Ways to Save Lives
Ways to Save Lives
Pounds and shelters
Pounds and shelters
Ways to Save Lives
Pounds and shelters
Ways to Save Lives
Pounds and shelters
We know it’s possible to achieve zero euthanasia of healthy and treatable dogs and cats - generally accepted as a live release rate of 90% or higher – but we need you to believe it too, and to commit to making it a reality.
Commit to transparency
Engage your community in getting to zero euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals by being transparent about where you are now – the daily reality for your teams and the animals we love. When so many animals aren’t making it out alive, and not because of untreatable medical problems, the public needs to be mobilised to play their part.
Decrease intake
Strategies aimed at decreasing intake are more effective at reducing pound and shelter costs, and the number of animals euthanised, than strategies that focus on rehoming. Interventions to consider include free and low-cost ID campaigns targeted to areas with disproportionately high intake, ‘check a chip’ events for pet owners to update their contact details on the microchip database, and free and low-cost desexing campaigns in areas with high puppy and kitten intake.
Reduce the number of surrenders
When someone makes contact to discuss relinquishing their pet, take the time to learn about their reasons, discuss alternatives and, if appropriate, provide support or signpost to services such as behaviour counselling, food banks, healthcare and even financial counselling. By building your networks and even creating volunteer groups you can provide support to struggling owners and reduce the number of animals being admitted.
If your shelter’s policy is to get owners who can’t fund unexpected veterinary treatment to surrender their treatable pets, change it now - it will save pets’ lives.
Given that, on average, it costs $250 to keep a dog or cat for a week, plus the costs of routine health care (adding up to approximately $1,000 for a dog, and $750 or more for cats) supporting owners to keep their pets can reduce the pressure on your resources.
Provide pet owners with a realistic assessment of the length of stay and likelihood of adoption versus euthanasia, based on behaviour, health and cuteness, is also a proven way to decrease the number of pets surrendered. Most pet owners care deeply for their animals and, if they knew the likely outcome of surrendering, would try to find a better solution.
Fast-track the adoption process
Fast-Tracking is the process where animals with the highest likelihood of being adopted are advertised first. It might sound unfair, but it's proven to speed up adoption, minimising the length of stay and associated costs, increasing space and saving more lives.
Make adoption easy
Look for a good home, not the perfect home. Small shelters and rescue groups often look for perfect homes for pets, frequently overlooking very loving, good homes.
Restrictions such as not having young children, not working away from home all day, having 1.2m fences, keeping pets inside only, requiring police checks, or not having electronic fencing are all barriers to adoption which keep pets behind bars (or worse) instead of in loving homes.
Don’t take more than you can care for
Don’t take in more animals than you have the capacity to care for. Even in open admission shelters and pounds, there are options to make appointments for people who are not in a dire situation.
You can commit to taking their animal when a place comes up, and work with them to try to find a home for it before it is admitted. Advertise the pet while it is still in the owner’s home – it can save the pet’s life and save you money.
More effective behaviour testing
The shelter environment is an extremely stressful place for dogs (and cats), making in-shelter behaviour tests no more effective than a coin toss.
Flawed formal evaluations do not increase public safety but do increase unnecessary animal deaths. Instead, foster where possible and maximise opportunities for dogs to interact with people and other dogs in normal and enjoyable ways, like walking and playing, mirroring what they’ll be expected to do once they are adopted.
Continuously assessing how they react to these activities is a more reliable way of predicting problematic behaviours.
Reduce sickness
The best way to reduce sickness of animals within shelters is to decrease the length of their stay. Cat flu rates vary from shelter to shelter; some have rates lower than 10% and others rates higher than 90%.
Often, shelters will euthanise cats with flu if they are sneezing or do not eat for two days. However, housing cats in shelters, often in confined spaces, increases stress and their chance of getting cat flu. The best ways for a shelter, ideally through fostering, to decrease cat flu and sickness is to decrease the time they are in the shelter and provide housing which minimises stress.
In addition, it’s important to vaccinate on entry with core vaccines. For cats, these are, Feline panleukopenia, feline calicivirus and feline herpesvirus, and for dogs, these are, Canine distemper virus, canine adenovirus and canine parvovirus. Non-core but highly recommended vaccines for dogs also include, parainfluenza virus, Bordetella bronchiseptica.
Reduce stress
Shelters are very stressful places, but there are simple things you can do to help. For cats, just spot clean cages – the more a cat is moved from its cage, the more likely it is to get sick. If you only have small cages, include a box for the cat to perch on or hide under.
Cats that have access to larger cages show relaxed behaviours in three days (compared to seven days for cats in the traditional small metal cage) are less likely to get sick and are adopted twice as quickly.
For dogs, try to provide activities and experiences that emulate a regular ‘home’ life, decreasing their stress and assisting with socialisation and overall wellbeing.
Innovate to increase adoption
‘Pop up’ adoption events are a great way to rehome large numbers of animals and generate community engagement. Research also shows that pounds that work closely with foster and rescue groups have much lower euthanasia rates than those that do not.
Use creative advertising to increase public awareness and change perceptions of rescue pets as ‘damaged goods’ with health and behaviour problems. Most animals are surrendered for reasons related to the owner, not the pet.
If you aren’t already doing it, advertising on PetRescue.com.au and similar sites will dramatically increase your animals’ chances of finding a forever home. Free for rescues, shelters and pounds to use, it takes only a few minutes to list a pet and around 50% of those posted find a new home within 40 days of being featured.
Post-adoption follow-up
Ideally, it is best to follow up with every adopter, but when time and resources are in short supply, start by following up with adopters who chose a dog or cat with behavioural challenges or chose one that had energy levels incompatible with their lifestyle.
Reach out to your adopters the third day after the adoption, the third week after adoption, and the third month after adoption. When you contact them, be sure to have a list of available resources and supports.
