OUT THE FRONT DOOR

West Coast – Washington, Oregon, California Upper Rockies – Idaho, Montana, Wyoming Middle Rockies – Nevada, Utah, Colorado Lower Southwest – Arizona, New Mexico Non-Contiguous – Hawaii, Alaska The western United States, like most other regions of the country, has a mixture of very good and very bad shelter systems, with a lot in between. Some parts of the western United States are as good at No Kill as you can find anywhere in the country, but at least two states in the region are among the worst for No Kill. The West Coast area has several cities that are models for No Kill. Seattle and its metro area, including Kitsap County, do not provide consolidated statistics, but the area certainly appears to be No Kill. The Portland metro area, consisting of four counties that have formed a coalition, is saving more than 90% in its population area of over 2 million people. Oregon is also home to the city of Eugene, which is No Kill. In Northern California, the city of San Francisco has had a consolidated live release rate of over 90% since 2013. The San Francisco SPCA partners with the city of Stockton to help them increase their save rate. Sacramento, which has faced a lot of challenges, had a 78% save rate in 2015 with intake of almost 11,000. Sacramento apparently includes died/lost in their live release rate calculation, so with the standard calculation they might be over 80%. Chico, California, is notable for the stunning success it has had with the new community cats paradigms. Its shelter reduced cat intake from 2,839 to 442 and cat euthanasia from 1273 to 88 after it implemented a community cat program. This success story was featured in the March/April 2015 issue of the HSUS Animal Sheltering magazine. Southern California is rapidly improving. Best Friends is helping with a massive effort in Los Angeles that is paying off in substantially increased lifesaving. The San Diego coalition reported that it has reached 90%. Ventura County has also reported reaching No Kill. The Upper Rockies have a lot in common with the Western Midwest – both are areas where we do not have much information about how No Kill is doing. My impression is that these states are making progress, though. There is a correlation between mountainous terrain and cold weather and No Kill. And these states are becoming more progressive and have many resort areas, both of which also correlate with No Kill. There are several small No Kill communities in Montana and Wyoming. I have heard reports of shelters that are doing well in Idaho, although I have not researched those shelters. The Middle Rockies states are amazing. Colorado is a No Kill state, as measured by the state’s shelter reporting system. Best Friends has had a project to make Utah a No Kill state ongoing for several years now, and they have been very successful, with the Salt Late City metro area and a double-digit number of smaller cities and counties with live release rates of 90% or more. The giant Humane Society of Utah, which is open admission for owner surrenders and pulls lots of animals from public shelters, recently announced that it had a 90%+ live release rate in 2015. Nevada is home to Washoe County, where the shelter system has been No Kill for years. The Nevada Humane Society, which has been a crucial partner to Washoe County and the cities of Reno and Sparks, is now working on making Carson City No Kill. Las Vegas has a serious No Kill effort underway in which a large local No Kill group, No Kill Las Vegas, is participating. It is great to see a terrific No Kill group like NKLV assisting the local shelter to succeed. Unfortunately, there is less good news in the remaining regions of the west. The Lower Southwest has some areas where reported stray numbers are high and kill rates are high. This part of the country, like Houston, Dallas, and Detroit, seems stuck back in the 1970s, with a large number of homeless animals roaming the streets. There have been sporadic efforts to improve save rates, as with Albuquerque’s cat project. Pima County, Arizona, has been making an effort. One bright spot is the Yavapai Humane Society, which has contracts in the Prescott, Arizona, area, and has reported 90%+ save rates for several years now. In general, though, Arizona and New Mexico do not seem like good places to be a homeless pet. It may be that a major intervention in low-cost spay neuter is needed in the area to get the stray problem under control. Animals in the Non-Continguous states of Hawaii and Alaska were in the news in 2015, and not in a good way. The Kauai Humane Society received heavy criticism of its practices and kill rate. In Alaska there are persistent reports of mistreatment of sled dogs. Working sled dogs get a lot of exercise, which can be a good thing, but it appears that they typically spend most of their non-working time chained outdoors or in small kennels. The Iditarod race is the focus of concern about cruelty to sled dogs, but the Iditarod happens only once per year and the year-round treatment of sled dogs deserves attention too. Conclusion Both the Middle Rockies and the West Coast get a B+. They are doing splendidly well, closing in on New England (and a lot more transparent than New England). I’m going to give the Upper Rockies a C, but it is possible that if we had more data it would reveal them to rank a little higher. The Lower Southwest unfortunately gets a D-, the lowest grade of any region in the United States. The Non-Continguous states get a D.

