Dane County, in the southern part of Wisconsin, has 488,000 residents. The city of Madison, the state capital, is located in Dane County. Dane County contains over 60 cities, towns, and villages. Animal sheltering is provided for the county by the Dane County Humane Society (DCHS), a private 501(c)(3) organization, which takes in strays for the county and accepts owner surrenders. The shelter asks people to make an appointment for surrenders, and charges a small fee. In 2007-2008, Maddie’s Fund developed a strategic plan and a spay/neuter project to decrease euthanasia of shelter animals in Dane County. The plan included formation of a coalition which included DCHS, Dane County Friends of Ferals, Shelter from the Storm, and Heartland Farm Sanctuary. DCHS reported a live release rate of 86% for 2012 (see page 27 in the link). Total intake for the year was 4704 cats and dogs. Intake increased sharply to 5211 dogs and cats in 2013 (6004 animals overall), and the live release rate was 85%. Dane County, WI, is counted in the Running Totals as an 80%+ community.

Larimer County is located along the northern border of Colorado, and has a population of 300,000 people. The county is growing rapidly — its population was only 251,000 in 2000. It contains several cities and towns, the largest of which is Fort Collins (population 149,000). The Larimer Humane Society is located in Loveland, Colorado. LHS describes its contractual responsibilities as follows: “Larimer Humane Society is [] home to the county’s only Animal Protection & Control unit. Through contractual agreements, Larimer Humane Society provides full-service animal control for Fort Collins, Loveland, and unincorporated areas of Larimer County, as well as stray-animal sheltering for Wellington, Windsor, Timnath and Berthoud.” LHS accepts owner surrenders and asks for, but does not require, a small surrender fee. The shelter has a humane education program, including school and community presentations, critter camps, and job shadowing. LHS has a large volunteer program. Volunteers logged over 43,000 hours in fiscal year 2013-2014, including over 21,000 hours in foster care. Volunteers are involved in virtually every aspect of shelter operations. The shelter reports to the state of Colorado. In 2013, it had a live release rate of 86%, with an intake of 6401 animals. Intake was down from 2012, when LHS took in 7143 animals (the reportable animals are dogs, cats, small mammals, reptiles, and pet birds; the shelter also takes in a small number of farm animals who are not reported to the state). The shelter’s live release rate for 2013 was also down somewhat from 2012, when it was 89%. The live release rate for 2013 does not change if animals who died in shelter care are counted with euthanasias. Larimer County is counted in the Running Totals as an 80-90% community.

New York City is the largest city in the United States, with an estimated 2013 population of over 8,400,000. The municipal shelter in New York is Animal Care & Control (ACC), which takes in about 30,000 animals per year. ACC has three shelters and two receiving stations, one in each of the five boroughs. The director of New York City’s Animal Care & Control recently announced that the city had an 81% live release rate in 2014. New York City has an unusual – possibly unique – approach to increasing the shelter’s live release rate. Instead of a single non-profit, or group of non-profits, that work with the shelter as we see in most large cities with high live release rates, New York has a large consortium of rescues that pull animals from the shelter. A non-profit, the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, is an umbrella group that acts as a liaison between the city and the rescues and also provides an interface to manage the transfer of animals. Jane Hoffman, an attorney, has been the President and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Mayor’s Alliance since 2003. Prospects for further improvement in 2015 are looking hopeful. The city has announced an $8 million capital-funding grant that will be used to build an adoption center at Animal Care & Control’s Manhattan location, remodel the Brooklyn shelter to help cut down on disease transmission, and buy more adoption vans. New York City is counted in the Running Totals as an 80% to 90% community.

I periodically get questions about how much it costs a city to transition to No Kill. Based on what I’ve seen in individual cities and counties over the last 4 years of researching No Kill shelters, I do not think there is any one-size-fits-all answer. Here are a few thoughts on the issue, though. Your mileage may vary. The reason there is no one-size-fits-all answer is that the cost depends on many things, including whether the entity running the shelter is public or private, how much the city or county is currently spending on animal control and sheltering, the amount of support in the community that already exists or can be harnessed (including donations and volunteers), the condition and location of the shelter, and the type and number of homeless animals in the community. An easy way to think of it is that communities want to end up at the same place (No Kill) but they are starting from very different places. One way to start the analysis is to compare the cost of particular, individual No Kill initiatives to what the shelter is currently doing. For example, if the amount that the shelter currently spends per cat is more than what the shelter would spend per cat on a shelter-neuter-return program, then SNR will save money. And pet-retention initiatives that reduce intake have built-in cost savings. Help desks and managed admissions are especially attractive in that regard because they cost little to implement and can often be done with volunteer help, and the reduction in intake can be substantial. This approach has the added advantage that it can be easier to get city officials to agree to a piecemeal transition than doing everything at once. One of the myths about No Kill is that it leads to shelter warehousing. Making it clear to city and county officials that reducing length-of-stay is a priority for No Kill can go a long way toward alleviating that concern. A foster program is one important way for No Kill shelters to reduce length-of-stay in the shelter. City officials should understand that it is far easier to have community engagement in the form of volunteer help and fosters when a shelter is No Kill. Few people would want to foster a litter of orphan kittens, for example, if they thought the shelter might kill the kittens later on. A cost that may be higher with No Kill is veterinary services. After all, one of the primary things that separates No Kill shelters from ordinary shelters is that No Kill treats the treatables. Sometimes treatment is simple, but sometimes it is costly. Much or all of this expense can be offset with donations, though. There are lots of people willing to help save a parvo puppy or get a wheelchair for a paraplegic animal if the shelter lets them know of the need. Public-private partnerships where the private entity pulls sick animals from the shelter and fundraises to treat them is one effective way to deal with veterinary costs. If a city or county has been underspending on animal sheltering, sometimes everyone involved will just have to face that fact. If the shelter building is in a bad location, or is old, poorly designed, or too small, then plans will need to be made to build a new shelter. Non-profits that have a contract to operate a municipal shelter seem to have an easier time with such projects. I have not run figures on this, but my impression is that non-profits that are actively working in the community are far better at fundraising than non-profits that are set up specifically to raise money for a municipal shelter. In some places, voters have approved special millages or other permanent funding for shelters. Most households these days have pets, and anyone who has a pet is happy to know that there is a caring, safe system in place in case their animal ever gets lost or if for some reason they cannot care for it any longer. They are willing to contribute for that. It is something of a false equivalency to compare a No Kill shelter to a traditional, high-kill shelter solely in terms of cost, because the No Kill shelter provides more value to the community. Even though a head-to-head comparison on costs does not give a true picture of the value of a No Kill shelter, No Kill can often win such a cost comparison. Greater efficiencies from No Kill programs, donations, volunteer work, fostering, and even voter-approved taxes can entirely offset any increased costs due to a transition to No Kill. And just because a shelter spends $500,000 more per year, say, after a transition to No Kill does not mean that the extra money is coming out of existing city funds. If the shelter receives $1,000,000 more in cash or in-kind support, then the jurisdiction will actually have a net savings from the switch to No Kill. In fact, No Kill is something of a marker for smart city government that is able to leverage the private sector to provide an important amenity to its citizens. As a recent Mayors Leadership Survey demonstrated, 5 out of 10 of the most admired cities in the United States are No Kill, and the other 5 have shelter systems that are much better than average or are transitioning to No Kill. No Kill is a sign of good governance as much as it is a sign of good sheltering.

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.