[For today’s News Bit and the Running Totals, click here.] The Million Cat Challenge launched on December 10, 2014, and has proven to be wildly popular. I thought it would be fun to see a list of shelters that had signed on as of the 1-month anniversary, and here they are. Every shelter’s participation is valuable, but one thing that surprised me about this list is the number of large, traditional “open admission” shelters that have signed on already. Wow! Alachua County Humane Society Gainesville, Florida Alaqua Animal Refuge Freeport, Florida All About Animals Rescue/Macomb County Animal Control Warren, Michigan Al-Van Humane Society South Haven, Michigan Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Animal Friends, Inc. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Animal Humane Society Golden Valley, Minnesota Animal Refuge League Westbrook, Maine Animal Rescue League Marshalltown, Iowa Animal Rescue League of Southern RI Peace Dale, Rhode Island Animal Welfare Agency South Central Ontario Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Animal Welfare League of Alexandria Alexandria, Virginia Animal Welfare League of Arlington Arlington, Virginia Animalkind Inc Hudson, New York Arizona Humane Society Phoenix, Arizona Arlington Animal Services Arlington, Texas Asheville Humane Society/Buncombe County Animal Shelter Asheville, North Carolina Austin Pets Alive! Austin, Texas Barry County Animal Shelter Hastings, Michigan Boone County Animal Care Columbia, Missouri Cache Humane Society Logan, Utah Capital Area Humane Society Lansing, Michigan Carteret County Humane Society, Inc Newport, North Carolina Cat Adoption Team Sherwood, Oregon Cat Depot Sarasota, Florida Cedar Rapids Animal Care & Control Cedar Rapids, Iowa Charleston Animal Society North Charleston, South Carolina Chautauqua County Humane Society Jamestown, New York Chemung County Humane Society and SPCA Elmira, New York Cheyenne Animal Shelter Cheyenne, Wyoming Chico Animal Shelter Chico, California City of Chicago Commission on Animal Care and Control Chicago, Illinois City of Hamilton Animal Services Hamilton, Ontario, Canada City of Sacramento Animal Care Services Sacramento, California City of San Antonio Animal Care Services San Antonio, Texas City of San Jose Animal Care and Services San Jose, California City of Stockton Animal Services Stockton, California City of Waco Animal Shelter Waco, Texas Clay County Animal Care and Control Fleming Island, Florida Cleveland Animal Protective League Cleveland, Ohio Clovis Animal Services Clovis, California Coastal Humane Society Brunswick, Maine Collier County Domestic Animal Services Naples, Florida Columbia Humane Society St. Helens, Oregon Companion Animal Alliance of Baton Rouge Baton Rouge, Louisiana Contra Costa County Animal Services Department Martinez, California Coulee Region Humane Society Onalaska, Wisconsin Dakin Humane Society Springfield & Leverett, Massachusetts Denver Animal Shelter Denver, Colorado Dogs & Cats Forever, Inc. Fort Pierce, Florida Edmonton Humane Society Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Flagler Humane Society Palm Coast, Florida Flathead County Animal Shelter Kalispell, Montana Fond du Lac Humane Society Fond du Lac, Wisconsin Georgian Triangle Humane Society Collingwood, Ontario, Canada Gifford Cat Shelter Brighton, Massachusetts Great Plains SPCA Merriam, Kansas Habersham County Animal Care & Control Clarkesville, Georgia Halifax Humane Society Daytona Beach, Florida Happy Tails Rock Falls, Illinois Harbor Humane Society West Olive, Michigan Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter Bozeman, Montana Helping Paws Animal Sanctuary Saint James City, Florida Humane Society of Polk County Winter Haven, Florida Humane Society Calumet Area Munster, Indiana Humane Society for Greater Nashua Nashua, New Hampshire Humane Society for Southwest Washington Vancouver, Washington Humane Society of Carroll County Westminster, Maryland Humane Society of Huron Valley Ann Arbor, Michigan Humane Society of Kandiyohi & Meeker Counties Willmar, Minnesota Humane Society of Sarasota County Sarasota, Florida Humane Society of Tampa Bay Tampa, Florida Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region Colorado Springs/Pueblo, Colorado Humane Society of Washington County Hagerstown, Maryland Humane Society of West Michigan Grand Rapids, Michigan Humane Society Silicon Valley Milpitas, California Huntsville Animal Services Huntsville, Alabama Independent Cat Society Westville, Texas Jacksonville Animal Care and Protective Services Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville Humane Society Jacksonville, Florida Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association Charleston, West Virginia Kenai Animal Shelter Kenai, Alaska Kern County Animal Services Bakersfield, California Kings County Animal Services Hanford, California Kokomo Humane Society Kokomo, Indiana Lawrence Humane Society Lawrence, Oklahoma Lee County Domestic Animal Services Fort Meyers, Florida Lexington Humane Society Lexington, Kentucky Long Beach Animal Care Services Long Beach, California Louisville Metro Animal Services Louisville, Kentucky Lynchburg Humane Society Lynchburg, Virginia Mat-Su Animal Care and Regulation Shelter Palmer, Alaska Miami-Dade Animal Services Miami, Florida Michigan Humane Society Detroit, Michigan Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission Milwaukee, Wisconsin Montreal SPCA Montreal, Quebec, Canada Naples Cat Alliance Collier County, Florida Nate’s Honor Animal Rescue Bradenton, Florida Nevada Humane Society/Carson City Carson City, Nevada Norfolk SPCA Norfolk, Virginia OC Animal Care Orange, California Oktibbeha County Humane Society Starkville, Mississippi Oshkosh Area Humane Society Oshkosh, Wisconsin Pasco County Animal Services Land O Lakes, Florida PAWS of Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap Bainbridge Island, Washington Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League of the Palm Beaches, Inc. Palm Beach County, Florida PEI Humane Society Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada Pet Resource Center Tampa, Florida Pets Alive Middletown, North Carolina Pets Alive WNY Pendleton, New York Placer SPCA Roseville, California Potter League for Animals Newport, Rhode Island Progressive Animal Welfare Society Lynnwood, Washington Providence Animal Rescue League Providence, Rhode Island Quincy Humane Society Quincy, Illinois Rancho Cucamonga Animal Care and Adoption Center Rancho Cucamonga, California Rochester Animal Services Monroe County, New York Sacramento SPCA Sacramento, California Saint Louis County Animal Care and Control Services Olivette, Missouri Salem Friends of Felines Salem, Oregon Salinas Animal Services Salinas, California