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An Animal Shelter Reality Check
Copyright© 2004 Kelly ****
This answer is provided by Kelly, a Dog Park forum member and host of the Vegetarian Cuisine forum on About.com. Thank you Kelly, for this much-needed reality check. Please spay and neuter your pets!

This was the situation at the kill shelter were I worked. The shelter was the only free standing shelter in the county at the time. The human population of the county was about 115,000 people if that gives you an idea of the area that we served. In addition to that, a neighboring county had to close their only free standing shelter due to mine subsidence, the building was uninhabitable due to safety reasons, so we also served their county for all intents and purposes (population 40,000). We were able to refuse animals from other counties, but usually didn't because it rarely happened.

The shelter had room for approximately 20 cats and maybe 90 dogs. Due to the county contracts for animal control (which paid the main portion of our budget) we were required to take any and all animals that walked through the door (open door policy) and we also had to hold any stray dogs for a waiting period of 48 hrs (state dog laws). In addition, we were required under our animal control contract to have a certain amount of kennel space open for humane cases, animal control cases, and boarding of dog bite or cruelty seizure cases until their cases were settled by the courts. These cages weren't left unfilled, but if a case walked through the door that fit that criteria we were required to do whatever it took to give that dog or cat a space immediately. Our kennel operated up to capacity every day. Some days we violated our kennel license and boarded dogs in the bathroom, the kennel office, the humane offices, the furnace room and the med rooms.

So that meant that first thing in the morning the kennel manager had to figure out how many open cages we needed and we were then given a number of dogs that needed to be euthanized. Animals that were excluded from the list were dogs and cats seized by the humane officers and had court cases pending against the owners, dogs and cats being held for bite quarrantines and stray dogs being held for the 48 hour waiting period.

Personally, it was the most horrible thing in the world when it was your turn to pick the PTS list. We tried not to PTS ("put to sleep", euthanise) puppies, but somedays it was the only way to open up the required cage space. We tried not to PTS really sweet perfect dogs, but it also happened often. We tried not to PTS purebred dogs while we scrambled to contact breed rescues, but they often were not able to get to us in time or unable to take beautiful trained purebred dogs. Workers often took dogs home and fostered them until cage space issues were not so crucial, but that wasn't option most of the time. We called the no kill rescue groups, but usually they were overloaded too, and at that time there were none with a free standing shelter (there is one now with cage space for about 10 dogs and maybe that same number of cats).

There were days in the summer that two workers spent basically all day euthanising animals. Cats almost always had to be pts due to space, only the most outstanding cats were able to stay. We would come into work with cat traps piled up at the door from humane officers, stray or abandoned dogs tied to the fence and every kennel overloaded with mulitple dogs. It was a horrible, depressing job, and we were the only game in town.

I understand the comment about being killing machines, because that is what we were. But there were few people adopting animals, despite there not being any petstores selling pets in the areas, because almost no one spayed and neutered their pets in those rural areas. We would take in 20 or 30 animals some days and not adopt out a single one. In a shelter operating at capacity, that meant someone had to make a decision about which animals would be PTS on the spot. I would do intake and beg folks to reconsider because we would be taking their pet right back to be PTS the minute they left. But most people were unable or unwilling to change their minds, they felt for whatever reason that PTS the dog or cat was for the best. It was horrible.

Even the best dogs and cats that made it past the first cuts would be given only a week to find a home, and then they had to be rotated into the PTS list. It was the only fair way to give the new animals a chance. There were too many coming in and too few being adopted out. This despite the fact that we subsidized spay and neuters as part of the adoption fee, and we charges the lowest possible adoption fee allowed by the county or state ( I can't remember who it was that governed that, but it was to prevent us from giving away the dogs and cats scheduled to be PTS. They argued, fairly I must admit, that if we did that then no one would adopt an animal for a fee, but wait until it hit the PTS list and then get it for free).

Therefore, the dogs and cats with any issues at all were immediately PTS. There was no other option. We couldn't justify giving the starving dog with food aggression issues time to recover and possibly not have food aggression issues if it meant that each day that we waited we had to PTS a perfectly friendly and otherwise adoptable dog in its place. Do you see what I mean? It is a matter of a certain number of dogs had to be PTS, how do you choose? The dogs or cats that growled, bit, were too shy, were sick, old, weak had to go first. I know that sounds horrible and cruel. It was and is. But there was no other way. Where would we put those dogs and cats while we waited to find them homes? Remember, we were not able to turn any away unlike no kill shelters. That is how no kill shelters are able to be no kill. They have to turn away dogs and cats that are less adoptable to make sure the cages open up for new intakes. We had to PTS or adopt an animal out for each animal we took in and kept.

In some areas the numbers aren't as bleak as it was in the shelter where I worked, but if you go to most shelters, they have some degree of these problems. There are too many pets and not enough homes for the animals everywhere in the world. Some places may have less than others, our areas was one of the worst I have heard about, but no where is there a shelter that can take in every homeless animal and not have to make hard choices about who lives and who dies. It is the truly heartbreaking truth about rescue. The Humane Society estimates 6 to 8 million pets entering shelters yearly, with an adoption rate of 3 to 4 million and a PTS rate of 3 to 4 million. Those are big numbers.

Sorry for the dissertation, but I want folks to really understand the numbers behind those sorts of seemingly senseless decisions. No one likes to make those decisions unless they are mentally ill. But someone has to do it, unless everyone learns to spay and neuter their pets.

Kelly

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