12/30/11
Heather Allen, HALO Animal Rescue, President and
CEO
The public outrage that occurs during a breaking story about an
animal shelter destroying an animal when it doesn't "need" to be
humanely euthanized is a reminder to me:
The vast majority of the
animal-loving population in this country does not have a good
understanding of what is happening to the animals in their
community.
Maricopa County, Arizona, is home to the second largest animal
welfare intake system in the United States. In numbers, this
equates to 94,000 dogs and cats entering the shelter doors of the
four shelters that make up The AZ Humane Society (AHS) and Maricopa
County Animal Care and Control (MCACC) in 2011. There are
also two large "no-kill" shelters who partner with AHS and MCACC by
way of taking animals from their shelters who aren't ready for
adoption at the time they're brought to AHS or MCACC. These
two shelters are HALO Animal Rescue (HALO) and The Arizona Animal
Welfare League & SPCA (AAWL). There are also a few other
smaller shelters as well as a few hundred foster-based
organizations that rescue animals from the streets, AHS, MCACC as
well as other parts of the state and country.
I am the co-founder and CEO of HALO Animal Rescue. My
mother and I started HALO in 1994 after fostering for a cat-only
rescue organization that has since dissolved. I'm a Phoenix
native, an ASU graduate, a mother of two wonderful children and a
MAJOR animal lover. I was the kid who walked dogs in the
neighborhood because I didn't have a dog of my own. At age 12
I got my first dog and enrolled in the 4-H Dog Project where I
began my journey of falling deeply in love with dogs, sucking up
knowledge about breeds, behaviors and medical issues. I have
watched animal welfare in Phoenix evolve quite a bit since 1994,
and I've also witnessed many things that I personally would like to
see change. I'm currently the Chair of the Alliance for
Companion Animals, a group of animal welfare agencies in Phoenix
who meet at least once a month to discuss issues and create
strategies on how we can all best use our collective resources to
save more lives. This letter is meant to inform the public
about what is happening in Phoenix, and hopefully encourage those
that are now informed to take action.
To truly discuss and understand the animal crisis, and it
certainly is a perpetual crisis, that is happening here, it is
important to understand some definitions* first:
Live Release Rate (LRR)-is a
measurement to quantify, in a percentage, how many of the animals
that a shelter takes in, leave their shelter alive. They
don't just count adoptions to come up with the LRR; animals that
are transferred to other rescues, and animals that are returned to
their owners (or caretakers in the case of community cats) also
count in creating the Live Release Rate. What
doesn't count against the LRR are animals that are
brought to shelters by their owners to be euthanized and animals
that die within the shelter system on their own.
Open Intake Shelter-refers to a
shelter, whether a private non-profit or a governmental agency,
that takes in all animals that come their way, whether
they have the space and/or the resources to provide care for them
or not. MCACC and AHS are Open Intake shelters.
Limited Admission aka No-kill
Shelter - refers to a shelter, whether a private
non-profit or a governmental agency, that limits the number of
animals they take in to their care based on the space and financial
resources they can provide to each animal. Limited Admission
shelters generally focus on animals that are "savable", meaning,
ones that are adoptable or can be made adoptable. Being a
no-kill shelter does not mean an animal is never euthanized; it
means an animal isn't euthanized due to lack of space or having a
treatable condition.
Savable- This is a term that you
may not find on a website, but a term I find to be the most
important. When looking at the population of animals that
arrive at the shelters, focus should first be place those that are
the most savable, meaning, the ones that the public will want most,
while weighing the extent of the care they'll need with resources
available.
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. Healthy does not
include nursing mothers, frightened animals who act shy,
babies under 8 weeks of age regardless of whether they're weaned
and otherwise healthy, nor animals with a mild illness like a cold,
even if that cold was caught while in a shelter's care.
Treatable-The term "treatable"
means and includes all dogs and cats who are "rehabilitatable" and
all dogs and cats who can be managed with foster, behavioral or
other care. This does not refer to animals
who are determined to pose a significant risk to human health or
safety or to the health or safety of other animals.
Unhealthy/Untreatable-the term
refers to animals who, at the time they arrive at the shelter, have
a behavior/temperament that poses a health or safety risk to humans
or other animals and are not likely to become "healthy" or
"treatable" even with typical care; are suffering from a disease,
injury or congenital condition that is/likely to adversely affect
the animal's health and not likely to become "healthy" or
"treatable" with typical care; or are under 8 weeks of age and are
not likely to become "healthy" or "treatable" with typical
care.