San Diego Humane Society Oceanside, California San Francisco SPCA San Francisco, California Seattle Humane Society Bellevue, Washington Second Chance Animal Shelter East Brookfield, Massachusetts Second Chance Pet Network Dryden, Ontario Silicon Valley Animal Control Authority Santa Clara, California Sonoma County Animal Services Santa Rosa, California South Suburban Humane Society Chicago Heights, Tennesse Southern Pines Animal Shelter Hattiesburg, Mississippi Spartanburg Humane Society Spartanburg, South Carolina SPCA of Brevard Titusville, Florida SPCA of Wake County Raleigh, North Carolina St. Francis Animal Rescue of Venice, Inc Venice, Florida St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center Madison, New Jersey Tacoma-Pierce County Humane Society Tacoma, Washington The Animal Foundation Las Vegas, Nevada Town Cats Morgan Hill, California Tri County Humane Society Saint Cloud, Minnesota Trust Again Pet Shelter, Inc. Zolfo Springs, Florida Ventura County Animal Services Camarillo, California Virginia Beach Animal Care and Adoption Center Virginia Beach, Virginia Wake County Animal Center Raleigh, North Carolina Washington Humane Society Washington, DC Wayside Waifs Kansas City, Missouri Westerly Animal Shelter Westerly, Rhode Island Whidbey Animals’ Improvement Foundation (WAIF) Coupeville, Washington Wisconsin Humane Society Milwaukee, Wisconsin Women’s Humane Society Bensalem, Pennsylvania Woods Humane Society San Luis Obispo, California Yavapai Humane Society Prescott, Arizona Yolo County Animal Services Woodland, California

Moore County, North Carolina, is located about an hour southwest of Raleigh and is known for its golf courses. Two years ago Moore County did a nationwide search for a new shelter director after problems surfaced with the old management. They hired Brenda Sears, who had a good track record as a shelter official in Asheville. (For those of you who are not familiar with the Asheville shelter, it is a tremendous No Kill success story in North Carolina.) In the two years since Sears was hired she has made progress at the Moore County shelter. According to North Carolina state statistics the save rate for cats went from 19% in 2013 to 44% in 2015 and the save rate for dogs went from 44% to 77%. Those save rates are still bad, but if the rapid upward trend continues Moore County will be at or close to No Kill within a couple of years. At a meeting last Tuesday the chairman of the board of commissioners for Moore County brought up the subject of personal attacks they and Sears have been experiencing from animal advocates who feel that progress is not being made fast enough. A recent news report described an onslaught of insults and even threats that county employees have been receiving from animal advocates. County officials are frustrated that the substantial progress they have made has not made any difference in the criticism, except possibly to make it worse. The county chairman expressed his frustration in very plain language:  “ISIS doesn’t talk about Americans the way some of these people talk about our animal control director,” he said. This is unfortunately not an unusual situation. A new director comes in and starts making progress, but criticism by advocates continues because they think change is not fast enough. The critics not infrequently wish bodily harm on the shelter director or shelter workers. In general this appears to be social media venting, but it is understandable that officials find it upsetting. What happened next, though, was unusual. The Moore County chairman asked the county manager to explore getting out of the animal sheltering business entirely. It wasn’t because they were unhappy with Sears’ work – they believe she has been doing a fine job. It was because of the criticism. As the chairman said: “If we can’t solve the problem, let’s give the problem to them. Make sure we find a place for the employees, who do a good job, other employment, and get out of the animal sheltering business and let the private sector handle it.” The county would save $800,000 per year by doing only the things that are required by state law, which (as described to the council by an expert) are rabies control and management of dangerous dogs. As for everything else, which would presumably include accepting owner surrenders and housing and rehoming unclaimed strays, as well as veterinary care and behavior rehabilitation, the chairman said: “Maybe this is something the private sector needs to do and let them take care of it. Then if they make a mistake, they can talk with themselves.” The commissioners are studying the issue and will decide this fall whether to retrench shelter operations and possibly even shut down the shelter. Moore County unfortunately appears to have every right to get out of animal sheltering and do only minimal animal control as required by state law. Animal control, defined as protecting people from dangerous or nuisance animals, has been recognized as a core function of state governments since the 1800s. States generally delegate that function to the cities and counties, and that is why communities have animal control officers who have police powers. Once animals are off the street and not threatening or annoying humans, it is not a core function of state or local governments to make sure that those animals find new homes. Some states have passed laws requiring local governments to maintain some shelter functions. In Virginia, for example, each city or county is required to maintain a shelter for confinement of dogs running at large without tags. States may have other rules, such as requiring humane methods of euthanasia, or requiring veterinary care for sick animals within a certain time frame. State legislatures can strengthen or weaken such requirements as they choose, but there is no state in the country where the law provides that animals have an inherent right to life. Every state has provisions making animal cruelty a crime, and enforcement of animal cruelty laws is often delegated to animal control officers, but anti-cruelty laws do not provide animals with a right to life. Animals are property under the law. The duties of government run to persons, not property. This is why anti-cruelty laws have often been justified not on the ground of averting harm to animals, but on the ground that people harm themselves when they engage in animal cruelty. It’s easy for a state to justify laws about traffic safety, restaurant sanitation, licensing of doctors, etc., because those laws are all designed to benefit people. It’s difficult for legislators to justify laws requiring preservation of the lives of homeless, unclaimed shelter animals, because there is no obvious benefit to the public in spending tax dollars to