The specialty of shelter medicine, which has grown at a fast pace from its beginnings 16 years ago, is critical to No Kill. Shelter medicine has been key not just to medical treatment of the treatables, but also to reducing shelter stress through housing and enrichment, fixing behavior problems, preventing disease, designing shelter buildings, and developing programs for shelter flow-through and capacity control. It is no accident that No Kill and shelter medicine have grown in parallel over the last 16 years. The field of shelter medicine is growing so fast that it’s hard to keep up. But one way to get a good grounding in the subject is to read “Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff,” Second Edition (2013), edited by Lila Miller and Stephen Zawistowski. Dr. Miller, who is often referred to as the founder of shelter medicine, was the first African-American woman to graduate from Cornell’s veterinary college, at a time (1977) when the profession was beginning to diversify. She, along with Dr. Jan Scarlett, taught the first formal class in shelter medicine at Cornell in 1999. Dr. Miller was a co-founder of the Association of Shelter Veterinarians (ASV) in 2001. She co-wrote the textbook “Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters” with Dr. Kate Hurley. She has been with the ASPCA since 1977, and is its director of veterinary outreach. In 2008 she received the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Animal Welfare Award, and in 2014 she received the ASV Meritorious Achievement Award. Dr. Zawistowski has a PhD in behavior and genetics from the University of Illinois. He has written, co-written, or edited several books in addition to the shelter medicine text, including a history of the ASPCA (“Heritage of Care”) and a textbook about companion animals (“Companion Animals in Society”). His research work has been published in several journals and he is a founder and co-editor of the “Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science.” He has served for many years as Science Advisor to the ASPCA, and is a well-known speaker on animal welfare subjects. He was a founder and officer of the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy. Their textbook lists 51 contributors, including Dr. Kate Hurley, Dr. Julie Levy, and Dr. Jan Scarlett. It has an 80-page introductory section that includes articles on shelter statistics, design, management, and legal issues, among other topics. Following are sections on husbandry, infectious disease, animal cruelty, shelter programs, behavior, and sterilization. Individual articles cover everything from stress and quality of life for shelter animals to population management to wildlife and equine care to animal hoarding to foster care to behavior enrichment to community cat management to pediatric neutering, along with all the other topics you would expect in a shelter medicine text. Although this text is written for shelter veterinarians and staff, it has lots of valuable information for anyone who is interested in shelter issues. People who are trying to reform shelters from the outside may not always realize the complexity of issues that shelters face in trying to save animals. The sections on proper care of the various species found in animal shelters covers almost 200 pages, for example. The spay-neuter section is over 100 pages. The chapter on foster care shows not only how valuable foster programs are but how many factors must be considered in setting up and running foster programs. The extensive section on disease control shows the planning and constant vigilance that is required to keep animals healthy in the shelter environment. The cost for this textbook is modest given its size and the amount of information it contains. As a non-professional, I learned a lot about the intricacies of modern shelter management from it, and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in shelter issues. Animal shelter management is a field that is changing at dizzying speed, and this textbook provides a good way to get an overview of the issue.

The organized humane movement in the United States began right after the Civil War. From 1866 when the first SPCA was founded until the end of the progressive era around 1920, the three cities that were the center of the humane movement in the United States were New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Each of these cities had its great leader in humane work. In New York City it was Henry Bergh. In Philadelphia it was Caroline Earle White. In Boston it was George Angell. These three people were the most prominent champions of animal welfare in the United States in the post-Civil-War period. Today these great leaders are not talked about much and many people are unfamiliar with them. Following is a quiz about them. I hope you find it interesting. 1. Which of the three humane leaders founded the first national humane organization in the United States? A. Henry Bergh B. Caroline Earle White C. George Angell Answer: A – Henry Bergh, who founded the ASPCA in 1866. Two years later in 1868 White founded the Pennsylvania SPCA and Angell founded the Massachusetts SPCA. In 1869, White founded another SPCA, the Women’s Branch of the Pennsylvania SPCA, after she was precluded from participating in the leadership of the Pennsylvania SPCA due to her gender. 2. Which of the three humane leaders was a vegetarian? A. Henry Bergh B. Caroline Earle White C. George Angell Answer: B – Caroline Earle White. White worked very hard on humane transport of cattle and other animals from the western plains to slaughterhouses in the midwest and east, but progress was slow. The cruel treatment of meat animals may have been what motivated her to become a vegetarian. 3. Which of the three humane leaders proposed an ordinance in 1880 to allow the mayor to appoint people to catch any cat found in a public area and kill it unless reclaimed by its owner within 3 hours? A. Henry Bergh B. Caroline Earle White C. George Angell Answer: A – Henry Bergh. Bergh’s proposed cat ordinance was criticized by people who feared that the three-hour holding period was not long enough to allow people to reclaim their pets. Bergh stated that the ordinance was “for the sake of suffering humanity as well as the wretched cats.” The ordinance was approved by the New York City aldermen but was never approved and put into effect by the mayor, possibly due to a lack of funds to implement it. 4. Which of the three humane leaders proposed a lecture series at a prominent university that would link the humane movement to other great reform movements of the post-Civil-War era such as women’s suffrage? A. Henry Bergh B. Caroline Earle White C. George Angell Answer: C – George Angell. He proposed the series of lectures to the president of Harvard. 5. Which of the three humane leaders was successful at persuading the city to allow his or her humane organization to take over the cruel city dog pound? A. Henry Bergh B. Caroline Earle White C. George Angell Answer: – Caroline Earle White, whose Women’s Branch SPCA took over the Philadelphia city pound in 1870 and replaced it with a shelter. The Philadelphia dog pound had been one of the cruelest in the country, where dogs were held without food and killed by a painful method after their hold period expired, and White took it over to stop the cruelty. Bergh proposed in 1873 to the mayor of New York that the city build a shelter like the one in Philadelphia and allow the ASPCA to run it, but the city declined. Angell believed that there were not enough homeless dogs in Boston to justify building a pound or a shelter. 6. Which of the three humane leaders said that animals had a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? A. Henry Bergh B. Caroline Earle White C. George Angell Answer: B – Caroline Earle White. Although both White and Bergh made “rights” statements about animals, they do not appear to have believed in a literal right to life for animals. In the case of cats and dogs, all three of the humane leaders appear to have accepted the killing of homeless cats and dogs. They probably saw it as a necessity given the lack of any practical method to cut down on breeding (the capability to do mass spaying of dogs and cats would not mature until the 1960s or 1970s), and the public’s intense fear of stray dogs due to the threat of rabies (commercial rabies vaccines for dogs were not available in the 1800s and early 1900s, and post-exposure vaccination for humans was not available until late in the 1800s). The concern of the three humane leaders was not to abolish shelter killing, but to ensure that impoundment and killing be done in a way that was as humane as possible.

