to respond to the claim that we cannot adopt our way out of killing? Claims such as Merritt is making can have consequences in the real world. For example, someone who believes that we cannot adopt our way out of killing is likely to believe that the only way to stop shelter animals from being killed is to stop them from being born in the first place. I think that spay-neuter initiatives are extremely important, especially the newer efforts that target particular neighborhoods with people going door-to-door. But spay-neuter efforts are just one method for saving lives, and adoption is another method that does work and should not be dismissed.

I thought it would be interesting to catch up on how big cities are doing. Of the 30 United States cities that Wiki lists as having the highest populations, 6 are well established as No Kill cities: Austin, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver (although it still has that pit bull ban), and Portland. And 7 cities are making credible efforts to get to No Kill, meaning they have strong programs in place and are making progress. Some of these are in the 80% range or have hit 90% and the only question is sustainability. The cities are New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston, and Baltimore. I debated including Las Vegas on this list, but decided not to because its serious effort is pretty recent. That’s a total of 13 of the most populous 30 cities — which is 43% — that are either No Kill or have credible efforts in place to get there. In addition to the cities, there are high-population counties that are No Kill or have credible efforts, including Fairfax in Virginia and Hillsborough in Florida. The most amazing thing about this list of 30 cities is that only 5 years ago none of these cities were No Kill and only a few had credible efforts in place to get there. If we see as much progress in the next 5 years as we did in the last 5 years, the great majority of our largest cities will be No Kill by 2020. It’s not all good news, and some of  the top 30 cities are notoriously bad places for homeless pets. Memphis is on the list of the 30 most populous cities, as are Houston and Detroit. It’s becoming clearer as time goes on that No Kill is easier to achieve in progressive cities, and Memphis, Houston, and Detroit are not known for being progressive. The job of shelters in non-progressive cities is harder both because they do not get as much community and government support and because they tend to have less progressive leadership within the shelter. Detroit seems to be making a comeback, though, and there are some really encouraging signs of progress in Houston. I haven’t heard a single positive thing about Memphis. You can to a great extent gauge how desirable a city is as a place to live by how well it is doing at saving shelter pets. Certainly most people would choose New York, Washington DC, Austin, Seattle, Denver, or Portland over Memphis, Louisville, or Oklahoma City as a place to live. Cities that are not doing well at saving shelter pets are typically doing badly on many other metrics of what makes a city great. Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States after New York, has a particularly strong No Kill effort underway. That effort was the subject of an interesting article this past week from Best Friends, which is spearheading the effort there. Los Angeles has a large land area and a mild climate, which is a setting for huge kitten seasons. Best Friends reports that in 2014, 61% of the animals killed in the shelter system in Los Angeles were kittens. Kittens under 8 weeks, in particular, do not do well in shelters, and Best Friends plans to massively expand its kitten-nursery efforts as the key to further progress. Some of the 13 cities that are doing well are part of formal metro coalitions. Portland and Denver fall into that category, and have very strong regional coalitions. The San Diego effort includes the entire county. Even if there is no formal coalition, No Kill seems to have an effect on nearby cities. Austin, Jacksonville, and San Francisco have all offered significant help to neighboring communities. Working together regionally really seems to help No Kill efforts.