maintain the existence of property owned by the state that has negligible monetary value. Some No Kill proponents compare advocacy for shelter reform to social justice movements such as the historic fights for racial and gender equality. However, such comparisons are false in the eyes of the law. Social justice movements are about achieving equal treatment of various categories of human beings, who are universally recognized in our legal system as having fundamental rights of personhood. Animals, since they are not “persons,” have no fundamental rights. In order to make the analogy to civil rights movements meaningful, we would first have to change our law to recognize a legal personhood for animals. Perhaps some day in the future our legal system may make a seismic shift and confer fundamental rights on animals equivalent to the legal status of personhood. But don’t hold your breath. If fundamental rights were conferred on animals there would be no more bacon and eggs, no leather shoes, no horseback riding, no zoos, and no more testing of medical therapies on animals. Many No Kill advocates (myself included) are animal-rights supporters and vegans, and we would like nothing better than to see an amendment to the federal constitution conferring the fundamental rights of personhood on animals. But if we took a vote on it right now in the United States probably 99% of people would vote against extending fundamental rights to animals. The lesson from what has happened in Moore County is that advocacy efforts that focus solely on forcing local governments to change the way they operate public shelters can backfire. And that is because the primary duty of local governments is to protect people from animals, not to find live outcomes for unclaimed shelter animals. The fact that government’s core duty is animal control and not animal sheltering is the reason why public-private partnerships are so common in animal shelter operations. There is great synergy in having private shelters work with government animal-control operations. In those partnerships the local government operates (or funds) at least the core functions of animal control and return-to-owner. The private organizations do all the lifesaving functions that local government does not do. The very first animal shelter in the United States was founded by a women’s SPCA in Philadelphia in 1870 for the purpose of replacing a cruel city animal control system. The women took over both animal control and sheltering and were reimbursed by the city for the animal control costs. One of their first tasks was to fight and defeat the medical establishment of the city, which wanted the right to take unclaimed dogs for medical experiments. Today we see variations on the Philadelphia model (minus the fight with vivisectionists) in many of the large cities that have achieved and sustained No Kill. A private organization may contract with a county to do animal sheltering while the county does animal control, as in DeKalb County, Georgia. Or a private organization may do both animal control and sheltering and be reimbursed by the local government for part of the costs, as in Fulton County, Georgia. Another very successful public-private model is for a city-run shelter to do both animal control and sheltering, but to arrange with a large non-profit rescue partner to pull at-risk animals. This is possibly the most common model we see today in large cities that are sustaining very high rates of shelter lifesaving, such as Austin and Jacksonville. It is also the model used in the first major No Kill community, San Francisco. In this model the city agrees to go beyond its core functions and fund part of the lifesaving operation by having its own adoption facility and doing at least some veterinary care and rehabilitation. Public-private partnerships exist in small towns and rural counties as well as big cities, but the partnership is usually more informal and consists of rescues pulling at-risk animals. Quite often we see people complaining that their local public shelter is increasing its live release rate by increasing the number of animals it transfers to rescues rather than increasing its adoptions. This complaint has been made about New York City, San Antonio, and many other city shelters. The critics argue that the shelter should be doing its own adoptions rather than “dumping” animals on rescues, and that government shelters that rely on rescues for lifesaving are not doing their job. These critics fail to realize the limited scope of a local government’s duties to homeless animals. They also fail to understand that if the private sector assumes some or all of the responsibility of rehoming, that can free the local government to do a better job on its core functions of animal control and return-to-owner. There are cases where a public shelter is treating the animals in its care with negligence or cruelty. And sometimes local governments arbitrarily refuse offers of help from volunteers and rescues. Those situations usually seem to occur in rural, less progressive, low-income areas where the local government is not functioning very well at anything. Such situations do not appear to be common, but there are thousands of public shelters in the United States. If even one out of fifty of those shelters is abusive or refuses outside help, that adds up to a lot of shelters. A fast way to improve such shelters would be for the private sector to step in and take animals as soon as the hold period is up, and offer veterinary help for animals who need it during the hold period. The problem is that in resource-poor communities the private sector is typically just as impoverished and lacking in skills as the local government. Often what we see in such cases is a few volunteers who have tried to help the shelter but who do not have the resources to offer a true partnership. No Kill advocates tend to see shelter reform as a difficult struggle, and it is. But No Kill is in a much better position to make progress than other animal-rights endeavors such as the effort to improve conditions for farm animals. We are not in the position of factory-farm opponents who have to fight the power of a gigantic, wealthy, politically connected industry. There is no industry that has a financial stake in shelter animals dying rather than going to good homes. All we have to do to achieve No Kill is to reform shelters, and offers from the private sector to pay for and carry out shelter lifesaving are generally met with little resistance. We are very fortunate that the power to help shelter animals is in our own hands. We may not have the power to force local governments to do the work of shelter lifesaving, but we can do it ourselves and very often local governments will help us.