[NOTE: The 90% Reported category lists communities whose animal shelter systems report having been at a 90%+ live release rate for at least one year but who do not qualify for a listing in the right sidebar because they do not make their full statistics easily accessible online.] Kitsap County is in the state of Washington, right across Puget Sound from Seattle. It’s a large county, with a population of over 250,000 people. The county contains four cities — Bremerton (population of about 40,000), Bainbridge Island (23,000), Port Orchard (11,000), and Poulsbo (9000). Animal control and sheltering services are provided for Kitsap County by the Kitsap Humane Society (KHS), a non-profit. The shelter does animal control and sheltering for the county and the four cities. It has an animal control unit which handles stray intake, cruelty investigations, and responding to emergencies and disasters. The shelter takes in owner surrenders with a fee, which is reduced for low-income people, and it requires an appointment. If KHS decides during the surrender process that an animal is sick and medically untreatable, or dangerous, they ask the owner to request euthanasia. The shelter issues annual reports that include its statistics. The shelter does not list its full statistics online. According to its Annual Report for 2013, it rehomed 4197 animals for the year and had a 93% save rate. Stray cat intake decreased 37%, which they attribute to their community cat spay-neuter program. The 2012 annual report states that intake was 4703 animals and the live release rate was 94%.  In 2011, reported intake was 4993 with a live release rate of 95%. In 2010, it reported an intake of 4285 animals and a live release rate of 94%. Kitsap County, WA, was originally listed by this blog on June 26, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

“We’ve been begging the city to go No Kill for years and nothing has happened!” How often have you seen a statement like that? Trying to get a city shelter to reform itself can be a challenging experience. It often leads No Kill advocates down a frustrating road of seeking to force out the current leadership on the city council or in the shelter and replace it with No Kill leadership. That approach can work (Austin, Texas and Arlington, Virginia are examples), but I’ve also seen it fail (Tallahassee, Louisville, Macon, etc., etc.). Sometimes there aren’t enough local people to support the cause, sometimes the city leadership is too entrenched to be thrown out by a single-issue campaign, sometimes city leadership does appoint a new director and that director fails. Just a few days ago, local No Kill advocates were unsuccessful in unseating a county commissioner in favor of a No Kill candidate in Manatee County, Florida. In this article I’d like to talk about a different way that I’m seeing more and more in my researches, where local advocates do not have to take to the streets in protest or beg the city council or the municipal shelter to take action. That different way is for No Kill advocates to form a non-profit that takes on the functions that the municipal shelter is not performing properly. There are a large number of non-profits that have been formed in the last several years for the purpose of making a community No Kill, and they are succeeding at an astounding rate. I would say that far more No Kill communities are being formed by this method today than by the older method of trying to force communities to change by protest and political action. It is worth noting that even in Austin there was a combination of methods. One group worked on political support while another group formed a large non-profit – Austin Pets Alive – to partner with the city shelter. One of the functions that this type of non-profit can perform very well is adoptions. There are few municipal shelters that will refuse to allow a reputable non-profit to pull animals from the shelter for rehoming. And if a non-profit does run into resistance from the shelter in releasing animals, that would be a concrete issue that would garner a lot of attention and sympathy from the public. Another thing that non-profits can do very well is TNR. In some places this may require the non-profit to do some work to pave the way, including checking out state laws and local ordinances to see if any of them need revision. But again, revision of cat ordinances is a concrete issue that may be much easier to change than the entire city council or leadership structure of the shelter. There are many other tasks a non-profit could take on, such as pet retention, targeted spay-neuter, microchip clinics, and running volunteer and neonatal foster programs. In addition to the practical effect of saving animal lives quickly and effectively, a non-profit working with the city shelter can build a strong relationship over time that will gradually bring city and shelter leadership on board with the idea of No Kill. In fact, it seems like a logical approach to try formation of a non-profit to work with the city before trying political action. Political action is a bruising process, and if the people seeking change do not prevail, they can poison the well for any future collaborative process. One could argue that the route of using political action to demand change should be used only as a last resort, given that the track record of cooperation has been so much better and given the serious consequences of failed political action. One of the beauties of non-profits is that they can start off small. For example, a non-profit could take on as its first task saving orphan neonatal kittens during kitten season and finding them adoptive homes. Once the group had some experience at adoptions, they could branch out into doing offsite adoption events for the shelter. Then perhaps they could set up a Help Desk in the shelter lobby, staffed by volunteers. Then maybe a targeted spay-neuter effort to reduce the number of pit bulls coming