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.

This post looks at how No Kill did in the central part of the United States in 2015. We can break the area down into four regions: Upper Midwest – Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota Lower Midwest – Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa Western Midwest – North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas South Central – Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana The Upper Midwest, consisting of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, has been doing very well at No Kill. All three of these states are destination states for dog transports. We have numerous No Kill communities in this region, many of them with very high save rates. No Kill success seems to correlate with cold temperatures, and we certainly have that in these states. In Minnesota we have Duluth and St. Paul as stand-outs. In Wisconsin, the communities of Brown County, Brookfield, and Dane County are noteworthy. Michigan has over a dozen public shelters serving over 20 communities that have a 90% or better live release rate. Michigan is also one of the small number of states that has a requirement that shelters report their statistics to the state. The state has all the statistics posted online, going back several years. There seems to be a correlation between states collecting shelter statistics and posting them online and how well the states rank at lifesaving. It may be that when shelters know they have to report and that anyone can read their reports at the click of a mouse, they do better. Detroit remains a problem, though. The Lower Midwest states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa have historically had high kill rates, but we are seeing signs of progress. Kansas City Pet Project (KCPP) in Kansas City, Missouri, is proof that communities in this region can do a very good job of saving shelter pets. KCPP is a good example of an increasingly common trend, which is ordinary citizens forming a non-profit to bid on and take over animal control and sheltering. Terre Haute (Indiana), and Ames (Iowa), are additional bright spots in this region. No Kill efforts in Chicago have been ongoing for a long time and the city shelter has been making slow progress. Their main problem at the present time seems to be a high kill rate for pit-bull-type dogs. Ohio has an interesting scheme that could potentially be turned to good advantage for No Kill. State law provides that each county must have an appointed dog warden, who is responsible for dog licensing and control. The potential for this system is that in Ohio we know who is responsible for dog control, so efforts to make each dog warden’s operation No Kill would be easy to coordinate and standardize. The historical distinction in Ohio between dog sheltering and cat sheltering should also make it easier to set up return-to-field programs for community cats. The western area of the Midwest, consisting of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, is kind of a black hole for No Kill, in the sense that we just do not have much data on these states. I would expect the Dakotas to have relatively small stray populations due to their brutal weather. The region is sparsely populated, with all four states together having a human population of only about 6.5 million. The South Central region of the United States, consisting of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, is a very mixed bag. There is little data available on Oklahoma. In Arkansas, the progressive city of Fayetteville would seem to be a likely venue for No Kill, but the city shelter is not a model. A quick check of their Facebook page showed that they were closed on the MLK holiday, for example. Baton Rouge in Louisiana has been working on No Kill for several years, but is running at only about a 65% save rate. Texas is where the No Kill action is in the South Central region, but Texas, of all the states in the union, probably has the highest highs and the lowest lows. Austin, the progressive capital of the state, has had high save rates for five years now. Austin has a cooperative model for No Kill that is often cited as an example for other cities. Just north of Austin is Williamson County, which has also been No Kill for five years. San Antonio, about an hour’s drive southwest of Austin, has struggled up into the 80% range. Waco has made an impressive turnaround. But the dark side of things in Texas is very dark. There are consistent reports of high numbers of stray dogs in Houston and Dallas. Shelter intake numbers in Houston are mind-boggling, and the Dallas shelter is under intense pressure to make sweeps to take in (and kill) more stray dogs. As far as I can tell, no national organization has rallied to help the Dallas shelter in this crisis by transporting dogs out of the state. In most parts of the United States spay-neuter efforts that started back in the 1970s have resulted in the vast majority of owned pets being sterilized today. Houston and Dallas apparently never got that memo. They need intervention, and they need it badly. Conclusion The Upper Midwest gets a solid B. Without Detroit it would be a B+. The Lower Midwest gets a C. If there were more information about the Lower Midwest it might get a C+. There is not enough information available about the Western Midwest to even guess at a grade. The South Central region gets a D. The few bright spots in Texas, bright as they are, do not outweigh the serious problems in the rest of the region. If it were not for Austin, Williamson County, and San Antonio the South Central region would get an F.