Here’s a pop quiz: In what calendar year did a community in the United States first report achieving No Kill, defined as a 90% or more live release rate maintained for the entire calendar year across all intake shelters in the jurisdiction? A – 1884 B – 1944 C – 1986 D – 1994 E – 1999 All of the years listed are landmarks for No Kill, but the correct answer is: C – 1986. In 1884 the Ellen M. Gifford Sheltering Home for Animals was founded in Boston. It was the first No Kill shelter we know of, but it did not take in all the homeless pets in Boston and so it did not create a No Kill community. It is noteworthy nonetheless for inaugurating the idea of a shelter that did not kill animals. In 1903 a shelter similar to the Gifford shelter, called Bide-A-Wee Home, was founded in New York City. In 1944 the North Shore Animal League was founded in New York. In the 1970s North Shore became the first major shelter to proudly use the term “No Kill.” Its use of the term, combined with its pioneering of adoption marketing, drew a lot of attention to No Kill. North Shore was also a limited admission shelter, though, and did not create any No Kill communities. In 1984 a group of friends who had been doing animal rescue for years settled on a large property in Utah and built a sanctuary. Today we know them as Best Friends Animal Society. Best Friends reports that they informally took over animal control and sheltering for their local jurisdictions, Kane County and the city of Kanab, in 1986, and saved well over 90% of the animals. Eventually Best Friends helped the jurisdictions set up their own animal control and sheltering system, but they have continued to take in animals that are not adopted or reclaimed in the jurisdictions. In 1994 the Adoption Pact was signed in San Francisco, guaranteeing that all healthy animals who came into the sheltering system in the community would find a home. San Francisco also saved most of the treatable animals. Although San Francisco did not reach a 90% live release rate in the 1990s, it was by far the biggest city at the time to set a goal of saving all healthy and treatable animals. Its approach to lifesaving served as an inspiration to many other communities across the United States. In 1999, the county shelter serving Otsego County, Michigan, went No Kill and reported saving over 90% of its animals. This was the first time we know of that a community-wide grassroots effort saved over 90% of animals who came into the sheltering system. There have been many other landmarks since 1999. In the year 2000 we had the first fully documented No Kill communities, as several small Colorado cities reported full statistics that showed live release rates of over 90%. In calendar year 2002, Tompkins County, New York, became the largest documented community that we know of up to that time to achieve a 90% live release rate, with an intake of over 2500 dogs and cats. A few years later Charlottesville and Reno set new records by achieving No Kill with even higher intakes. Several additional Colorado cities and counties joined the 90% group in this time period. In 2011, the first major city – Austin – became No Kill. Don’t feel bad if you did not get the right answer on the quiz. Almost no one knows about the early No Kill shelters and communities because they were founded a long time ago and few people today talk about them. They were wonderful accomplishments for their respective times, though, and without them the No Kill movement would not be what it is today.

As you may have heard, there is a new list of No Kill communities in town, maintained by an organization called Saving 90. In a quick inspection of the site I did not see a list of founders or directors of Saving 90, but this new organization appears to be linked to the No Kill Advocacy Center, since the two sites link to each other and Nathan Winograd has been promoting Saving 90. I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get other people interested in doing shelter stats for years now, so I am thrilled to see this new site. The listings do not entirely agree with my listings, and Saving 90 says there are only 9 million people living in No Kill communities compared to the 15.6 million in my list, but the general message is the same — No Kill is possible pretty much anywhere. One advantage that Saving 90 has is that Winograd has a much bigger audience than I do, so hopefully his list will reach more people. I’m also happy about the debut of the Saving 90 site because having someone else do “the list” will mean that I can spend more time on No Kill news. So here’s the plan going forward. I will leave my existing list up for now, at least until I make sure that Saving 90 is going to stick around. But instead of doing statistical analyses of existing No Kill communities, I’m going to switch my focus to day-to-day news about No Kill. This news will still include a lot of reporting on No Kill communities, but the emphasis of the blog will shift from reporting statistics to reporting on what communities are doing – new programs they are trying, new coalitions, problems and how they are addressed, what the national organizations are up to, etc. There appears to be a real need for this type of reporting, as I’ve seen based on the response to the News Bits page over the last few months. News Bits has been more popular than any other page on this blog except for my post on the coming shelter dog shortage. And e-mail subscriptions to the blog have been on a sharp upward trend since I started News Bits. So now that someone else is handling the statistics and “the list,” I’m looking forward to integrating the news into blog posts. That way it will go out directly to e-mail subscribers and be directly sharable. If you have any opinions on how you would like to see this done — daily blog posts, “news summaries” once or twice a week, or some other format, let me know, either by commenting or sending an e-mail to the blog.