into the shelter. As the group grew and gained community support, they would also be gaining practical knowledge about exactly what needed to be done in their city. Perhaps they would be able to get to No Kill by working with the existing shelter leadership, but if not, at some point they would have the experience and community support to successfully bid on and run the city shelter themselves. Getting to No Kill by starting a non-profit does not have to be a slow process. In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, a non-profit was formed, bid on and won the city contract, and then got to No Kill within six months. That’s somewhat unusual in cities I’ve studied, though. But the non-profit process should not be rejected just because it might not fix all the problems immediately. If the city leaders are recalcitrant and shelter leadership is unresponsive and there is no large groundswell of support among the citizenry, then you have nowhere to start unless you do it yourself. Here is a list just off the top of my head of large non-profits that are currently partnering successfully with city shelters or contracting to do sheltering themselves to raise live relief rates: Austin Pets Alive, the Richmond SPCA, Kansas City Pet Project, the Nevada Humane Society, Dane County Humane Society, Humane Society for Seattle/King County, First Coast No More Homeless Pets/Jacksonville Humane Society, Lifeline Animal Project (Atlanta), and the San Francisco SPCA. This method has also been used in a great many counties and small towns where animal sheltering is done by a non-profit. A variation on this theme is where you have a consortium of non-profits. This method seems to be especially effective in large cities. It is being used with great success in San Antonio, Denver (despite their regressive pit-bull ban), Gainesville, Buffalo, New York City, and Portland. Based on the momentum and trends of the past several years, the future of No Kill certainly seems to be in building non-profits and collaborative groups of non-profits to work with municipalities. This should be an inspiring approach for No Kill advocates who have been trying the political approach for years and getting nowhere. Instead of waiting for the municipal shelter or the city council to change, they can turn their words into actions today and create the change themselves.

It’s too early for 2014 stats to be out, but not too early to look at some No Kill shelters that had very good years in 2014: Lynchburg is a small city of 76,000 people in rural Virginia. The Lynchburg Humane Society (LHS) has a contract with the city of Lynchburg for animal services. The director, Makena Yarbrough, recently posted a blog talking about events in 2014. (The blog is accompanied by a photo of a 12-year-old adoptee who may be the cutest dog ever). The shelter took in over 800 more animals in 2014 than in 2013, including 368 pets saved from neighboring shelters. The brand-new shelter building, paid for by donations that LHS raised (way to go community!) is almost ready and is slated to open in February. They had a very successful special effort during kitten season in 2014 to get kittens out of the old shelter building quickly so they wouldn’t get sick, and this effort sharply decreased their shelter deaths. What a great 2014 – and they are planning to make 2015 even better. Jacksonville also reached out to help neighboring communities in 2014. First Coast No More Homeless Pets (FCNMHP), a Jacksonville non-profit that has been a major part of the city’s success, has been helping neighboring Nassau and Clay counties to sharply reduce their kill rates. Nassau County Animal Services recently announced that they increased their live release rate by 20 points in 2014 and plan to become No Kill in 2015. Rick DuCharme, FCNMHP’s director, wants to expand assistance to additional neighboring counties, including some that are sparsely populated and have few resources. Kansas City, Missouri, is a city of 464,000 people. A group of pet advocates formed the Kansas City Pet Project (KCPP) in 2011 and took over the city pound on January 1, 2012. Brent Toellner, president of the board of directors, posted a retrospective of the last three years. Their staff has grown from 18 to more than 60 and they have opened two satellite adoptions centers. Fosters, volunteers, adopters, and community support have all grown. The shelter has a tradition of being open on New Years Day, as they were on their first day of business in 2012. They did that to show the community that it was not going to be business as usual with KCPP, and they kept their promise. Christie Banduch, the director of the tiny Kirby, Texas, No Kill shelter, developed a very ambitious plan in 2014 to make the unincorporated parts of Bexar County, where Kirby is located, No Kill too. She spotted an opportunity when the city of San Antonio, which is also located in Bexar County, decided to stop providing animal control and sheltering for the county. When that happened the county was left with no shelter. Kirby’s shelter is too small for the number of animals they take in, so an agreement for Kirby and Bexar County to partner, hopefully with Banduch in charge of the whole thing, would be serendipity. And last, but far from least, 2014 may turn out to be the year when the entire state of Colorado went over the 90% live-release-rate mark. The state hit an 89% live release rate for 2013. Unfortunately, if this year is like last year we will be waiting several months on the data. Colorado would be the first No Kill state ever, though, so it will be worth the wait. In addition to saving so many of its own animals, Colorado also saved thousands of animals transferred into the state from kill shelters. In addition to these stories there were hundreds of other communities whose shelters did great things in 2014. 2014 was the best year yet for No Kill, and all indications are that 2015 will be even better.