Rifle is a small town of about 9000 people in Garfield County, Colorado. The Rifle Animal Shelter, which is assisted by the non-profit Friends of the Rifle Animal Shelter, takes in several hundred animals per year. I spoke to a shelter representative who told me that the shelter has contracts with the cities of Rifle and Parachute to take in strays, and accepts owner surrenders with no restrictions except a small fee. The shelter and the Friends reported a combined 98% live release rate in 2010 and again in 2011 (scroll down in the linked documents). The shelter and Friends reported no owner-requested euthanasia in either year, and the live release rate was not significantly lower with animals who died or were lost in shelter care included in with euthanasias. The Rifle Animal Shelter also reports its statistics to the state of Colorado. In 2012, the shelter took in 769 animals and had a live release rate of 99%. For 2013, Rifle reported to the state of Colorado that it had an intake of 1200 animals. Of those, 926 were adopted out. The live release rate was 99.4%. If animals who died in shelter care are counted with euthanasias, the live release rate was 97%. Rifle is one of a group of communities in the area west of Denver that report to Maddie’s Fund and the Asilomar Accords as part of the Northwestern Colorado Coalition. Other members of the coalition are Summit, Garfield, Pitkin, and Eagle counties and the cities of Aspen and Glenwood Springs. The coalition reported an overall 97% live release rate in 2010 and 98% in 2011 (see pages 1-2 in the links). Rifle, CO, was originally listed by this blog on May 6, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

I’d like to say thanks to everyone who commented and sent me e-mails about the blog’s listing criteria going forward. The suggestions were really great and have helped me a lot in making a decision. I’ve decided to go with the idea of asking the non-transparent shelters to provide their statistics to me as an official statement which can be uploaded to the blog. The way I’m going to implement this is to move all communities that do not have their statistics publicly accessible to a separate, temporary page on the blog that I will call “Other 90%+.” Then I will send an e-mail, with a copy of the Basic Matrix attached, to the shelter directors for each of the “Other 90%+” communities and ask that the matrix (or a similar form) be filled out and returned to me within 30 days, along with a statement from the director that the form represents the shelter’s statistics for the year 2013 and that I have permission to post it or link to it on the blog. In the meantime I will reduce the running totals to reflect the smaller number of communities in the right sidebar. There will be quite a drop in the totals, but hopefully it will be only temporary. Communities that do not respond to the inquiry within 30 days will be moved to the Worth Watching page or dropped. In order to keep the requirements for listing uniform across the board, I’m going to require that shelters either list publicly, or send to me for posting, statistics that include at least intake, adoptions, returns-to-owner, transfers, and euthanasias. If I have any question whether transfers are to other 90%+ organizations I will check that with the shelters. If a shelter operates as part of a coalition and coalition statistics are provided, the statistics must be corrected for intra-coalition transfers. This will take some time to implement, so the blog will be a mess for the next few weeks. Thanks in advance for your patience. Even if we come out of this with a much smaller number of communities, I think it will be worth it because we will have much more uniform information about the communities that are listed. For whatever reasons, most shelter directors do not make statistics a priority. That will never change unless we start supporting the idea that transparency is important.

Downriver Central Animal Control (DCAC, formerly the Southgate Animal Shelter) is a cooperative animal control and sheltering organization in southern Michigan near Detroit. It serves the cities of Wyandotte (population 26,000), Southgate (30,000), Allen Park (28,000), and Lincoln Park  (38,000). The DCAC adoption facility is in Wyandotte. In 2013, DCAC reported an 88% live release rate, with intake of 1451 animals. Of the live releases, 716 were transfers, presumably to Wyandotte. Wyandotte reported an intake of 782 cats and dogs in 2013, and their live release rate was 99.6% (scroll down to “city of Wyandotte” in the link). There is probably not a perfect overlap in statistical reporting for 2013, since Wyandotte operated its own animal control and shelter before the collaborative effort began in April 2013. The Wyandotte shelter gets help from P.A.W.S. of Michigan, which coordinates volunteers who help with adoption and care of animals. The volunteers also offer pet retention counseling. An organization called Pound Pals does temperament evaluations and helps fund medical care. The shelter has a Facebook page and Petfinder profiles that provide a photo, history, and evaluation of each pet. A private group called Shelter to Home opened a pet adoption center in Wyandotte in 2012 with the mission of featuring at-risk animals from the Detroit area. Shelter to Home was formed in 2007, and has a record of placing an average of 400 cats and kittens per year. The organization adopts out dogs but its primary emphasis is on cats. Wyandotte, Southgate, Allen Park, and Lincoln Park are counted in the Running Totals as 80%+ communities.

