What are the most common problems with municipal animal control shelters causing overcrowding and so many unnecessary deaths? Thirteen is an unlucky number... here are the 13 biggest obstacles in trying to reform your local municipal animal shelter.
Identified Problem: Everyone is harmed when an overcrowded, obsolete shelter systems resort to euthanizing adoptable pets. We are no longer in the 1970’s. Modern management systems should be implemented, and better infrastructure should be funded.
Identified Problem: Lack of transparency. Can you get a line item budget for all expenses for the past 5 years? How about all statistics regarding all medical treatments, outcomes, etc.? Employee salary information? Lawsuit settlement details? Procedural manuals? For municipal shelters run by non-profits, they are also not accountable to the public and can develop the same indifference to saving lives and be more focused on fundraising, employee perks, and fancy facilities and bypass the necessary disclosures to prove they are doing a good job.
Identified Problem: Government cannot and should not be doing business in the free market of pet adoptions. Animal care and controls should be contracted out and services distributed to non-profit rescues, with government oversight. Government employees are not motivated to properly implement animal care and control and have a different metric for what is considered success.
Identified Problem: Old ways of management. Typical management tends to weed out the innovators over time and keep the drones. As a result, good people and good ideas no longer bubble up to the top.
Identified Problem: Wrong Mission. Read the mission and vision statements, if any, of your local shelter. Is the focus on saving lives? And are those statements backed up by congruent actions and funding?
Identified Problem: Best practices have never been adopted, and there has never been a sustained employee, rescue, or volunteer training program in place. Few shelters adhere to generally accepted best practices. Does your team have a top notch behavior modification, enrichment, and pet evaluation team in place? Does your team know how to turn around aggressive, fearful, and unruly pets to make them adoptable? Does your shelter offer expert advice on house training, basic manners, pet introductions, basic pet care, and early puppy socialization classes?
Identified Problem: Animal care and control is not a significant priority, but more of a nuisance duty for whatever entity funds the operations.
Identified Problem: Physical and virtual systems are obsolete. Large municipal shelters are dinosaurs, should be bulldozed and replaced by distributed satellite shelters throughout the community. Software and web-based systems are obsolete.
Identified Problem: A lack of community outreach. Management spends too much time behind their desks and don’t go, personally, weekly, into the field the way good leaders should. They are out of touch with the communities that need the most help.
Identified Problem: No long-term economic planning. How many shelters build up a rainy-day fund to prepare for economic downturns? None
Identified Problem: Municipal shelters compete with local non-profit rescues and put them out of business. Ten percent of rescued pets should be processed by animal care and control, the remainder should be processed by local non-profit rescues. The local rescues should be empowered to keep pets out of the municipal shelters, and most dogs waiting for a new home should be in foster care, not these big animal prisons that tend to be built.
Identified Problem: Spending and population goes UP, but actual performance goes DOWN. Why is this acceptable?
Identified Problem: No independent performance audits, thus, no accountability. The last thing any entity wants is a performance audit, especially if they are not doing a good job. Only through accountability can problems be anticipated, identified, addressed, and funded. Try proposing performance audits for your local shelter system and see how that is received. All shelters should be required to submit to an ongoing independent performance auditing. Rescues should be spending their time saving pets lives, not feeling the need to engage in rescue politics because shelters cover up their negligence and incompetence. Good, dedicated rescue volunteers and employees get tired of the lying, excuses, and stonewalling: they burn out and quit.
In the end, I’ll send you the following: Good Luck. It is hard to fight the system and you will find parasitical forces that will undermine your reform efforts because those opposing you benefit from the status quo. They will claim they are in the business of animal welfare, but you’ll find out, when decisions are to be made, they care more about their jobs, perks, manufactured public recognition, and other benefits than saving lives.
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