The Live Release Rate for
the Open Admission shelters in Maricopa County, collectively, is
51% for 2011.
MCACC takes in the majority of the homeless dogs while AHS takes
in the majority of the homeless cats.
4 out of 5 cats who enter
Phoenix Open Admissions Shelters are
killed.
2 out of 5 dogs who enter
Phoenix Open Admission Shelters are killed.
If you are startled or outraged by these statistics, consider
yourself an animal lover who is now educated about just how bad the
crisis is in Phoenix. Why are they being killed? About 11,000
of the 47,000 deaths fall in to the Treatable
category; these animals are nursing mothers, nursing babies,
injured (but not beyond reasonable repair), have a cold, need their
teeth cleaned, have an ear infection, are under 8 weeks of age but
eating on their own or are fearful, and therefore, need extra
handling or to move to a foster home to gain confidence.
If you have heard shelters in the area say "we haven't
euthanized a healthy animal since October 2005" they are
only referring the animals within this "healthy"
category. This is only a small percentage of
the animals that arrive at our shelters. The vast majority
are treatable or unhealthy/untreatable. This statement gives the
public a false sense of security, thinking that all or almost all
of the animals coming in to a shelter are safe from being killed,
and they certainly believe that their animal
they're surrendering is healthy and adoptable. They have no
idea what this term of healthy really means. It is but a very
small victory and in no way should it create a sense of
non-urgency.
For dogs, thousands are killed each year due to having hip
dysplasia or other orthopedic issues that may or may not require
surgery at the time of intake but will either require medication to
control pain and/or surgery at a later date. Many hundreds
are killed due to having symptoms of Kennel Cough.
For cats, the vast majority are killed are because they are
either under 8 weeks of age (and therefore not deemed "ready" for
adoption and need foster care for a few weeks) or because they have
a cold also known as an Upper Respiratory Infection (URI).
Many others are killed because they are fearful and therefore hiss
and scratch when surrendered.
Many thousands of the animals that are taken in to the Open
Admission shelters are also injured beyond repair, aggressive to
the point of not being safe to put up for adoption, have a bite
history, feral (wild), ill with contagious and lethal diseases such
as Parvo, Distemper and Panleukopenia, or are at the end of their
life with euthanasia as their best option to relieve suffering.
This is the portion of the population that is labeled "Unhealthy
and Untreatable".
Over the last several years, intakes at the shelters have been
going slowly down, while the adoption rates, percentage wise, have
gone slightly up. This is due to the shelters working
together to implement life saving strategies and share
resources. That's the good news. The bad news is, the
system is still not a well oiled machine. Although it is a
monumental task to have a system set up to handle and
provide care for all the animals that are (by
definition) healthy and treatable as well as many
of the ones deemed unhealthy and untreatable that come in,
I believe it can be done. I also believe it will be done, or I will
live to my last day trying.
Real and perceived
obstacles to saving more lives
In my opinion, there are two obstacles that stand in the way of
providing care for all of the healthy and treatable animals that
come to Phoenix's shelters:
- Sheer volume; especially when it comes to cats, Pit Bulls and
Chihuahuas. These three groups of animals are pouring in to
Phoenix shelters at an alarming rate. As you read above, cats
are especially at risk for dying in a shelter. Cats reproduce
when it is warm outside, and in Phoenix, when isn't it warm? We get
a "break" from the cat breeding cycle for about 2 months a year,
and then it begins ramping up with the females getting pregnant as
early as February with thousands of kittens, pregnant cats
and nursing mothers with babies in tow flooding in to the shelter
each week during the summer months. Next are
the Pit Bulls and the Chihuahuas. Years ago when I began
working in animal welfare small dogs weren't in too much danger of
being euthanized as the volume was much lower. Now the
numbers of small dogs coming in to the shelters is staggering, with
the majority of the small dog population consisting of Chihuahuas,
or something that looks "Chihuahuaish". One look at our
website's list of available dogs will give you a good sense of the
animals coming in to our community's open admission shelters.
As with many communities across the country, Pit Bulls and mixes of
bully-type breeds makes up about 1/3 of the total shelter dog
population in Maricopa County, and 75% of these dogs are
killed. Add to these three biggies the number of animals
arriving that need medical care that their owners cannot afford,
the animals who are discarded when families move, have a new baby
etc and you've got 94,000 animals each year that are homeless.