Several public shelters reported progress on live releases this week. The Southern Pines Animal Shelter in Mississippi takes in almost 5000 animals per year and provides animal sheltering for a county of 75,000 people as well as for surrounding counties. They had a live release rate of over 75% for 2014, but in the last 5 months they have been over 90% each month. Shelter manager Ginny Sims attributes the improvement to new programs, fosters, volunteers, and new partnerships. Sacramento’s city shelter, the Front Street Animal Shelter, has made great strides since director Gina Knepp took over in 2011. Now comes word that the Sacramento County shelter has also improved by using adoption specials. Director David Dickenson says the live release rate at the county shelter so far this year is 75%. The Los Angeles Animal Shelter reports a 73% save rate currently, with 85% for dogs and 57% for cats. Best Friends, through its No Kill Los Angeles initiative, is trying to reduce the kill rate for cats with a neonatal kitten program and support for TNR and return-to-field. The City of Calistoga, California, has decided to grant a contract to the Petaluma Animal Services Foundation (PASF) for animal control and sheltering. This article about the process describes how a social media campaign helped to persuade city officials to select PASF over a rival bidder based on PASF’s history of higher live release rates, even though the PASF bid will cost the city slightly more. In transport news, shelter dogs are being flown as carry-on passengers on commercial flights from the Big Island of Hawaii to the Portland, Oregon, area. About 60 dogs have been placed through this program so far. Brent Toellner has two blog posts on length of stay – the importance of managing it, and how to decrease it. And Peter Wolf’s Vox Felina blog is celebrating its five-year anniversary. The fourth in the Maddie’s Fund series of free webcasts on the five initiatives of the Million Cat Challenge is set for Tuesday, April 28, at 9 PM EST. The presenters are Ollie Davidson, program director at the Tree House Animal Shelter in Chicago, and Kathleen Olson, director of a Washington state shelter with intake of over 12,000 animals per year. Both shelters improved the shelter environment and saved more animals after instituting capacity for care programs. Register here. New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer is criticizing NYC Animal Care & Control. The AC&C has a five-year contract with the city. The Humane Society of Silicon Valley won the Shorty Award in the Best Social Good category for its “Eddie the Terrible” marketing campaign. PetSmart Charities has an interactive page showing its impact by state. The Center for Shelter Dogs has many webinars covering a variety of topics. The Humane Society of Utah has a cat room with remote-controlled toys that people can operate online through the iPet Companion website. In addition to amusing the cats, the shelter hopes that the promotion will call attention to available cats and help change the perception of the shelter as a sad place.

