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Agenda - 09-19-2006-7b
ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: September 19, 20Q6 Action Agenda Item No. -]7-b SUBJECT: Animal Sheltering -Operating Practices and Philosophies DEPARTMENT: Animal Services PUBIC HEARING: (Y/N) No ATTACHMENT(S): (Under Separate Cover) Outline of Accompanying Materials Accompanying Materials Biography of Expert Consultant (Kate Pullen) INFORMATION CONTACT: Bob Marotto, Director, 968-2287 PURPOSE: To provide information to the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) and members of the Animal Services Advisory Board in attendance on sheltering philosophies and practices in relation to the design of the County's animal services facility, BACKGROUND: As the County proceeds with the design and construction of a new facility for animal sheltering and control services, the importance of considering various sheltering philosophies and practices with respect to the building programming and design has become apparent. In addition, there has been and continues to be community concern not only with the temporary sheltering of animals but with their final disposition, that is, whether ultimately they are released alive -through adoption, transfer or reclamation - or they are euthanized. This concern has given rise to the question of whether it is possible for the County's Animal Shelter to become what is sometimes referred to as called a no-kill shelter - if not a shelter that does not euthanize at all, then perhaps one that does not euthanize behaviorally sound and healthy animals. Moreover, the question of what would be entailed to design, build and operate the County's new animal services facility in accordance with the principle of extended care has come up. While the term itself no doubt requires more precise definition, it is safe to assume such care exceeds the minimum mandated time for holding a stray animal for recovery while being less than the long-term commitment that is required to ensure that no adoptable animal is euthanized. In addition to the accompanying documents, Ms. Kate Pullen of the American Society for the Prevention of Cnaelty to Animals will make a presentation to establish an overview of contemporary sheltering practices; identify key considerations regarding shelter design in relation to operations and programs; and suggest some key strategies for along-term plan far curbing the use of euthanasia as a means of population control for adoptable or potentially adoptable animals, This information is intended to help the Board of Commissioners formulate a proper charge far the Animal Services Facility Design Committee, consisting of two members of the Animal Services Advisory Board, two Commissioners, and other interested citizens. The BOCC charge should set the context as well as the parameters for the work that the Committee undertakes with the architect and engineer and County staff throughout the programming, design, and construction process. Issues to be addressed include the concept of "extended stay" or "extended care" which adds more than just consideration of physical space, its design and its costs, Specifically, they involve programs and the staff required to run programs in a professional manner in addition to other operating and maintenance expenses. In the case of longer term care, for instance, animal wellness issues must be managed through enrichment activities that entail more volunteer hours and a larger volunteer program, Other examples of programs that affect when and under what criteria animals are euthanized include medical and behavioral programs. These include not only additional specialized building elements, but properly qualified professional staff that can work with animals to ensure that they become adoptable despite specific health issues or behavioral shortcomings,. The need for an effective spaying and neutering program is also interrelated, As with other programs, this requires suitable space - namely, a surgical suite, which may be mobile or stationary -plus the staff required to perform low cost sterilization for community members in addition to sterilizing animals adapted from the shelter itself, One reason this is notable is because the problem of pet overpopulation is the source of the overwhelming majority of shelter animals in Orange County and other communities and in itself a prime cause of euthanasia. Another reason is that longer-term reductions in the number of animals that must be sheltered may mean that it is more possible to provide extended care for animals that do continue to be sheltered. FINANCIAL IMPACT: Staff, in coordination with the architect and engineer chosen for this project, will develop cost estimates based on the BOCC charge to the Animal Services Facility Design Committee. Initial estimates should derive from the identification of the building elements required to effectively operate the new center. RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends that the Board of Commissioners receive the presentation, initiate its discussion, and provide direction and guidance as desired to staff regarding a charge to the Animal Services Facility Design Committee on the operating practice and philosophy of the sheltering component of this project and its potential elements. Orange County Animal Services Shelter Practices and Philosophies ~;,. Orange County Animal Services 501 W, Franklin St, Suite 106, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 968-2287 Animal Sheltering- Operating Practices and Philosophies Accompanying Materials fora Special Presentation, Board of County Commissioners Meeting, September 19~h, 2006 This is an outline of select materials on the philosophy, practice and operations of animal sheltering today. Materials have been selected to address the issue of limiting the euthanasia of adoptable animals as a general concern as well as in regard to shelter programs and operations, Selected materials are organized to provide convenient access to important considerations and a roadmap of the materials that are currently available about sheltering philosophies and practices. The first section includes a number of statements from different recognized national animal welfare organizations on the philosophy and practice of sheltering. These include statements of different kinds on the notion of "no-kill" sheltering, and a description of the "Asilomar Accords," an important development in the field of animal sheltering and welfare. As will be apparent from all of these statements, there is a specific vocabulary of sheltering-one involving terms like limited-admission and open- admission as well as no-kill-that underpins and informs all current discussions, The second section includes a ntamber of fact sheets we have prepared to address specific questions that have been posed or to share information that is pertinent to a discussion of sheltering and shelter design, Same of these fact sheets address the extent to which so-called "no-kill" sheltering is practiced in municipal or county shelters in North Carolina and elsewhere in the United States, Others provide information on the present practice of sheltering at the Animal Protection Society in Orange County and in public and private shelters in Forsyth County. Also, another fact sheet provides information on a community spay/neuter program developed in Western North Carolina under the name of Humane Alliance that is presently being replicated elsewhere in North Carolina and in other states. The last section includes some very select articles discussing recent trends and developments in the field of animal welfare and sheltering. One of these is the historic Asilomar Accords, an important development in the direction of creating community coalitions with the shared objective of reducing the use of euthanasia as a means of population control far adoptable animals. Qrange County Animal Services Shelter Practices and Philosophies 4 Other articles in the last section are reproduced from a longer series on sheltering practices in Animal Sheltering, a leading publication of the Humane Society of the United States. These articles provide an overview of sheltering philosophies, practices, and efforts to work together in communities to reduce the use of euthanasia as a means of population control for adoptable animals (or animals that may become adoptable as a result of medical or behavioral interventions), Two other articles that provide additional information about the Humane Alliance are included because the uncontrolled reproduction of pets in our communities remains a basic dynamic of the overpopulation problem that faces our awn and other shelters. It should be stressed, finally, that there are important differences between types of animal shelters and sheltering that may not be immediately apparent, To identify same very basic distinctions, and in hopes of creating a common vocabulary that facilitates productive discussion, this outline concludes with very general definitions of important terms such as limited admission and open-admission.. Note: These materials have been compiled for a Special Presentation on the subject of sheltering at the September 19~h, 2006, meeting of the Orange County Board of County Commissioners. In addition to these documents, Ms. Kate Pullen of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will make a presentation on the philosophies and practice of animal sheltering as part of this presentation, Questions about these materials may be addressed to Robert A. Marotto, Director, Orange County Animal Services (919-968-2287). I. Notable Sheltering Statements • Asilomar Accords - A brief articles describes an historical summit that produced some guidelines for cooperative efforts and joint goals among animal welfare organizations intent on reducing euthanasia, (The Accords themselves are available as a background article under Section III..) • The Humane Society of The United States (HSUS) -Their (older) Statement an Limited-Admission Animal Shelters defines such shelters, identifies same of their prerequisites, and discusses their role in the community. • American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) -Three specific statements briefly describe and discuss the creation of community coalitions with a "no-kill" commitment, the Asilomar Accords, and the importance of controlling the birth of companion animals in addressing the county's pet overpopulation problem. • American Humane Association -Their position on the definition and use of such terms as "no-kill" and "open-door" in the current discussion and contemporary practice of animal sheltering.. Orange County Animal Services Shelter Practices and Philosophies Maddie's Fund -Various statements from one of the leading proponents of no- kill practices and approaches,. No-Kill Advocacy Center - A philosophy of mission statement from the website of a center committed to the no-kill approach to pets and animal sheltering.. II. Select Fact Sheets • No Kill Public Shelters in North Carolina and Elsewhere - A brief overview of our findings on such sheltering practices in municipal and County shelters in our own and other states based upon Internet research and discussions with sheltering experts from various animal welfare organizations. • Forsyth County - An overview of the programs in place within Forsyth County, North Carolina, which include a new public, animal shelter, a private humane society and a high volume/low cost spay and neuter clinic. • Animal Protection Society of Orange County - Felicite Latane Animal Sanctuary - An overview of the present philosophy and practice of the other animal shelter currently located in Qrange County. • The Humane Alliance - A fact sheet on their model Spay/Neuter program, which was developed in Western North Carolina and which is now being replicated in Forsyth County, Wake County, and elsewhere.. • Tompkins County SPCA - A fact sheet on what may be the only so-called no kill public shelter operating in the United States (or at least that we have been able to identify in our research about such sheltering throughout the country). This shelter and organization is located in the Ithaca area of upstate New York. • San Francisco SPCA - A fact sheet on the highest profile so-called no kill shelter in the United States, a pioneer of this approach which has sought to build positive and productive relations with the San Francisco Animal Care and Control Program and its shelter. This shelter and organization operates within San Francisco County. III. Background Articles and References Asilomar Accords -Reproduced in their entirety with a statistical template are these historic guidelines for defining adoptable animals, calculating the "live release rate" of shelters and communities, and creating community coalitions among animal welfare organizations intent on reducing and ultimately ending euthanasia as a means of population control. We're All in This Together (Part 1 of "What Would it Take?) - An article from Animal Sheltering regarding recent developments in the field of animal sheltering aimed at controlling the use of euthanasia as a means of population control for adoptable animals. Orange County Animal Services Shelter Practices and Philosophies • A World Apart: Navigating the Road Between Dreams and Reality (Part 2 of "What Would It Take?") - A related article from Animal Sheltering about recent developments in the field of animal sheltering.. • Thinking Big in North Carolina: The Humane Alliance Proves Attitude is Everything - An article from APSCA Animal Watch on this pioneering approach to the problem of pet overpopulation in Western North Carolina, • Spay/Neuter Receives Grant, National Attention - An article from Asheville Citizen-Times on this pioneering approach to the problem of pet overpopulation in Western North Carolina • Various Links and Resources - A collection of resources, websites, and publications providing additional information on the issues regarding Limited- Admission sheltering. Glossary of Terms Limited-Admission: Refers to a farm of sheltering that limits or restricts animal intake. In some instances, animals may be turned away and in others they may be put on a "wait list." Also, there usually are specific criteria for deciding whether an animal will be admitted (though these vary widely between different shelters). Limited admission is often a concomitant of no-kill sheltering practiced by privately operated shelters as it controls the number of shelter animals through intake limitations rather than through euthanasia. Open Admission: Refers to a sheltering practice that prohibits a shelter from turning away animals on any basis (although in practice there tend to be some soft geographic restrictions).. Many privately run shelters are open admission shelters because of their mission of ensuring that animals are not abandoned and do not needlessly suffer.. Municipal and county non shelters are open admission because of legal mandates as well citizen demands far services and an overall commitment to the health and safety of animals and citizens alike. Public shelter: Refers to an animal shelter that is operated and funded primarily by a county government or that has a contractual obligation to fulfill certain public functions, Perhaps most importantly, such shelters are subject to various legal mandates, e.g., stray hold periods for cats and dogs, biting animal quarantines, seizures as a result of cruelty, neglect and/or irresponsibility. Private Shelter: Refers to an animal shelter that is run independent of a county government, usually on anon-profit basis by a humane or protective society.. Perhaps most importantly, unless there is a contract with a municipal or county government, there are no legal mandates. Thus the intake guidelines for such a shelter can be determined by the organization that runs it quite independently of such legal mandates. No Kill: Arguably, there is no single definition of this term, nor is it affiliated with a specific set of policies and procedures. Far some, it may mean that no animals are Orange county Animal Services Shelter Practices and Philosophies euthanized except as a means of mercy far uncontrallable suffering, Far others, it may mean working toward the end of end of euthanasia as a means of population control for adaptable animals (with same recognition that there is a canstantly changing definition of adoptable in relation to behaviars and their modification and ailments and their treatment). With the issuance of the Asilomar Accord, there has been much discussion of long-term community partnerships with a shared commitment to end euthanasia as a means of population control. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies I. Notable Sheltering Statements A Common Cause Meets An Uncommon Solution By Nancy Lawson Reproduced from the May-June 2005 issue of Anima! Sheltering magazine. The Asilomar Accords have become known as the peace talks of the sheltering movement. Now it's time to put those talks into action. Healthy, Treatable, Untreatable, Rehabilitatable. For years we've asked members of the public to navigate the nuanced language of animal homelessness and sheltering, expecting them to understand overnight a vocabulary that's taken decades to evolve. But they're still confused, and it's no wonder, Even people within animal protection haven't been able to agree on the most basic terms, volleying back and forth about what they mean, how they should be applied, and where they should be publicized, The result is ail too predictable: story after story in the local and national media pitting one organization against another and highlighting wildly different euthanasia statistics-while failing to explore the economic and cultural complexities that drive those differences. But with the recent development of a document called the Asilomar Accords, all that could change, Born out of a meeting of the minds at a retreat in Pacific Grove, California, the Asilomar Accords represent what local and national animal welfare leaders hope is the beginning of a kinder era in which collaboration supersedes division and local organizations strengthen their presence by raising a collective voice for animals. "It really is saying that we're not going to use terminology that's hurtful of one another," says Martha Armstrong, senior vice president for Domestic Animal Programs at The HSUS. "The Asilomar Accords group decided that rather than argue over language that was divisive-like 'kill rate' or'euthanasia rate'-we're going to focus on the positive and talk about our `save rates.' " Representatives of all factions of animal sheltering, care, and control were in attendance at the Asilomar Conference Grounds last August, From the national level were leaders of The HSUS, the ASPCA, Maddie's Fund, American Humane, and the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators. Local representatives included directors of private humane societies and public animal control agencies in Colorado, Hawaii, Utah, Iowa, Arizona, Washington, California, and Indiana, Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies The conversations began cautiously, as people who had long ago drawn lines in the sand over divisive phrases like "no kill" and "turnaway shelter" proceeded hesitantly through the facilitated discussion. Soon, though, participants dared to tread on treacherous ground, letting their honest opinions bubble to the surface.. Discussions on such topics usually devolve when the real dialogue begins, At Asilomar, miraculously, they didn't. What could have been just another sparring session became instead a kind of melting pot of differing philosophies and approaches that progressed far beyond anyone's initial expectations. "I was definitely surprised by the openness, the willingness of the various players to try to forget past histories and basically check their luggage at the door to really focus on what's best for the animals," says Richard Avanzino, president of Maddie's Fund, agrant-giving organization in Alameda, California. Maybe the time was ripe, or maybe the face-to-face forum was fertile ground for communication. "When you have to look each other in the eye, that makes a tremendous amount of difference," says participant Jane McCall, executive director of the Dubuque Humane Society in Iowa, The result is a tangible, written document that the Asilomar group hopes will make a tremendous difference, too. Outlined in the document are 14 guiding principles of collaboration; a list of concrete definitions for words like "healthy" and "treatable"; and a statistical reporting template that local organizations can use to measure the extent of the homeless animal problem communitywide, The beauty of the uniform reporting system, of course, is consistency. If every agency in a given area reports intake and euthanasia numbers the same way, the theory goes, it will be easier to identify why some organizations' adoption rates are lower than others-and presumably easier to appeal for mare resources. An animal control agency that takes in 10,000 animals on a $1 million budget, for example, is not going to be as well-staffed orwell-equipped as a private organization that has the same budget but takes in only 3,000 animals-a distinction that will be apparent under the system set out by the Asilomar Accords, "In the past what we've seen is that organizations that have had the terrible task of having to kill unwanted pets got criticized and blamed ..," says Avanzino. "And we're saying it's really the community that has to shoulder the obligation to make for a better world; it's not one agency by itself..,, And if an agency really isn't doing what it should be, nobody should take comfort in basically pointing the finger and thinking that's the only place for blame.." Among the guiding principles in the Asilomar Accords is a special emphasis on the formation of community coalitions of the sort that have already been developed in several other communities, most notably Denver, Composed of Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies tQ shelters, breed adoption groups, veterinary associations, and other Denver-area groups with a stake in finding solutions to animal homelessness, the Metro Denver Shelter Alliance has become a model for collaboration, Now other local participants in the Asilomar Accords are bringing the concept back to their awn communities, In Seattle, a community with a "pretty wholesome working environment" for animal protection organizations, there are still groups promoting their own agendas by painting a negative picture of other agencies, says Nancy McKenney, CEO of the Humane Society of Seattle/King County. And the community is still lacking in real area-wide statistics and measurement tools, she says, The new Asilomar documents are a good "baby step" toward solving those issues, says McKenney, who is in the embryonic stages of forming a coalition in her area, The documents lend weight and credibility to the process, she says. "I think this has a lot of potential positive repercussions in showing the communitywide statistics and in showing that groups are getting together to try to look at the problem and actually obtain some more concrete information," she says, "as opposed to some of the more emotional rhetoric that tends to occur." Because they must take in animals in varying behavioral and physical states, animal control agencies often perform the most euthanasia-and therefore may be skeptical of a document that requires them to report all their numbers alongside those of better-funded agencies, says Belinda Lewis, director of Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control in Indiana, Ideally, however, the statistics will be used to show not how many animals one agency is euthanizing but how many homeless animals the community is generating and sending to shelters in the first place, she says. "In the coalition type of approach, you're not looking at euthanasia at the animal control agency-you're looking at euthanasia in the entire community," says Lewis. "And the theory behind Asilomar is not pointing fingers at one agency who, while they may do their best to [head] in the right direction, still has to face the limits that they have, Sa if in fact a coalition is true to the Asilomar nature and is honest in its information and its direction, then the coalition becomes the defender of the animal control agency," In other words, consistent reporting-when adapted by all sides of the spectrum in a kind of team approach-will make it "socially unacceptable" to engage in name-calling and derogatory behavior, says John Snyder, senior director of Companion Animals and Equine Protection for The HSUS. Gathering around the table for peace talks is na small feat in communities with a history of feuding, But the Asilomar Accords and the alliances in Denver and San Francisco-and, most recently, Chicago and Monterey-are evidence that nothing is impossible. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 11 The diversity of the Asilomar group was both "painful and helpful," says Avanzino, "Who wants to change what they're doing? Everybody likes what they're doing; otherwise, they wouldn't be doing it that way," he says, "And so when we come together and we are put into a position where we're making compromises and trying to develop a consensus and modifying what we've done in the past, it's not terribly comfortable. But the goal is to make for a better society," All the Asilomar participants stress that the agreement is merely the first of many steps-and that real change has to grow organically from the ground up, "What will really keep this grounded and make this work is if it's not just the national talking heads discussing it," says Armstrong, "It's going to have to be applied in the local community," To read the Asilomar Accords and download a copy of the statistical reporting template, visit www.asilomaraccords.org, Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 12 HSUS Statement on Limited-Admission Animal Shelters lil The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) believes that limited- admission animal shelters, commonly called "no-kill" shelters, can play a helpful role within a community in helping homeless companion animals find responsible, lifelong homes. However, The HSUS strongly believes that limited- admission shelters must operate in accordance with certain ethical and managerial principles, as described below. Admission Polices Limited-admission shelters vary widely in scope and philosophy. However, they are distinguishable from open-admission animal shelters primarily by the fact that they choose not to euthanize animals in response to the tragic problem of companion animal overpopulation. As a result, these organizations limit the numbers of animals they will accept because they lack the space and/or resources necessary to properly care for the numbers of animals they would otherwise receive. Limited-admission shelters keep or foster all animals they choose to admit until the animals can be placed in adoptive homes or die of natural causes (many do euthanize suffering or aggressive animals). When alimited-admission shelter does not accept every animal brought to it, -fhe HSUS believes that the organization has an ethical mandate to ensure that that there is an animal shelter in the community whose doors are open to all homeless and unwanted animals.. Where no such shelter exists, an organization that turns away a stray or owned animal being surrendered, or that asks someone to keep the animal until space opens up at the shelter, risks losing that animal to abandonment or some other cruel fate, and bears partial responsibility for that fate. In short, an organization that choose not to accept every animal can supplement an open-admission animal shelter, but it cannot substitute far one. Animal-Care Standards The HSUS believes that limited-admission shelters should implement all animal- care policies and procedures regarded as fundamental to the responsible sheltering of animals. These include (but are not limited to) such practices as performing health exams on all animals upon admission and before adoption; separating animals by species, sex, age, and health status; housing animals in a way that minimizes stress and disease transmission; providing animals with proper food and water, protection from the elements, adequate ventilation and temperature control, exercise, human interaction, and veterinary care; using htamane methods when an animal must be euthanized; screening prospective adopters using established standards; accepting previously adopted animals when they are returned by an adopter for any reason; and preventing the reproduction of shelter animals by spaying and neutering them, or, at the least, guaranteeing that all adopted animals are sterilized. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 1.3 Animal Enrichment Programs The HSUS believes that htaman companionship, like food, water, and shelter, is an essential need of dogs, cats, and other companion animals and that they suffer when deprived of it. Therefore, The HSUS is strongly opposed to long-term housing of companion animals in institutional settings because such conditions may deprive animals of adequate human attention. Limited-admission shelters that keep animals for long periods of time should take steps to meet this fundamental need through special enrichment programs, well regulated and monitored fostering arrangements, or other means. The HSUS believes that every dog, cat and other domesticated companion animal deserves -and ultimately belongs in - a lifelong home with attentive, responsible caregivers. Policies Regarding Dangerous, Distressed, Diseased, or Injured Animals The HSUS believes that euthanasia is the only acceptable option for certain animals and that limited-admission shelters, like all shelters, should institute policies to ensure that the suffering of these animals is ended through euthanasia when appropriate. The HSUS believes that animals who clearly present a potential hazard to animals and/or humans because of disease or severe aggression should be euthanized.. Those animals who develop aggressive tendencies or suffer from severe psychological distress during prolonged confinement in a sheltering facility should also be euthanized. The HSUS further believes that animals suffering from serious injuries or painful terminal illnesses should be euthanized. Fund-Raising and Public Relations Practices Organizations that choose not to euthanize animals, like all organizations, should strive to be forthright with the public. The HSUS strongly believes that it is unethical for alimited-admission shelter to advertise that it "does not kill animals" without also acknowledging publicly that the shelter does not accept every animal brought to it. Moreover, alimited-admission organization's fund-raising solicitations should acknowledge that the shelter's ability to choose not to euthanize homeless animals depends in part upon the existence of animal shelters that do so. To fail to be forthright about the realities of pet overpopulation is to create in the public's mind the false and harmful perception that every animal shelter could choose to end companion animal euthanasia without disastrous animal suffering resulting from that decision. 9/97 Copyright ©1999 The Humane Society of the United States. All Right Reserved. (1) This HSUS document was transcribed from a printed original in August 2006 by the Orange County Animal Services Department, with permission.. An updated version is not yet available, but is in process by, The Humane Socieiy of the United States. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies i4 American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) See htto://www.aspca.oro/site/PageServer?pagename=pp content for further details 2.24 No-Kill Community Coalitions The ASPCA strongly supports "no kill" community coalitions that are committed to reducing the number of cats and dogs in that community who are at risk of becoming lost, abandoned, or relinquished to shelters, Toward that end the ASPCA supports efforts to maximize spay/neuter services, practice TNR in relation to feral cats, promote the adoption of homeless animals, educate potential guardians on pet selection, and provide ongoing expert training and behavior assistance to guardians so that they may live successfully with their companion animals. 2.25 Asilomar Accords The ASPCA is a founding signatory to the "Asilomar Accords," developed in August 2004 to express the shared mission of a variety of animal welfare groups in the United States to collaborate with one another toward the common goal of significantly reducing the euthanasia of healthy and treatable dogs and cats in this country. As a signatory to the "Asilomar Accords," the ASPCA supports full and open cooperation among agencies and the public in collecting and sharing animal sheltering data and statistics as a first step in the process of decreasing the numbers of at-risk animals in a community. Data will be collected and reported according to a uniform formula set forth in the accords and utilizing common definitions of healthy, treatable, rehabilitatable and manageable, [see Asilomar Accords definitions? 2.15 Companion Animal Birth Control Because indiscriminate and accidental dog and cat breeding leads to millions of unwanted and abandoned animals each year in the United States, safe, effective and permanent dog and cat birth control is necessary. At this time, spaying female animals and neutering males are the preferred methods of preventing reproduction, [see position statement on alternative methods of birth control] The ASPCA strongly recommends that all companion dogs and cats, except those who are part of a responsible breeder's breeding program, be spayed or neutered. To prevent the accidental breeding of young cats and dogs, the ASPCA supports pediatric or "early- age" spay/neuter of animals, i.e,, as soon as they reach a minimum of two months of age and two pounds in weight. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies I S American Humane Association htto //www americanhumane org/site/PageServer~pagename=fags nokill "No-kill" and "Open Door" What is American Humane's position on shelters' use of terms like "no-kill" and „open-door"? American Humane believes terms such as "no-kill," "open-door" (or "open- admission"), and "pound" are pejorative and divisive and serve to pit members of the animal welfare community against one another, instead of fostering an attitude of respect and collaboration around the common goal of saving animal lives. American Humane's position is in line with principles set forth in the "Asilomar Accords," which was developed in an unprecedented meeting in 2005 of animal welfare leaders from across the country. The Asilomar Accords recognizes that all stakeholders in the animal welfare community are dedicated to the same goal regardless of differing philosophies and approaches to the issue. The Accords encourages a sense of unity in the field, while respecting the differences inherent to various organizations, communities, and geographic regions. Local shelters probably won't drastically change the way they look or function as a result of the Accords. What will change is the amount and type of opportunities for collaborative solutions to each community's animal welfare issues. Whether that means arranging to transfer sick animals from a shelter without a vet to one with veterinary resources, or creating a coalition of local animal control agencies, non-profit shelters, and community members concerned about feral cats, the Accords lay the groundwork for collaborative efforts and mutual support of those seeking to save the lives of all healthy and treatable companion animals. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 16 Maddie's Fund No-Kill Definition Page See htto://www.maddiesfund org/nokill/nokill define what.html What is No-Kill? This page explains how Maddie's Fund defines no-kill, and how the foundation plans to help guide the nation to the no-kill goal. Q. The term no-kill is frequently bandied about, but what exactly is it? A. As much as anything, no-kill is a rallying cry; a slogan that defines a movement. The term no-kill clearly and powerfully protests the status qua, that being the killing of millions of savable animals in our nation's animal shelters every year, At the same time, it describes a new approach to animal sheltering and a new commitment to saving lives within animal welfare organizations. Q. How does Maddie's Fund define no-kill? A, Maddie's Fund agrees with the generally accepted definition used by no-kill shelters, That is, no-kill means saving both healthy and treatable dogs and cats, with euthanasia reserved only for unhealthy and untreatable animals, Q. The proclaimed goal of Maddie's Fund is to take the nation no-kill. How do you plan to do that? A, We want to start by ending the problem described as "too many pets, not enough homes." To do this, we increase the demand for shelter dogs and cats and reduce the supply being born., Maddie's Fund is financially supporting collaborative community projects that build the programs and infrastructure necessary to ensure that new homes are available for every abandoned dog and cat who is immediately ready to be placed. Programs might include adoption outreach, new marketing strategies, advertising, events and promotions that put the animals in front of the adopting public, Even changes like longer hours, lower adoption fees or adoption incentives can help build a broad new base of adopters. At the same time, we are financially investing in efforts that dramatically reduce the supply of unwanted pets through aggressive spay/neuter programs. By working diligently on both sides of the equation, both demand and supply, Maddie's Fund plans to leverage its lifesaving investments. When we reach the juncture where healthy shelter animals can be guaranteed a home, Maddie's Fund will then focus its resources on funding programs to rehabilitate the sick, injured and poorly behaved ,knowing that when these animals are whole again, there will be a home waiting far them, Q. What are the benefits of an adoption guarantee? A, An adoption guarantee gives a community confidence that an animal shelter is truly a shelter, that is, a respite on the way to a new loving home, When this happens, the community becomes an active partner in saving lives, For example: Maddie's Fund believes that many people who abandon their animals on the streets do so because they fear their family pet will die if surrendered to an animal shelter. This, then, starts a negative cycle, a cycle that starts with the orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies t 7 perception the animal will die, which leads to people's fear of using the shelter, which leads to abandonment on the street, which puts the animal at risk of injury, illness and uncontrolled breeding. Then, when the animals are impounded as sick and injured strays, they're killed at animal control. With an adoption guarantee that says no healthy cat or dog will die in any community shelter, you break the cycle. People who find lost animals, who no longer want their animals or who can no longer keep their animals can have the confidence to bring them into the shelter, knowing these animal lives will be saved. They won't abandon them on the street ar leave them tied up in the backyard. And these healthy animals can then be placed, which then reduces shelter deaths and euthanasia costs. Q. Getting back to the term, "no-kill." It implies that those who practice it are good and those who don't are bad. Isn't this divisive in the animal welfare community? A. Many animal control agencies and traditional shelters feel that no-kill makes them look like villains. In deference to these concerns, Maddie's Fund no longer refers to individual organizations that save all of their healthy and treatable animals as no-kill agencies; instead we call them adoption guarantee agencies. However, we continue to strive for no-kill communities and a no-kill nation. The bottom line is, the no-kill movement represents a paradigm shift, a revolution, if you will, in the way we consider and treat companion animals. No- kill shelters have chosen a path different from traditional shelters, refusing to sacrifice an animal because society says there are too many. It's a commitment that directs organizational policy.. And when a minority movement like this gains momentum, those who are put in the position of having to defend the status quo generally feel threatened, no matter what terminology is used. orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies t g No-Kill Advocacy Center See http //www nokillsolutions.com/philosophy.htm Our Philosophy The Birth of a Humane Nation The nineteenth century was an era of sweeping social change, From abolitionism to women's rights, from the elimination of child labor to the closing of economic inequities, the pioneers of these movements laid down the bricks in a foundation to building a humane nation, And our own-the prevention of cruelty to animals- was no exception. The first SPCA was founded in 1866 in New York City, and spread from there very quickly, Within a short period of time, Canada and 25 states and territories across America had used the SPCA as a model for their awn, independent humane societies and the numbers continued to grow, In short order, virtually every major city in the United States had an SPCA or humane society, Early SPCAs and humane societies advocated for laws and practices to protect and enforce the rights of animals. Their platforms initially focused on the plight of working animals and those slaughtered for food. But given practices favored at the time, it did not take long for them to turn their sights toward fighting against cruelty by local dog catchers themselves. In the nineteenth century, all stray dogs not redeemed were killed in masse, The majority were shot, Some buried alive. Many more were drowned, with the largest dogs beat on the head with a club until they stayed underwater, Often, they were killed in what one newspaper called "the terrible iron crate," where struggling dogs were dropped in the river several times until all the dogs had drowned in front of a crowd of neighborhood children. Changing of the Guard In 1872, a Pennsylvania SPCA took it upon itself to put an end to these cruel methods of slaughter, as well as their public exhibition. By accepting the first pound contract in the United States, they took aver the work of taking in stray dogs and introduced a gas chamber to replace old, slow, more painful practices of killing stray animals, But the Women's Pennsylvania SPCA went two steps further. First, they set tap a humane education program promoting lifetime commitments and the importance of keeping pets in the home, And second, they offered homeless animals for adoption. Those three concepts-education, adoption, and humane "euthanasia"-were embraced on a national scale with the founding of the American Humane Association several years later and have been the mainstays of sheltering ever since. In a very short period of time, the guaranteed source of income provided by animal control contracts helped sway many SPCAs and humane societies to abandon their traditional platforms of advocacy, prosecution and direct action in favor of administering dog control for cities and counties. In virtually every Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies t9 American city, the pound work of the town had been placed in the hands of the local SPCA or humane society, The Status Quo Unfortunately, the end goal of saving lives was never allowed to fully play itself out, By the middle of the 20th Century, most mainstream humane societies and SPGAs were doing little more than killing dogs and cats. A Boston shelter put it bluntly: "We keep all dogs we receive, unless very sick or vicious, five days; then those unclaimed are humanely put to death except a limited number of desirable ones for which we can find good homes, We keep from twenty to thirty of the best of the cats and kittens to place in homes and the rest are put to death.., We do not keep a large number of animals alive." From New York to California, killing became the centerpiece of shelter strategy, How did this happen? According to one national group, people "who do not spay and neuter are the greatest single cause of the companion animal tragedy,., Each day an estimated 70,000 puppies and kittens are born (25.5 million a year).. Six to ten million, we classify as 'surplus' and kill,., The problem is simple: we have too many dogs and cats. Too many for the too few homes available." But is this true? From the shelter director's perspective, the logic appears inescapable. There are only so many cages, limited numbers of kennels, few adoptions, and day after day, the wave of animals keep coming through the door: kittens that were unplanned, a dog that has become a burden, the stray cat nobody wants, Qne shelter director explained it like this: "You build a shelter with 200 cages. Today, you get 50 homeless animals and you place 10, The other 40 go into cages, Tomorrow, you get 50, but only 15 total go home. When the fictional shelter is full [people] suggest building more cages, which we do, but then those cages are quickly filled,,, The inflow of unwanted animals is an ongoing phenomenon," What do you do with the rest? In just one American city, of 25,000 cats who come in through the doors every year, 21,000 will be put to death. Qver 80% will die, most never even offered for adoption. Multiply that by every city, every county in the United States and the picture is bleak, But the irony is that much of this suffering is conducted under the watchful eye of self-described "animal lovers" who feel they are doing the right thing. In fact, it is often these "animal lovers" who administer the "cocktail" to disorient the animal, who bring the dog or cat into the "euthanasia" room, hold him down while he struggles to make sense of what is happening, and then administer the fatal dose.. Day in and day out, until the numbers simply become staggering. And so the years came and went since the founding of our movement, and with it came the solidification of the belief that there was simply no other way. That the best we could do for homeless animals was to give them a "humane" death, That orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 2Q killing animals is an act of kindness, something we do as a favor to them in order to put them out of their "misery," without regard to whether they are suffering or not, "It's an impossible, almost schizophrenic situation," one commentator wrote. "Shelter workers themselves spend half their time protecting animals and the other half killing them," And in the end, the goal of creating a truly humane society was pushed aside by the day-to-day ordeal of intake and disposition of dogs and cats in shelters across the country. And hope far the future was replaced with despair. And then despair turned to anger. The humane movement began to blame the very people it needed to embrace in order to effect change. Shelters across the country enacted laws that put a stranglehold on the community-pet limits, registries, even laws making it a crime to feed stray cats. As a result, compassion became control. And animals-the healthy and treatable side-by-side with the hopelessly ill-died in shelters by the millions, To cope with the deaths, shelters built walls to protect themselves. They assured themselves that there was no other way. They generated innovative workshops to help shelter employees "cope" with "euthanasia," But innovation that would change the status quo got lost in the now-all-too-familiar cliche that there were just "too many animals, and not enough homes," It is time to recapture our roots The No Kill Movement In 1994, the City of San Francisco broke this tradition and ushered in the modern "No Kill" movement, The San Francisco SPCA guaranteed a home to every healthy dog and cat who entered the shelter system, But ten years after San Francisco's groundbreaking accomplishment, only one other community has so far achieved that elusive goal, In 2001, Tompkins County, New York became the second community in the nation to guarantee a home to all healthy, homeless dogs and cats, And in 2002, Tompkins County went one step further by saving 100% of sick and injured treatable animals and 100% of feral cats - 93% of all dogs and cats entering their open door animal control facility. It repeated that historic achievement in 2003, earning national acclaim as the community with the lowest per capita euthanasia rate in the United States. At the same time, it closed a budget deficit more than doubled the average gift, drastically increased membership, finished with operating surpluses, all while maintaining its animal control contracts and responsibilities. Since then, many other shelters, cities and towns have also announced ambitious plans to become No Kill communities, but many more are mired in defeatism, convinced that there is nothing we can do, One shelter administrator Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 21 stated openly that the "only solution to pet overpopulation is the blue solution," in reference to the blue-colored hue of the euthanasia drug fatal-plus. The No Kill Advocacy Center At the No Kill Advocacy Center, we believe that - as a movement - it is up to us to put aside the fatalistic attitudes that change is impossible; that the best we can offer homeless animals is the two prong strategy of failure: adopt same and kill the rest; that a No Kill Nation is unattainable. It is up to each and every one of us to work together to implement sheltering models that have saved thousands of animals. A No Kill Nation is within our reach; and if we work together -with certainty of purpose, assured of our awn success, with the philosophy of "what must be done, shall be done" -the attainment of our goal will not be far off. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 22 II. Select Fact Sheets No-Kill Public Shelters in North Carolina and Elsewhere 1. North Carolina We were unable to locate an,y public or municipal shelters within North Carolina that operated apublicly-funded, Limited-Admission or "No-Kill" facility, Our sources include Jae Blomquist with North Carolina Department of Agriculture, whose duties include shelter inspection for the state; Carl Williams, DVM, State Public Health Veterinarian with the North Carolina Department of Health, and responsible for the Spay/Neuter Program of the state; Bob Reder, North Carolina State Manager with the Humane Society of the United States; Sherry Silk, Southern Regional Manager with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and numerous web resources, 2. National Expanding this further, we began to seek out shelters from across the country, in order to review successful programs outside of North Catalina. The top two, in countless references to the subject, are the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in San Francisco, California; and Tompkins County SPCA, in Ithaca, New York, Of those two, only Tompkins County is operating a public, no-kill animal shelter as sole provider of sheltering services for the county, and does not operate under a limited-admission practice -they are an open-door facility and handle all animals within Tompkins County, though they reserve the right to delay admission, They are an independent humane society contracted with Tompkins County to provide both animal sheltering and animal control services. Further information regarding these two organizations may be found within the fact sheets at the end of this section, Our sources for this search included Julie Morris, Senior Vice-President of National Shelter Outreach for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA); Kim Intino, Senior Vice-President of National Outreach for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS); and numerous web resources, Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 23 Forsyth County Forsyth County Animal Control This information was obtained from their website at htto //www co forsvth nc us/animalcontrol/default.aspx ,and from a telephone conversation with Tim Jennings, Director of Animal Control for Forsyth County. Mission Statement: "Our mission is to provide safe, humane shelter for unwanted, stray, abused, and impounded animals in accordance with State regulations, The Department is responsible for assuring the timely and effective enforcement of the County's ordinances and State laws. The Department strives to protect the public's health and safety from vicious, sick, or injured animals, to educate the public about responsible animal care and ownership and to reduce the number of unwanted animals in the community." Forsyth County Animal Control does not operate under a no-kill, limited- admission, or related methodclogy, and avoids the "no-kill" terminology. On August 31 2006, they officially opened their brand new 20,000 sq ft facility featuring an adoption center, replacing the 30-year-old previous facility with one three times the size. It is more centrally located within the community and more welcoming, and provides space for animal welfare programs, bath in-house and independent. In 2004 when the current Director came on board, the adoption program underwent some fundamental changes and was basically "reinvented". In the last two years, 1,300 animals were adopted out of 8,000 intakes, a 90% increase over previous rates -this increase was accomplished before the new facility was open, strictly through outreach efforts. Forsyth now sterilizes all adopted animals, and also has arescue-group placement program called "Community Care," as well as service programs for meal assistance and dog houses. Forsyth Animal Control also increased staff by about 20% in the past two years, and presently has a budget of about $2 million per year, They have increased their activities regarding licensing and abatements, changing to a "no-tolerance" policy regarding violations to project the message of proper care, and patrol divisions are practicing a program of early intervention, Forsyth Humane Society This information was obtained from their website at htto //www.forsythhumane.org/ ,and from a telephone conversation with Lori Sears, their Adoption Center Manager. Forsyth Humane is anon-profit organization that operates a no-kill shelter in Winston-Salem, Their "About FHS" webpage states that animal intake is on a wait-list basis, and their adoption center is rated by the NC Department of Agriculture to shelter a maximum of 50 animals, advertising 5 dog runs and 24 feline cages (8 quarantine/infirmary). Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 24 Mission Statement: "The Forsyth Humane Society exists to address an all too prevalent problem in our community, We are committed to preventing pet overpopulation by promoting responsible pet ownership, and by providing for the welfare of homeless dogs and cats, We maintain a "no-kill" shelter where dogs and cats are cared far while they await adoption by qualifying individuals." All of their animal intakes are from a waiting list -there are no immediate intakes -and primarily through the public, though they will work with other area sources, including a 'Community Care' program with Forsyth Animal Gontral with which they have a "good working relationship". Adult cats and animals (puppies/kittens) under five months may wait 6 months for space to become available, For adult dogs, they have implemented an evaluation program, including behavioral test, before accepting them onto the wait list -this reduced the numbers of dogs significantly enough to make the wait for space in the realm of 4-6 weeks. All animals are adopted sterilized, and they work with the Forsyth Spay/Neuter Clinic, aloes-aost/high-volume clinic under the Humane Alliance program. They adopt out over 400 animals a year, They do not take Rottweilers, Pitbulls, or Chows, They have several programs operating within the county, including an aggressive spay/neuter approach and veterinary assistance. They assist with individuals practicing TNR and an organization called 'Forgotten Felines of Forsyth.' They also have strong volunteer support, Forsyth Spay/Neuter Clinic All information provided by Amy Evans, Head Veterinary Technician The Forsyth Spay/Neuter Clinic in Kernersville, NC (formerly Save The Animals), was started three years ago under the auspices of the Humane Alliance (fact sheet below), They are a dedicated sterilization facility, open four days a week, that performs 240-250 surgeries a week with a staff of three veterinarians, five registered veterinary technicians, and two administrators. They are anon-profit independent agency funded primarily by grants and donations, but do not have an active fundraising program, However, the support for their services is strong within the community, Among their support sources is PetsMart Charities and the DJ&T Foundation (better known as the Bob Barker Foundation). They perform surgeries for numerous surrounding counties as well as their own, including Rowan, Stokes, Yadkin, Iredell, Randolph, and as far away as Mecklenburg, Part of their program is transportation services to and from these counties, where they service both individual pet owners and area shelters, Non- profitorganizations utilizing their services receive a $10,00 discount from normal Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 2$ surgery rates, $2.00 from vaccination rates. They do not require contractual obligations from any other organizations. Starting the clinic involved the typical delays of a new business, but few difficulties otherwise. The support of the Humane Alliance was smooth, and area vets, while viewing the clinic as competition at first, now recognize that the clinic involves many pet owners that would not be visiting any vet otherwise, and sterilization surgeries are not a major part of a standard veterinary clinic's business. The Forsyth Spay/Neuter Clinic offers vaccinations to pet owners daily from 9:30 to Noon, and emphasizes routine vet care to their clients, who must seek this from other area vets. The clinic depends on veterinarians who can specialize in surgeries, since animals are typically on the table only 20 minutes -this made obtaining the vets slightly difficult, since these are not typical requirements of veterinarians. Ms. Evans indicated that it helped to find vets who supported the concept and goals. The clinic appears to be well-accepted and supported throughout the community, and by the accounts of Ms. Evans, has "done wonders" for the overpopulation problem and the community in general. Further programs within Forsyth County (linked from Forsyth County Animal Control's website) Friends of the Shelter http://www forsythshelterfriends.orq/index.htm Animal Adoption & Rescue Foundation http://www.aarfanimals.org/ Fur-Ever Friends Adoption & Outreach Center http://www.fu reve rfriend snc. o rg/ 4 Paws Pet Foundation There does not appear to be a website for this organization, but some information is available on their page on Petfinder (http //www.petfinder.org/shelters/NC151.html). Lassie Come Home - NC http://www.lassiecomeh ome nc. orq/ Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 26 Animal Protection Society of Orange County - Felicite Latane Animal Sanctuary All information, including quotes, provided by Heather Brown, Director of Public Relations, Animal Protection Society of Orange County, Mission Statement: "To build a compassionate community to support and ensure the well-being of animals in Orange County and surrounding areas" As relating to the APS Adoption Center; "We are a rescue resource for local county shelters improving their adoption rates and reducing their euthanasia rates." "Our purpose is to extend support to existing county shelters not provide a shelter for public surrenders." In response to a question about the shelter being a No-Kill: "In most cases it is an impossible feat and typically, communities in the U,S. struggle with the pet overpopulation in their areas and with a solution to the problem. In APS' many years of experience in operating the county shelter, we were able to greatly reduce the number of animals euthanized through aggressive spay and neuter programs. "No Kill" is a goal for anyone who cares about animals, but is unrealistic in a county setting where accepting all stray and abandoned animals is a necessary role of government. " At present, the APS of Orange County is accepting animals from shelters in Orange, Caswell, and Chatham counties. APS staff selects animals using specific criteria, which includes temperament and socialization tests to ensure the best chances of successful adoption. From opening in October 2004 to July 2006, APS sheltered and successfully placed over 1,200 animals in permanent homes. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 2'7 Humane Alliance All information obtained from their website at htto://www.humanealliance.org The Humane Alliance is an organization based in Asheville, NC that addresses the issues of shelter euthanasia and pet overpopulation at the front end, by providing for companion animal sterilization with ahigh-volume, low-cost methodology, They operate a clinic in Asheville, and through the National Spay/Neuter Response Team program (NSNRT) have provided for clinics in multiple locations throughout the southeast, including the Forsyth Spay/Neuter Clinic in Kernersville and a projected one for Raleigh (Wake County), Mission: The mission of the Humane Alliance Spay/Neuter Clinic is to provide targeted, high-volume, high-quality, law-cost sterilization services as the non- lethal solution to the companion pet overpopulation dilemma., The concept is to create a clinic strictly for sterilization surgeries that services a certain population base, and can offer surgeries at very reduced costs through a high volume of clients, Aimed in this direction, the clinics offer little competition to area veterinarians since the clientele of the clinics do not typically seek routine veterinary service (a large percentage are lower-income pet owners), In addition, the clinics will offer no further services than sterilization and routine vaccines. Given a proper volume of surgeries (which the NSNRT attempts to determine ahead of time) and effective efforts on the part of the Board of Directors far a clinic, the clinic should be entirely self-supporting. With community involvement and/or large donors, the clinic can offer surgeries for all income levels, The NSNRT offers the program model, as well as community criteria, cost projections, timelines, clinic requirements, and provides training far the staff, The NSNRT also operates "The Big Fix Rig", afully-operational mobile veterinary clinic aimed at feral cat populations, The Big Fix Rig is able to travel to communities that do not have the resources to address their feral cat problems, and can assist in "Trap/Neuter/Release" (TNR) programs in the southeast area, Two articles about their services can be found in Part III of this packet; they are entitled Thinking Big in North Carolina: The Humane Alliance Proves Attitude is Everything, and Spay/Neuter Receives Grant, National Attention, Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies Zg Tompkins County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals The Tompkins County (NY) SPCA is one of the primary shelters quoted by No-Kill advocates as an indication that the policy can work. Their website at http://www.spcaonline.com is very outdated, according to their Assistant Director Pam Stonebraker, so the information below was obtained through telephone conversation with her on August 30, 2006. Tompkins County SPCA is presently practicing a successful policy of placing all adoptable and treatable animals from their shelter, which is the only one for Tompkins County and operates under contract with the county government. Tompkins County SPCA also provides the Animal Control services. They take in roughly 3,000 animals per year, with a budget of about $900,000. About 60% of this is provided by donations, 30% by the county contract, and 10% by the income garnered through fees. They also have afull-time staff veterinarian who is paid through a grant from Maddie's Fund. They are an open-admission shelter, though some admissions have to be put on await-list -dogs have an average wait time of about a week, though cats typically do not have to wait and may be taken in right away. They do not see an over-abundance of puppies, and cat litters are much higher in number than dog litters. They have a very significant foster program, and work with rescue groups for purebred animals. All kittens and puppies go into foster until they can be sterilized and placed out for adoption. They also routinely send some of their animals down to North Share Animal League in Port Washington, NY (Long Island) - a minimum of 400 animals a year. NSAL maintains a shelter that does not take animals from the public, and does not euthanize adaptable animals. They perform temperament testing on dogs, and will euthanize dangerously aggressive dogs -they also euthanize far terminal illnesses. They do not euthanize for space.. They have a reclamation rate of roughly 40% for dogs, about 2% for cats Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 29 San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals The San Francisco SPCA is considered the leader in the field of adoption/placement programs, and is referred to routinely. Information on this page is taken directly from a packet they sent at our request in August 2006 (with the exception of the county population figure). The shelter for the SF SPCA is aprivately-funded, limited-intake facility and separate from the San Francisco Animal Care & Control open-door facility, though they work in close cooperation with them, The animal control facility also adopts out animals. In Fiscal year 2005, the SPCA had a staff of 150, with an additional 885 volunteers. Their budget was $11,664,000. Volunteer hours were 112,260. The SPCA also boasted 10,000 donating members. Shelter capacity is approximately 200 animals, though they have an approximate average population of 500, with the assistance of Maddie's Pet Adoption Center, Community Veterinary Services, and their Foster Care and Hearing Dag programs, meaning that up to 60% are housed outside of the SPCA facility itself, For Fiscal Year 2005, the SPCA achieved a 91 % adoption rate - 77% cats, 23% dogs, Their information packet lists 3,557 adoptions out of 2,497 intakes for Fiscal Year 2003, a discrepancy that is not fully explained. Animal Care & Control statistics for Fiscal Year 2003 also have a similar problem, having 362 animals from its 6,857 Intakes unaccounted far. Their figures show a 22..5% euthanasia rate, But due to the discrepancies, combined statistics for the county as a whole cannot be determined. SF SPCA credits a great deal of their success to ahigh-volume spay/neuter program and education, causing a significant reduction in combined SPCA/ACC intakes -from 9,720 in FY 2000, to 8,612 in FY 2001 (11.4% reduction), to 7,836 in FY 2002 (9% reduction), to 7,264 in FY 2003 (7.3% reduction). All of these numbers are low for a county that boasts a population of 739,426 [US Census Bureau 2005 estimate], In Fiscal Year 200.5, they sterilized 6,533 animals; 1,474 of those were feral cats, The statistics also seem to indicate far more cats than dogs being handled, not surprising for an area as completely urbanized as San Francisco County. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 30 III. Background Articles and References Asilomar Accords 1. Preface 2. Guiding Principles 3. Definitions 4. Annual Animal Statistics Table and Live Release Rate Formulas 1. Preface In August of 2004, a group of animal welfare industry leaders from across the nation convened at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California for the purpose of building bridges across varying philosophies, developing relationships and creating goals focused on significantly reducing the euthanasia of healthy and treatable companion animals in the United States. Through hard work, lively discussion and brainstorming, a common vision for the future was adopted.. The leadership of the following organizations participated in the original, and/or subsequent meetings, and were involved in the drafting of the "Asilomar Accords": Martha Armstrong The Humane Society of the United States Richard Avanzino Maddie's Fund !Pamela Burns Hawaiian Humane Society 'Mark Byers ! Spanish Fork Animal Control (UT) 8 the National Animal Control Association (NACA) Perry Fina North Shore Animal League and The Pet Savers Foundation Mark Goldstein, D,V.M. San Diego Humane Society and SPCA ~elinda Lewis Fort Wayne Animal Care & Control Dave Loftus Pet-Ark (Jane McCall Dubuque Humane Society :Jan McHugh-Smith Humane Socity of Boulder Valley Steven McHugh Unison Business Development Nancy McKenney Humane Society for Seattle/King County Dan Morrison Southeast Area Animal Control Authority John Nagy Dumb Friends League & the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA) Cheryl Naumann Arizona Humane Society Robert Rohde Dumb Friends League Edwin Sayres American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 'John Snyder The Humane Society of the United States ~_ _,~ Karen Terpstra Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA Gary Tiscornia iMarie Belew Wheatley SPCA of Monterey County & the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA) (American Humane Association 2. Guiding Principles 1. The mission of those involved in creating the Asilomar Accords is to work together to save the lives of all healthy and treatable companion animals.. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 31 2 We recognize that all stakeholders in the animal welfare community have a passion for and are dedicated to the mutual goal of saving animals' lives. 3. We acknowledge that the euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals is the sad responsibility of some animal welfare organizations that neither desired nor sought this task. We believe that the euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals is a community-wide problem requiring community-based solutions.. We also recognize that animal welfare organizations can be leaders in bringing about a change in social and other factors that result in the euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals, including the compounding problems of some pet owners'/guardians' failure to spay and neuter; properly socialize and train; be tolerant of; provide veterinary care to; or take responsibility for companion animals. 4. We, as animal welfare stakeholders, agree to foster a mutual respect for one another. When discussing differences of policy and opinion, either publicly or within and among our own agencies, we agree to refrain from denigrating or speaking ill of one another. We will also encourage those other individuals and organizations in our sphere of influence to do the same. 5. We encourage all communities to embrace the vision and spirit of these Accords, while acknowledging that differences exist between various communities and geographic regions of the country. 6. We encourage the creation of local "community coalitions" consisting of a variety of organizations (e g., governmental animal control agencies, nonprofit shelters, grassroots foster care providers, feral cat groups, funders and veterinary associations) for the purpose of saving the lives of healthy and treatable animals. We are committed to the belief that no one organization or type of organization can achieve this goal alone, that we need one another, and that the only true solution is to work together. We need to find common ground, put aside our differences and work collaboratively to reach the ultimate goal of ending the euthanasia of healthy and treatable companion animals.. 7. While we understand that other types of programs and efforts (including adoption, spay and neuter programs, education, cruelty investigations, enforcement of animal control laws and regulations, behavior and training assistance and feral cat management) play a critical role in impacting euthanasia figures, for purposes of this nationwide initiative we have elected to leave these programs in the hands of local organizations and encourage them to continue offering, and expanding upon, these critical services. 8. In order to achieve harmony and forward progress, we encourage each community coalition to discuss language and terminology which has been historically viewed as hurtfiil or divisive by some animal welfare stakeholders (whether intentional or inadvertent), identify "problem" language, and reach a consensus to modify or phase out language and terminology accordingly. 9. We believe in the importance of transparency and the open sharing of accurate, complete animal- sheltering data and statistics in a manner which is clear to both the animal welfare community and the publio to. We believe it is essential to utilize a uniform method for collecting and reporting shelter data, in order to promote transparency and better assess the euthanasia rate of healthy and treatable animals. We determined that a uniform method of reporting needs to include the collection and analysis of animal- sheltering data as set forth in the "Animal Statistics Table." These statistics need to be collected for each individual organization and for the community as a whole and need to be reported to the public annually (e.g., web sites, newsletters, annual reports). In addition, we determined chat each community's "Live Release Rate" needs to be calculated, shared and reported annually to the public, individually by each organization and jointly by each community coalition.. Both individual organizations and community coalitions should strive for continuous improvement of these numbers The "Animal Statistics Table" and formulas for calculating the "Live Release Rate' are set forth in Section IV of these Accords. 1 t. We developed several standard "definitions" to enable uniform and accurate collection, analysis and reporting of animal-sheltering data and statistics.. We encourage all communities to adopt the definitions which are set forth in Section III, and implement the principles of these Accords. 12 While we recognize that many animal welfare organizations provide services to companion animals other than dogs and cats, for purposes of this nationwide initiative we have elected to collect and share data solely as it relates to dogs and cats. 13. We are committed to continuing dialogue, analysis and potential modification of this vision as needs Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 32 change and as progress is made toward achieving our mission. 14. Those involved in the development of the Asilomar Accords have agreed to make a personal commitment to ensure the furtherance of these accords, and to use their professional influence to bring about a nationwide adoption of this vision. 3. Definitions In order to facilitate the data collection process and assure consistent reporting across agencies, the following definitions have been developed. The Asilomar participants hope that these definitions are applied as a standard for categorizing dogs and cats in each organization. The definitions, however, are not meant to define the outcome for each animal entrusted to our care. A glossary and more specific details and examples are included in the appendix portion of this document, Healthy: The term "healthy" means and includes all dogs and cats eight weeks of age or older that, at or subsequent to the time the animal is taken into possession, have manifested no sign of a behavioral or temperamental characteristic that could pose a health or safety risk or otherwise make the animal unsuitable for placement as a pet, and have manifested no sign of disease, injury, a congenital or hereditary condition that adversely affects the health of the animal or that is likely to adversely affect the animal's health in the future, Treatable: The term "treatable" means and includes all dogs and cats who are "rehabilitatable"and all dogs and cats who are "manageable." Rehabilitatable: The term "rehabilitatable" means and includes all dogs and cats who are not "healthy," but who are likely to become "healthy," if given medical, foster, behavioral, or other care equivalent to the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community. Manageable: The term "manageable" means and includes all dogs and cats who are not "healthy" and who are not likely to become "healthy;' regardless of the care provided; but who would likely maintain a satisfactory quality of life, if given medical, foster, behavioral, or other care, including long-term care, equivalent to the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring owners/guardians in the community; provided, however, that the term "manageable" does not include any dog or cat who is determined to pose a significant risk to human health or safety or to the health or safety of other animals. Unhealthy and Untreatable: The term "unhealthy and untreatable" means and includes all dogs and cats who, at or subsequent to the time they are taken into possession, (i) have a behavioral or temperamental characteristic that poses a health or safety risk or otherwise makes the animal unsuitable for placement as a pet, and are not likely to become "healthy" or "treatable" even if provided the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community; or (2) are suffering from a disease, injury, or congenital or hereditary condition that adversely affects the animal's health or is likely to adversely affect the animal's health in the future, and are not likely to become "healthy" or "treatable" even if provided the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and cadng pet owners/guardians in the community; or (3) are under the age of eight weeks and are not likely to become "healthy" or "treatable;' even if provided the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community. 4. Annual Animal Statistics Table and Live Release Rate Formulas A Annual Animal Statistics Table B Annual Live Release Rate Formulas C. Example of Data to Publish for an Individual Aaency Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 33 D Example of Data to Publish for a Community or Coalition E. Glossary of Terms A. Annual Animal Statistics Table Dog Cat Total A BEGINNING SHELTER COUNT (date) INTAKE (Live Dogs & Cats Only) B From the Public C Incoming Transfers from Organizations within Community/Coalition D Incoming Transfers from Organizations outside Communit /Coalition E From Owners/Guardians Requesting Euthanasia F Total Intake [B + C + D + E] G OwnerlGuardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl H ADJUSTED TOTAL INTAKE [F minus G] I ADOPTIONS J OUTGOING TRANSFERS to Organizations within Communit /Coalition K OUTGOING TRANSFERS to Organizations outside Communit /Coalition L RETURN TO OWNER/GUARDIAN DOGS & CATS EUTHANIZED M Healthy (Includes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia) N Treatable - Rehabilitatable (Includes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia O Treatable -Manageable (Includes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia P Unhealthy & Untreatable (Includes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia O Total Euthanasia [M + N + O + P] R Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl S ADJUSTED TOTAL EUTHANASIA [O minus R] T SUBTOTAL OUTCOMES [I + J + K + L + S] Excludes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl U DIED OR LOST IN SHELTERICARE V TOTAL OUTCOMES [T+ U] Excludes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealth & Untreatable Onl ) Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 34 W ENDING SHELTER COUNT (date) To check the accuracy of the shelter data you've compiled, the Beginning Shelter Count (A) plus the Adjusted Total Intake (Hj should equal the Total Outcomes (Vj plus the Ending Shelter Count (IM: A +H=V+W B. Annual Live Release Rate Formulas The Annual Live Release Rate is calculated by dividing total live outcomes (adoptions, outgoing transfers, and return to owner/guardian) by total outcomes (total live outcomes plus euthanasia not including owner/guardian requested euthanasia or died/lost in shelter/care). NOTE: The Annual Live Release Rate Formula is different for an individual agency and a coalition or community due to transfers beiween agencies.. Calculation for an individual agency: Adoptions + All Outgoing Transfers + Return to Owner/Guardian divided by Total Outcomes excluding owner/guardian requested euthanasia (unhealthy and untreatable), and dogs and cats that died or were lost in the shelter/care. Annual Live Release Rate = (I + J + K + L) / (T) * 100 = _ When reporting the Annual Live Release Rate for an individual agency, you should include the following statement: The Annual Live Release Rate does not include _ owner/guardian requested euthanasia which were unhealthy & untreatable (see Line R] and _ dogs and cats that died or were lost in the shelter/care (see Line U]. Calculation for community or coalition: Adoptions + Retum to Owner/Guardian divided by Total Outcomes excluding all outgoing transfers, owner/guardian requested euthanasia (unhealthy and untreatable), and dogs and cats that died or were lost in the shelter/care. Annual Live Release Rate = (I + K + L) / (T - J)* 100 = When reporting the Annual Live Release Rate for the community or a coalition, you should include the following statement: The Annual Live Release Rate does not include _ owner/guardian requested euthanasia which were unhealthy & untreatable (see Line RJ and _ dogs and cats that died or were lost in the shelter/care (see Line U]. C. Example of Data to Publish for an Individual Agency Annual Live Release Rate: 52% The Annual Live Release Rate does not include 4,000 owner/guardian requested euthanasia which were unhealthy & untreatable and 200 dogs and cats that died or were lost in the shelter/care. ..