In the course of research for my book on animal shelter history, I’ve been checking out how children learn their attitudes toward animals. For well over 100 years now, children’s books have included a genre where animals are presented as thinking and feeling like humans. After movies and television were invented, children started seeing these stories on the screen as well. One of the first of these stories to be widely read was the novel Black Beauty, which told the life story of a horse in the style of an autobiography. Over 2 million copies of Black Beauty were distributed back in the late 1800s by humane educators in the United States who hoped that reading the story would create empathy for animals in children. (Today, the total number of distributed copies of Black Beauty is over 50 million.) Since 1900 there has been a steady stream of kindred stories, including Rin Tin Tin, the Terhune collies, Lassie, Old Yeller, various Disney characters, Stuart Little the mouse, and Charlotte the spider. Many people criticize these stories as anthropomorphizing animals — attributing human characteristics to them that they don’t have. Is this a fair criticism? Have generations of parents been leading their children astray by encouraging them to read and watch stories about animals who think and talk like people? Scientists point out that we do not know if any domestic animal has a “theory of mind” – an ability to recognize that others besides itself have minds like its own. One could argue in rebuttal that theory of mind is not needed to form emotional attachments, and that animals, including people, form social attachments based on emotion, not on reason. Even if your dog were to think of you as a giant robot, it would still love you. And I doubt if dogs and cats go beyond the feeling of love to examine the mental nature of the people in their lives. I doubt if, when they are looking inscrutable, they are wondering if you have a mind like theirs. Several people I’ve interviewed who were involved with animal sheltering back in the 1970s and 1980s noticed a change in the attitude of the public toward their pets during that time. People became more reluctant to bring their pets to a shelter. At the same time, shelter intake began to drop sharply. There may have been several reasons why people changed their attitudes about pets, but one factor could have been children’s stories and movies that created a sense of empathy with animals. The generation that matured in the 1970s was exposed to more “anthropomorphic” stories, in more types of media, than any generation before it. Stuart Little was published in 1945, Charlotte’s Web in 1952, and Old Yeller in 1956. Some of the most popular Disney movies about animals were from that period as well, including Bambi (1942), Lady and the Tramp (1955), the movie version of Old Yeller (1957), and 101 Dalmatians (1961). There were seven Lassie movies between 1943 and 1951, and the Lassie television series started in 1954. So do anthropomorphic stories and movies help children learn to be kind? We don’t know for sure, but it’s very possible. And since children (and adults) love such stories, hopefully the tradition will continue. It may be a very good thing for shelter animals if it does.

Cedaredge (population 2300) and Orchard City (3100) are located in Delta County in western Colorado. Development in the county has been primarily along two river valleys, following the Surface Creek and North Fork rivers. Much of the rest of the county outside the river valleys is mountainous and very sparsely inhabited. Cedaredge and Orchard City are in the Surface Creek valley, which is served by the Surface Creek Shelter (SCS), located in Cedaredge. Cedaredge has its own animal control, which takes in dogs only. SCS is managed by a non-profit, the Friends of Cedaredge Animal Control (FCAC). I was told by a shelter official that FCAC has a memorandum of understanding to impound the dogs picked up by Cedaredge animal control. In addition to Cedaredge dogs, SCS takes in non-feral stray cats, stray dogs, and owner-surrendered dogs and cats from the residents of Surface Creek valley, including Orchard City. SCS charges a small fee for owner surrenders and usually has a waiting list, but they make exceptions to the waiting list when needed. There are rescues in the county who do TNR for feral cats. Statistics submitted to the Colorado Department of Agriculture by FCAC for 2012 show that SCS’s intake, including strays and owner surrenders, was 313 cats and dogs. The live release rate was 95% (94% if animals who died or were lost in shelter care were counted in with euthanasias). In 2013, FCAC reported an intake of 314 animals and a live release rate of 99%. The live release rate was 97% if animals who died or were lost in shelter care are included with euthanasias. The North Fork area of Delta County has also been doing very well at animal sheltering, but their animal shelter system has been unstable. Therefore I’m not listing those communities at this time. Cedaredge was originally listed by this blog on November 16, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

We all want the United States to get to No Kill as fast as possible, but institutions take time to change. Given the inherent lag time that seems to be built into every human endeavor, are we making No Kill change happen as fast as we can? I think there’s a good argument that the answer to that question is “yes.” No Kill has two aspects, operational and philosophical. The operational aspect of No Kill was primarily developed from 1976 to 1989 by Richard Avanzino at the San Francisco SPCA. The philosophical aspect was developed by Ed Duvin in the late 1980s. The 1990s were a time of further innovation in No Kill, growth of a movement, and tremendous progress in reducing shelter intake through sterilization programs. By the year 2000 all systems were go for No Kill. Municipal shelters in several small, progressive communities reported live release rates of 90% or more in 2000, including Otsego County in Michigan and several towns in Colorado. The success of these small communities was important for the morale of No Kill advocates, but it was still unknown whether No Kill could work outside of the context of small communities with lots of resources. There were a number of big cities where No Kill efforts started in the years just before and after the millennium, including Austin and Richmond in 1997, Jacksonville in 2001, and New York City and Atlanta in 2002. The timeline for No Kill success in large cities proved to be very different from the quick success in the progressive small communities. In Austin it took 14 years to get to No Kill, and in Jacksonville it was 12 years. Richmond was No Kill on and off throughout the 2000s, and New York City and Atlanta are very close today but not quite there yet. Why did it take so much longer to get to No Kill in big cities? Large cities are always a heterogeneous mix, meaning that the shelter population will include more animals who need intensive help. In some wealthy small communities in Colorado, for example, upwards of 90% of stray dogs are reclaimed, whereas that percentage might be more like 30% in a heterogeneous big city. A typical big-city shelter might get 50% of intake needing medical care or rehabilitation, while the wealthy, progressive small town can turn around 80% of its intake immediately. Today we know that a highly successful model for No Kill in a big city is to have one or more large, private non-profit organizations in the city dedicated to taking at-risk animals from the city shelter. Non-profits can raise money more easily than a municipal shelter for medical and behavioral cases. They are not bound by union and social media rules that can hamper the efficiency of a city shelter. And having a partner can help the city shelter cope with massive influxes of animals in times of natural disaster, Recognition of the synergy of the public-private partnership has greatly sped up the timeframe for No Kill transitions in big cities. San Antonio, a city in the deep south with high shelter intake and a large stray population, is one example. San Antonio’s city government adopted a plan in 2011 that included the city recruiting and subsidizing high-volume rescue partners. The results have been stunning, and San Antonio has recently been running at nearly a 90% save rate for its shelter animals. No Kill transitions in other cities that do not have the level of challenges that San Antonio faced should happen even faster if the public-private model is embraced from the beginning. Today, of the twenty largest United States cities, ten have either achieved No Kill or are getting close. Several of the remaining ten have No Kill efforts underway. We are on track to have the great majority of our large cities either at No Kill or with a serious effort underway by 2020. This is excellent progress considering that No Kill did not really become feasible in most communities until around the year 2000. A twenty year period is not bad at all for reform of an institution that was as neglected and backward as the twentieth-century animal shelter. We can always do better, but we are running toward No Kill at a pretty good pace.