Asheville is a city of almost 90,000 people located in the mountains of western North Carolina. It is the county seat of Buncombe County, which has a population of 248,000. Asheville has become a mecca for retiring baby boomers and is growing rapidly. The city, county, and a non-profit called the Asheville Humane Society (AHS) have a cooperative arrangement for caring for homeless animals. The city and county both have animal control units that enforce ordinances, pick up strays, and respond to complaints. The Buncombe County Animal Shelter (BCAS) in Asheville houses strays for their hold period, and if they are not reclaimed they go to the AHS Nancy Hiscoe Clark Adoption and Education Center for placement. AHS contracts with the city and county to run BCAS, and BCAS and the AHS adoption center are located side-by-side on a modern campus. The shelter accepts owner surrenders with no fee and no appointment required. AHS and the shelter offer many programs. Brother Wolf Animal Rescue is a non-profit that has operated in Asheville since 2007. It has an adoption center that is open 365 days a year and houses up to 100 animals. Brother Wolf has a Help Desk and a pet pantry, and it takes in some owner surrenders. The Humane Alliance of Western North Carolina has provided low-cost spay-neuter in the area since 1994, and reports that it has sterilized 350,000 animals. The Humane Alliance partners with BCAS, PetSmart Charities, and the Mimi Paige Foundation to provide trap-neuter-return for community cats. AHS and the shelter are part of the Million Cat Challenge. A news report on January 29, 2015, stated that BCAS took in 5900 animals in 2014 and euthanized 16% of them. The shelter adopted out about 3000 animals, returned about 960 to their owners, and transferred about 800. Buncombe County is counted in the Running Totals as an 80%-90% community.

Alger County is a small rural county located on the northern border of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Its population is 9600 people, including the county seat of Munising. Animal sheltering is provided for the county by the Alger County Animal Shelter (ACAS), which is a non-profit organization registered as the Humane Society of Alger County. The shelter stated its primary purpose in a newsletter as: “to receive lost or unwanted animals brought to the shelter, to return them to their owners or place them in a good home, and to educate the public about intelligent and humane treatment of animals.” I spoke to the shelter manager, who told me that the county sheriff answers calls for stray pickup and those animals are brought to the shelter. ACAS accepts owner surrenders (including surrenders from outside the county) except for animals who are vicious or obviously sick. The shelter manager told me that ACAS turns away only about 3 or 4 animals each year under those criteria. ACAS employees or volunteers will drive to meet local owners who want to surrender an animal but cannot come to the shelter during regular business hours. The shelter asks for a $25-$50 contribution for owner surrenders, but does not require it. ACAS leases a building from the county and the county provides utilities, and the city of Munising makes a small payment to the shelter each month, but the shelter is primarily supported by donations and volunteers. Like other Michigan shelters, ACAS reports its statistics to the state of Michigan each year. The shelter has had a high save rate for several years. For 2013, ACAS reported an intake of 254 cats and dogs, with 58 returned to owner, 208 adopted, and no transfers (scroll down in the link to the ACAS page). The live release rate was 99%. The 2013 reporting form for Michigan shelters does not include the categories of owner-requested euthanasia or died/lost in shelter care, so I’m unable to provide a modified live release rate. In 2012, the shelter reported an intake of 308 animals, with 243 adoptions, 57 returned to owner, and 3 euthanasias. This gave the shelter a 99% live release rate for the year . If the 5 animals who died in shelter care are counted in with euthanasias, the live release rate was 97%. ACAS takes in at-risk animals from other shelters when it has room. In 2012, 63 animals from other shelters were assisted by ACAS. (In a 2013 newsletter, ACAS listed somewhat different numbers for 2012 than those reported to the state. I asked the shelter manager about the discrepancy, and she said the statistics in the newsletter were estimates, prepared before the year-end totals were available.) In 2011, the shelter report to the state showed a 94% live release rate with an intake of 240 animals. The Michigan Pet Fund Alliance recognized ACAS with an award for its 2011 live release rate. In 2010, the shelter reported a 94% live release rate with an intake of 190 animals. ACAS also reported high live release rates in previous years. Alger County, MI, was originally listed by this blog on July 31, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

I started my first blog keeping track of high-performing public shelters back in July of 2011. At that time most people thought there were about 2 dozen or so No Kill shelters, and they were almost all small towns. No Kill at that time certainly seemed to qualify as an outsider movement. Fast forward to today, and here’s a list of big cities/metro areas that are at or above a 90% save rate and have sustained it for at least a year: Seattle metro area, Portland metro area, Fairfax County VA, Austin, Denver, and the entire state of New Hampshire. Here’s a list of big cities/metro areas that recently hit 90% or have 80%+ live release rates: New York City, Washington DC, Richmond VA, San Francisco, Jacksonville, and the entire state of Colorado. This is just off the top of my head and I may have left some out. In addition, we have very active programs in San Antonio and Los Angeles (a Best Friends effort) that are making great progress. Here’s the funny thing, though. All these big cities did not just wake up in the last three years and say “hey, let’s go No Kill.” Instead they have all been working for many years, and in some cases decades, to get where they are today. In some cases they were directly influenced by the No Kill program that was developed in San Francisco by Rich Avanzino and his staff back in the 1980s and 1990s. Robin Starr, for example, flew to San Francisco from Richmond in the late 1990s to consult with Avanzino about how to bring the program to Richmond. And the movement in New York City was patterned after Avanzino’s program, although they have altered it to fit the circumstances of New York. In other places on the list above, the people who instituted shelter reform seem to have been affected only indirectly, if at all, by the San Francisco program. New