~~: Cb.K..H.... Tnl.l.. MII„ua , /1 Dog Cat Total A BEGINNING SHELTER COUNT (111103) 1,200 1,800 3,000 INTAKE (Live Dogs & Cats Only) B From the Public 24,000 30,000 54,000 C Incoming Transfers from Organizations within Communit /Coalition 0 0 0 D Incoming Transfers from Organizations outside Communit /Coalition 0 0 0 E From Owners/Guardians Requesting Euthanasia 1,800 2,200 4,000 Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 35 F Total Intake [B + C + D + E] 25,800 32,200 58,000 G Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl - 1,800 - 2,200 - 4,000 H ADJUSTED TOTAL INTAKE [F minus Gj 24,000 30,000 54,000 1 ADOPTIONS 8,000 10,000 18,000 J OUTGOING TRANSFERS to Organizations within Communit /Coalition 1,000 1,500 2,500 K OUTGOING TRANSFERS to Organizations outside Communit /Coalition 200 500 700 L RETURN TO OWNER/GUARDIAN 3,300 3,000 6,300 DOGS & CATS EUTHANIZED M Healthy (Includes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia) 1,800 2,200 4,000 N Treatable - Rehabilitatable (Includes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia 3,000 5,000 8,000 O Treatable-Manageable (Includes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia 1,300 1,700 3,000 P Unhealthy & Untreatable (Includes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia 6,500 8,000 14,500 Q Total Euthanasia [M + N + O + P] 12,600 16,900 29,500 R Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl - 1,800 - 2,200 - 4,000 S ADJUSTED TOTAL EUTHANASIA [O minus R] 10,800 14,700 25,500 T SUBTOTAL OUTCOMES [I + J + K + L + S] Excludes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl 23,300 29,700 53,000 U DIED OR LOST IN SHELTER/CARE 75 125 200 V TOTAL OUTCOMES [f + U] (Excludes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia Unhealth & Untreatable Onl 23,375 29,825 53,200 W ENDING SHELTER COUNT (12131/03) 1,825 1,975 3,800 Annual Live Release Rate Calculation for Individual Agency 27,500 / 53,000 " 100 = 52% Data Check: [3,000 + 54,000] _ [53,200 + 3,800]; 57,000 = 57,000 D. Example of Data to Publish for your Community or Coalition Annual Live Release Rate: 49,5% The Annual Live Release Rate does not include 7,000 owner/guardian requested euthanasia which were unhealthy & /untreatable and 380 dogs and cats that died or were lost in the shelter/care. Annual Animal Statistics Table Dog Cat Total A BEGINNING SHELTER COUNT (111103) 2,100 3,100 5,200 INTAKE (Live Dogs & Cats Only) Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 36 B From the Public 36,100 45,900 82,000 C Incoming Transfers from Organizations within Communit /Coalition 1,000 1,500 2,500 D Incoming Transfers from Organizations outside Communit /Coalition 200 500 700 E From Owners/Guardians Requesting Euthanasia 3,150 3,850 7,000 F Total Intake [B + C + D + E] 40,450 51,750 92,200 G Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl - 3,150 - 3,850 -7,000 H ADJUSTED TOTAL INTAKE [F minus G] 37,500 47,700 85,200 I ADOPTIONS 14,400 18,300 32,700 J OUTGOING TRANSFERS to Organizations within Communit /Coalition 1,000 1,500 2,500 K OUTGOING TRANSFERS to Organizations outside Communit /Coalition 200 500 700 L RETURN TO OWNER/GUARDIAN 3,600 3,400 7,000 DOGS & CATS EUTHANIZED M Healthy (Includes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia 2,025 2,475 4,500 N Treatable - Rehabilitatable (Includes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia 4,875 8,125 13,000 O Treatable -Manageable (Includes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia 2,000 2,700 4,700 P Unhealthy & Untreatable (Includes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia 11,700 14,300 26,000 O Total Euthanasia [M + N + O + p] 20,600 27,600 48,200 R Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl - 3,150 - 3,850 - 7,000 S ADJUSTED TOTAL EUTHANASIA [O minus R] 17,450 23,750 41,200 T SUBTOTAL OUTCOMES (I + J + K + L + S] Excludes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Onl 36,650 47,450 84,100 U DIED OR LOST IN SHELTER/CARE 140 240 380 V TOTAL OUTCOMES [T + U] Excludes Owner/Guardian Re uested Euthanasia Unhealth & Untreatable Onl 36,790 47,690 84,480 W ENDING SHELTER COUNT (12131103) 2,810 3,110 5,920 Annual Live Release Rate Calculation for community or t;oaution (I+K+L)/(T-J)' 100 40,400 / 81,600' 100 = 49,5% Data Check: [5,200 + 85,200] _ [84,480 + 5,920]; 90,400 = 90,400 E. Glossary of Terms A) Beginning Shelter Count (date): The number of dogs and cats in your shelter or in your care including fosters at the beginning of the reporting period. The reporting period is annual - either a calendar year or a fiscal year. (date) refers to the first day of the reporting period written in the following format: Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 37 month/day/yeas Intake (Live Dogs & Cats Only): This table only deals with live dogs and cats for which your shelter or animal group assumed responsibility. Dogs and cats categorized as "dead on arrival" or DOA are not included in these statistics. For intake animals, status is determined at the time paperwork is initiated. B) From the Public: The number of live dogs and cais your shelter or animal group received from the public. This includes dogs and cats turned in or surrendered by their owners/guardians; stray dogs and cats turned in by the public; stray dogs and cats picked up in the field; and dogs and cats impounded for cruelty investigation, custody care, and statutory/ordinance impoundment. G) Incoming Transfers from Organizations within Community/Coalition: The number of dogs and cats your shelter or animal group received from other animal organizations participating in your collaborative group.. (This only applies if the reporting organization is working collaboratively with other shelters/groups in their area,) NOTE: On the community or coalition level, C (Incoming Transfers from Organizations within Community/Coalition) should equal J (Outgoing Transfers to Organizations within Community/Coalition). D) Incoming Transfers from Organizations outside Community/Coalition: The number of dogs and cats your shelter or animal group received from animal organizations that are not participating in your collaborative group. NOTE: If you are not part of a collaboration that is compiling statistics, then all your incoming transfers would be listed here. E) From OwnerslGuardians Requesting Euthanasia: The number of dogs and cats turned in or surrendered to your shelter or animal group by their owners/guardians for the purpose of euthanasia.. This includes all categories of dogs and cats (healthy, treatable-rehabilitatable, treatable-manageable, unhealthy & untreatable). (See M, N, O, P for definitions of healthy, treatable-rehabilitatable, treatable-manageable, unhealthy & untreatable,] F) Total Intake: The sum of lines B through E This includes all live dogs and cats for which your shelter or animal group assumed responsibility. G) OwnerlGuardian Requested Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Only): The number of unhealthy & untreatable dogs and cats your shelter or animal grotup euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians and the member of dogs and cats ordered to be euthanized by legislative, judicial or administrative action.. Do not include any dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians and who were considered to be healthy, treatable-rehabilitatable ortreatable-manageable at the time of death. [See M, N, O, P for definitions of healthy, treatable-rehabilitatable, treatable- manageable, unhealthy & untreatable ] H) Adjusted Total Intake: Lines F minus G. Total Intake minus the number of unhealthy & untreatable dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians. (See P for definition of unhealthy & untreatable category.] I) Adoptions: The number of dogs and cats your shelter or animal group placed with members of the public, Do not include dogs and cats in foster homes or dogs and cats transferred to other animal welfare organizations, J) Outgoing Transfers to Organizations within CommunitylC.oalition: The number of dogs and cats your shelter or animal group turned over to other animal organizations within your collaborative group, (This only applies if the reporting organization is working collaboratively with other shelters/groups in their area.) NOTE: On the community or coalition level, J (Outgoing Transfers to Organizations within Community/Coalition) should be equal to C (Incoming Transfers from Organizations within Community/Coalition). K) Outgoing Transfers to Organizations outside CommunitylCoalition: The number of dogs and cats your shelter or animal group turned over to animal organizations that are not part of your collaborative group. NOTE: If you are not part of a collaboration which is compiling statistics, then all your outgoing transfers would be listed here. L) Return to Owner/Guardian: The number of stray dogs and cats your shelter or animal group reunited with their owners/guardians and the number of dogs and cats reclaimed by their owners/guardians. Dogs & Cats Euthanized: The number of dogs and cats your shelter ar animal group euthanized, broken down into Arange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 3g the following categories: healthy; treatable-rehabilitatable; treatable-manageable; and unhealthy 8 untreatable. Dogs and cats are categorized at the time of euthanasia. [See M, N, O, P for definitions of healthy, treatable-rehabilitatable, treatable-manageable, unhealthy & untreatable M) Healthy (Includes Owner/Guardian Requested Euthanasia): The number of healthy dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group euthanized including the number of healthy dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians, The term "healthy" means and includes all dogs and cats eight weeks of age or older that, at or subsequent to the time the animal is taken into possession, have manifested no sign of a behavioral or temperamental characteristic that could pose a health or safety risk or otherwise make the animal unsuitable for placement as a pet, and have manifested no sign of disease, injury, or congenital or hereditary condition that adversely affects the health o(the animal or that is likely to adversely affect the animal's health in the future, N) Treatable -Rehabilitatable (Includes OwnerlGuardian Requested Euthanasia): The number of treatable -rehabilitatable dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group euthanized including the number of treatable -rehabilitatable dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians. (These conditions are generally considered to be curable.) The term "treatable" means and includes all dogs and cats who are 'fehabilitatable"and all dogs and cats who are "manageable, "The term "rehabilitatable" means and includes all dogs and cats who are not "healthy,"but who are likely to become "healthy,"if given medical, foster, behavioral, or other care equivalent to the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community O) Treatable -Manageable (Includes OwnerlGuardian Requested Euthanasia): The number of treatable -manageable dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group euthanized including the number of treatable -manageable dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians, (These conditions are generally considered to be chronic.) The term "treatable" means and includes all dogs and cats who are "rehabilitatable" and all dogs and cats who are "manageable. "The term "manageable' means and includes all dogs and cats who are not "healthy" and who are not likely to become "healthy,"regardless of the care provided; but who would likely maintain a satisfactory quality of life, if given medical, foster, behavioral, or other care, including long-term care, equivalent to the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community; provided, however, that the term "manageable" does not include any dog or cat who is determined to pose a significant risk to human health or safety or to the health or safety of other animals. P) lJnhealthy 8 lntreatable (Includes OwnerlGuardian Requested Euthanasia): The number of unhealthy 8 untreatable dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group euthanized including the number of unhealthy & untreatable dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians and the number of dogs and cats ordered to be euthanized by legislative, judicial or administrative action, The term "Unhealthy and Untreatable" means and includes all dogs and cats who, at or subsequent to the time they are taken into possession, (1) have a behavioral or temperamental characteristic that poses a health or safety dsk or otherwise makes the animal unsuitable for placement as a pet, and are not likely to become "healthy" or "treatable" even if provided the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community; or (2) are suffering from a disease, injury, or congenital or hereditary condition that adversely affects the animal's health or is likely to adversely affect the animal's health in the future, and are not likely to become "healthy' or "treatable" even if provided the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community; or (3) are under the age of eight weeks and are not likely to become "healthy" or "treatable,"even if provided the care typically provided to pets by reasonable and caring pet owners/guardians in the community, O) Total Euthanasia: Sum of lines M through P, This includes all dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized (Healthy, Treatable -Rehabilitatable, Treatable -Manageable, and Unhealthy & Untreatable), [See M, N, O, P for definitions of healthy, treatable-rehabilitatable, treatable-manageable, unhealthy & untreatable.] R) OwnerlGuardian Requested Euthanasia (lJnhealthy & lntreatable Only): The number of unhealthy tz untreatable dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians and the number of dogs and cats ordered to be euthanized by legislative, judicial or administrative action, Do not include any dogs and cats your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians and who were considered to be healthy, treatable-rehabilitatable or treatable-manageable at the time of death. [See M, N, O, P for definitions of healthy, treatable- Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 39 rehabilitatable, treatable-manageable, unhealthy & untreatable.] S) Adjusted Total Euthanasia: Total Euthanasia minus Owner/Guardian Request Euthanasia (Unhealthy & Untreatable Only). [See P for definition of unhealthy & untreatable category,) T) Subtotal Outcomes: Sum of lines I through L plus S. This includes the number of dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group adopted, transferred, returned to owner/guardian, Do not include the number of dogs and cats who died or were lost while in your shelter or in your care or the number of unhealthy & untreatable dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians or the number of dogs and cats ordered to be euthanized by legislative, judicial or administrative action. [See P for definition of unhealthy & untreatable category.] U) Died or Lost in ShelterlCare: The number of dogs and cats for which your shelter or animal group assumed responsibility and who died or could not be accounted for, This includes the number of dogs and cats who died of medical complications (and were not euthanized), died in foster care or in transit, or were lost or stolen from the shelter. V) Total Outcomes: Sum of lines T and U This is the total number of dog and cat outcomes which includes the number of dogs and cats your shelter or animal group adopted, transferred, returned to owner/guardian plus the number of dogs and cats for which your shelter or animal group assumed responsibility and who died of medical complications (and were not euthanized) or were lost or stolen (from the shelter or foster care). Totai outcomes do not include the number of unhealthy & untreatable dogs and cats that your shelter or animal group euthanized at the request of their owners/guardians or the number of dogs and cats ordered to be euthanized by legislative, judicial or administrative action.. [See P for definition of unhealthy & untreatable category.] Wj Ending Shelter Count (date): The number of dogs and cats in your shelter or in your care including fosters at the end of the reporting period. The reporting period is annual - either a calendar year or a fiscal year. (date) refers to the last day of the reporting period written in the following format: month/day/year. Special Note: To calculate the Annual Live Release Rate for your community or coalition, each participating shelter or animal group will need to fill out the Annual Animal Statistics Table for their individual organization.. The reporting organization for the community/coalition will then compile this information for all the groups in one table and follow the instructions for calculating the community/coalition rate, Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 40 What Would It Take? By Nancy Lawson and Carrie Allan Reproduced from the January-February 2002 issue of Animal Sheltering magazine If someone were to ask ,you what it would take to stop euthanizing animals and find homes for every one of them, you would probably respond with more questions: "Which animals are we talking about? All animals? Healthy animals? Behaviorally sound animals?"Your inquiries wouldn't stop there, "In which communities? What's the timeframe? What's the starting point? How many are being euthanized now? What are we doing to ensure the end of suffering as well?" In 2QQ2, Animal Sheltering will explore the issues behind these questions and bring you a diversify of voices from the field. And whether it is the voices of people who believe in the power of the term "no kill" or the voices of those who find it divisive, the chorus is one of animal care professionals who are t ,tying to find the answers to pet homelessness in their communities. The searches have led many to focus more public attention on the true cause of the crisis-not animal control agencies and shelters, which have long stood on the front lines to battle the problem, but on communities themselves, which continue to generate more animals than responsible homes. As one shelter director has so succinctly put if, no one would ever think to blame the American Cancer Society for cancer, ,yet some members of the public and the media continue fo blame animal homelessness and euthanasia on animal shelters. The assumption is damaging to everybody working towards the day there is a home for every cat and dog.° Just as inhumane euthanasia methods and high euthanasia rates at one shelter can be twisted to cast a negative pall on all shelters, poor animal care standards, deceptive fundraising and PR practices, and hoarders masquerading as "no kills" have cast a poor light on compassionate and responsible "no kill" organizations. Because of our ongoing and highly visible debates about the words we use to define ourselves, the relationships among many organizations have been in danger of coming to a standstill. It's as though we all set out together towards the utopia we wanted to reach, only to stop halfway to argue about which route provided a faster wa,y of getting there, We're getting no closer to our destination b,y arguing, While many continue to believe that the term "no kill" can be misleading to the public, most also believe that, at ifs heart, it reflects a goal of everyone in the sheltering field: to end the need for the euthanasia of healthy, behaviorally sound animals. If we can reach a point where all organizations, regardless of their labels, are on the same page when it comes to professional standards of animal care, responsible adoption processes, financial and moral support from their Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 41 communities and local governments, and proactive prevention programs that seek to keep pets in homes, we will not have to argue anymore about how to reach our utopia. We will have arrived, Part 1: We're All in This Together When Tammy Kirkpatrick stood before a packed room at the 2000 No Kill Conference in Tucson, she wasn't prepared for the reaction her words were about to elicit. Thinking hers would be just another presentation among many, she proceeded to explain the name of her workshop, "No Kill Doesn't Mean No Euthanasia." The talk proved to be even more provocative than the title, as Kirkpatrick went on to address those situations she considers to be abominable and contrary to everything she believes the "no kill" philosophy should represent, Attendees couldn't wait to return home and relay the details to their coworkers. Two years later, people are still talking about it. "A lot of people thought [itj was pretty controversial," says Kirkpatrick. "And I'm like, 'Hello?? Wake up!' ,,, I had a lot of big hitters in this business sitting in my audience, and I'm sweating bullets going, 'Oh my god, oh my god, I didn't think this was going to be that big of a deal,' But it turned out that it opened a lot of people's eyes-both 'traditional' and 'non-traditional,' " A Word On Terms Far the purposes of this article, to avoid the semantics issues we are trying to help solve, we are referring to individual organizations by the labels they use to define themselves. Because some organizations call themselves "open- admission" and others use the term "full- service," those words appear here interchangeably on general reference. "No kill" is often in quotes because it is the term that has been As the new producer of the conference, renamed last the subject of the most year to CHAMP (short for Conference on Homeless debate-and the one Animal Management and Policy), Kirkpatrick is still that is slowly being challenging "no kill" organizations and others to examine replaced by mare their policies and missicns, placing particular emphasis inclusive descriptions, on the fact that, regardless of what a group calls itself, the animals are the number-one pricrity, Through her articles in No Kill News, she has continued to address the same problems she discussed in her workshop. In one edition, she described an organization that had held two dangerous dogs for seven years, usurping resources and space that could have been devoted to "adaptable" dogs. In another edition, she told the story of another professed "no kill" group that had left its animals in the hands of caretakers who proceeded to destroy the animals' living quarters, take their food, and run off without telling anyone. Until animal control alerted the group members, they were not even aware that the animals had been abandoned. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 42 "Thank God for animal control!" says Kirkpatrick, who is also the associate director of the Pet Savers Foundation. "Somebody was doing their job. It certainly wasn't this organization. Yau have to understand, they are not a true 'no kilh' ... I would consider them collectors or hoarders, ,,, "Bottom line is that a true `no kill' organization will euthanize an animal that has a disease which cannot be treated or [that] has lost the quality of life, 'No kill' organizations will euthanize a dangerous dog that presents major potential for injury to the public or to another animal. A true 'no kill' would do that." "And that's what's the driving force behind my particular articles," says Kirkpatrick, " .,, is that there are 'no kill' organizations or supposed 'no kill' organizations that ,,, are not following the real meaning behind what they are doing." Spinning Our Wheels To Kirkpatrick, the assertions are nothing more than common sense, To some in the field, however, they represent a sea change, a re-opening of a dialogue that had been slammed shut for years by anger, insensitivity, resentment, and fear, it was about a decade ago that Richard Avanzino, whose name has become synonymous with the "no kill" movement, stood before a workshop audience at The HSUS's Animal Gare Expo to explain his interpretation of the phrase "no kill": that it was a concept, a description of the mission he believed every humane organization should have. It was just one piece of the larger puzzle, however, and it was not meant to condone "warehousing" of animals or advocate an exclusive focus on "the cutes and cuddlies," Nor should the term be used to cast aspersions on other agencies, Avanzino advised, "When i first came into the cause, there was a round condemnation by a lot of humane organizations about animal control programs, he told attendees. "And now I think everybody realizes that we're all part of the same family, all trying to da the best thing as professionally as we can. And I don't think that we should be making good guys and bad guys out of the entire movement, I think we should all be working together, trying to learn from each other, taking efforts and trying to see what we can do to make the best good," If those wards had been taken to heart movement-wide, the concept would have been easier far many to embrace; "no kill" could have become a barometer for measuring change, not an epithet. But instead, the dialogue often regressed from its original incarnations, manifesting itself in public spats over the definitions of "euthanasia," "kill," "no kill," and "adoptable," As the debate turned almost exclusively toward euthanasia, the battle lines were drawn. Many shelters have endured so many slings and arrows over their operational policies that developing relationships with external groups can seem like not just a difficult Arange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 4.3 proposition but aburden-and one that takes precious time away from pursuing the mission itself. But since Avanzino's speech during the "Kill/No Kill Controversy" workshop in Las Vegas in 1992, the world has continued to change. The public is, in many cases, more aware. "Twenty-five years of intensive spay/neuter campaigns and educational efforts have finally paid off-the numbers of puppies and kittens ending up at animal shelters has dropped dramatically in many communities," says HSl)S Senior Vice President Martha Armstrong, who started at the Memphis Humane Society in 1977. "For many organizations, the focus has changed: Behavior-related relinquishments have taken the place of the endless litters of baby animals, and shelters are responding accordingly-with proactive programs designed to keep animals from ever coming into their facilities in the first place." The animal protection field has arrived at an exciting crossroads, yet the field continues to spin its wheels on a semantics debate that, at this point, is only wasting fuel. There is validity to both sides of the argument: many who have adopted the "no kill" language echo Avanzino's words in that long-ago workshop, saying they are just t ,tying to define a goal that all shelters should be headed towards. And many veterans of the field still counter that ending the need for euthanasia has always been a goal, but that that fact is often lost on a public that doesn't see past the false dichotomy the words "no kill" create. But there are flashes of light at the end of the tunnel. In compiling a series on what it would really take to stop euthanizing healthy, adoptable animals, the editors of Animal Sheltering discovered something unexpected: people on the "no kill" side saying they have begun to curb their use of the term, and, on the other hand, people in open-admission shelters saying they have started communicating with "no kill" groups-even if it sometimes means enduring language they perceive to be hurtful or misleading. Almost universally, shelter directors who bristle at the words "no kill" also credit its proponents with igniting more discussion and creativity. Perhaps for the first time, many leaders of the animal care and control field are according legitimacy to some "no kill" groups, giving a seat at the table to those organizations that have listened to shelters' concerns and have started emphasizing more training, more cooperation, and greater understanding of the real issues of pet homelessness. And from the other side, acknowledgement of the essential role of animal care and control agencies has evolved in some communities from a mere nod in those agencies' direction to a public embrace. Both sides have grown tired of the bickering, and the framework of the argument is becoming stale. And no matter who it is and what their background, if someone is truly in this field for the right reasons, his take on the debate will always revert back to the question: "What's best for the animals?" Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 44 Swinging on a Verbal Trapeze Unfortunately, the question that's most important to so many in the field is also the one that has caused the most rifts among them, says ~lim Bonner, executive director of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, "Qur approach, as it has been for many humane societies, is how can we do [things for] the greater good?" says Bonner, whose background in math, computer science, and avian care has helped shape his perspective on the argument since he first joined the field last August. "And then you have another core or camp that say, `Well, we're going to do the best we can far each individual, We're going to limit the number of individuals, but we are going to do the best we can for them,' Far some reason, those two sides don't seem to be able to communicate very well with each other, "And that's a shame, There is certainly enough work to do, Both sides can be quite valid, They are both doing good. They should not be combating with each other because they have a different principle," The arguments have dragged on ad nauseam, sometimes behind closed doors, sometimes in the public eye, often bitterly, and almost always to the detriment of the animals, And in the past the debate has been riddled with redundancy: a rehashing of the same old questions leading to the same old impasses, Ask a hundred people for their definitions of "no kill," and you'll get a hundred answers-and even more questions: What's the definition of "no"? What's the definition of "kill"? How do you define "euthanasia," and what makes one animal more "adoptable" than another? Further muddying the waters is the fact that the quest to define who is "adoptable" and who is "unadoptable" is often as much of a struggle internally as it is in the community at large, says Kate Pullen, director of Animal Sheltering Issues at The HSUS. "If the animals are constantly flipping back and forth between categories," says Pullen, "and if you don't have all your staff and volunteers on board so that you've diminished all those behind-the-scenes arguments, then you really confuse the public and confuse the other animal organizations," In some communities, the words require verbal contortions to justify their existence-one of the reasons Bonner's on the hunt for a new way to describe his shelter's role in Pittsburgh's "No Kill by 2005" campaign. "The phrase is bad because it's a misnomer," he says, "We have to qualify, I think, the word 'killing,' So we say, 'We'll be no-kill for all really adoptable animals,' or'We're no-kill for this,' or'We're no-kill for that.' So instead of rallying around a term that you have to then defend, why do that? This just positions you poorly in the future in the eyes of your constituents." The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society adopted the language the year before Bonner took over--with only a vague outline as to how it was going to Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 45 achieve the goal within five years. "It was something that San Francisco took the lead on, and we had to do it in self-defense," says Charlotte Grimme, the organization's development director. "To build this new shelter, it was just so easy to use those words 'no kill,' especially since the other two shelters were using them, It's almost like, `How can I raise this money-we need $3,2 million- without using those words when San Francisco, which has such a high national profile, and the other two shelters in Pittsburgh are using the words just constantly?' " The fact that organizations feeling backed into a corner can simply relabel themselves as a reactive measure renders the labels themselves almost meaningless, And as Julie Morris has discovered in her work as an ASPCA vice president, the interpretations, qualifications, and nuances churning around the words "no kill" vary so much from one community to the next that it's impossible to judge the quality of an organization by its label. In her travels to shelters around the country, her own preconceived notions have been turned upside dawn, she says, "I kind of almost assumed that in each community the full-service shelter would be the best .,. in terms of people care, animal care, and facility," says Morris, "and [that] animal control would be less so, and the no kill would be even less so. And that's totally untrue. It totally depends on the community, I've been to communities where the best facility is the 'na kill' by far, And I've gone to communities where the animal control by far is the best, .., Reading whether they're `municipally run,' 'no kill,' ar 'full service' tells me nothing about the quality of the facility." If seasoned veterans like Morris are confiased by the labels, it's little wonder that the public is, for the most part, utterly baffled. The media has found the term "no kill" hard to resist and even harder to explain; drafting one definition of "no kill" while remaining fair to all involved would result in footnotes and qualifications longer than the definition itself-and too detailed for the brief time or word limits media directors often place on what they consider to be "fluffy" or "feel-good" animal stories. As a result, explanations of the phrase-from bath its defenders and detractors-are usually reduced to one or two boilerplate sentences in the newspaper or on the TV screen, "You Kill Them in Here, Dontcha?" What the public has picked up from reductive news reports is something far too simplistic, a mental framework that creates a completely inaccurate impression: a good shelter is a "no kill" shelter; a bad one "kills" animals, Because of the human tendency to segregate the world into categories of good versus bad and right versus wrong, movements for change-whether political, cultural, or social-are usually perceived in terms of their extremes, And when splintered factions engage in a struggle to claim the higher ground, they forsake the chance Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 46 to address common goals and further aggravate the media's penchant far dividing people up into neatly symbolic-and supposedly opposing-sides. The dichotomy has become so ingrained in the public mindset that directors of full-service agencies report a kind of inverse effect: callers or visitors who are convinced that any shelter of high quality is inherently "no kill." At the Potter League for Animals in Newport, Rhode Island, people think the organization is "no kill" simply because it's "clean" or it's 'not the pound," says Executive Director Christie Smith. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, the Bucks County SPCA shares a similar "dubious distinction," says Executive Director Anne Irwin. "Sometimes we have to explain to people who call-because they have heard good things about us-that we are not a `no kill' shelter, but that animals do have a reasonably good chance of finding a home here," she says. One shelter director in the western part of the country reports the opposite phenomenon: Visitors to her full-service facility compliment its friendliness and cleanliness while in the same breath criticizing the "no kill" organization in the neighboring town as a "dump" that harbors "mean" and "sick" animals, The compliments are welcome but somewhat backhanded when visitors follow up by asking, usually innocently and with no inkling as to how hurtful their words are, "But you kill them in here, dontcha?" The public confusion-and the fact that someone in the community must pertorm the job of euthanasia to minimize suffering-is the reason Matt Wahrhaftig stays away from "no kill" terminology at his organization in Kettering, Ohio. With its extensive foster network and training and placement programs, the Society for the Improvement of Conditions for Stray Animals (SICSA) finds homes for about 1,500 animals a year and rarely euthanizes. But Wahrhaftig, the director of operations, freely admits that in limiting the grotap's intake of animals, SICSA has a "luxury" that other facilities do not; many of the animals his group is unequipped to care far-aggressive strays, for instance-end up at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. "I don't feel comfortable campaigning above the other two organizations because we area 'no-kill' shelter [and saying], `We should get all your money,' "says Wahrhaftig. "I think [people] definitely need to view each organization as to what they can contribute to the community ... and more on who they are than on what their name is." Nor does Wahrhaftig want to disappoint those who take the term "no kill" at face value, thinking it means no euthanasia whatsoever. "No kill" is so appealing to the public often for the very reason that people take it literally and assume that all animals can and should live regardless of their circumstances-when in truth, as Kirkpatrick points out, responsible "no kill" facilities do euthanize animals who are suffering or aggressive. "I don't like the deception," says Wahrhaftig. "People come to us and they don't realize that we euthanize, and then we end up with a lot of people getting a lot of Arange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 4'7 heartbreak when they find out that yes, we do have to put animals down. ,.. So we've kind of gone on to tell people, `Look, we do everything possible to make sure that the animal is going to get a home and have a good quality of life, but there are times when we have to make a decision when the quality of life of an animal is not what it needs to be. Then we are going to have to put an animal down.' I think that's important for people to know up front." We All Want to Be "No Kill" l)nderstandably, people tend to believe first what is easiest to digest and absorb; those relinquishers who have any sort of attachments to their animals will of course be comforted by the idea that it's possible to find every cat and dog a home, Even if the phrase "no kill" had never entered the collective conscience, the fantasy notion that euthanasia can end just because one wills it to would persist, In Theresa Bruner's West Virginia community, far example, the all-volunteer Taylor County Humane Society has increased the county facility's adoption rate from zero to 35 percent in nine months; by helping the part-time dog warden clean, feed, socialize, and place the animals, the group has completely changed the plight of homeless animals in its community. It is not a "no kill" organization, however, and has never promoted the phrase, Yet the perception of the humane society as "the good guys" is often equated with the idea of "no euthanasia" by people in the community, "They call me, they think that by giving up the dog, it's a sure bet that the dog is going to be saved," says Bruner, "I'm saying, 'You know, that's not right, What you guys need to realize is that we may be at 35 percent, but there's still 65 percent of the dogs going down,' " It would be tempting for someone in Bruner's situation to tell people what they want to hear, abdicating responsibility by saying her group has a 1 QQ-percent adoption rate; after all, all the animals technically "belong" to the county, and the humane society has no legal accountability for them, But that would give the false perception that animal homelessness has everything to do with the organization in charge and little to do with societal ills, perpetuating the culture of blame that runs counter to the community spirit Bruner's group has been trying to engender. Besides, animal advocates in Taylor County have more immediate concerns: Before the new all-volunteer humane society arrived on the scene last year, the county facility didn't even have running water; the dog warden had to carry buckets into the building from a tank outside, "I think 'no kill' is wonderful, and I think everyone would aspire to that., ,., But we can't all be that way," says Bruner. "Let's don't get into little pockets of pointing fingers at this person because they are, or this group because they aren't-because everyone can't be." Ganay Johnson thought her shelter could be when its board decided to go "no kill" in 1995; after all, the Humane Society of Gallatin Valley in Bozeman, orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 4g Montana, already had a high adoption rate, she says, As the only shelter in town, the humane society had always been open-admission-and Johnson believed it needed to stay that way in order to protect the animals in her community. But she soon realized she couldn't have it both ways. Tremendous pressure to meet the goal of "no euthanasia"-combined with the need to provide refuge for all homeless cats and dogs-resulted in suffering: animals who came in "adoptable" quickly became unadoptable in a crowded environment that wore on their temperaments and made them sick, "We were 'no kill' and 'open-admissions,' and for a while we were able to keep that up," says .Johnson, now the executive director of the Humane Society of Park County in nearby Livingston, "But, as was bound to happen, the flow of incoming animals started exceeding the flaw of outgoing animals. So it became incredibly crowded, And I began to not feel very good about what I was doing, I began to question how humane it was to keep marginally adoptable animals in a not-so-great kennel situation far a long period of time.... And the animals were getting sick because they were crowded, spreading disease like crazy." When Johnson took aver her new position two years ago, she had a difficult time adjusting to euthanasia again, "But I feel that we are doing realistic, positive work here," she says, "I don't have any moral quandaries or ethical quandaries about what I'm doing here, I couldn't say that before," Perhaps ironically, the evolution of the "no kill" movement as a whole mimics, on a grander scale, the very personal revelations every person experiences when she enters the field-often privately, often devastatingly, Mary Metzner, shelter supervisor at the St. Louis County Animal Control Services south shelter in Ladue, Missouri, says what she felt after witnessing euthanasia during her first days in the field has never left her., "I didn't get sick, I didn't get sad. Just kind of an empty feeling, and I still have that feeling," says Metzner, who also serves as the current president of the National Animal Control Association. "It has never changed. It has never gotten easy. I tell people---staff and even the public-if it doesn't bother you, get out of the business," In confronting the euthanasia issue for the first time, the first question people ask themselves and their colleagues is usually, "Haw can this be happening?" And then: "What can I do to change this?" And later: "What can I do to change this while also making all these animals as comfortable and happy as I can in the meantime?" After spending years, sometimes decades, trying to dissuade people from old notions about "pounds" and cajoling them to even care about homeless animals in the first place, some longtime shelter professionals are understandably offended by the implication that the goal to stop euthanizing physically and mentally healthy animals is somehow "new." orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 49 "I would love to have been 'no kill' the first day I got in the business," says Jim Tedford, executive director of the Humane Society at Lollypop Farm in Rochester, New York. "I remember walking into my first shelter and saying, 'Well, you guys just don't get used to all this killing stuff because we're going to stop this,' .,, I was going to fix it all overnight, I realized quickly that you couldn't." But that doesn't mean that Tedford hasn't devoted his career to trying to figure out how. Nearly 20 years after he started that first job at the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley (formerly the Knox County Humane Society), he is heading up an ambitious initiative he inherited when he moved to Rochester in 1998, Called "Shelter of Hope," the plan is to reach a 100-percent adoption rate for all "adoptable" animals, "Will we then be 'no kill'?" Tedford asked rhetorically in a recent newsletter to supporters. "Not really-not if we continue sheltering any animal brought through our doors, Some will still be incurably ill, horribly injured, vicious, or too old to re-home, and we will be forced to give them the final gift of euthanasia. But, it is our sincere hope that we will one day be able to find good, loving, responsible, permanent homes for all adoptable animals," Qf the "no kill" initiatives, Tedford says, "My real gut belief is that it's not a separate movement, ,., The bottom line here is that [everyone] wants the same thing, The fundamental difference is that we are not willing to declare victory until we've actually won." Increasingly, neither are many of those who have aligned themselves with traditionally "no kill" organizations. To many, "no kill" describes not the means to an end but rather the end itself. As Debra Griggs, the introductory speaker at the No More Homeless Pets conference in Norfolk last May, puts it: "'No kill' is not who you are; 'no kill' is what you become," As the president and founder of Animal Rescue of Tidewater in Virginia, Griggs is responsible for organizing a coalition of 50 people representing animal care and control agencies, private shelters, rescue groups, and the veterinary community. While she herself doesn't have a problem with the phrase "no kill," she believes it's not worth it to upset or offend anyone, "We are trying really hard not to use those words because it can stop conversation," she says. "And .,. if we believe those words stop the conversation, then for heaven's sake, let's just find some new words, The words are not that important," In Search of a New Lexicon As each side gives a little ground and the lines continue to blur, the terminology will lose its significance.. Recognition of successful partnerships among groups with varying philosophies has led No More Homeless Pets in Utah to deliberately downplay its use of "no kill," words that "don't necessarily help," says President Greg Castle. As a program of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, a leader in the "no kill" movement, No More Homeless Pets (NMHP) travels around the country to encourage in other communities the same kind of coalition it has nutured among Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 50 private shelters, animal care and control agencies, and adoption groups in its home state. While its ultimate goal is the elimination of euthanasia of "healthy, adoptable dogs and cats," the expression of that goal in the promotional materials of NMHP's Utah efforts steers clear of words like "kill" and "no kill." "It's just, from many points of view, kind of an inflammatory term. That's the sort of thing that you have to be aware of," Castle says. "I think that what has characterized some-maybe many-elements of the `no kill' movement ... are same pretty strong feelings which aren't really-an their side-very well-informed or really sympathetic to what euthanizing shelters are trying to do. And [which] just don't cut them any slack, if you follow me. And that is just a recipe for an entrenched argument." Castle cautions that his organization isn't necessarily advocating widespread abandonment of the phrase; he believes it may still serve a purpose in places where groups with varying viewpoints are not working together yet. But keeping it out of the dialogue in Utah is a kind of recognition of the "high level of cooperation" that's already been obtained from both sides of the fence in that state, says Castle: "Our acknowledgement of that cooperation ... speaking from the 'no kill' side, is embodied, in one way, in not using that term," Many have noticed the diminished importance the San Francisco SPCA has placed on the term-a move that is in part intended to illuminate the importance of the role of animal control. When Ed Sayres arrived at the SPCA as its new president about three years ago, it didn't take him long to discover that San Francisco Department of Animal Care and Control Director Carl Friedman was uncomfortable with the notion that most people thought San Francisco as a whole no longer euthanized animals-when, in fact, a quarter of the cats and dogs entering the shelter system never left. As a result, Sayres and Friedman collaborated on a statistical report called "Partnerships for Life," which explained to the public exactly how the animals were being categorized and what their ultimate dispositions were. The directors have also adapted the terms "save rate" and "live release rate" in reference to their overall statistics on how many animals have been reunited with their owners or placed in new homes. One of the ideas behind the report, says Sayres, was to "recognize that we couldn't really achieve what we are achieving without someone taking care of the 24/7 open-door status of Animal Care and Control, and .., that there are issues in the community that need to be regulated." Even if there were no other common interests among "no-kill" and "open-admission" organizations, the two sides share a collective purpose in doing what they believe to be in the best interest of the animals. A community would not be able to fulfill that mission if it weren't for animal control; as Sayres explains, there will always be people who are cruel to animals, and there will always be neglect. "And someone has to respond to that," he says. "So it is truly a partnership." Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 51 For his part, Friedman says the partnership has grown over many years of slow give-and-take, and eventually the initial guarded approaches from both sides have dissolved and been replaced by a growing trust, "Certainly I have differences with my local nonprofit SPCA," he says, "So I can go two ways: We can either go to war and we can just elaborate on our differences and do nothing and badmouth each other, which unfortunately you see in a lot of jurisdictions. Or we can say, 'Hey, let's agree to disagree on a lot of issues. Let's find out where we need to work together and do it,' The key is to stop making your place look good at the expense of mine, and vice versa." The growing focus on cooperation and partnerships should come as somewhat of a relief to those working in shelters that take in all animals-from the dangerous pit bulls to the wired adolescent Labrador to the old-lady poodle to the scaredycat sprayer, From their perspective, a "no kill" organization that touts its "no kill" status appears as an island paradise in a sea of inequity for animals, placing itself on a pedestal above other organizations. And that's not helping the animals who are rejected at the door because there is no space left for them-or worse, those who never make it to a shelter in the first place but instead spend their miserable lives with chains around their necks, unprotected and unloved in somebody's backyard, No organization or shelter is an island, and to pretend that it is by slapping an appealing label onto it and operating in isolation is simply setting the bar too low, ignoring the suffering and neediness that hide in the corners of nearly every community. An organization that uses the phrase as a "smoke and mirrors" term is not contributing to the overall solution, says Ed Boks, director of Maricopa County Animal Care and Control Services in Arizona, "That's fundamentally where the issue is: are we looking at'no kill' shelters, or are we looking at'no kill' communities?" he asks. " ,,, There are organizations that do all kinds of fundraising and all kinds of wonderful things, I guess, based on the fact that they can declare themselves 'no kill.' My question is, 'Well, what have you done for me as animal control-to make us 'no kill'? Because as you are out there, not working with us, not working with the organization where the killing is occurring, I'm sorry, I just don't see the value of your organization," "I think that where I differ from a lot of the [other] 'no kill' folks is that they are satisfied with creating a 'no-kill' shelter, and they create a 10,000-foot or ,5,000- square-foot no-kill oasis," says Boks, who has been a speaker at No More Nameless Pets gatherings. " ... If all of the 'no kill' organizations in any community would focus an helping their animal control organization, I think'no kill' would become very, very, very achievable in any community." Let the Healing Begin Where the phrase "no kill" has already been embraced by the public, it may not be worth fighting, says Morris. "I think it doesn't behoove full-service places to keep fighting the name," she says, "but to make sure that it's not used against Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 52 them-and that the `no kills' in their community work cooperatively with them and understand that they have the luxury of being a 'no kill' because there is a full- service or animal control agency in their community," For the most part, the public grasps the realities of euthanasia and the dynamics behind the "no kill" philosophy when shelters take the time to present the issues in an honest, straightforward manner, says Pullen, "It really is more than words," she says. "It's how you run the operations, it's haw you communicate your programs and services to the community, and how trustworthy you are in that presentation, ,.. I think it becomes a problem in the communities where the open- admission shelters have been afraid to talk about it, they've been afraid to address the issue, they ve skirted around the issue, or they've manipulated the numbers, And in those situations where the public is so confused and hasn't gotten a straight answer, they are more swayed when someone comes in on a big white horse and asks, `Why can't we be doing more?' " Some believe "no kill" terminology has been a necessary, if unwelcome, part of the public discourse, engaging those who wouldn't otherwise pay attention to the animal homelessness problem, Though Sayres and Friedman have gradually infused new, more inclusive language into the San Francisco dialogue, Sayres believes the phrase "no kill" did have its place in that city; he says San Francisco may not have achieved as much without it, I think a paradigm shift has to have a label," Sayres says. "Our new label, Partnerships for Life, is more polite and more true and more a bunch of things, but it doesn't stick." Each community is different, however, and a few have been able to achieve numbers comparable to those of San Francisco without using the "no kill" label. In those places where the verbal battles have not yet begun, it makes more sense to adopt more inclusive, less divisive language as Sayres and Friedman have-for the sake of both private inter-agency relationships and public understanding. Lots of organizations are doing it, and there's no better illustration of the new peace offerings than the move to change the name of the "No Kill Conference" to "Conference on Homeless Animal Management & Policy' ;the new title is intended "to capture the common goal of every person dealing with dog and cat overpopulation-placing the adoptables in quality homes and limiting the numbers of unwanted births," wrote Lynda Foro in last fall's edition of No Kill News, "I think everything has a lifespan, and it was important to get'no kill' to be a comfortable word known to the public," says Foro, who started the No Kill Conference in 1995 as the director and founder of Doing Things for Animals and who is now also the director of the Pet Savers Foundation, " .,, I think now we're into talking about 'no kill,' and most people are comfortable with it. So we served our purpose in bringing that word and terminology forward, but ... we failed to reach a few people who never gat the message that everybody was invited. And so I wanted to come up with an acronym that was positive and easy to Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 5.3 remember, but also to have words that meant something that actually everyone could relate to." In addition to the name change, the composition of presenters at the event continues to diversify. Of the 50-plus seminars on the roster for this summer's conference, a large portion are being led by people from animal care and control agencies and other shelters that take in all animals but have not signed on to the "no kill" lingo, "They have pieces that we can all learn from," says Faro. "But we continue to have the red carpet out for anybody that's doing a good job at something, and it doesn't have to have 'no kill' in the title or even be representative of the 'no kill' movement, [If] it's something that saves lives-and we're finding that there's more progress being made across the board-we want to include that," On the local level, the centrist shift has manifested itself in tentative baby steps toward a middle ground, At the Bucks County SPCA, for example, Irwin has shared resources with a "no kill" fostering organization, offering to house some of its cats in the cages that go empty in the winter, After 30 years in the field, Irwin knows that in the end, her organization and its animals will be helped more than hurt by these arrangements, "I think if we hadn't been willing to work with some of these groups," she says, "it would be too easy for us to be just this nameless, scary organization that people don't even want to call, "The `na kill' organizations and the other organizations have got to learn to work side by side," says Irwin. "It kind of means you have to be thick-skinned, I know that the members of the 'no kill' group that works with us and has placed some animals with our help still refer to us as a `kill' shelter. But I've just got to let that roll past me and figure that if we can work together on something, then we will make more progress than fighting it out-because I don't think the general public understands animal welfare groups fighting." Let's stop focusing so much on labels, says Kirkpatrick, and capitalize on all the good that's been achieved and is yet to come, The bond that ties mast people together in this field-a mutual desire to do what is right for all creatures-is much stronger than the rifts that divide, Kirkpatrick is practicing what she preaches, too; when she receives calls from people wanting to start "no kill" groups, she encourages them to find out how they can help their local shelters instead. "Other humane organizations are not our competition, They are our allies," she says. "The puppy mills, the backyard breeders, and the pet stores-there's my competition. That's the people I want shut down. The only way to do that is to make sure animals shelters all aver the country are the number-one resources for communities to get their next beloved pet," Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 54 Her wards are reminiscent of those of Martha Armstrong, a strong advocate of open-admission shelters for her entire career, Not long before Kirkpatrick presented that groundbreaking workshop, "No Kill Doesn't Mean No Euthanasia,' Armstrong used her column in this magazine to call a truce: "We all know that no one in his or her right mind enjoys taking the life of a healthy animal," she wrote to readers. "And every one of us wants to see the day that every companion animal lives a long, healthy, and happy life.... Only by sharing our insights and acknowledging other's contributions can we shift our focus away from making sure other organizations lose and toward working together to help animals win," From the volunteers who have just helped implement humane euthanasia methods in their town to the urban coalitions forming in response to the establishment of the $200 million Maddie's Fund, sheltering professionals and other animal advocates across the country are searching every day for answers to the question, "What Would If Take?" In Part 2 of our six-part series, we'll talk to some of these folks about the importance of examining animal and human demographics, assessing available resources, and developing a plan and mission that caters to the needs of the individual community. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 55 A World Apart: Navigating the Road Between Dreams and Reality By Nancy Lawson And Carrie Allan Reproduced from the March-April 2002 issue of Animal Sheltering magazine In Part 2 of a six-part series exploring what it would take fo stop euthanizing healthy, behaviorally sound animals and ensure a home for every dog and cat, Animal Sheltering examines the disparities among communities rich and poor, urban and rural, animal-friendly and not-so-animal-friendly. Exploring their goals for the future, shelters are emphasizing the importance of assessing the needs of human and animal populations, tailoring services toward those needs, and ensuring that animal comfort and care is not sacrificed along the way to the proverbial paradise. In Part 3, we'll bring you ideas for laying the groundwork of a good shelter, gleaned from interviews with people all over the country who have managed to procure a healthy dose of government funds and garner support from their communities through effective outreach strategies, In case you missed Part 1, "We're All in This Together,"Animal Sheltering explored the dynamics behind the debates over euthanasia and profiled groups that are working hard to bridge the philosophical gaps that have divided fhe movement for so long. If you didn't receive your ropy of the January-February issue that included this article, or if ,you would like extra copies to distribute to reporters or other members of,your community, contact us at 202-452-1100; asm@hsus,org. Last year in northern California, the Marin Humane Society and local animal activists were fighting to save off-leash areas for canines and theirtwo-legged companions, In media reports, Web postings, and petitions regarding "off-leash dog rights," they touted the importance of providing exercise to stave off aggression, curb anxiety, and enhance the relationship between pets and their people, At the same time, the nearby San Francisco SPCA was making similar arguments in its community, leading the charge to preserve pieces of city and national parklands as doggie playgrounds. Meanwhile, a continent and another world away, an animal group in Taylor County, West Virginia, was struggling to convince local officials of the need to connect the local "pound" to a panning water line, And in the neighboring state of Virginia, officials in another county were questioning why shelters should have heat; after all, they reasoned, it's only natural for animals to live outdoors. The dogs and cats in all four communities are lucky enough to have caring, humane people working to ensure better living conditions for bath owned and homeless animals.. In small towns and big cities across the United States, advocates like these are responding to the specific needs of animals and people Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 56 in their regions. But while some operate in places so advanced and so blessed with responsible pet owners and forward-thinking public officials that they can actually afford to lobby far off-leash areas, others live in areas so behind the times that letting animals roam is standard practice and few if any leash laws exist, They are often beginning at vastly different starting points, but headed toward the same finish line: a day when there will be a lifelong, caring home for every companion animal, Culturally, politically, and economically, the idyllic, progressive California communities that have the time and resources to debate the importance of dog parks might as well be on another planet-one that seems far, far away to those who live in a place where many dogs see no more of the outdoors than their backyard chains allow and cats are treated like "nuisance" animals. In the mid-'90s, while the well-established and better funded shelters around the country were just beginning to debate the finer points of who was adoptable, who was treatable, and who was "nonrehabilitatable," the animals in Taylor County weren't being adopted at all. Those left unclaimed lived out their last days in a facility with no running water and a "euthanasia" chamber fashioned out of a leaky old freezer, And even now, as community after community sets a goal to stop euthanizing "adoptable" animals within the next five to ten years, there are vast stretches of this country where the animals are all but forgotten-places where dogs are shot instead of humanely euthanized, where shelters are not shelters but just collections of wooden crates, concrete blocks, and chicken wire. As the national and big-city media celebrate the achievements already made for animals in areas like San Francisco and Marin County, the local press in many of America's rural areas have been uncovering a different side of the story-like that told by the dog warden in Casey County, Kentucky, who, on $400 a month, is expected to feed the animals, pay for gas, and use whatever's left over for his own salary, Bridging the Wide Divide In a homogeneous country, every community could apply the same cookie-cutter formula to its homeless animal problem and chart the kind of progress that's been made in communities where animals have finally gained status as sentient beings who are part of the family. But animal shelters are far from immune to the economic and cultural divides that plague U.S. society; in fact, in poor areas, they are often exaggerated mirrors of those gaps, as animals tend to be the last priority on the list of government functions in most communities. There is no better illustration of this contrast than the range of work performed by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), publisher of this magazine, Recognizing the marked achievements that many communities have made in reducing intake numbers through spay/neuter campaigns and progressive animal Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 57 care and control programs, the organization is focusing on helping shelters face a new challenge: keeping pets and their people together through behavior helplines, in-shelter training and socialization programs, and other forms of intervention designed to curb preventable relinquishments. But as The HSUS graduated the third class of sheltering professionals from its Pets for Life National Training Center at the Dumb Friends League in Denver, Colorado, in October 2000, animal sheltering experts back at HSUS headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, were preparing to embark on a different mission: a tour through the economically depressed areas of Virginia to find out what shelters in that state needed most, The journey was revealing, the divide wide: Unlike their northern Virginia neighbors, one of which just retrofitted its old facility into astate-of-the-art shelter, some of the shelters in the less populated areas of the state lack even the basic necessities: litter pans, for example, or heat for the frigid winters of the Blue Ridge Mountains. "When we went down there, our idea was to hook up struggling animal control officers with mentors to help them deal with cleaning issues, euthanasia issues, anything they might have a question about," says Kate Pullen, director of animal sheltering issues for The HSUS, "But when we got there it was pretty clear haw far same of these groups were from being able to work with a mentor or finding that useful, We expected it to be bad, but we had just na idea exactly how poor and underfunded these places were ... and how much knowledge and support they lacked." A mentor couldn't help with sanitizing the crumbling floors or create more space in the cement buildings that are often less than 500 square feet, Nor could she supplement the salary of a part-time animal control officer expected to cover a 400-square-mile area on top of his other municipal responsibilities-which in same cases include both code enforcement and local landfill management, Most of the shelters Pullen and her staff visited rarely took in cats and usually offered adoptions by appointment only. Yet it was clear that, for the most part, what the people working in these environments lacked was not the will but the way; in one dilapidated facility in need of equipment as basic as gloves and traps, the shelter's sole caretaker had decorated the entrance with a banner proclaiming October as Adopt-a-Dag Month, For Pullen, the hopeful image was the mast striking example of the difficulty of doing humane work in a community that lacks the resources to address even the most pressing human-related problems, "The poor conditions I saw in my travels were compensated for, for the most part, by seeing the compassion and seeing what these guys were t ,tying to do in spite of the lack of funding and lack of community support," she says, Traveling with Teresa Dockery, past president of the Virginia Federation of Humane Societies, Pullen also saw many county shelters where animals were euthanized outside in makeshift carbon monoxide chambers, More than a year Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 5$ later, she and Dockery are providing guidance on training, retrofitting, and basic operations, working with both local animal caretakers and county administrators to improve the status of animals in Virginia. A new law levies fines against facilities that don't comply with minimum standards set by the state; while the law provides powerful backup in situations where local officials are unwilling to budge, Pullen and Dockery would rather see enforcement as a last resort so that communities can spend what little money they have on improvements. In one county facility, The HSUS is funding the construction of new walls that will allow for a cat holding area, a cat adoption room, and a euthanasia room; the officer in that shelter will now be able to perform euthanasia by injection instead of by the carbon monoxide method previously used. To Pullen, who spent years directing shelters in nearby northern Virginia and Maryland, witnessing the conditions of agencies in the forgotten pockets of the country has come as something of a shock. The economic divides are not particular to any region, nor are they limited to rural areas. Even in California, the picture is more mottled than many imagine; the state that's often seen as the Promised Land for animals is home to shelters that still take in litters of baby animals and fight to obtain even basic funding and support. And Californians need only drive an hour or two out of San Francisco to find facilities struggling to bring their operations up to minimum standards. "The rift is really a range of haves and have-Hots," says Julie Morris, vice president of the ASPGA's National Shelter Outreach division. "It seems to me it gets bigger and bigger ... in the sense that the haves at this point are now building some incredible facilities, upwards of 8, 9, 10 million dollars, that have all the bells and whistles, and there are still people who are operating out of sheds and Quonset huts and hooking cars up to the exhaust and euthanizing by exhaust." Progress in the Space Between Somewhere between all those haves and have-Hots are the hundreds of animal shelters that, while not quite prepared to declare victory in the battle against animal homelessness, have experienced gratifying progress. Even as human populations grow, shelter staff in many regions report reduced intakes, a commitment to spay/neuter that was unheard of two decades ago, and reduced euthanasia rates, But as Anne Irwin points out, the latter is the result of years of attention to basic needs of animals in the community. "We've been trying to reduce suffering, and who knew that by plugging away at it, our percentages far euthanasia [would go] down? And the real numbers are dawn," says Irwin, who has been the executive director of the Bucks County SPCA in suburban Philadelphia for 30 years. "There are days-we never thought we'd have days- where we don't have to euthanize anything." Arange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 59 "We plugged away for a long time and we said the animal overpopulation would get better if people didn't let their pets run free and got them neutered," she says, "but I don't know that I really believed that we would see the results," Irwin has been around long enough to remember when the shelter did not require neutering of male animals-and to recall local veterinarians' resistance to the idea when the humane society first proposed it, Since then, she has watched her shelter's intake shrink from 1.5,000 animals a year in the mid-'70s to fewer than 5,000 now. The SPCA has a shortage of "regular, friendly, mixed-breed dogs," says Irwin-to the extent that she actually seeks them out from other agencies in Pennsylvania that welcome her help with placements, And where once the 5- or 6-year-old dogs were considered "old," the shelter is now placing 7-, 8-, and 9- year-old pooches. "I like that we are able to place a whole pool of animals who would have been unplaceable before," says Irwin, "Even when we operated on a real shoestring, we always had some special cases that we fixed up, But now it's far more routine that animals that have treatable conditions get treated, We're doing temperament testing, We have a much better health program for animals. It was all we could do [before] to afford the minimal vaccinations. Now we do leukemia tests," Irwin knows that her situation is by no means universal, however, As the president of the Federated Humane Societies of Pennsylvania, she is familiar with the challenges faced by agencies in less wealthy areas, Some shelters in Pennsylvania's rural communities are still trying to cape with the kinds of problems the Bucks County SPCA was dealing with two decades ago-far too many puppies and other healthy, behaviorally sound animals for the number of homes available. "[These communities] might have one or two vets in the whole county, They don't really have any kind of animal control program, and they are operating on a shoestring," Irwin says, "No one could expect them to get much closer to the goal of 'no kill' any time soon." Everyone has to start somewhere-even in San Francisco, where former San Francisco SPCA President Richard Avanzino started his quest to create a model shelter with no volunteers, only a few employees, and an annual budget of less than $1 million, During that era, the concept of spay/neuter was practically unheard of, says San Francisco Animal Care and Control (SF/ACC) Director Carl Friedman, "I remember 30 years ago, if you wanted a puppy or kitten, [you would] just go to the park any Sunday during the summer months," he says, "There would be people with boxes of kittens and puppies, t ,tying to give them away.... It was just a tremendous overpopulation problem..,, There was a lot more breeding going on in those days. Now I think people are more responsible," As One Door Closes, Another Opens Though San Francisco has come a long way since Friedman's younger days, even that city hasn't reached "zero euthanasia" in the sense that the shelter Prange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 60 system still takes in animals who-because of aggression ar for other reasons- cannot or should not be placed, But its progress is undeniable, Of the 8,600 animals who entered its two shelters from July 2000 through June 2001, almost 80 percent were either returned to their owners or placed into new homes. Since 1985, the shelters' intake of cats and dogs has dropped by 58 percent; last year alone that number dropped by more than 1,000, "We are very proud of the fact that we saved the lives of 77 percent of them ..," says Ed Sayres, executive director of the SF/SPCA. "But the real achievement is that we only had 8,600 to start with." The city s widely reported successes have brought the SF/SPCA and SF/ACC the sincerest form of flattery: imitation from others who want to achieve the same results. Citizens and government leaders often read about the "San Francisco story" and assume that the methods used there will work in their awn communities-and practically overnight, But the San Francisco SPCA, a 134- year-old organization with more than 1,000 volunteers and a $12 million budget, didn't spring out of the earth fully formed, It owes much of its success to years of sterilization and outreach efforts, a progressive community that is receptive to social change, and a strong partnership with awell-funded animal care and control agency, That agency came into being only after the SPCA farted the hand of city officials by relaying its plan to drop its chronically underfunded animal control contract; San Francisco was fortunate to have a city government that responded appropriately by providing the financial support necessary to build a second shelter and a proactive field services agency. Funding for animal control increased tenfold over what the SPCA had received during its tenure as the animal control services provider, says Avanzino, Some communities have not been so lucky. In recent years, private shelters in other areas of the country have tried to follow San Francisco's example by abandoning their contracts and limiting their admissions. And where there are no responsible agencies to pick up the slack and provide refuge to all the other homeless animals who don't pass the "adoptability" test, animals often suffer as a result-in some cases ending up spending their days and nights wherever municipal officials can find space for them, including industrial warehouses, "Anybody can close the door," says Ed Sayres, who took over the helm of the SF/SPCA about three years ago. "The origin of this is the door didn't close, the door was not closed here until the other door was open, And the group opening the door had competency and an adequate facility, The process to get there, unfortunately, requires collaboration and meetings and shared goals. It's not magic." Under San Francisco's "Adoption Pact," signed by the SF/SPCA and SF/ACC in 1994, "non-rehabilitatable" animals are guaranteed refuge at the open-door Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 61 animal control agency and "adoptable" animals who cannot be placed by animal control are transferred to the SPCA. Partnerships of this nature are impossible to sustain in communities unwilling to fund adequate animal control services, Consider the case of Pike County, Ohio, where government officials who were willing to consider construction of a $1.3 million government services center recently refused to increase the local abuse/humane agent's $25-a-month compensation-a salary that has not changed since the position was first created in 1875. Or look at the cases of many of the areas Pullen visited in Virginia; in these places, there is no distinction between the functions of animal control and humane societies because the only provider of hands-on care, field rescue, animal control, or basic sheltering to the county's animals is one compassionate person employed by the county itself, The Cultural Gap Further