Nevada County is located in northern California, and it shares a border with the state of Nevada. The county has almost 100,000 human residents. On July 1, 2010, a non-profit called Sammie’s Friends took over management of the Nevada County Animal Shelter from the county sheriff’s office. Animal control is still done by the sheriff’s office. In addition to the strays picked up by animal control, the shelter accepts stray animals from the public. It also accepts owner surrenders “when possible” and with a small fee. Shelter director Cheryl Wicks wrote an article for the spring 2012 newsletter in which she takes us through a day in the life of the shelter. As she says: “Running the shelter is a little like driving an ambulance, you must go fast and pay attention to detail because somebody’s life may depend on it. You must be ready to turn on a dime at any moment because amongst the everyday work there are endless surprises.” Curt Romander, a co-founder of Sammie’s Friends, told me: “We have a large budget dedicated to medical care of sick or injured animals that come into the shelter. This budget is funded by donations from the community and grants. We are also funded by proceeds from our thrift store which has been very successful.” The spring 2014 newsletter describes how Sammie’s Friends funded veterinary care for the shelter and for animals in the community for years before taking over the shelter. Romander sent me full statistics for the shelter for 2013, and they are linked here: Nevada County CA 2013 Statistics. He notes that the shelter has “maintained a euthanasia rate below 1% for the past 4 years.” My calculation of the live release rate for 2013 was 99.4%. The modified live release rate, with deaths in foster care, at the veterinarian, and at the shelter counted with euthanasias, is 96%. The shelter places most of its animals by adoption, with 1147 animals (71% of its 2013 intake of 1626 animals) having been adopted. This is an adoption rate of 12 per thousand people. The spring 2013 newsletter describes one challenging case — a bonded pair of large, nine-year-old dogs who were aggressive toward cats. The shelter placed the dogs with a foster who trained them to leave cats alone, and ultimately adopted both of them. Nevada County, CA, was originally listed by this blog on April 30, 2013, based on its 2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2013 statistics.

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on August 29, 2005. The epic destruction that followed resulted in a revamping of US disaster preparedness, including big changes in how pets are treated by disaster relief agencies. In this article, Becky Robinson, the head of Alley Cat Allies, looks back at the changes in cat protection protocols in the decade since Katrina. Update on the Irvine Animal Care Center in California: The Irvine shelter had a great reputation until last year, when charges surfaced that the shelter had deviated from its No Kill mission. Two managers have since resigned. A report on the shelter made by a veterinarian who trained at the UC Davis shelter medicine program is now in, and it recommends team decisions on euthanasia and changes to dog behavior evaluations. Further reports on other aspects of the shelter’s performance will be forthcoming. This article has a look at the dismal state of things in several Louisiana and Arkansas shelters. The article highlights the fact that animal sheltering is still today, as it always has been in the United States, a system of haves and have-nots. It would be interesting to know how the cities featured in the article compare to more successful communities on metrics such as shelter funding, intake per thousand people, household income, education level, spay-neuter rates of owned pets, number of cats who have received TNR, etc. The Million Cat Challenge booth at HSUS Expo this past week was very popular, and the Challenge signed up a lot of new members. A new textbook – Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff – will be released in June. One of the most controversial issues in No Kill sheltering right now is how to evaluate temperament in shelter animals, so this book fills a need. It is authored by three experts with the ASPCA. The book is mentioned in this report on the National Council on Pet Population’s second research symposium last year. Researchers in North Carolina and Connecticut have devised a program to track outdoor cats. Science on outdoor cats is fraught with controversy over the extent to which domestic cats affect wildlife. The early results from the Cat Tracker study suggest that the answer could turn out to be – not much. The study has data on 100 cats so far, and the results are that most cats “stay close to home.” Many times when cats do wander they are visiting another home nearby rather than massacring wildlife. Robin Starr, the CEO of the Richmond SPCA, spoke out strongly this past week on the occasion of the Virginia governor signing a bill redefining “private animal shelter” to clarify that the purpose of shelters is to adopt animals out to new homes. Speaking of the extraordinarily high kill rate at PETA’s “shelter,” Starr said that PETA’s argument that most of the animals it receives are old, sick, or injured is no excuse, since the Richmond SPCA receives such animals too, and it treats and rehabilitates them and finds them homes. In transport news, the ASPCA has a program called the Nancy Silverman Rescue Ride which will transport 9000 cats and dogs from the southeast to the northeast over the next three years. The inaugural trip was in January, moving 11 dogs from South Carolina to Washington, DC. Huntsville, Alabama, had a successful adoption event last Thursday as part of the North Shore Tour for Life event. Local No Kill activists have been urging the shelter to hold low-cost adoption events for years, so this is a step in the right direction. The shelter had only a 74% save rate last year, however, so it has a long way to go. A free mobile training program in Jacksonville by Pit Sisters offers basic manners classes for dogs living in zip codes identified as having the highest numbers of owner surrenders. This blog post by Animal Farm Foundation, which awarded a grant for the program, has an interview with the founder of Pit Sisters. Progress is reported at the Rowan County Animal Shelter. Rowan County is in a rural area northeast of Charlotte, North Carolina. It has about 138,000 residents and the shelter has a high intake. Transports are part of the shelter’s improvement. Stealing of pet dogs for food has become a big problem in Vietnam, and owners are fighting back. This NBC News article describes a growing phenomenon of people in villages targeted by dog thieves banding together to fight them. In one case in 2012, it ended with 10 villagers being convicted of the murder of two dog thieves who were caught in the act. Since then at least 20 more dog thieves have been killed by people defending their dogs. The villagers argue that they have been forced to defend their dogs because the police do not take dog stealing seriously. Scholarships for students who foster and help adopt out pets for a No Kill shelter – what could be better?

