Is the flood of animals receding?

I got a great question from Christopher of Border Wars on my last post. He wrote: “From the data I’ve seen, shelter intakes are dropping in real numbers and have been for decades despite constant growth in both population and animal ownership. So aren't the flood waters already going out?” I answered there, but have been feeling that there’s more to say on the topic.

As I wrote back to Christopher, the numbers of animals surrendered to shelters and the numbers of stray animals are definitely dropping in most (but not all) communities. Does this mean our work is done? Below you will find rampant over-generalization! Enjoy.

Location, location, location
Things are pretty good in the northeastern United States. When I started this blog, I lived in New England. Shelters there certainly had their problems, but they weren’t nearly as overwhelmed as the shelters that I have seen this year in the South. Northeastern shelters often import dogs (particularly puppies) from Southern shelters. So when you’re looking at intake numbers, think about what part of the country you’re in. The problems in the South are still intense, as I can attest from first-hand experience this year.

Dogs vs cats
When I was in New England, I observed that many shelters were managing their dog populations very well. Dogs in most shelters had a very high adoption rate there; healthy, behaviorally stable dogs in New England shelters had little to fear. Cats were an entirely different story. Plenty of shelters were euthanizing cats for space, and the others were stuck holding cats for months before finding homes for them.

Ironically, the tide is turning with the new programs in which cats who have been successfully following a healthy free-roaming lifestyle are simply sterilized, vaccinated, and returned to the neighborhood in which they were living. This has dropped cat euthanasia rates dramatically in participating communities. (See my previous post on leaving outdoor cats where they are.) You can’t really do this with dogs, so suddenly some shelters are finding themselves euthanizing more dogs than cats!

A dog problem or a pit bull problem?
I have been told that New England doesn’t have an unwanted dog problem, but it does have an unwanted pit bull problem. By that, of course, I mean pit bull type dogs, as the “pit bull” designation does not refer to a specific breed and is often used loosely to describe mixed-breed dogs who have a certain look.

For sure, in almost any shelter you go to, you’ll see many more pit bull types than dogs of any other breed. (The exception is shelters in communities with breed specific bans, in which those types of dogs may not be allowed in the shelters, or are immediately shipped out or euthanized.) This type of dog is harder to adopt out of shelters, as many adopters are looking for a different type of pet. They also do poorly in shelters, because they are highly social, smart, and energetic. Many shelters are specifically struggling with how to stem the flood of pit bull type dogs; the various programs that have been tried are a topic for a different post.

Some improvement is not enough

And finally, as I said to Christopher in my answer to his comment, we may have seen some improvement, but it is nowhere near enough. Appalling numbers of animals were euthanized in shelters in the past. Somewhat less appalling animals are euthanized now. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that the numbers have dropped from 12-20 million shelter euthanasias per year in the 1970s to 2.7 million shelter euthanasias today. It’s all guesswork, because there is no centralized reporting for animal shelters; we don’t even know how many shelters are in the U.S., let alone how many animals they process and how many animals survive. Remember, though, that those numbers don’t include animals trapped in inhumane conditions in long-term facilities, sometimes for years (again, this is from personal experience). It does not account for overcrowding at shelters causing welfare problems, even short-term, for the animals who stay there. Nor does it account for animals dying of disease in shelters which do not have the resources to manage their populations. And it probably accounts for spectacular changes in some shelters, but much less change in others.

The trend is in a good direction, but we’re not done, and the trend won’t continue in this direction without more work. So get your animals spayed or neutered, don’t buy animals from pet stores or flea markets or online, take your dog to a training class to prevent behavior problems, exercise your dog for the same reason, and volunteer at your local shelter.

When the patient is a shelter: week one

The next question I get after “what do you do?” is always “what’s shelter medicine?” I have been playing around with different ways to sum up a complicated veterinary specialty in a few sentences, suitable for cocktail party conversation. (No, I do not actually go to cocktail parties.) Recently I found an answer I liked: shelter medicine is where the patient is an animal shelter, not an animal.

For the next four weeks, my shelter medicine program will be working on a consultation with a particular animal shelter. This week, we are analyzing data from the shelter, which is a large municipal animal care and control facility in the South. As such, it will be open admission (take in almost any animal offered to it) and therefore likely to perform euthanasia of potentially healthy animals to free up space for more animals, rather than solely for behavioral or medical purposes.

Step one: analyze what this shelter takes in. I have received spreadsheets of data from the last five years. I will be building data tables to tell us how many animals of each species it accepted (we’re only looking at cats and dogs); how many animals of each age category it accepted (kitten/puppy, adult, and the always dreaded “unknown,” of which there are more than you would expect at most shelters even though it isn’t hard to tell if an animal is an adult or not); why the animals came to it (surrendered by owner, stray, confiscation, returned by an adopter, return from foster care, other). This will help us understand where most animals in the shelter have come from, which will be key data in making recommendations to the shelter about how to work to reduce their intake numbers.

One of the residents in my program is simultaneously looking at what happens to the animals who are in the shelter, by age and species: euthanized? Died in the shelter? Adopted out or transferred to a rescue (“live release”)? This will help us make recommendations about how to increase live release. For example, which kinds of animals are most at risk of euthanasia: feral cats? (Does the shelter have a trap-neuter-return program?) Adoptable puppies? (Do they have a program to transfer to other groups which might have more resources to put towards finding homes?) Adoptable kittens? (There are always too many kittens!) Sick animals? (It may be acceptable to euthanize sick animals, but why did the animal become sick? Does the shelter have a problem with communicable disease?) And, of course, we will look at how many animals died in the shelter. (That is the worst outcome. That should rarely happen. If it happens too often, it is a huge red flag.)

So wish me luck with all my spreadsheets. Luckily, I used to be a computer programmer. I may call on some old skills to help me out this week.