According to the American Pet Products Association, 70% of dog owners and 57% of cat owners say their pet is like a child or family member (APPA National Pet Owners Survey 2013-2014). Only 1% regard their pets as property. Yet in our legal and economic system, pets are property and nothing more. Virtually the only difference between a cat and a chair in the eyes of the law is that, although you can destroy your chair if you want to, you cannot deliberately and for no reason hurt your cat. The amount of damages you can collect for the death of a pet is limited to the dollar value of the pet. You might have an elderly mutt whom you would not part with for $1 million, but if someone negligently or maliciously kills him, you would be lucky to collect $1 in damages. Everyone knows that this way of looking at pets is outdated, but the system does not change. It is not easy to change centuries of legal precedent. Although the law regards pets as property, legal and governmental systems have made accommodations to protect pets. Judges in divorces sometimes consider the good of the pet in deciding who gets “custody.” States mandate hold times for strays. Cities are more frequently training police officers on how to deal with a protective dog without killing it when they make an arrest. In some jurisdictions lawsuits for emotional distress over negligent harm to a pet are allowed. The stated rationale for these accommodations is that they are protecting people, not pets, but the end result is the same – more protection for pets. These protections have lots of holes – for example, it is perfectly allowable in every state in the union for dog breeders to deliberately breed dogs who have painful and debilitating genetic defects such as brachycephalia. Most No Kill advocates care about all animals, not just shelter animals. Along with our belief that shelter animals have a right to live their lives, we go a step further and extend that belief to all animals. Whether it is an orca at a theme park, a pig being raised for slaughter, a chicken held in a battery cage, or a great ape imprisoned in a cage at a zoo, we believe that animals should own their own lives. A great many No Kill advocates are vegetarian or vegan. And this is important, because as the presence of No Kill supporters in the shelter industry increases, we are transforming the shelter industry itself into a voice for the lives of all animals. Many shelters take in livestock along with dogs and cats. Shelter workers can get to know horses, goats, pot-bellied pigs, and poultry, along with rabbits, rats, birds, lizards, snakes, and many other types of animals. When you are caring for an animal and trying to find a home for it, it doesn’t matter what species it is. There are many national organizations that have been working for decades to change our culture so that it respects the lives of all animals. Change is happening. More and more people are mindful of the cruelties of factory farming, and they are choosing to buy locally from small farmers or not to use animal products at all. Due to consumer demand there are now many products on the market that are not animal tested and contain no animal ingredients. There are excellent substitutes for leather in clothing and furniture. But this change, although it is noticeable, has been very slow. The animal shelter could potentially help fill a gap in advocacy for animals, which is the lack of local institutions that are dedicated to solving local problems. In fact, if animal shelters became more involved in promoting the right of all animals to life, they would be hearkening back to their nineteenth-century roots. The very first animal-protection organizations in the United States were the SPCAs that formed after the Civil War. Those SPCAs spent most of their time trying to stop cruelty to horses and livestock. It was only decades later that most of them got involved with sheltering dogs and cats. Municipal shelters may not be able to do much in terms of activism, and this is a good reason why the ideal situation for a community may be the public-private partnership for animal sheltering. There are IRS limitations on non-profit corporations as to political activism, and any non-profit shelter that wants to expand its assistance for all animals would be wise to get legal counsel to determine what it can and cannot do. But there are a great many things that a non-profit can do, and the need is certainly great. Problems that face animals in our states and communities include commercial puppy sales, tethering, breeding rules, live animal sales, exotic pet regulation, regulations on “nuisance” wildlife trappers, deer culling, and a host of other issues. The animal shelter is well-positioned to be a thought leader on how we regard all animals. In fact, addressing this broader ethical role could help the shelter accomplish its core role of pet protection. In becoming familiar with the broader issues, shelter employees and volunteers will increase their community engagement and raise the profile of the shelter, as well as getting to know government leaders and other influential people in the community. The broader role will also increase the credibility of No Kill, because we will no longer be in the position of having to explain why we are arguing for dogs and cats while ignoring other animals who may have even greater needs. The fox really isn’t that different from the dog, and the cat shares a wild heritage with the raccoon and the deer. The expansion of the animal shelter’s circle of compassion may be the next logical step in the development of No Kill.