- Resources. The resources available collectively to the
animal welfare system are not being fully maximized.
Solutions
- Aggressive spay and neuter programs to target cats, Pit Bulls,
Chihuahuas and provide surgeries for residents that would otherwise
could not afford the surgery for their pets.
- Let the Community Cats live in the community. Community
Cats are cats that are either unowned, loosely owned and/or
wild. These cats don't belong in a shelter, especially in
shelters that destroy up to 80% of them. The wild cats die at
a rate of 100% as they're not a cat that can be housed safely or
adopted out in the traditional manner. The best thing for a
community cat is to spay/neuter it, feed it and let it be.
Yes, they run the risk of being killed by a predator, car or mean
human and it's hot in the Phoenix summer but I'm pretty sure the
cats would opt for running that risk rather than dying in a
shelter.
- I believe it is the responsibility of every shelter to look at
their resources and ensure they're using them to their fullest
capacity. I believe the resources the animal welfare system
has collectively available could be used in different ways to
better maximize their efficiencies. For example, if a shelter
routinely has empty kennels on the adoption floor, but is killing
treatable animals because the isolation areas are full,
reconfiguring current housing space to fit the needs of more
treatable animals will create more space. In order to save
more lives everyone must remain flexible with protocols and housing
arrangements. I personally believe it is criminal to allow
treatable, savable pets to die while kennels sit open somewhere in
someone's shelter and there are medical teams that have the
capacity to provide the care. It really shouldn't matter
who treated the pet or who housed the pet or
who adopted the animal out, it should only matter that the
animal left the shelter system alive in good
medical and behavioral standing, spayed/neutered, vaccinated and
hopefully microchipped. Killing savable animals where alternatives
exist is not ethical or humane. It is not what donors are providing
their hard earned money for and it is what haunts me every day.
An example of how this has been put in to action began in May
of 2011 when HALO formed a partnership with MCACC to "rent" 40 dog
kennels and 20 cat kennels (at the rental cost of $20/yr total) in
order to increase the number of dogs and cats that would receive
medical/behavioral treatment within the sheltering system, and
thus, increase the Live Release Rate. Although rent is
virtually free, HALO has incurred significant cost to expand their
treatment capabilities to two campuses and increase their animal
"inventory" by over 120 in these additional 60 kennels. HALO has
agreed to cover the cost of staffing, transportation and medical
care for these additional animals, and MCACC has provided us the
space in their own shelter and is spaying/neutering many of the
animals to help offset HALO's cost of preparing the animals for
adoption. Not only does this save MCACC the cost of caring
for the animals they'd normally house in these kennels, but it
frees their staff up to focus on other lifesaving measures in the
shelter that they couldn't do before because they were providing
care to the animals that were previously owned by them occupying
the kennels now leased to HALO. And because HALO is able to
provide staffing and medical care at a lower cost than MCACC, it is
the best use of the community's collective resources to squeeze the
most out of every dollar. It is a win-win-win situation.
I am not saying this will be easy, and I'm not saying these
solutions are the answer to save every single animal that needs
help, but I can say with full confidence and 17 years of Phoenix
animal welfare experience that the ability to save more animals
with the current collective resources is possible. This year HALO
has increased adoptions by almost a full 1,000 over 2010 in part by
sharing resources with MCACC. 2012 will bring more
opportunities for HALO to find homes for at least another 500, with
the goal to save another 1,000 over this year's 34% increase in
adoptions. In order to succeed in continuing on the upward trend of
more and more lives saved, we will need your help. I
encourage every donor to ask all the questions of any agency you
give your money to learn about their policies. Ensure that
their protocols match your belief systems. I can assure you
that, at HALO, we are not perfect but I can also assure you
that we're always looking at ways to improve what we do to get more
"bang for the donor buck" and reach our common goal of:
Helping
Animals Live
On
*definitions similar to the ones here can be found at http://www.asilomaraccords.org/definitions.html
To learn more about the partners of the Alliance for Companion
Animals in Arizona, see their websites:
www.halorescue.org
www.aawl.org
www.maricopa.gov/pets
www.azhumane.org
www.alteredtails.org
www.pacc911.org
www.adlaz.org
www.healingheartsaz.org