Hampshire developed its own program back in the 1990s, which included at least one shelter director independently coming up with some of the programs being used in San Francisco. The doyen of one of the biggest cities on the 90% list dislikes the term “no kill” because he believes it unfairly labels shelter workers as killers. He has used a cooperative approach to help form a coalition that, working over decades, has brought his city to a live release rate of over 90%. Over the years since the San Francisco Adoption Pact was signed in 1994, there has been a lot of progress made in how to save lives. One of the most exciting developments has been the new directions in community cat management. Based on work that has been done by Alley Cat Allies since its founding in 1990, and also carried on by Dr. Kate Hurley, Dr. Julie Levy, and Maddie’s Fund, we are on the verge of being able to end shelter killing of cats. The new programs for cats were included in a draft California whitepaper issued last year that was signed by both the ASPCA and HSUS. This whitepaper also endorsed managed admission techniques. There are additional exciting developments going on at the national level. I was told by one HSUS director that they are pleased with their new program of highly targeted spay-neuter, in which people go door to door in city neighborhoods where a lot of backyard breeding is occurring. ASPCA is trying to improve transports, using knowledge from transport businesses to develop more efficient ways to move animals around the country. All this is great news, and it illustrates the fact that No Kill has quickly become a big, heterogeneous movement. Its success certainly seems to indicate that No Kill has either already moved from outsider to insider status, or will soon. It may be time for the leaders of the movement to think about whether and how this development should change the tactics of the movement and how the movement presents itself. The biggest question may be whether it is time to move from confrontation to cooperation. That’s an oversimplification of course, because in some cities and towns it may be that confrontation is still the only policy that will succeed (yes Memphis and Tallahassee, I’m thinking of you). But there are many situations in which the No Kill movement could perhaps move forward faster by thinking of how it can work with people rather than confronting them. For example, many traditional shelter workers strongly object to the idea that there is no pet overpopulation problem. To those people, accepting that there is no pet overpopulation problem will inevitably mean that spay-neuter programs will be given up or de-emphasized. I can understand how people who have been doing humane work for decades would find this to be a frightening prospect. This seems to me like one area where the No Kill movement could forgo some terminology and instead reinforce the fact that it still strongly believes in the importance of spay-neuter, especially in areas of high intake. Another thing that really offends traditional shelter workers is when No Kill advocates say that No Kill can happen overnight, and all you have to do to get to No Kill is stop the killing. In fact, No Kill can happen overnight, but maybe not everywhere. It can happen overnight in a small community that has favorable demographics and where the shelter is already at a live release rate of 75% or so. But if the shelter takes in 30,000 animals per year and is in a city with low median income and has a live release rate of 25% or so, then it’s hard to imagine how the shelter could transition to 90% overnight. And as far as saying that all you have to do is stop the killing, that’s not a helpful statement. Getting to No Kill is a lot of work, because people aren’t going to appear out of thin air to adopt, foster, etc., just because a shelter has announced it’s going No Kill. I think we could easily re-work the terminology we use to be more accurate and less inflammatory — for example, we could say that a No Kill transition can happen quickly in most places, and that what we need to do is take killing off the table as a solution. It may seem like a subtle distinction in wording, but it changes the meaning from an accusatory demand to putting the emphasis on the process. There is a substantial list of additional complaints that traditional shelter officials and workers have against No Kill, including their opinions that managed intake leads to animals being abandoned, that lowering adoption prices leads to hoarding and abuse, that TNR and SNR are inhumane, etc. A national program of data collection and analysis could help lay these fears to rest. Even if traditional shelter workers refused to accept the results of such data collection, the collection and presentation of the data would show that No Kill is willing to take criticism seriously. And who knows, we might find some things we need to fix. Another issue that No Kill needs to address is the lack of a national steering organization. At the current time we have various organizations, but they are either single-person efforts, or local, or they have a limited purpose. These small organizations have contributed a great deal to No Kill. In order to be taken seriously as an insider movement, though, No Kill should have a national organization that brings its leaders together. There are many people to choose from for a potential board for such a guiding body, including Rich Avanzino, Becky Robinson, Bonney Brown, Nathan Winograd, Jane Hoffman, Dr. Hurley, Dr. Ellen Jefferson, and Brent Toellner. At some point, such an organization might develop certification standards for No Kill shelters. Perhaps the transition to insider status is best represented by what happened in Kansas City, Missouri, where local activists formed their own non-profit, Kansas City Pet Project (KCPP) and bid on the contract to run the city shelter. They won the contract and started work on January 1, 2012. KCPP’s shelter is fully open admission, and it’s big — they had an intake of 8179 animals in 2013. They hit 90% within 6 months of their starting date, and have stayed at or above 90% since then. It’s a struggle for them, because intake has gone up now that they are no kill, but they are making it work. Now that No Kill has proven itself, it will be possible in more and more cities for No Kill advocates to form non-profits and bid on contracts. It’s not a crazy idea anymore, and No Kill advocates can use examples from many places to show city leaders that contracting out animal shelters makes sense on many levels. As insiders, we have to show that we can produce the results we promised. One way to do that is to move from picketing and protesting to taking the reins and running successful public shelters.