Archuleta County is located on the southern border of Colorado, in the western part of the state. Its population is 12,000 people. Its county seat and sole municipality is the town of Pagosa Springs, which has 1700 people. Archuleta County has a municipal animal control that transfers impounded animals to the Humane Society of Pagosa Springs (HSPA), a private non-profit that provides animal sheltering for Archuleta and Pagosa Springs. Pagosa Springs also has an animal control officer. I was told by an HSPA official that HSPA has a contract with the county to take in strays picked up by animal control, and that the contract includes Pagosa Springs. HSPA accepts owner surrenders subject to a waiting list, but it will take in an owner surrender immediately if the owner cannot wait. HSPS is a progressive shelter that has a trap-neuter-return (TNR) program, low-income and free spay-neuter assistance, behavioral assistance, and good community involvement. This page on the HSPS website describes how the shelter started back in 1984 and relocated to larger quarters in 2007 due to population growth. HSPS describes its transfer program on its website, and the program sounds like a model for such programs. HSPS screens its transfer partners carefully, transfers out only animals that it has not been able to adopt out locally, and looks for situations where it can “trade” animals with another shelter. The page describes one situation where they sent Manx cats, who were not in demand in Archuleta County, to a California shelter where they were in demand, and received cats in exchange. Both sets of cats were adopted quickly in their new locations, and as a bonus HSPS was able to help the California shelter set up a TNR program. HSPS says the adoption rate of the animals it transfers “has been in the high 90′s percentile.” The state of Colorado collects statistics from animal shelters each year, and I received copies of the reports by record request. In 2012, HSPS reported that it took in almost 500 dogs and cats. Its live release rate was 98% (97% if animals who died or were lost in shelter care are included with euthanasias.) In 2013, intake went up substantially to 787 animals. It appears that this increase was mostly in feral cats that had TNR. The live release rate went up in 2013 to 99% (97% if animals who died or were lost in shelter care are included with euthanasias). Archuleta County, CO, was originally listed by this blog on October 22, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Several organizations have started doing No Kill counseling and shelter assessments in the last few years. One such group is Target Zero, or TZ. TZ was originally a program of First Coast No More Homeless Pets (FCNMHP), which is one of the organizations that created No Kill in Jacksonville, Florida. The founders of TZ were Rick DuCharme, the head of FCNMHP; Peter Marsh, who spearheaded a state-funded targeted spay-neuter program in New Hampshire in the 1990s; Tracey Durning, a “social entrepreneur and philanthropic advisor” to non-profits; and an anonymous donor. Once TZ was underway DuCharme moved back to giving his full attention to FCNMHP and Marsh moved to advisor status. Shelter assessments are done primarily by two members of the TZ staff. One is Dr. Sara Pizano, a veterinarian who was director of the Miami-Dade shelter for six years and was also a panel member for the Association of Shelter Veterinarians while that organization was seeking recognition of shelter medicine as a specialty. The other is Cameron Moore, former program director for FCNMHP. TZ receives referrals from communities that are interested in receiving a shelter assessment. One of the initial steps is a Go To presentation, which Pizano and Moore do remotely. All stakeholders in the community, including government officials, shelter staff, and representatives of other humane organizations, are encouraged to view the presentation. The TZ philosophy includes the concept that cooperation is key to No Kill, and cooperation is built into the program from the beginning. After the Go To presentation, if there is interest and TZ staff members believe there is sufficient evidence that the various stakeholders can work together, a full, in-person shelter assessment is scheduled. Pizano and Moore do the assessments, although they sometimes bring additional experts with them. An example was their recent assessment for the Tazewell County shelter in Virginia. Pizano and Moore were accompanied on this assessment by Dr. Tiva Hoshizaki, who is currently doing a residency in shelter