The villagers were living in conditions that made their existence seem almost as though they were on a different planet from the developed world. And as hard as life was for the villagers, the lives of their animals were even harder. Lara describes the suffering of the animals as “profound.” It was this experience that made her decide that she wanted her career to be improving the lives of animals. When Lara returned to the United States she settled in her home town of Middleburg, Florida, near Jacksonville, and began working with the Safe Animal Shelter (SAS). SAS was a private, limited admission No Kill organization. Lara started out as a volunteer and then joined the staff, working her way up from kennel tech to vet tech to assistant manager to director. She worked at SAS from 2005 to 2011. The last year she was at SAS she purchased a truck to allow her to transport animals from the county shelter to the SAS facility. She made regular trips to the county shelter and had to select animals to save from the ones they were going to kill. It was devastating to look at the ones she could not take, and she thought about them all the way home. It was this experience that made her decide that if she was going to help animals in a more meaningful way she would have to work in an open-admission shelter. When a director’s position became available at the open-admission county shelter in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, she applied for and won the job. The shelter, called Southern Pines, took in some 5,000 animals per year. Lara ran Southern Pines for two years, and during that time she and her team worked to bring up the number of animals that left alive. Lara was not focused on statistics at that time but she believes the shelter was killing about 2/3 of its animals when she started. When she left the save rate was in the range of 80% to 90%. Lara and her team did not follow any particular program to achieve those gains – instead, they brainstormed together to solve the problems that were in front of them in the county. Their success was so great that Lara decided she wanted to travel around the country, working at failing shelters for a couple of years and turning them around, then moving on. It was at that time, early in 2013, that Lara saw a mysterious ad on a website listing shelter jobs. The ad said that a large open-admission shelter in the southeast needed good leadership after years of unsuccessful leadership. The job sounded like just the thing for Lara, and she applied. It turned out that the ad had been posted by Rebecca Guinn of LifeLine Animal Project in Atlanta, which had just won the contracts to operate the two county shelters that serve the city of Atlanta. Rebecca’s mission was to make the city No Kill, and she was on a very tight deadline to get two large management teams up and running by the rapidly approaching takeover dates. Lara’s first thought was to stop the bleeding by making changes that they could implement quickly for maximum impact. The first thing she did was to start reaching out to rescues. There is no large organization in Atlanta that pulls lots of at-risk animals from the shelter, as Austin has with Austin Pets Alive!, Jacksonville has with the Jacksonville Humane Society, and Richmond has with the Richmond SPCA. There is the Atlanta Humane Society, but it does not take significant numbers of animals from the county shelters and does not take the behavior and medical cases that need the most help. So Lara hired two full-time rescue coordinators to make sure that any rescue that did want to pull from the shelter had all the information they needed and would receive complete cooperation. To minimize length of stay Lara adopted a first-come, first-served policy for strays. A person who wants to adopt an animal on stray hold, or a rescue that wants to pull a particular animal, can tag the animal as soon as it comes in the door. If the animal is not reclaimed by the owner it goes to that adopter or rescue as soon as the stray hold expires. Individuals who go through the adoption process for an animal on stray hold are advised that an owner might show up, and if so their money will be refunded, but this policy prevents the problem of highly desirable animals having many people signed up to adopt them and then being disappointed if they are not the one chosen. It also gives rescues the same chance to get an animal as anyone else, which makes the rescues more willing to work with the shelter. In addition to making the shelter as user-friendly for rescues as possible, Lara quickly instituted changes to make the shelter as inviting as possible for adopters. A large “STOP” sign that was in the lobby got pitched out. The tiny, thick plastic grill that separated visitors from the front desk was taken out, and a big, open window installed. Lara’s idea of customer service is to establish a relationship of trust with each person who walks in the door. She wants them to feel that if they adopt an animal, they can always turn to shelter staff for help and they will not be judged or criticized. The staff member who greets a visitor gives his or her full attention to the visitor, and does not make the visitor wait while answering the phone or doing other tasks. Another policy change that Lara made was to stop having Animal Control pick up healthy outdoor cats. Soon after taking over at the Fulton County shelter she examined the applicable laws and ordinances and found that there was no requirement for the county to impound free-roaming cats. Nor was there any requirement to impound wild animals like raccoons, possums, and foxes as the previous shelter operator had been doing. In fact, when she consulted with the authorities she found that the previous operator had been violating the law by impounding wild animals since the shelter was not licensed to do so. When people call the shelter asking to have cats picked up, the dispatcher tells them that the shelter will be happy to take in healthy cats over the counter. Animal Control will pick up sick or injured cats. Healthy cats who were found outdoors, with no known owner, are sterilized, vaccinated, and ear-tipped at no cost and then returned to their location (a three-day hold period applies to non-feral strays). The dispatcher explains to callers that if outdoor cats are taken to the shelter and killed, more cats are likely to show up and take their place. Most people are interested in the new way of handling cats and