illtastrating the economic divide, a recent Associated Press article detailed areal-estate survey that puts San Francisco at the top of the list of the most expensive places in the country to set up a large high-tech business. A hot spot for the wealthy, the Bay Area is home to a generous lot, too: Around the time that Avanzino left the SPCA in the late '90s, one out of every three households in San Francisco was donating money or services to the organization.. On the other side of the country and at the bottom of the national real-estate ranking was Baltimore, Maryland, where one-third of the people can barely afford to feed themselves, let alone their pets, says Baltimore's Bureau of Animal Control director, Bob Anderson, Lack of funding for Anderson's agency stems not so much from indifference on the part of local government as it does from cash- poor coffers; the budget left over for animal care and control is dismally low, The one private open-admission shelter in the city, the Maryland SPCA, is already maxed out, taking in 10,000 animals a year, while Baltimore's Bureau of Animal Control takes in 14,000, The animal control budget is just over $2 million a year-and that's supposed to cover all expenses related to field services, shelter operations, and cruelty investigations, "Right now I have 33 people-[HSUS] tells me I should have 42 people just for the shelter alone," says Anderson. "[fhe National Animal Control Association] tells me I should have 32 officers on the street. Combined, I've got 33 people at this time," Adding to the pet homelessness burden in Baltimore is an attitude toward animals that some of Anderson's West Coast counterparts haven't had to contend with in decades: While San Francisco was recently named by the Fancy publications as the best place in the country to be a pet, in Baltimore animals are so low on the totem pole in some people's minds that they think the only purpose of cats is to keep the rat population in check, And as recently as eight years ago, Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 62 "fishing" for rats and then beating or impaling them was a popular annual event at a local bar. Almost 30 percent of Baltimore's residents live at or below the poverty level, says Anderson, In recent years, the city has been dubbed the heroin capital of the country; it's home to about 60,000 drug addicts, the majority of whom are hooked on heroin. And Baltimore's population has continued to fall dramatically every decade since the 50s, from a height of nearly 1 million to only 651,000 today. "The city is in trouble," says Anderson. "The tax base is dwindling. The people who earn the money are moving out; we're losing population every year." "If you compared me to Reno, Las Vegas, San Francisco, I would look like the worst city in the world, like we really didn't care," he says, "But if you've got a city that is growing, you got a city that's vibrant and healthy, it's got a good tax base and they've got the money to spend on animal control, they're going to look good." In his dream world, Anderson would build a symbiotic relationship with the nearby Maryland SPCA; his agency could then focus on investigations and protection, and the SPCA could devote more energy towards adoptions and education. Leaders from the two organizations already meet and talk regularly, and Anderson is committed to bringing change, one step at a time, to an agency that has for years been at the bottom of the list of priorities for city managers. "The ideal place where I would like to be is in the park, right next door to the Maryland SPCA. ,., The reason why? It's just like San Francisco, I would like to partner with them, You let us handle all the vicious dogs, the cats who have bitten people. And I'll give you every adoptable animal you can adopt." The Maddie's Magnet From Baltimore to California, animal care and control professionals in agencies large and small daydream about the paradises their organizations could become given adequate resources, community support, and time. But not every community is like progressive, enlightened San Francisco, and not every shelter can or should fallow the model of the SF/SPCA and SF/ACC. Even where the partnership model is feasible, it's not the best solution for everyone, and some groups favor a more cohesive approach. In terms of sheer percentages, the Marin Humane Society can boast statistics as impressive as those of San Francisco; a range of training and support programs for both the two-legged and the four-legged creatures in the Novato area has helped ensure that only the severely ill and aggressive animals are euthanized. Yet Marin holds the contract for local animal control services and has no plans to relinquish it. In northern Virginia, the Animal Welfare League of Arlington has experienced similar success, even though it also serves as the local animal care and control provider. Executive Director Linda Willen says dropping the contract just wouldn't Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 63 make sense in her area; including both functions under one roof, she says, creates an "us" mentality rather than the "us versus them" feeling that a separation of services could end up fostering.. The unified delivery, of services ensures consistency in the core messages the Animal Welfare League wants to send to the public. When a warden meets someone who can't or won't pay for aspay/neuter surgery for his pets, for example, he has the authority to designate which pet owners are eligible for the shelter's free sterilization program, Or when members of the public need assistance with animal issues, they know which agency to call; the League's mission statement, as relevant today as it was when first written in 1944, includes sheltering, educating the public, preventing cruelty, and finding homes for animals, "We're in an ideal place, and it took decades of pushing spay/neuter," says Willen, "It took decades of education, of being in public schools, ... If you asked me what our `product' here was, I wouldn't say it was animals; I would say it was education, Every person, every volunteer who works here, that's mostly what they do, and they do it constantly." There aren't any shortcuts on the road to animal homelessness-an unfortunate reality that even Richard Avanzino considers in his discussion of potential solutions, Though he sits at the helm of Maddie's Fund, an organization that aims to create a "no kill nation" through large grants to local coalitions, Avanzino says, "There is no panacea, 'No kill' is not the magic answer," And instead of trying to create "mini-San Franciscos° across the country, Maddie's Fund would rather support programs that weave "safety nets of care" for all cats and dogs by addressing regional needs, he says, That goal has helped breathe new life into the sheltering field, providing hope to those who have been struggling for years to gain public recognition for their cause, Who could have predicted 10 years ago that a wealthy software entrepeneur with a soft spot for animals would donate $200 million-more than the total combined budgets of most other national organizations that work with shelters-to the nation's cats and dogs? And the fund just keeps growing: Dave and Cheryl Duffield recently added another $37 million to their original gift, and Avanzino expects that the Maddie's purse will grow to $1 billion by the end of this decade, The magnitude of Maddie's Fund has made its grants the brass ring in the minds of shelter directors eager to get the money to put towards their organizations' life- saving programs. But the infusion of cash has also bred confusion and skepticism, Some are disappointed by the foundation's unwillingness to give grants to government agencies, while others question its insistence on funneling money only through organizations that call themselves "no kill." And some believe that too many shelters are putting all their eggs in one basket by relying Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 64 on the tantalizing prospect of obtaining a Maddie's grant, when in fact, a very small percentage of groups seeking funding will actually succeed. Last year, Maddie's awarded $10.3 million in grants and committed another $17,7 million for ongoing projects-a considerable amount, to be sure, but not the cash cow that thousands of needy organizations across the country are hoping to tap into, Out of the dozens of local coalitions interested in obtaining Maddie's money, about eight received grants in 2001, and another 30 potential projects are in the hopper, The three-year-old foundation receives about 20 formal applications a year and about 20 mare "pre-applications," says Avanzino, who spends much of his time speaking with organizations in the exploratory phase of the process, And obtaining a grant is only the beginning.. Like increasing numbers of granting organizations, Maddie's Fund is placing a premium on results; the foundation demands that project participants meet stringent requirements for the life of the grant, usually demonstrating ever-increasing adoption numbers and spay/neuter rates while also decreasing euthanasia figures, The fund's emphasis on spay/neuter and adoptions as the means to reduce euthanasia rates is considered simplistic by some in the field who see the picture as more complex, National studies and local anecdotal evidence point to the effectiveness of education and intervention programs such as pet-behavior counseling and animal-friendly rental housing initiatives; in areas that are taking in more adolescent and adult animals than babies, the solution to animal homelessness lies in an array of services designed to help pet owners overcome the issues that often lead to homelessness in the first place, For his part, Avanzino recognizes the importance of a holistic approach to the problem; his own history as a shelter director is testament to his respect for a wide range of shelter services, At the SF/SPCA, Avanzino was one of the early campaigners for animal-friendly rental housing; he also instituted mobile adoptions, a shelter animal behavior program, free services for senior pet owners, and a doggie daycare center, But Maddie's Fund is trying to maintain a narrow focus on what its leaders believe to be the primary driver of reduced space-based euthanasia: sterilization and adoption, he says. "If [an organization is] bent on education as an important way of helping our movement, we applaud that, we congratulate it, we praise to the highest that kind of effort," he says, "But that's not what we fund, and it would be wrong for an education organization to decide to do some adoption, too, just to get some money. ,,, This should come from the heart, This should come from what you really think is the answer, and if there is alignment, [the grant] will probably work out for everybody's best interest." Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 65 From the Ground Up A decade ago, Lynne Fridley, one of the key players in obtaining Maddie's money for shelters in Alabama, could not have foreseen that the animals in her region would benefit from the generosity of a foundation associated with the "no- kill" movement, At the same time that the San Francisco SPCA was relinquishing its animal control functions and gearing up to develop a collaborative relationship with the newly created municipal agency, the Humane Society of Chilton County was struggling to figure out a way to leave its WWII-era Quonset but-a place that had more in common with the wooden buildings of the San Francisco SPCA of 1890 than it did with the multimillion_dollar Maddie's Pet Adoption Center of its awn era, "When this humane society started, it was a joke to the county," says Fridley, executive director of the humane society. "And they sort of stuck us over in the Quonset but and waited for us to fail." The only shelter for homeless animals in afour-county area, the humane society had a budget of only $13,000 but a staff determined to construct a facility that was disinfectable, comfortable, and clean. With her own bare hands and a little help from some friends, Fridley built the shelter from the ground up, After begging for county land and asking the city to dig the footings, she filled the foundation herself, Contractors erected the concrete block walls and finished the slab for the floors, but all other projects-including the roofing, plumbing, electricity, and fencing-were homemade jobs. Fridley lived, breathed, and dreamed about the shelter-at least, that is, when she actually had time to sleep, During the construction, she was not only manning the project but also still running the Quonset-hut facility. The job could not have been done without her commitment; the organization simply didn't have the money to hire builders. "To have it built by a contractor would have cost about $300,000," says Fridley, "We built this building for $90,000." In the ensuing years, Fridley addressed one of the biggest problems in her area: unsterilized animals, Since mast counties in Alabama, including Fridley's, have no leash laws far dogs-let alone cats-unchecked breeding was resulting in ever-increasing numbers of animals coming into the shelter, About five years ago, with the help of foundation grant money, Fridley instituted the Spay/Neuter Assistance Program, Originally available to people living on an income of $25,000 or less a year, the program was later opened up to anyone wanting to use it, Pet owners pay $25 for a cat surgery and $40 for a dog surgery, and the humane society's fund matches that amount so that local veterinarians receive $50 or $80 depending on the animal, orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 66 Since the program's inception, Fridley s small shelter has financially assisted in the sterilization of about 1,000 animals from Chilton County and the surrounding area, Annual intake numbers at the shelter have dropped from 5,500 to 4,100, the euthanasia rate has dropped by 25 percent, and adoption numbers have increased. The 60 to 80 animals the shelter used to see coming through its doors in a single day during the summer months is only a memory; daily intake is more like 25 to 30 in the hottest season now. The numbers, says Fridley, are a direct result of the spay/neuter efforts. "After working in this for so long, I hadn't seen a drop," she says, "In fact, every year the numbers of animals coming into the shelter increased-every year until we started the spay/neuter program, "Five years ago, if you had told me we could do this, I wouldn't have believed it, I would have been skeptical..., You just can't believe it would make such a difference," Seeing such tangible results of spay/neuter efforts in her community encouraged Fridley to go a step further and try to expand the program statewide, As the president of the Alabama Humane Federation and a board member of the Alabama Animal Control Association, she was already familiar with the needs and dynamics of the 40-some shelters in the state; many of them had been coming together for the better part of a decade to try to push for a felony animal cruelty law. "So I really already had the collaboration, the coalition built," she says. "I didn't have to start opening doors to do that; they were already open to me." After meeting with the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association to garner its support as well, Fridley decided to approach Maddie's Fund, She knew how much money Maddie's had to give and thought its emphasis on sterilization programs was in line with her own philosophies, so Fridley went to the foundation armed with statistics that included baseline data from every shelter in the state. "Maddie's Fund came back and wanted more information from all those places," she says, "They do not make it easy for you-I can tell you that," That original proposal would have had Maddie's money being funneled through Fridley's organization, but it was turned down because Maddie's wanted to see a "no-kill base" whereby "no-kill" shelters would assist animal control agencies and shelters that euthanize in placing animals. "We didn't have that base to support the shelters in all those counties here," says Fridley. "For instance, in my county, I'm the only shelter in afour-county area, There isn't even any other nonprofit organization that deals with animals in these areas," "The animal problem in the Southeast is worse than any place in the country," says Fridley. "If Maddie's Fund wants to be a 'no-kill nation' by the year 2010, they have to address the situation in the Southeast. I posed that to them: `You Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 67 have to do something here. This is not like New York or Michigan or California, This is Alabama.' .,, I have posed a lot of these questions to them, and I think I got them thinking." The Reward for Elbow Grease Clearly her words were taken to heart, even though a second proposal was also rejected; in that scenario, the "no kill" Mobile SPCA would have been the lead agency in a Maddie's coalition, But this time Avanzino came back with a proposal of his own: Maddie's Fund, he said, would be interested in funding a spay/neuter program through the veterinary association, Thetwo-year, $2,5 million grant would provide money for sterilization surgeries of pets whose owners were on Medicaid-a boon in Alabama, where at any one time, as many as 500,000 people are Medicaid recipients, says Fridley. The goal would be to sterilize 10,000 animals in the first year and 30,000 in the second.. Fridley was delighted with the plan, which has come to be known as "Maddie's Big Fix for Alabama," "As long as it was going to spay or neuter, I think it's great," she says. "I'm really thrilled with it because it's doing exactly what I wanted to do to begin with, which was spay and neuter, The only reward that any of the shelters in the state will get from this is fewer animals and less euthanasia." Fridley's proposal is not typical of those Maddie's Fund has so far chosen to accept; mast have been concentrated in the western half of the country. But the future may hold more Maddie's projects in regions further east, says Avanzino, Since Maddie's Fund considers itself something of a "startup" that's still on a learning curve, grant requirements are continuously evolving, he says, Avanzino readily acknowledges that applying for a Maddie's grant is a rigorous process. It's designed to be, he says, because Maddie's Fund wants to attract only those organizations that have already assessed the needs in their communities and established formalized coalitions to address those needs. The "reactive' funding approach ensures that the process is driven by the community and by a genuine desire on the part of all the animal groups in a given area to pursue a grant, says Avanzino. "This should not be a way to just get money, It should be a way to get help to do something that they wanted to do anyway but just needed resources [to do]," he says. "It is not a perfect answer for anybody, and it is not something that we consider to be the only model, It is just an approach that Maddie's Fund is investing in to try to achieve our goals and fulfill our mission." Many potential grantees study other projects Maddie's has funded when designing their plans and proposals, but there is no single blueprint, says Avanzino, "Just because this works in Salt Lake City or Nadi [California] or Austin or wherever, we don't want you to follow their model," he says. "Look at their Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies ~$ model, yes, to find out what they're doing.. But don't look at it with the idea that it's going to be the solution for [your] own community." "I think that there has to be aself-analysis as to whether it makes appropriate sense," Avanzino says, "Maddie's Fund is not for everybody. ,.. And if what we are asking for doesn't make a gcod fit, then they should look for other alternatives to achieve the same result, if in fact that is where they want to ga," The Power of Teamwork Self-analysis is just what Debra Griggs is trying to foster in her approach toward collaboration and planning in Norfolk, Virginia. As the founder and president of Animal Rescue of Tidewater, Griggs has built up a coalition of 50 people representing animal care and control agencies, private shelters, rescue groups, and the veterinary community, Even though the group is considering pursuing a Maddie's grant, not all the members are convinced that Maddie's guidelines and requirements are the appropriate solution for their area's goal of ending euthanasia of healthy, behaviorally sound animals, says Griggs. And regardless of whether the participants obtain a Maddie's Fund grant, the coalition is here to stay-and it's only going to help animals in the long run. For one thing, a primary focus of the group is to ensure that the work of area agencies isn't redundant, freeing up resources that can be spent better elsewhere, Griggs is quick to give credit to the existing agencies in Norfolk; her entire approach to the field began with the desire to help, Instead of criticizing the animal control department for aspects of its programs and methods she disagreed with, Griggs says, "the first thing I personally did with Norfolk Animal Control three years ago was walk in and say, 'Haw can I help you?' I think that the people who deliver service in our publicly funded animal control facilities have the hardest job, .., It's easy for a lot of people to call them the bad guys. But ... I really think ,.. that the most important role of those of us who think we have the solution is to ga to the people who have been doing this for many years and say, 'Tell us what's the solution,' " That desire to help existing agencies do a better job has been at the core of the group's mission as an unsheltered humane group. "The role we fill in this community is to not duplicate the services of others. We are really committed to supporting and augmenting existing services ,,. because we have really great people offering really great service to homeless animals, We simply need to help them do what they do with more resources." At the time of Animal Sheltering's interview with Griggs, she was applying for a grant to help fund a thorough study of community needs-the resulting data will be, Griggs hopes, an invaluable resource for the groups to continue determining where specific services shculd be targeted. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 69 The site of a large military base, Norfolk is home to a population that is always on the move. The high turnover means that attempts to educate the public typically have atwo-year life expectancy-people move in and out so quickly that awareness must be built and rebuilt constantly, Griggs plans to try to survey pet owners in the military, as well as other segments of the Norfolk population; assessments of the region will include telephone surveys of citizens. "We'll assess behavior and attitudes, knowledge of the constituents," says Griggs, "It's a model of needs assessment that is used in the healthcare industry aver and over again to decide about service delivery-based on actual need, not on assumption of need." Using Statistics to Challenge the Status Quo While the prospect of obtaining a Maddie's grant is one motive for conducting the study, Griggs points out that the survey results will help on a more dawn-to-earth, local level, too. Credible data regarding community needs is a valuable tool for getting funding and "buy-in" from the most important sources: local legislators and the community itself. Every shelter in the country dreams of having a million dollars fall from the sky, but with the grant application and numbers requirements for Maddie's money so far off the scale for so many communities, animal groups need to make sure that any plans they make to reduce their euthanasia numbers are not contingent on the dream of Maddie's millions, Some organizations have discovered firsthand the pitfalls of heading towards the goal of reduced euthanasia without a detailed roadmap, From Pennsylvania to Texas to California, community leaders have declared that local animal protection organizations will become "no kill" by a certain year; some have gone so far as to make that goal a mandate. But without along-range plan for changing attitudes, instituting comprehensive services, and gaining necessary resources, a community that tries to move toward the goal of ending euthanasia will always come up short-in some cases choosing quantity over quality just to be able to get animals out the door and into as many homes as possible, In other cases, the rush to reach the goal without actually running the race has led to confusion-both externally and internally. When .)im Bonner took over leadership of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society in Pittsburgh last year, he was startled by the lack of forethought behind the organization's earlier decision to join the citywide "No Kill by 2005" initiative. "What I think I found was that there was no true consensus as to what this meant," says Bonner, "Even during the interview process, in talking to the board, there were some who really didn't think it was possible, no matter how it was defined to happen. I think they thought it was a great goal, but they really had no plans or visualization of how it could come to fruition." Drawing on his background as the former operations director of the Aviary in Pittsburgh, Bonner posed questions to his staff and his board that he thought Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies '70 seemed fairly obvious: How many animals need our services? How bad is the feral cat problem? What are the scientific estimates of how many are out there in the community? Nobody could answer him. "We didn't collect the data before figuring out how to solve the problem," Bonner says, "Therefore, our chances for success are somewhat low." Bonner emphasizes that he is committed to eliminating "space-based euthanasia," but only by addressing the causes of the problem rather than treating its symptoms, When it comes to dogs, that goal is not so far off on the horizon; intake of pooches was down to about 300 last year, Bonner says, But cats are another story, Last summer, the shelter took in more cats than it had in the last five to 10 years. Bonner believes part of that increase derives from the decisions of groups in other counties to limit their admissions. "So if you look at what have we done to the population as a whale, we've not changed it," he says, "We've just shifted who is doing what. And that doesn't seem to be a very fair or .. proactive way of dealing with it," In studying the needs of the region, Bonner has discovered that large segments of the human population are unable to access a shelter; he is interested in stepping up the organization's mobile and off-site adoptions. He's also looking into the possibility of partnering with other area shelters to setup kiosks listing animals