In July of 2009, when the Board of Directors decided to
change the way the Lynchburg Humane Society operated, they gave the staff until
2015 to achieve a save rate over 90%. This
is a widely recognized benchmark used to define “no kill” status.
The Board gave us real concrete goals such as increasing our
adoption and return to owner rates and implementing spay/neuter programs. The Board also realized that we needed a new
building to really reach our ultimate goal of No Kill for the Lynchburg Community.
In 2009 we increased our save rate to 65% after only the
first six months of our new no kill policy. In 2010 we reached an 84% save
rate. This first 1½ years of progress should be compared to a 49% save
rate in 2008. Then in 2011 we were so
excited to reach a 90% save rate.
However, we
are always careful that we don’t claim that we are no kill because we
often find ourselves making hard decisions on animals that some might say are
treatable. This is a particular problem during
our busy months when resources are low.
Well our stats are out for 2012 and we were only able to reach an 87%
live release rate which means of all the animals that left us 87% went back to
homes, to new homes, or to animal rescue organizations. This is still really great when you look at
the other pounds in the area that have save rates from 10% to 42%.
Why did our save rate
go down?
Simple, our current building and an increase in the number
of major medical and aggressive animal cases we received in 2012.
We do not have enough space for the animals we care for on a
daily basis. The building’s air handling system is almost non-existent which causes
illness to spread more easily. The
environment harbors viruses on the run down and dilapidated surfaces. Plus, our community had a bad Feline
panleukopenia (distemper) outbreak that ended up in our shelter. This created a deadly environment for the
kittens and unvaccinated cats. It is a terrible disease that is very hardy and
can live longer than a year in the environment. Because the surfaces are difficult to clean
due to rust and poor materials, even bleaching and cleaning does not remove
every spec of this disease. The new
building will have modern surfaces that will enable us to clean more thoroughly
and the air handling system will be hospital quality in the intake and
isolation areas. Plus, we will have more
than double the space to house the some 300 cats we have during our busy
spring/summer months (also known as “kitten season”).
Along with the increase in kitten/cat illness we also saw an
increase in the number of major medical and bite/dangerous dog cases. We euthanize
any dog that we determine is a safety threat to the community. There are many factors that go into these
decisions. Some were court ordered and others based on their past or current
behaviors. Because we had so many
seized/bite cases coming in from animal control and the community, we had more
problem cases and we had to make appropriate decisions on whether or not to
place these dogs back into homes.
To put it bluntly, we make informed and thoughtful decisions
on the animals we put down. We look at
each animal as an individual case. We do not put down animals that we have the
resources to treat and we never put down a single healthy animal (physically or
behaviorally) due to space concerns or for any other reason.
Despite the slight decrease in the save rate, I feel like we
did a lot of great work this year. We
placed a lot of older/ unhealthy dogs and cats in foster homes to live out the
rest of their lives. This includes a
wonderful dog named Wynonna with mammary cancer that is currently living with a
foster family. We could have euthanized
this dog but we decided to find her a great home until her passing. I am happy
to say that our adoptions are up.
Unfortunately, our return to owner rate is down for dogs, however, it is
up for cats.
What do we need to do
for this year?
We need more foster families so we can put these fragile
kittens into homes where they can be safe from illness.
We need more adoptions and more people to
come looking for their lost pets.
But ultimately, we NEED A NEW BUILDING. We can’t accomplish a better than 90% rate
without the proper environment for the animals and the people who care for
them.
To keep up with us as 2013 goes along you can go to our
stats page on our website. We post the
years stats each month. We are
transparent on our stats because we feel our progress is the community’s
progress and, if we are having difficulties, we know Lynchburg will respond to
help us. We can’t and won’t accomplish
our goals without community support.
If you would like to see keep up with our stats for 2013 or
to see the stats over the years here is a link to our website.
Also every Humane Organization in the state has to report
stats each year. To see our stats over
the years go to this website and select single organization and the year and
then you can search by name.
To learn more about our Humane Education and Adoption Center please visit our website
This may sound naively stupid, but a new building would allow you to care for more animals and for a longer duration, thus increasing the opportunity that each dog can be adopted, correct?
ReplyDeleteGranted, there is no such thing as unlimited resources...but aside from societal/external factors...the two things that you can do to increase adoption rates and save animals from being euthanized is capacity and duration in the kennel, right?
The new building will do a lot of things. One is will give the animals a healthier and less stessful environment where they are contained properly and are not over crowded. Second, we are designing the new shelter to be very inviting and pleasant so that more people come adopt. The larger facility should result in more adoptions and more programs to help us keep animals from any shelter.
ReplyDeleteI completely overlooked the issue of stress and environmental factors conducive to attracting the public to walk through its doors.
ReplyDeleteWe have an animal control facility near us run by the county that is locate out in the boonies. The building itself is old and outdated...but the actual location plays a huge part as well.
I hope you all are successful in meeting this goal!