Macomb County, which has a population of about 850,000 people, is immediately northeast of Detroit and is part of the Detroit metro area. In January 2013 Macomb County appointed Jeff Randazzo as manager of the county animal shelter. He reports that the shelter has gone from an 80% kill rate to an 80% save rate. He cites pet retention, SNR, modificiations to the physical environment of the shelter, and other changes as reasons for the improvement. Francis Battista reports the final statistics from two community cat projects, in Albuquerque and San Antonio, that Best Friends did in collaboration with PetSmart Charities. The three-year programs led to a drop in cat intake in Albuquerque and a plummeting of cat euthanasia in both cities. Here’s an article by Dawn Erwin on Texas bill SB 1911, which will be heard on Tuesday, and which could greatly complicate veterinary treatment for shelter animals in Texas. The Koret shelter medicine program has provided links to presentation materials for several lectures at the recent HSUS Expo, including a talk by Dr. Kate Hurley on “Implementing the Cat Revolution.” Lots of transports happened this weekend. Wings of Rescue alone transported 250 dogs and cats from southern California to the Pacific northwest. In Eau Clare County, Wisconsin, the shelter has run out of dogs and is taking in dogs from other counties. Huffington Post has a wonderful article about the rescue of the Vick dogs – how several organizations pulled together and how the precedent they set has allowed former fighting dogs to have a chance for life. KC Pet Project has another in their series of miracle reunions, brought about by staff who will not give up on returning pets to their owners. In this latest case, they found a microchip in a stray cat but the numbers for the owner had been disconnected. They contacted a friend whose number had been provided as an emergency contact and were finally able to connect with the owner. It had been 7 years since the cat was lost! Owner and cat were both delighted with the reunion. Maddie’s has compiled a master list of Lost and Found pages. A great tribute to Rich Avanzino from Gregory Castle of Best Friends. Don’t miss the Maddie’s webcast this Tuesday on managed admissions. The Northeast Animal Shelter, established in 1976, has had 120,000 adoptions. A thoughtful post from John Sibley on New York City breaking the 90% barrier in February. CNN Money did an investigation in 15 cities and counties across the United States and found that dogs are being killed for unpaid fines. The investigation also found thousands of warrants that are pending for minor infractions relating to pets. Best Friends has marketing help available to its network partners for adoption specials each month throughout the year. The help includes “downloadable, customizable flyers and emails, Web banners, social media images, and much more.” A new textbook, Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff, is coming out soon and it has chapters on shelter enrichment for dogs and cats. It’s appreciation week for both volunteers and animal control officers. It seems as though the USDA and PIJAC are both supporting an effort to develop standards for dog breeders. What could possibly go wrong? Here are links to the blog and Twitter feed of Dr. Jessica Hekman and the blog and Twitter feed of Dr. Julie Hecht. Lots of interesting reading on the Science of Dog.