medicine at Cornell veterinary school. Pizano told me that shelter assessments are often most effective once a community has decided to make changes and the process of change is just getting underway. In those cases the commitment is there and the assessment can help guide the change. In Tazewell County, for example, the county was planning to renovate a building to replace the current shelter but had not received any input from shelter design experts. Hoshizaki has a special interest in shelter design and she and the TZ team were able to offer suggestions for the renovation. The timing was right, and the new shelter will reflect some of the latest advances in shelter technology. TZ promotes the concept that healthy community cats are better off in a return-to-field program rather than being taken into a shelter only to be killed. When a shelter stops impounding healthy community cats it frees up staff to work on pet retention, adoptions, and other lifesaving programs. TZ supports the Million Cat Challenge, which has a detailed program to help shelters create humane and effective community cat initiatives. Million Cat Challenge founders Dr. Kate Hurley and Dr. Julie Levy are TZ consultants. TZ urges shelters to join the Challenge and also the Best Friends network. In addition to a sterilization program for community cats, TZ often recommends that shelters implement targeted spay-neuter for owned pets, a program that was key to Jacksonville becoming No Kill. Another intake-reduction program that TZ recommends is managed admissions. This includes asking people who want to surrender animals if they can work with the shelter when the shelter is full. Owners might be willing to hold their animal for a couple of weeks until the shelter has room, or might even be willing to rehome the animal themselves using social media. Managed admission programs can mesh with pet retention efforts to cut owner surrenders substantially and smooth out peaks and valleys in intake. I asked Pizano if each of the shelters they assess are different, requiring an individualized approach. She said that while there are many differences in starting points, programs like the Million Cat Challenge and best-practice strategies for dogs are effective everywhere. TZ frequently finds that communities have local ordinances or rules that have to be changed or worked around. In Tazewell County, for example, the shelter is not allowed to accept donations directly from the public. One possibility in such circumstances is for a private non-profit to collect donations and help the shelter fund programs. TZ is not a grant-giving organization, but they can help shelters and community organizations apply for grants. TZ does not just offer an assessment and then leave. Instead, they continue to work with shelters through their Fellowship program. Fellowships last three years, after which the community “graduates,” hopefully with a high live release rate. TZ also offers a Partner status to cities that do not currently qualify for the Fellowship program but show good potential to qualify in the future. Perhaps the most unusual thing about TZ is that it can offer consultations and Fellowships at no charge due to support from its anonymous donor. Another characteristic of the organization is that it seeks out shelters that are performing poorly, because those shelters offer the greatest possibilities for saving lives. (Tazewell County was something of an exception since it was already doing very well at the time TZ became involved.) Reading the list of Fellow and Partner cities, it is obvious that they present challenges – cities like El Paso, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Brevard County, Florida. Progress so far is encouraging – two of TZ’s Fellowship cities, Waco, Texas, and Huntsville, Alabama, have achieved a 90% live release rate and have graduated from the program. Consultants are an increasingly important means of helping communities get to No Kill. Today we have an enormous amount of information online about how to improve lifesaving, but there is nothing like having an expert take a look at a particular shelter and a particular community, identify the issues, set out priorities, and give shelter leadership the confidence that they can do it. This is especially true for shelters that are doing poorly, as many times the leaders of such shelters are in a deep hole and have no idea how to begin to climb out. A consultant can be the key to helping those directors realize that other people just like them have succeeded, and that there is hope.