accepting of it. If a caller says that they just want the cats gone, however, LifeLine can send someone out to assess the situation and speak with the person in more detail to come up with a solution. The shelter euthanizes cats only for medical reasons. Both of the LifeLine county shelters – Fulton and DeKalb – are running at about an 85% live release rate right now. Lara told me that the biggest remaining problem area they have in saving the last 5% of savable animals is dogs with behavior problems. The Fulton County shelter is so small that dogs have to be housed with more than one to a run. This puts extra stress on the dogs. A dog that has been traumatized in some way might be fine if it went into a facility where it could have a quiet space of its own to decompress, but it might show fear or aggression under the circumstances of the Fulton County shelter. The shelter has a full-time foster coordinator and about 150 to 200 active foster caregivers, but that is not enough for all the dogs who need help. Shelter staff networks for these dogs as hard as they can with rescues, but these are the dogs who are killed if no rescue can be found. Now that Lara has her team in place and has raised the live release rate from 35% to 85%, she is turning her attention to this last group of animals. It won’t be easy, because the county does not provide resources to cover costs for these dogs. That means LifeLine will have to fundraise for the expensive process of getting these dogs the training they need and the quiet housing they will require while they are being rehabilitated. Lara will have been at the Fulton County shelter three years by next spring, and she has given up her idea of moving every two years to take over a failing shelter and turn it around. The challenges in Atlanta are so large, and the importance of No Kill in the city is so great, that she wants to stay there to continue the work. The work of the LifeLine team in getting Atlanta to the edge of No Kill in spite of very tough circumstances, with relatively little outside help, and in less than three years, has been one of the most inspiring stories I’ve seen in No Kill. I hope LifeLine is able to get the support it needs going forward, because Atlanta will certainly be one of the crown jewels of No Kill.

Delta County is located in Michigan’s upper peninsula and has over 37,000 residents. The county seat is the city of Escanaba, with 13,000 residents. The county is also home to the city of Gladstone, with 5,000 residents. Delta County used to have a county-run animal shelter, but budget cuts forced the facility’s closure in August of 2011. A group of residents then incorporated as the Delta Animal Shelter (DAS), a non-profit, and the county leased the shelter building to the new organization. The shelter “accepts all animals, regardless of age, health conditions, or situation.” DAS management quickly realized that the existing shelter building was too small (2000 square feet) and outdated for their needs, and that the building had a mold problem. After trying to work through the options for staying in the building they decided to relocate the shelter, which would give them a chance to find a more adoption-friendly venue. They completed the purchase of a 9-acre plot and construction is underway. Shelter manager Sue Gartland, in an interview with the local Daily Press, described some of the changes that DAS made after taking over: “We now vaccinate. We spay and neuter all the animals. We started micro-chipping all the animals. We test the animals for heartworm . . . .” Gartland told me in a telephone conversation that animal control is provided by law enforcement agents in the county. DAS is the only shelter in the county and receives strays from every jurisdiction in the county, including Escanaba and Gladstone. The shelter accepts owner surrenders from residents, with no conditions. They have a barn cat program for feral cats. In 2013, the shelter reported to the state of Michigan that it took in 1135 animals (scroll down to Delta Animal Shelter in the link). The shelter had a 96% live release rate, and adopted out zero unsterilized animals. In 2012, the first full year that DAS ran the shelter, the live release rate was 92% with an intake of 1121 animals. That was up from a 69% live release rate in 2010, the last full year that the county ran the shelter. Delta County, MI, was originally listed by this blog on August 12, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Marquette County is located in the upper peninsula of Michigan and has about 67,000 residents. The city of Marquette, with about 21,000 people, is the county seat. The Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter (UPAWS) is a private non-profit organization located in Marquette County. I was told in an e-mail from a shelter representative that UPAWS provides animal sheltering for the entire county except for the town of Negaunee, which has a veterinary clinic that takes in strays. I was also told that UPAWS takes in owner surrenders. They encourage appointments for surrenders and ask for a small fee, but do not require either an appointment or a fee. UPAWS reports to the Michigan Department of Agriculture shelter statistics database (scroll down in the link). In calendar year 2013 it had an intake of 1545 animals. The live release rate was 97%. The state does not collect information on owner-requested euthanasia. With animals who died or were lost in shelter care included with euthanasias, the live release rate was 96%. The 2013-2014 Annual Report shows a 97% live release rate for the fiscal year. In 2011, UPAWS reported a 97% live release rate under its former name of Marquette County Humane Society. The 2011-2012 Annual Report posted on the UPAWS website recorded an intake of 1936, with 79% adopted, 16% returned to owner, 1% transferred, and 4% euthanized. The euthanasia statistic includes owner-requested euthanasias. The 2012-2013 Annual Report recorded a 98% live release rate. Marquette County, MI, was originally listed by this blog on April 20, 2013, based on its 2011 and 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