The Chester County SPCA (CCSPCA) is an open admission shelter that serves two counties in Pennsylvania – Chester and Delaware. Chester and Delaware are contiguous counties lying just west of Philadelphia. Chester County has a high median income, whereas Delaware County is closer to average. Together, the two counties have a population of over 1 million people. The CCSPCA got a new board in 2013 following allegations of mismanagement. The board hired two directors, neither of whom lasted very long, and since last September it has had another new director, Adam Lamb. The shelter says it has saved over 90% of its animals in each of the last four months. The shelter has started new programs, including a TNR program, pet retention, wellness programs for pets, kennel enrichment, follow up on adoptions, and revised adoption procedures. It has expanded its hours and is spending more on vet care. The shelter has received a grant of $305,000 from PetSmart Charities to start a community-cat program that can help 4700 cats over the next 26 months. Intake for 2013 was reported as 5690, which is an intake of only 5 pets per thousand people. That is quite low, although it is similar to the intake for the open-admission shelter in Fairfax County, just outside of Washington, DC. The shelter has posted its full statistics for the past 5 months, but does not post statistics further back because it has transitioned to a new, more transparent method of reporting statistics. In a phone call to the shelter I was told that CCSPCA does animal control for some townships. Other townships have their own staff who bring animals to the shelter once picked up. [edited 4-2-2015]

Newport County in Rhode Island (population 83,000) lies along Narragansett Bay, and there are several islands in the bay that are part of Newport County. The largest of the islands is Aquidneck. There are three small cities on Aquidneck Island — the city of Newport (population 25,000), Middletown (16,000), and Portsmouth (17,000). Portsmouth’s territory includes several of the smaller islands along with part of Aquidneck. The Potter League is a non-profit animal shelter located in Middletown that has contracts for stray intake and sheltering for Middletown, Portsmouth, and the city of Newport. It also accepts owner surrenders from all residents of Newport County without any conditions, although it asks owners to fill out a personality profile on surrendered animals. The League offers a wide range of services and programs. In 2014 the League celebrated its 85th year of taking in the strays of Newport County. The League publishes its statistics in annual reports. In fiscal year 2014, the shelter took in 1669 animals and had a 91% live release rate, including owner-requested euthanasias. In fiscal year 2012-2013, the shelter took in 1772 animals, and had a 90% live release rate, including owner-requested euthanasias. They transferred in 369 animals, including cats from shelters that had been affected by Hurricane Sandy. According to the report for fiscal year 2011-2012, the League had a total intake of 1732 animals during the year, with a live release rate of 91% (89% if owner-requested euthanasias are included with euthanasias). The League transferred in 331 animals from “overcrowded shelters in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and the Virgin Islands.” The reports are interesting in they show that the money the League receives for its sheltering contracts is a small fraction of its total intake. One advantage that a non-profit has over a tax-funded city shelter is that non-profits can and do raise money directly from the public, often very successfully. Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island, was originally listed by this blog on August 29, 2013, based on its 2011-2012 statistics. This post is a revision and update with 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 statistics.

TNR for dogs? It may sound crazy, but hear me out. We have a few cities, particularly in the southern part of the United States, where large numbers of stray dogs apparently continue to be a problem. I have heard this from credible people who support No Kill — it isn’t just the No Kill deniers who make this claim. In some of these cities live release rates are going up, but local people question whether there is really progress toward a No Kill community since large numbers of stray dogs are not being picked up. We have other areas of the country where there are dog shortages, and dogs are brought in from outside for adoption. I believe that based on the numbers nationwide we are very close to an overall balance in dog population and that, if we had a great transport network combined with every jurisdiction maxing out its adoption rates, we could have No Kill this year for dogs. But we are not there yet. One way to tackle the problem of isolated excesses of stray dogs in some of the large cities is classic spay-neuter programs aimed at owned dogs. If 30% or more of the owned females in a city are not sterilized and if the local human population is open to the spay-neuter message, then this approach can have great results. If sterilization rates of owned pets are up around the typical 85% average for the United States, though, or if sterilization rates are lower but people resist sterilizing their pets, then we cannot expect huge reductions in strays with this method. Some cities resort to trying to catch and kill all the strays. This is a bad method not only because it is morally wrong, but because it is