Lamar is a city of 7800 people located in southeastern Colorado. Lamar has its own animal control and a municipal shelter, the Lamar Animal Shelter (LAS). The Lamar animal control site states: “Since late 2008, early 2009, the Lamar Animal Shelter and the Code Enforcement Officers have striven to avoid euthanizing animals which come into the shelter.“ The Second Chance Animal Rescue Foundation (SCARF) is also located in Lamar. SCARF has no physical shelter, but houses animals in foster homes. A volunteer with SCARF told me that they rescue animals from a six-county area in southeastern Colorado. Both LAS and SCARF take in owner surrenders from Lamar on a space-available basis, and SCARF networks with other rescues for owner surrenders. LAS only takes in dogs, but SCARF takes in both dogs and cats. SCARF has a trap-neuter-return program for feral cats and two big spay-neuter clinics each year. Statistics from the Colorado Department of Agriculture show that LAS had an intake of 329 dogs in 2012, with a live release rate of 99.7%. Two dogs died or were lost in shelter care, and when they are included with euthanasias the live release rate for LAS was 99.0%. SCARF took in 385 cats and dogs, with a 100% live release rate. The Lamar Animal Sanctuary Team (LAST) also reports to the state. They took in 79 strays and owner surrenders in 2012, with a 100% live release rate. In 2013, LAS reported an intake of 343 animals with a 99% live release rate. No animals died in shelter care. SCARF reported an intake of 518 animals with a live release rate of 100% and no animals dying in shelter care. LAST took in 87 animals and had a 100% live release rate. Their modified live release rate, counting the one animal who died in shelter care, was 98%. Lamar was originally listed by this blog on November 14, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Here is a bar graph showing the increase in the human population living in No Kill communities in the 10-year period from 2003 through 2012: Here is a graph of an “S” curve: As you can see, growth in the population of people living in No Kill communities closely matches the progression of an “S” curve up until about the -1 point. If the growth of the No Kill population continues along the “S” curve, then the next 10 to 15 years should see phenomenal growth of No Kill, to the point where the great majority of people will be living in No Kill communities. Pretty cool, huh? Thanks go to Chris Anderson for the lovely bar graph. He prepared it for his talk at the recent Michigan No Kill conference, based on data from this blog. You may be wondering why the graph does not contain 2013 data, and the reason is that I have not yet had time to add that data to my giant spreadsheet of over 100 shelters and coalitions representing No Kill communities. But when the data for 2013 are added, they will show another big jump over 2012. The 2012 numbers do not count Fairfax County, Kansas City, the Portland metro area, or the Seattle metro area, which by themselves would be enough to take the next big leap up the “S” curve. Good times.

San Miguel County, located on the western border of Colorado, has 7600 residents. Ouray County, bordering San Miguel County to the east, has 4400 people. The counties are in a mountainous and sparsely populated area. Ouray County is so mountainous that it’s known as the Switzerland of America. The most populous cities in Ouray County — Ridgway and the City of Ouray — each have about 1000 inhabitants. The largest city in San Miguel County is Telluride, with a population of 2300. The city of Telluride has its own animal control officers who impound dogs for the city and county. Telluride also has an animal shelter that adopts out dogs. The Second Chance Humane Society (SCHS), located in Ridgway, provides animal sheltering for San Miguel and Ouray counties. SCHS takes in strays and owner surrenders, both cats and dogs. I called SCHS and was told that Ouray county does not have animal control officers, and so stray intake is by citizens bringing in the strays. SCHS has a waiting list for owner surrenders. The state of Colorado collects statistics on animal shelters in the state. In 2012, the city of Telluride took in 40 dogs (4 strays and 36 confiscated), returned 35 to their owners, transferred 3, and euthanized 1 for a live release rate of 97%. SCHS took in 294 dogs and cats in 2012 and had a 97% live release rate. One animal died in shelter care at SCHS, but that did not change the live release rate. In 2013, the city of Telluride took in 47 animals and had a 100% live release rate.  SCHS in 2013 had a substantial increase in intake with 380 animals for the year. Their live release rate was 99% as stated in their 2013 annual report. Ouray and San Miguel Counties were originally listed by this blog on November 12, 2013, based on their 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