Monmouth County, New Jersey, is in the center of the state and has about 630,000 human residents. It is a county of many small cities and boroughs, with its largest municipality having a population of 67,000. The Monmouth County SPCA (MCSPCA) is a private organization that has contracted with many of the cities and boroughs in Monmouth County to provide animal sheltering services for strays.  The shelter has adoption centers in Eatontown and Freehold. The municipalities served by the MCSPCA are almost all in the eastern part of the county. These municipalities include: Atlantic Highlands (population approximately 4,000), Eatontown (13,000), Fair Haven (6,000), Highlands (5,000), Holmdel (17,000), Little Silver (6,000), Long Branch (31,000), Middletown (67,000), North Middletown (3,000), Ocean Township (27,000), Red Bank (12,000), Rumson (7,000), Sea Bright (1,000), Shrewsbury (4,000), Spring Lake Heights (5,000), and West Long Branch (8,000). There are 12 communities with 5,000 or more population served by the MCSPCA, and each of these communities is listed separately in the sidebar. Adding up the totals of all these communities, the MCSPCA provides animal sheltering services for a population of more than 216,000 people. The MCSPCA also takes in owner surrenders by appointment. I called the shelter to get details on their owner surrender policy, and was told that they do not turn any animal away unless, in their judgment, the animal should be euthanized due to severe behavioral issues or untreatable suffering. In that case they recommend that the owner take the animal to the vet for humane euthanasia. In 2011 the MCSPCA had a live release rate of 94% calculated by comparing live releases to euthanasias, and 90% calculated against total intake. Their intake was over 4500 animals. The shelter’s Annual Report for 2012 showed a 94% live release rate, with a modified live release rate (including died/lost in shelter care) of 93%. Total intake for the year was 4467. The Annual Report recounts how the shelter helped with the Hurricane Sandy relief effort by taking in 150 animals stranded by the storm and by distributing 300,000 pounds of food. In other news for 2012, the shelter opened an offsite adoption center at a mall and adopted out over 700 animals. As of this writing the shelter has not posted an Annual Report for 2013. Statistics reported to the state of New Jersey showed an intake of 3538 animals for 2013 with a live release rate of 93%. Monmouth County, NJ, was originally listed by this blog on April 15, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Right now several states still have gas chambers in active use in animal shelters. Reformers are working hard in those states to get gas chambers banned, but they are running into local resistance in many places. It is puzzling that there is still any opposition to getting rid of gas chambers, because all of the leading national organizations that have weighed in on the issue say that euthanasia by injection (EBI) is the preferred method of euthanasia for shelter dogs and cats. The textbook “Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff” notes that the Association of Shelter Veterinarians, ASPCA, HSUS, and the American Humane Association (AHA) “all recommend EBI of sodium pentobarbital as the only acceptable method for euthanasia of dogs and cats in animal shelters.” The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), in its 2013 Euthanasia Guidelines, says that “the preferred method of euthanasia” in animal shelters is EBI. The Euthanasia Reference Manual published by HSUS states that EBI is the best of the available euthanasia methods for shelter animals, and lists gas chambers among the methods that “are not considered to be humane euthanasia, and should never be permitted in a shelter setting.” The National Animal Control Association states that EBI using sodium pentobarbital is the “only method of choice” for humane euthanasia of shelter dogs and cats, and it “condemns”  the use of gas chambers. The people who want to continue using gas chambers in shelters generally rely on three arguments. None of those arguments stand up to scrutiny and none of them are accepted by experts in the field. The first argument is that gas chambers are safer for the humans involved when they are dealing with aggressive or feral animals. This argument seems plausible at first glance because people tend to think of EBI as requiring handling of the animal, while the gas chamber just requires pushing a button. But what this argument ignores is that the technician has to handle the animal to get it into the gas chamber in the first place. EBI is actually safer than the gas chamber for the technicians because a press gate or squeeze cage can be used to restrain an animal for the few seconds required to give a pre-euthanasia sedative. The restraint technique is used in TNR to get feral cats ready for surgery, and it is both safe for the technicians and as humane as possible for the cats. Anyone who has seen experienced people preparing feral cats for surgery will realize how much more humane the restraint-sedation technique is than stuffing a fully conscious, struggling, terrified animal into a gas chamber. And speaking of danger to the human technicians, gas chambers are dangerous things to have in any building. The “Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff” textbook notes that carbon monoxide exposure has been documented in the death of one shelter worker and the illness of another. Gas chambers that leak low levels of carbon monoxide can cause serious health problems in shelter personnel. There is no way to tell if a chamber is leaking without monitoring it, because the gas has no smell or taste. And handling the gas is dangerous because it is explosive. The second argument made by those who want to keep using gas chambers is that EBI is more expensive. This argument is factually incorrect. AHA did a study of costs of EBI versus gas chambers and found that EBI is cheaper – far cheaper, in fact. The 2009 study found a cost of $4.66 per animal for the gas chamber versus $2.29 for EBI. Sodium pentobarbital is a controlled substance, but the majority of states allow direct registration for animal shelters to obtain the drug. Concern about the ability of shelters to get sodium pentobarbital without having to go through a veterinarian should never be a barrier to banning gas chambers, because if a state lacks direct registration it could be instituted at the same time as the ban on gas chambers. The third argument made by people who want to keep the gas chamber is that a gas chamber is emotionally easier on shelter personnel because they do not have to look at and touch the animal as it dies. Again, the experts in the field do not agree with this reasoning. Many studies have found that performing euthanasia is stressful for shelter workers regardless of the method used. The key is how workers deal with the stress. If they distance themselves from their emotions by distancing themselves from the animal’s death, it is harder on them in the long run. Being able to feel the sadness and tragedy of an animal’s death is actually a sign that a shelter worker is coping with his or her emotions in a healthy way rather than ignoring them or shutting them off. I suspect that what is really occurring with resistance to getting rid of gas chambers is just resistance to change, and a desire not to have to go through the learning curve of adopting a new method. Those concerns should not stand in the way of banning gas chambers. When every national organization with expertise on the issue, including the AVMA, has expressed the clear opinion that EBI is superior to the gas chamber in all respects, that should be the end of the debate.