available for adoption throughout the region. Like Griggs, Bonner is trying to avoid further duplication of services in his area. The existence of veterinary clinics and full-adoption programs at all three of the big shelters in Pittsburgh has already confused the public, he says. "We have people leaving us money in their will with one organization's name and the other one's address, So even our benefactors, even our people doing bequests to us, are confused as to who we are," Bonner says. "Perhaps if we had all determined what our particular unique strengths were, we could say, 'You know what? Yau guys are doing really well at this, We're not going to go there.' So as we go forward, I'm hoping to engage my colleagues in saying, 'You know what? We're going to step away from this. How about if you step away from that?' And see if that helps us." A Mission: A "No Suffering" Nation The quest to end the euthanasia of healthy, behaviorally sound animals may take seekers down a thousand different paths, on a thousand different journeys, But in navigating the roadmap, shelters may find that the smartest decisions evolve from the roads not taken. And if an organization doesn't start off with a full tank of gas by first addressing basic, humane care and conditions for its animals, dreams of reducing euthanasia will certainly flounder. Attempting the goal of "zero euthanasia" when shelter cats are getting sick because of poor disinfection practices and dogs are Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies '7t going kennel-crazy is neither possible nor desirable-"zero suffering" must be a priority above all others. While some have been resistant to the "no kill" movement because of the harmful language and false dualisms the term "no kill" perpetuates, other detractors have well-founded fears that treating the zero-euthanasia goal as an immediate solution rather than an eventual outcome could result in increased suffering for animals in long-term holding facilities. Without increased socialization, exercise, and human contact, no creature can stay healthy, comfortable, behaviorally sound, and "adoptable" for long. The concern has been expressed by even so--called "radical" groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Many members of the public mistakenly equate PETA's goal to end suffering with the concept of saving life at all costs. But while PETA's focus has brought the group into conflict with some of the obvious culprits like fur retailers and fast food restaurants, the organization has also found itself at odds with some groups that claim to have an animal agenda at heart but are actually contributing to cruelty. Cofounder and President Ingrid Newkirk, who started her work in the field as a kennel cleaner and an animal control officer, says she's witnessed animal suffering at organizations that refuse to euthanize even when it is the most humane option; on the other hand, some communities are at the opposite end of the extreme in that they are ending animal lives inhumanely. As long as stories still surface about communities where cats and dogs die by gunshot or by car-generated fumes, the current dialogue will remain simplistic and inadequate. "This is the 21st century and we are still trying to stop people from ... electrocuting animals to death in painful ways," says Newkirk. "It's a dream world out there." Providing cats and dogs with a humane death is far preferable to subjecting them to an inhumane life, says Ken White, who recently left the Arizona Humane Society to head up the Peninsula Humane Society in California. The debate over human suffering versus death continues in the context of physician-assisted suicide, says White, but in the animal field, any thoughtful discussion on the subject is often overtaken by a sole focus on ending euthanasia. White's arguments stem in part from something he once witnessed at a shelter that held animals indefinitely-dogs running to the end of the cage, barking, leaping, and landing in a continuous pattern. "And I'm not a psychologist, but it sure seemed like something to me that would be described as 'psychotic behavior.' And that to me is suffering, induced by the industrial warehousing of those animals.... And what I've said ... in relation to the `no kill' movement is we are frankly more committed to not allowing an animal to suffer than we are to ending euthanasia." White's concern is echoed by those working in both open-admission and responsible "no kill" shelters. But the growing trend of coalition-building among humane societies, animal control agencies, and breed-placement groups is creating, in some cases, the potential far such comprehensive partnerships that it orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 72 may not always be necessary to choose between preventing animal suffering and preventing animal deaths: it will be passible to do both, A Shelter of Hope For All Animals But meeting a shelter or community's goal of reduced euthanasia while also preventing suffering is no small task, It requires interagency cooperation, a thorough examination of services to ensure that precious resources are not spent on duplicating one another's work, and, most of all, a guarantee that animals deemed "unadoptable° for health or behavioral reasons are still taken care of- provided with compassionate care, adequate food, comfortable housing, and humane euthanasia, As long as there is refuge for all animals in need, there is room for the fostering group that only takes in poodles or the limited-admission shelter that specializes in cats; these organizations can be valuable pieces of the puzzle, But if an animal protection group does not actually accept all animals who come to its doors, it must at least be supportive, both publicly and privately, of the organization that does, Providing refuge to homeless animals is the mainstay of the Humane Society at Lollypop Farm's mission, But even as an open-admission oasis for all creatures great, small, treatable, and unadoptable, the Rochester, New York, organization is still setting high goals for the future. Already at a point where staff never have to euthanize healthy puppies, the humane society has rejected "no kill" terminology and instead nicknamed itself a "Shelter of Hope," Aiming to reach the end of euthanasia of healthy, adoptable dogs within the next few years, the shelter first has some formidable hurdles to overcome: an impoverished inner city where dogfighting and cruelty are rampant, and surrounding farmlands where dogs are frequently left neglected at the ends of chains and people have a much more utilitarian attitude towards animals. Yet the shelter's spay/neuter, education, behavior, and animal care programs have helped lower the euthanasia rate in recent years. "There are still huge problems and big issues to deal with," says President Jim Tedford, "but if I didn't think it was ultimately fixable, then I'd probably throw in the towel," To Tedford, fixing the problem involves more than his own community; even if his shelter reaches "zero euthanasia," he won't consider the battle won until the counties surrounding him achieve the same results, and the counties surrounding them achieve the same results, and so on. He doesn't limit his approach toward ending animal homelessness to just cats and dogs, either: The day of Animal Sheltering's interview with Tedford, his office was also occupied by three chatty birds, a hyperactive pooch, and a wild weasel who'd been caught harassing the shelter's fowl; his plans for the afternoon included helping his staff rescue 50 neglected goats from a goat hoarder. It's a comic image, but the sad reality is that many species are left out of plans to end animal homelessness; domesticated birds, rodents, and farm animals may Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies '73 need different kinds of homes, but good homes nonetheless, Even those who aren't very likely to be adopted often must be held for legal reasons by government agencies or shelters with government contracts; in Baltimore, for instance, Anderson was recently holding a pet fish during eviction proceedings, But in the race to demonstrate glowing statistics for cats and dogs, some shelters don't factor small animals into the euthanasia equation, says Lisa Smith, adoption specialist at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, Whether it's a mouse or an Akita who comes through the door at any given moment, the Virginia shelter will find a place for him, says Smith. But whereas dog kennels in the shelter often sit empty, four months could go by without a single adoption application for a rabbit, she says. "If I had one hundred critter cages, it wouldn't increase my critter adoption rate..., There just isn't the market for those kinds of animals," says Smith. Sayres of the SF/SPCA notes that his community has yet to give equal treatment to small mammals; the "Partnerships for Life" report released by San Francisco's shelters doesn't include euthanasia statistics for these critters, "We haven't reached 'no kill' in small mammals," he says, "and that's an issue far intake for open-door facilities. There are gerbils and rabbits and guinea pigs and all those kinds of animals, We haven't done a whole lot in terms of supporting, housing, and sheltering those animals," Making ADifference--One Spaghetti Dinner at a Time Of course, in many of the country's rural communities, cats aren't part of the equation either-at least not officially, Even cat holding areas are a luxury in places like Taylor County, West Virginia, But that doesn't mean cats aren't on the radar screen of local animal welfare advocates: As part of her efforts to collaborate with neighboring counties, Theresa Bruner of the Taylor County Humane Society is putting together a plan to seek funding for spaying and neutering of feral cats in the region-a formidable task in itself, since Taylor County has only one part-time veterinarian. But making a difference often starts with one committed individual like Bruner whose passion is contagious. And even small things can change the life of that dog shivering in an unheated facility or that sociable kitty longing for human contact, In focusing on the goal as a way to define the problem, Bruner has been able to take a dire situation in her community and turn it on its head, Taylor County doesn't have a lot of things going for it: it's home to a large senior population, no industry (the school district is the largest employer), and a negligible tax base. But in just nine short months, Bruner's all-volunteer organization turned an old-style pound into a true animal shelter, In other communities, the group's victories might seem small, but in West Virginia, they are milestones-achievements no less extraordinary than the glowing statistics in Marin or Rochester or San Francisco, Because of the Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 74 volunteers' efforts, the old freezer that once served as the euthanasia chamber has been laid to rest in favor of a more humane chamber donated by a businessman, and the shelter will soon switch to euthanasia by injection after the part-time dog warden and two humane society volunteers receive training in the method, Because of Bruner's persistence, the county and city have paid $1,800 to have a well dug on shelter property, rendering the old routine of retrieving buckets of water from a tank outside the municipal facility a thing of the past. And the first adoption program in county history placed 55 dogs-or 35 percent of impounded animals-into new homes between April and November, By March the humane society had found homes for 30 more. "What communities need to realize is that even with very little, you can still do something," Bruner says. "I think that's what we had to arrive at, It seemed overwhelming, We just had to get started," For Baltimore's Anderson, even the little things make the jab seem daunting some days: for instance, even though he had a $50,000 grant to install a new computer system in the shelter, he had to sit on a waiting list for two years to get the jab even partially done. Roof and ceiling repairs can also take several years from the time of a requisition to the time of fulfillment, But Anderson still has big plans-a volunteer program is in the works, and he's looking for resources to hire a part-timer who can do community outreach through newsletters and public relations efforts, He's managed to procure $350,000 in grants and bequests over the course of just a few years, and he scrounges far whatever free help he can get, As he walks through the shelter, Anderson points out an industrial dishwasher that didn't match the electrical system of Baltimore City schools but pumps out water hat enough to wash and disinfect food bowls; a generator purchased with money donated by a senior citizen; a donated washer, dryer, and cat cage bank; and storage shelves built with extra care by a sympathetic city carpenter, "As you can see, we're trying our best, but the place is falling apart," Anderson says. "I'm not proud, I'll ask, I'll beg," Anderson's commitment has helped his staff, too: Baltimore ACOs finally have the chance to receive professional training and certification. They now drive air- conditioned vehicles that Anderson affectionately calls "our Cadillacs," and they carry basic tools in their trucks that they'd never had before-safety gloves, cat graspers, and snake tongs, to name a few, Bruner and her fellow volunteers need only to drive past the old freezer sitting abandoned in the brush on the side of the road to be reminded of how far they've come. "When we have our meetings, we do a lot of crying, but we do a whole lot more celebrating of things that we feel we do right," Bruner says. "And we talk about it a lot, [wondering], What if we weren't there? What would this be like for these guys if we weren't there? ,. Our goals are mostly short-term in the sense Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies '7$ that we just need to get this facility fixed so that it is acceptable and the dogs are comfortable, And they are real comfortable now-they are happy as can be, The place smells good, It's clean every day, We are having a spaghetti dinner [fundraiser next month]. Our goals are pretty simple." Thinking Big in North Carolina The Humane Alliance proves attitude is everything By Julie Morris ASPCA Animal Watch -Winter 2003 SHELTER SPOTLIGHT How's this for a success story? In less than 10 years of operation, the Humane Alliance of Western North Carolina Spay/Neuter clinic has spayed or neutered nearly 100,000 companion animals. That is a bite out of the pet overpopulation problem anyone familiar with the crisis can appreciate. Nat surprisingly, this local effort has become a national model, And now that the clinic has partnered with more than 30 organizations in an 18-county region of western North Carolina, its work has greater impact than ever. A Lofty Goal The Humane Alliance follows one simple, but essential credo: "Fundamental to all preventive work is sterilization. Neutering is the best defense against all sources of shelter overpopulation." Their goal is to help implement widespread spay/neuter programs across the United States. "If we can strategically place high-volume, law-cost spay/neuter clinics across the country," says HA executive director Quita Mazzina, "we can solve the pet overpopulation problem." In 2000, financial burdens almost closed the clinic's doors, High volume-plus extreme dedication-was the solution, HA administrators analyzed their costs and the number of surgeries needed to cover them. Ninety-two percent of the clinic's clients cite cost as a factor in the decision to neuter their pets. The HA knew how much there area clientele could reasonably afford, and respected that limit, The clinic charges $42,50 per spay/neuter surgery; a staff of 12, including three veterinarians, performs an average of 65 sterilizations each day. The HA has proved that maximizing the number of surgeries performed can effectively meet the financial needs of both clinic and client. Teamwork Medical director Dr, Karla Brestle credits the clinic's success to its staff and partner organizations. The staff is "beyond compare," she enthuses, "their dedication and skills are outstanding." She adds that the clinic's ability to extend services to hard-to-reach people is "entirely because of our partner organizations." orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies '7( Seventy percent of the pets spayed or neutered at the clinic are delivered through a free transport system called the Regional Response Team, Volunteer transport coordinators schedule surgical appointments up to one month ahead of time, Carol Nelson, of an organization called Save the Animals, coordinates pickups from Winstorn~Salem, the farthest transport site from the clinic, Up to 100 animals are picked up at a time and brought back to the HA, in Asheville, where they are examined, prepped for surgery, spayed/neutered and kept overnight far recovery. An average week receives 250 animals from eight to 10 transport groups. In addition, the HA keeps an average of 20 public appointments daily, Community Coordination The HA, says Mazzina, is "privileged to work with supportive local veterinarians who recognize the value of the service we provide," and says that their participation in a free post-operative exam program is invaluable to the clinic. The North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association also lauds the efforts of the HA. These relationships took time to develop-the HA had to assure the veterinary community that they weren't there to compete, Eighty-five percent of their clients have never taken their pets to a veterinarian, and 30 percent of their mature female patients are pregnant.. Now, 10 percent of the HA's clients are local veterinary referrals. The Asheville Humane Society has decreased its stray intake by 50 percent since the HA opened, and additional decreases have been seen throughout the entire region of western North Carolina. Nat satisfied to rest on their laurels, the HA hosted a national conference, "How to Qpen aHigh-Volume, Low-cost Spay/Neuter Clinic," in September 2003. In the future, the group will also offer a comprehensive training program far other organizations, Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best-and those who dare to state a lofty goal aloud may just have the best shot at achieving it. We congratulate the HA, and wish them continued success. Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies '7'7 Spay/Neuter Receives Grant, National Attention By Barbara Blake, Asheville Citizen-Times POSTED: June 10, 2002 11:09 p.m. ASHEVILLE -While the WNC Humane Alliance Low-Cost Spay/Neuter Clinic has quietly been saving thousands of cats' and dogs' lives since 1994, the nonprofit has also been gaining a national reputation for excellence and has became a model across the United States. "They're a leader in this country -I can verify that," said Esther Meckler, director of Spay USA, a nationwide network and referral agency for spay-neuter services. "I'm very impressed with the work they're doing, and they're already a model for other clinics trying to get started." The Asheville clinic recently received a $15,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina and will be featured in the July edition of the 25,000- circulation Spay USA Magazine. Visitors from as far away as Yugoslavia have visited to see how the clinic operates, and it will host a conference for spay-neuter volunteers and professionals next year to offer more detailed information about the clinic's successes. The staff of 11 at the clinic, located just west of the Three Brothers Restaurant on Haywood Street downtown, has narrowed its focus to provide one important service -sterilizing cats and dogs sa they cannot contribute to the devastating overpopulation of unwanted animals. The clinic works with 35 animal welfare organizations in 15 WNC counties, and offers a free transport service to outlying areas where sterilization services are difficult to access. "They have established a "super clinic,' devoted exclusively to reducing the numbers of cats and dogs," Meckler said. The spay/neuter clinic was founded by William H. McKelvey, with a single mission: reduce the number of animals killed each year by sterilizing cats and dogs instead of euthanizing tens of thousands of offspring. The clinic spayed and neutered 3,000 animals that first year; that number will grow to 15,000 this year, and the positive results are becoming clear, McKelvey said. Considering the fact that one pair of cats, in seven years, can be responsible for 300,000 offspring, and one pair of dogs can produce more than 125 offspring in five years, the sterilization of 77,000 animals can have a staggering impact. Dr. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 7$ Karla Brestle, one of three full-time veterinarians at the clinic, said the staff is united in its mission. "We spay and neuter to prevent the number of animals that have to come into the shelters and be euthanized," she said. "Those poor folks at the shelters who have to (euthanize animals) every day , my heart goes out to them.. It's such a horrible problem, that there are so many," The clinic gets na government funding, and relies completely on donations and grants such as the recent award from the Community Foundation. "We're beginning to give more in the area of animal welfare because of growing donor interest," said foundation staff member Kim McGuire, Brestle said it's a labor of love for her, She will never become wealthy spending her days performing surgery after surgery to keep unwanted pets from being born to face almost certain death, "This is what I do, this is what I love," she said, "We have a wonderful staff, and everybody's very committed to our cause. They work hard and put the extra effort in, and they treat the animals as if they were their own, And that's how we treat every single animal," Qrange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies 79 Various Links and Resources A collection of resources, websites, and publications providing additional information on the issues regarding Limited-Admission sheltering. Limited Admission or No-Kill San Francisco SPCA http://www.sfspca. ora/home.shtm I San Francisco is considered the model among the Limited-Admission/No-Kitt community [Fact sheet printed within this packet] Tompkins County SPCA http: //www. s p c a o n l i n e. c o m The admittedly outdated website of the animal shelter and animal control provider for Tompkins County, NY [Fact sheet printed within this packet] Richmond SPCA http://www. richmonds pca.ora Richmond (Vfrginia) SPCA is another organization considered prominent in the realm of Limited- Admission/No-Kill shelters. Salem Animal Rescue League statement http://wwwsarl-n h.org/ Home page of Salem (NH) Animal Rescue League, avolunteer-run limited-admission shelter Animal Rescue League of NH statement http•//www rescueleague.oraladmissions.cfm Statement of Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire, alimited-admission facility. No-Kill article, Best Friends Network 'firm' article regarding policies of shelters that euthanize and where the blame lies. Greater Miami Humane transition to No-Kill http•//www maddiesfund.ora/nokill/build com miami.html Article regarding the HSGM's switch to a No-Kill shelter and the benefits they are seeing. Maddie's Fund http://www.maddiesfund. org/ Animal welfare organization strongly behind the Limited-Admission/No-kill community Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies $Q No Kill Advocacy Center http://www. noki Ilsol utions.com Fairly self-explanatory. [Statement printed within this packet]. Open Admission or Open Door Whatcom Humane Society Statement FAQ page of the Humane Society, with questions about no-kill shelters. APA of MO statement http•//www apamo.org/openadmission web.htm Statement explaining differences and their pride in being open admission. Denver Dumb Friends League http://www.ddfl. org/whoweare. htm Statement of the Denver Dumb Friends League, comparing open-admission and limited- admission shelters.. Louisiana SPCA articles ~•//www la-spca.org/dedication/euthanasia.htm Succinct article on euthanasia http•//www to-spca org/dedication/open limited1.htm Synopsis of issues regarding both approaches to sheltering, based on Animal Sheltering (HSUS) article. Other Sites of Interest PetsMart Charity statement page for PetsMart statement regarding limited-admission shelters. About.com comparison article http•//cats about com/cs/adoptingcats/a/shelter.htm Brief comparison of the issues on both sides.. Smoky Mountain News new No-Kill shelter article article regarding a no-kill shelter that presents both sides in a cooperative effort. Humane Alliance in Asheville http•//www humanealliance.org/HA/Home.html Along with routine services, also provides model, training, and support for advanced high-volume spay/neuter programs through the National Spay-Neuter Response Team (NSNRT) to reduce pet overpopulation. Orange County Animal Services Sheltering Practices and Philosophies gt Spay/Neuter model links (ASPCA) http://www. imagi neh uma ne.org links provided by the ASPCA regarding advanced or progressive program models across the country, Animal Sheltering article on Asilomar Accords The Asilomar Accords are a set of guidelines to define goals and assist in cooperative efforts regarding animal welfare and pet overpopulation [printed within this packetj. °~.~ Orange County Animal Services 501 W. Franklin St, Suite 106, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 968-2287 Board of County Commissioner's Special Presentation: Animal Sheltering-Operating Practices and Philosophies September 19Th, 2006 Biography of Featured Speaker: Ms. Kate Pu/len Kate Pullen joined the staff of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in November of 2005 with the specific job of assisting the Louisiana SPCA recover from the effects of hum°cane Katrina, Kate has over 15 years of shelter experience, She was the Director of the Humane Society of Baltimore County from 1990 to 1992, the Director of The Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, Virginia, from 1993-2000, and the Director of Animal Sheltering Issues for The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) from 2000 until the fall of 2005 when she joined the staff of the RSPCA. sa Kate was a principal site coordinator for the shelter and animal services study that Orange County commissioned with HSUS. This was one of the many studies done under the HSUS Animal Services Consultation during her years with that organization. Kate is a sought after speaker/advisor and expert on shelter operations, board operations, and, strategic development. She has provided extensive classes on a variety of topics to the animal welfare industry„ Kate has a degree in Business Administration and currently Uves in New Orleans, Louisiana.