If you follow some of the most popular No Kill social media sites, you might get the idea that things for shelter animals are terrible. Those sites feature an onslaught of negative news – cruel acts by shelter workers, mistakes by ACOs, indifference by city leaders. Today I want to give everyone a “good news” break by taking a look at the bigger picture, which is amazing. Shelter save rates have been climbing steadily for the last 20 years. As of the year 2000, live release rates were about 25% nationwide, up from 10% in earlier years. From 2000 to 2010, the nationwide live release rate doubled, going from about 25% to 50%. In the last 5 years that progress has continued, with the rate going up to 65% or even 70%. That’s huge. The glass is now 2/3 full. It’s interesting to note that the progress in shelter save rates parallels the progress of the internet. In the 20 years that Petfinder has been in existence, the estimated live release rate nationwide has gone from perhaps 10% to 70%. Petfinder was the first website that allowed shelters to market their animals directly to adopters. For shelters that had no advertising budgets in the 1990s and few employees with marketing skills, Petfinder was a game-changer. It was an entirely new way of communicating with adopters that went beyond anything that had been available previously. The ability to market pets through Petfinder was also a major stimulus for the formation of rescues, which had suffered from the same marketing problems as shelters. The number of rescues in the period from 1995 to today has probably increased even faster than the live release rate. The progress in shelter save rates also correlates with the increase in the spay-neuter rates for owned pets, starting in the early 1970s and including the advent of pediatric sterilization in the 1990s. In 1970 there were five times as many pets per thousand people in shelters as there are today, far more than any community could adopt out. From 1970 to 2000, humane advocates engaged in a massive spay-neuter campaign that caused shelter intakes to drop some 80% in relative terms. Without this, No Kill would not have been possible. The strongest advocates for the historic spay-neuter campaign from 1970 to 2000 were people in the traditional shelter industry. So you could say that it was the traditional shelter industry that paved the way for the advent of No Kill starting in the mid-1990s. Within the last 5 years many communities have topped out their live release rates, hitting 90% or more. Today we have Seattle, Portsmouth, San Francisco, Washington DC, Atlanta, Richmond, Denver, Austin, Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, New York City, Tampa, and Fairfax County, Virginia, at 80% or above. Many of those metro areas are over 90%. In most of these big cities people have been working diligently since the 1990s or early 2000s and have been slowly and steadily bringing up their live release rates. Today more than 35 million people in the United States live in a jurisdiction that is known to be saving 80% or more of shelter animals. If we add in all the jurisdictions that are at 80% but don’t publish their statistics, that number is probably 40 million or more. No Kill status has been recognized as an important attribute for a well-managed city. The number of people who want to adopt shelter dogs is approaching the number of shelter dogs needing homes. Transports have been professionalized and now run like well-oiled machines. The new cat paradigms offer a humane and sensible way for shelters to save every savable cat. Virtually all of the important stakeholders on the national scene are in agreement on the new cat paradigms. Some grass-roots No Kill advocates are critical of transports and the new cat paradigms. I hope they will give these programs a chance – after all, one of the big criticisms that No Kill advocates make of the traditional shelter industry is that it’s too quick to reject new ideas. No Kill advocates should not fall victim to that same mistake themselves. Amazing things are being done in shelter medicine. Back in the 1990s it was almost unheard-of for shelters to vaccinate on intake, something that is now becoming routine. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians was founded in 2001, and its growth has been phenomenal. Today, No Kill shelters can save a high percentage of parvo puppies and neonatal kittens. It used to be that heartworm and ringworm were death sentences, but today they are treated. Shelter veterinarians have gone beyond the traditional role of treating the sick and have become involved in shelter design, behavior interventions, and consulting. So don’t let the bad acts or indifference of some shelter workers and ACOs weigh you down. The No Kill communities movement that started in the mid-1990s is approaching its goal. With so much of the country already doing very well, the cities with the worst shelters and the rural counties and little towns that have not been paying much attention to their shelters will get the help they need to improve. As the problem areas dwindle in number we will be able to concentrate more resources on them and fix them faster. Things are getting better at such a rapid pace that it’s hard to keep up with all the good news.