This Tuesday, April 21, at 9PM EST, Scott Trebatoski is giving a free webinar on Return to Field (RTF) for community cats. The webcast, presented by Maddie’s Fund, will have a 20 minute presentation and a 40-45 minute Q&A session, and did I say it’s free? Go ahead and sign up even if you cannot participate live, and Maddie’s will send you an e-mail with a link to watch it on demand as soon as it’s available. There has been quite a bit of controversy over RTF programs, with some people believing that such programs discriminate against cats or make it less likely that owned cats will be reunited with their owners. I’ve even seen comments from some people who believe that RTF is just a way for shelters to artificially jack up their live release rates. Trebatoski’s webinar is a chance for people who have reservations about RTF to talk to an expert and find out what RTF is really about and why it works so much better for cats than the traditional shelter approach. By the way, Hillsborough County, Florida, where Trebatoski is now director, is replicating the success of his previous city, Jacksonville. Since Trebatoski became director in Hillsborough a year ago, the live release rate has rapidly increased and in the last few months has been pushing 90%. In March 2015 the live release rate was 89% using the traditional calculation and 87% including animals who died or were lost in shelter care. Intake in March was 1,137 dogs and cats, and average length of stay was under 7 days. Hillsborough County includes the city of Tampa, and has an estimated population of about 1.3 million people. In more RTF news, the state of Arizona has passed a law that exempts cats from the state’s mandatory 3-day hold period on the condition that they are sterilized and returned to field. Francis Battista of Best Friends has posted a blog on this new law and its importance to the Best Friends-PetSmart Charities community cat initiative in Pima County, Arizona. The blog has a nice summary of why RTF programs lead to better outcomes for cats (including a much higher chance of being reunited with their families) than traditional hold times. HSUS’s Animal Sheltering magazine has an article in the March/April 2015 issue about the Chico, California, city shelter’s adaptation of the new cat paradigms to their local circumstances. The shelter first got buy-in for the program by consulting with the city government and the community. Owner surrendered cats now go to a local non-profit. The city shelter takes in sick or injured stray cats and orphaned kittens, and refers healthy community cats for TNR. Cat euthanasia dropped from 1,273 in 2011 to 88 in 2013, while cat intake dropped from 2,839 to 442. This program allows the shelter to concentrate on the sick, injured, and orphan stray cats who really need their help, while the healthy stray cats who are doing well remain in the field where many of them have homes. The Charleston (South Carolina) Animal Society’s new kitten intensive care unit is now open. The society takes in 2500 kittens each year. The news about dogs this week was mostly scientific and medical. Scientific American and Science magazine are reporting on research showing that when dogs and people gaze into each others’ eyes, both species have an increase in neurochemicals that are important in bonding. In other words, your dog really is feeling love for you when he or she looks into your eyes. The canine flu outbreak in the Chicago area has been identified as caused by an H3N2 subtype. This is the first identification of an H3N2 subtype outside of Asia. Currently available canine vaccines are for the H3N8 subtype, and it is not known if there is any cross-immunity. The H3N2 virus can also infect cats. The Koret Shelter Medicine Program has made this list of resources available. Maddie’s Fund has a new article on treatment of parvovirus in a shelter setting. In other shelter and rescue news, Salt Lake County, Utah, is reporting that it had a 93% live release rate in 2014. The Jacksonville Humane Society has started a campaign for funds to build a new permanent shelter to replace the one that burned down in 2007, killing 86 animals. The HSUS is making an initial investment of $600,000 in programs to improve the situation for street dogs in Puerto Rico. And Dogster has a nice interview with a caring ACO officer in Atlanta to celebrate ACO Appreciation Week.