ineffective. Cities tried for 100 years before 1970 to control stray dog populations by means of catch and kill, and it was a complete failure. Stray dog populations continued to rise until the 1970s, when mass spay-neuter became possible. So what to do? In many cases, stray dogs who live outdoors have a reasonably good life. Alan Beck’s 1970 study of stray dogs in Baltimore found that being hit by a car was the biggest danger for homeless dogs (other than shelter killing), but only a small minority of the total dog population was killed by cars each year. He concluded that, surprisingly, stray dogs were able to find adequate food, water, and shelter and they did not ordinarily suffer from hunger or exposure. Many of them were fed by people living in their neighborhood, and their presence was tolerated. This sounds a lot like what we now know about community cats. And the preferred solution for community cats these days is TNR or SNR, not catch and kill. What about simply finding homes for all the stray dogs? I recently spoke to a dedicated No Kill advocate in one southern city who estimated that there were 150,000 stray dogs in his city. That would be 88 dogs per 1000 people, which is an astronomical number and far beyond the ability of even the best No Kill shelter to place within the community. Even if the number of stray dogs was only 1/3 of what this advocate estimates, it would still require an adoption-per-thousand-people rate of 29 dogs, which is well beyond the best rates I know of. And that does not even count dogs who are already going into the shelter. Colorado, which has over a 90% live release rate for dogs, adopted out only 10.5 dogs per 1000 people in 2013. Recently the leaders of the shelter establishment in the United States have come together behind a set of ideas that are embodied in the Million Cat Challenge. Those ideas include the concept that rather than kill a healthy community cat, the cat should be sterilized and returned to where it was found. Feral cats should be sterilized and returned to a supported colony. Why couldn’t we do the same thing for dogs? TNR for dogs is not a completely unheard-of idea. India passed a law in 2001 forbidding the killing of street dogs. There are differences of opinion about what has happened since then in terms of nuisance factors and the growth of the dog population, with some people feeling that the dogs are a serious nuisance and a danger to human health (especially from rabies, which is a big problem in India, and dog bites) while others believe that the dogs serve useful functions. The government of India has reacted by instituting a TNR program for street dogs. Other countries are using or considering TNR for stray dogs as well. Dogs are different from cats in that community cats are less intrusive than stray dogs, because they tend to be nocturnal and more cautious around people. Another difference is that there is a substantial feral population in cats whereas there are very few truly feral dogs, at least in urban and suburban areas. It does not appear as though either of those differences would be fatal to a TNR program for dogs. Beck theorized that the reason that street dogs lived more openly than cats was because people were more accepting of their presence. I think one reason people don’t like the idea of TNR for dogs is that we see dogs as being more dependent on people for their happiness than cats. People hate the idea of a dog living in the street without a person of its own, and think such a dog must be miserable. Beck’s study indicated that is not the case. Certainly, if the choice was living without a human attachment or being killed, I think the great majority of dogs would choose to live. Moreover, a TNR program for stray dogs could very quickly reduce the number of strays, probably far more quickly than TNR for cats. Dogs do not have the reproductive capacity that cats have, and something like 75% of puppies born to free-roaming mothers do not survive. And, dogs are easier to locate and capture. Before a city considers a dog TNR program, it would need to make an effort to answer the following questions: 1. What is the sterilization rate for owned dogs? If it is not at least 70% of females, then an all-hands-on-deck traditional spay-neuter campaign for owned pets may be the best approach, unless the local human population is resistant to that message. 2. What is the number of stray dogs that are not being impounded? If the number of stray dogs that are not being impounded plus the number of unreclaimed stray dogs that are impounded plus the number of owner surrendered dogs substantially exceeds 10 or more per 1000 people, then the shelter may have difficulty adopting its way out of killing with local adoptions. 3. How many dogs could be responsibly transported to other areas of the country where there is a dog shortage and transports would not take homes away from local dogs? Are there sufficient resources to make those transports safely? If spay-neuter of owned pets is already high or the human population is resistant to pet sterilization, if the number of stray dogs is high, and if responsible transport cannot bring the number of dogs needing adoption down under 10 per 1000 people, then TNR is about the only thing left. A dog TNR project would be a novel and innovative idea for one of the big national organizations to take on. If the program succeeded, it could, in combination with the Million Cat Challenge initiatives, be a quick way to make even the most intransigent southern cities truly No Kill.