Now that shelters in Virginia have filed their reports with the state for 2014, we can see how the top communities did compared with previous years. One thing to note is that the Virginia reports count owner-requested euthanasia in the euthanasia category. Lynchburg, Augusta County, and Nelson County are not included in this article because I have previously posted their updates for 2014. Charlottesville and Albemarle County The Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA (CASPCA) is a private non-profit that has the contract for animal sheltering for Albemarle County and the town of Charlottesville. The combined population of the city and county is about 118,000 people, although that total does not include non-resident students who attend the University of Virginia. For 2014, CASPCA and animal control matched their 2013 live release rate of 96%. If animals who died in shelter care are counted with euthanasias, the live release rate was 94%. Fairfax County Fairfax County is in northern Virginia near Washington, DC, and has 1,082,000 human residents. The Fairfax County Animal Services Division (FCASD) is the municipal agency providing animal control and sheltering for the county. The shelter reported an 87% live release rate for 2014 (86% including animals who died at the shelter). This is better than it sounds because shelters in northern Virginia have traditionally offered end-of-life euthanasia for pets who are incurably ill, and their owner-requested euthanasia numbers are therefore higher than usual. The shelter recently abolished its former policy of having extra requirements for the adoption of pit-bull-type dogs. Fluvanna County Fluvanna County is southeast of Charlottesville, and it has 26,000 residents. A private organization, the Fluvanna SPCA, contracts with the county for animal services. The Fluvanna SPCA’s live release rate increased to 96% from 93% in 2013. The rate was 95% if animals who died in shelter care are included with euthanasias. King George County King George County is between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, and has 24,000 residents. Animal control and sheltering are provided by a county agency, King George County Animal Control (KGCAC). An enthusiastic group of volunteers known as the King George Animal Rescue League partners with KGCAC to pull animals from the shelter. KGCAC reported a 96% live release rate in 2014, up from 91% reported in 2013. The rate was 95% if animals who died in shelter care are included. Powhatan County Powhatan County, Virginia, has about 28,000 residents and is part of the Richmond metropolitan area. A municipal office, Powhatan Animal Control, handles animal control and sheltering. Powhatan’s live release rate was 94% in 2014, down slightly from 96% in 2013. The rate was 93% if animals who died in shelter care are included. Conclusions From This Data Overall, it is notable that when communities achieve No Kill they tend to stick to it. Many communities have double-digit increases in live release rates on their way to No Kill, but I don’t recall ever seeing a community have a double-digit decline in live release rates once No Kill was achieved. This is a good argument for the fact that a No Kill public shelter system adds value to a community. Residents like to have an animal shelter that is a safe haven for homeless pets, and once they have it they don’t allow it to deteriorate.

Brother Wolf is a large, non-profit rescue organization in Asheville, North Carolina, that helps the city shelter and is working to make the city No Kill. I reported a few days ago in News Bits about an innovative idea to increase pet retention that has been put forward by Denise Bitz, the founder of Brother Wolf. The idea is for volunteers to go door-to-door and ask people how they are doing with their pets. If someone reports a problem, the volunteers can work with the person to keep the animal in the home. A recent story from Asheville shows how well this idea can work in practice. Not long ago Asheville animal control cited an Asheville homeowner for keeping his eight dogs in poor conditions. In the great majority of jurisdictions in the United States this would probably have ended up with animal control confiscating the dogs and, since many of them are elderly, killing them. There might even have been a story in the local paper about hoarding or abuse, because the man’s home had an unkempt yard strewn with junk and overgrown with weeds. But this story has a much happier ending, because Brother Wolf volunteers stepped in to save the day by cleaning up the property and building proper facilities for the dogs. (See the “neighbors helping neighbors” video in this link.) They recruited businesses to help, including trash, construction, and landscaping companies. These people contributed the equivalent of thousands of dollars worth of work and supplies to the effort. A veterinarian volunteered to check out the dogs, and found them to be well fed and in good health. The owner had been taking good care of his dogs, he had just not been able to keep up with the property. Once the property was fixed up it was a nice home for the dogs. National No Kill organizations that have conferences — if you have not discovered Denise Bitz already, please take note and consider inviting her to your conferences (hint, hint). She seems to be one of those rare people who can not only apply the ideas that others have come up with, but also come up with some pretty good ideas herself. There are many innovative leaders in the No Kill movement who do not get as much recognition as they deserve, including Makena Yarbrough (Lynchburg), Rebecca Guinn (Atlanta), Robin Starr (Richmond), and Cheryl Schneider (Williamson County, TX).