The Colorado Department of Agriculture collects detailed statistics* for shelters in the state that impound animals. Based on those statistics, in recent weeks I’ve been listing the many cities and counties in Colorado that report saving 90% or more of their shelter animals. In addition to the statistics for individual shelters, the state also provides shelter statistics for the state as a whole, and in this post I take a look at those statistics. There is some inspiring news, along with a couple of surprises. The consolidated live release rate for all of the shelters reporting to the state in 2012 was 85.5%.** The consolidated 2012 live release rate for dogs was 90%. Thus, based on the reported figures, the entire state of Colorado met the live release rate benchmark for dogs in 2012. The rate for cats was 79%, which is much higher than average. What accounts for Colorado’s 85.5% live release rate? The return-to-owner (RTO) rate is certainly part of it. There were 40,948 stray dogs impounded, with 24,245 returned to their owners, giving the state a consolidated 59% RTO rate for dogs. The rate is 49% if all dogs in the confiscated/protective custody and incoming “other” categories are added to the figure for strays. As good as that RTO rate for dogs is, one large shelter in Colorado has shown that RTO rates for dogs can go even higher. The Humane Society of Boulder Valley reported a 90% RTO rate for dogs in 2012 based on its stray dog intake, and a 79% RTO rate for dogs based on all dog intake other than owner surrenders and transfers. As to cats, the state’s reporting form directs that feral cat live releases be recorded as RTO. Of the 29,492 stray cats taken in by Colorado shelters in 2012, 6345 were recorded as RTO, for an impressive 22% RTO rate for cats. This figure would presumably be somewhat lower if feral cats were not counted. Adoptions are also a big part of Colorado’s success. Colorado shelters adopted out 64% of the animals impounded in 2012 who were not returned to their owners. Although Colorado is doing very well at getting animals out of the shelter alive, it is not doing so well at keeping them out of the shelter in the first place. Colorado shelters reported a total intake of 159,183 dogs and cats in 2012 — 94,361 dogs and 64,822 cats. The 2012 estimate for the state’s population is 5.2 million people, so the rate of intake for dogs and cats in 2012 was 31 animals per 1000 people. This is either average or well above average, depending on what estimate you use, but it is certainly not a low intake. Colorado is a destination state for transports, but even if you subtract out-of-state incoming transfers from the intake numbers, the intake per 1000 people was 28. The fact that Colorado communities are able to maintain such high live release rates in the face of high intake makes their achievement even more impressive. The statistics showing that Colorado’s success is more on the placement side than the intake side correlate with what I found in researching shelters in the state. The shelter managers and workers I interviewed for the blog impressed me as people who were working very hard to get animals out of the shelter alive. You can see it in the shelter websites, Facebook pages, and newsletters, where they talk about their programs and initiatives. Now for the bad news — there are several cities in Colorado that still have grandfathered breed-specific bans. Two cities that have bans — Louisville and Lone Tree — are served by shelters with 90%+ live release rates, but I don’t list them as 90%+ communities because of the bans. Denver, which is close to a 90% live release rate, also has a ban. NOTES: *I’ve not come across any public shelters that have failed to report to the state, but there could be some out there. Therefore, I cannot guarantee that the state statistics account for every animal that was impounded in Colorado in 2012. **Notes about the data: There were 125,298 live releases for dogs and cats in the state in 2012 (82,605 adoptions, 30,590 returns-to-owner, and 12,103 transfers), and 21,298 euthanasias. The 85.5% live release rate may be slightly overstated because of double counting of the outgoing in-state transfers (the animal shelter reporting requirement includes some of the larger rescues along with the public shelters, and some shelters help out other shelters when needed), but even if we assume that all 12, 041 of the in-state transfers were transferred to other reporting organizations, it drops the live release rate by only about 1.5%. There were 1223 dogs and cats who died in shelter care, and if they are counted in with euthanasias the live release rate drops by about 1 percentage point. There is no separate category for owner-requested euthanasia, and the state suggests recording those euthanasias as “Other” in both the incoming and outgoing categories. Some shelters include fosters in the outgoing “Other” category. The fact that both live and euthanized animals may be recorded in the outgoing “Other” category is an unfortunate flaw in the reporting system, but it does not affect the standard calculation of the live release rate.

Prescott City (population 40,000) is the county seat of Yavapai County, located in the center of Arizona north of Phoenix. A town called Prescott Valley (population 39,000) lies northeast of Prescott city. The two cities, along with Chino Valley and Dewey-Humboldt, are part of an area known as the Quad Cities. The shelter states that its population served is 115,000. The Yavapai Humane Society (YHS) is a private, non-profit organization that provides animal shelter services for Prescott City and Prescott Valley and part of Yavapai County.  YHS takes in owner surrenders but it frequently has a waiting list, and does not note any exceptions on its website. The shelter has a “Safety Net” program for people who are having difficulty caring for their pets, barn cat and TNR programs, a fund for extraordinary medical expenses, and it networks for hard-to-place animals. In 2012, YHS added a cat medical facility, a digital x-ray machine, and an enrichment program. The shelter logged over 36,000 volunteer hours. YHS does not release its full numerical statistics, and instead releases reports of percentages. They reported a 90% live release rate for 2011, which was their first year at 90% or above. Their live release rate increased to 95% for 2012. Their annual report for 2012 stated that their intake for the year was 3500 dogs and cats, with 6% of cats and 5% of dogs being euthanized. For 2013, YHS reports that their live release rate increased to 97%. The shelter euthanized 104 dogs and cats in 2013, compared to 1570 in 2009, the last full year before their program to increase save rates began. Prescott City and Prescott Valley are counted in the Running Totals as 90%+ communities.