Content Warning: This post contains distressing topics including animal welfare and discussion of euthanasia. If you are sensitive to topics of this nature, I recommend not reading any further.
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Here is a cute buffer picture
Pet homelessness is a major problem in the United States. I'd like to open with a few statistics that highlight this issue.
- Every year, approximately 7.6 million companion animals enter shelters each year, and 3.9 million of those animals are dogs.
- Of those 7.6 million animals that enter shelters, about 2.7 million of them are euthanized because there are no adoptive homes available.
- 25% of dogs that enter shelters are purebred.
- Approximately 30% of animals enter shelters because their owners drop them off there.
- Only 1 in 10 dogs are likely to find permanent housing in their lifetimes.
- The majority of euthanasias in shelters is not due to age or illness, but overpopulation. Animals are euthanized because there is simply not enough room to house them all.
As distressing as these facts are, it is important that we remember them and work to improve the situation. One of the major sources of overpopulation is due to people not spaying or neutering their dogs and either accidentally or intentionally allowing them to breed. This creates more dogs than there are homes and those unwanted dogs and puppies end up in shelters.
Not all shelters are alike. Most people have heard the phrase "high-kill" and "no-kill" as descriptions of types of shelters. The truth is not as black and white as it may seem. There are many different types of shelters that more or less fall on a spectrum between those two extremes. While one side seems clearly more favorable than the other, the reality is that both can be reasonably argued for and against. To demonstrate this, we will look at how each operation functions and highlight some features of both.
A kill shelter is also known as a municipal shelter. These are government entities that are designed to manage the animal population in any given city/county. They have a set number of kennels available and are required to take in all animals, regardless of age, temperament, illness, etc. The majority of these animals are strays, found by animal control officers, that don't have any form of identification like a collar or a microchip. The rest are owner surrenders. The family either can't care for or doesn't want the animal anymore so they bring it to the shelter. Because they have to accept all animals, this type of shelter fills up very quickly and the only way to be able to make room to accept more animals is by euthanizing those that have been there the longest. These types of shelters generally use lethal injection which has been identified as the most humane form of euthanasia. The animals in these types of shelters are typically kept in a clean environment with plenty of food and water until they are either adopted or euthanized. They are also subject to regulations regarding management and capacity.
A no-kill shelter, typically a rescue of some sort, is a private organization that can either work alongside municipal shelters or independently to take in animals and provide them with adoptive families to live out the rest of their lives. Being a private organization, they are able to decide whether they will accept a particular dog or turn them away. Most agencies boast an adoption rate of around 90%. While this seems excellent at face value, the reason they can be so successful is that they typically only accept the most adoptable dogs they come across. The ones that get turned away will likely end up in municipal shelters. The other 10% of dogs have 1 of 2 possible fates: for absolute no-kill shelters, they end up as "lifers". They live at that shelter for the rest of their lives. Other types of rescues will euthanize dogs that end up staying at that rescue for too long in order to make room for more adoptable animals. While it's easy to picture that these rescues are similar to someone's home or a similar idyllic situation, the odds are that if they don't end up with a foster home, they are staying in conditions similar to a municipal shelter: standard metal runs or cages, surrounded by other dogs and constant barking. Unlike municipal shelters, they have no capacity limits and so there are usually multiple dogs in one run and if they don't have the funding or the staff, they may not be kept clean or even provided with enough food. Some hoarding situations turned out to be failed private rescues that just got overwhelmed and underfunded. Those dogs then have to be rescued from that rescue.
A third type of rescue, which is not as relevant to this discussion but worth mentioning, are called sanctuaries. These are also private organizations that provide older or unadoptable dogs with a place to live until they die. They usually specialize in old dogs, special needs dogs, or can be breed-specific. They essentially attempt to provide "a soft landing" to animals that don't have good chances of finding a home otherwise. These facilities are extremely limited as they keep dogs for life and do not handle adoptions and therefore have very low intake rates. Their work is important and they dogs they save are important, but they account for a very small percentage of animals saved and are not a viable solution to the overarching problem of animal homelessness.
So from a moral and ethical standpoint, where does that leave us? Municipal shelters have a much higher euthanasia rate than a low-kill or no-kill shelter, but they have guaranteed funding and staffing which means that the dogs kept there will be well-maintained until they are either adopted or euthanized which means less suffering for the animal but that highly adoptable dogs are euthanized alongside unadoptable dogs equally. Rescues are good at advertising available dogs and placing them in homes, often with an intense screening process and a high success rate, but it is only achieved through being selective during the intake process and turning some animals away. They are also unregulated and therefore do not have to maintain the same standards as municipal shelters. Animals can end up in unhygienic, crowded kennels for long periods of time, from months to years. Below is a photo from what appears to be a great success story of a dog finally finding a forever home, but think critically about the elements of this post:
This dog has spent 11 years at this rescue facility. Look at the size of the cage he was kept in and the cot he was provided. A large dog that is at least 11 years old means that he was likely a young puppy when he was initially received. He was one of the 10% who wasn't adopted initially and he would likely have been euthanized at most other shelters. He spent his whole life at this rescue, never having a family, never getting his own backyard, and being kept in a facility surrounded by other dogs. His enclosure appears to be well-kept, but what kind of life is that? This is supposed to be a success story, but my heart breaks for that dog and the 11 years he spent in a kennel.
I have some personal experience with many kinds of shelters. I traveled to rescues in three different states, some municipal, some private rescues, and some foster parent homes. The things I have seen firsthand will stay with me for the rest of my life. At the local municipal shelter, there were about 30 large runs that held only one dog each. They each had a cot and water and food bowls and a little doggy door that led to a grassy run outside that they had free access to. The dogs in those runs had been evaluated for health issues and temperament and both were displayed on a card hanging on their kennels. The facility smelled clean and all of the dogs were clean. If I recall correctly, the adoptable dogs were bathed after evaluations.
A few weeks later, I visited a no-kill shelter and did not have the same experience. I walked into a small area that had about 10 runs in it. The smell was the first thing to hit me, followed by the noise. In each run was between 2 and 6 dogs, depending on the size, and they were all on newspaper that was covered in feces and urine. One run had two nursing chihuahuas who each had a litter of 4 or so puppies. One run was stacked to about 5 feet high with crates and each crate had a cat in it. The animals were filthy and the whole situation made me so upset that I actually cried in my car in the parking lot after I left. I felt so sad that I couldn't help any of those dogs.
Dogs that are fortunate enough to secure a foster home at least have a better quality of life than those left in shelters, but those are challenging to come by and most fosters can only house one or two dogs at a time.
The story above is my own personal experience and I am sure there are shelters that do not reflect my experiences. What I took away from the whole experience was that the "good guys" are not always so good, and the "bad guys" aren't always the villains either.
This is hopefully part one of a series about rescue dogs. I intend to talk more about this issue in future posts. Thank you for taking the time to read about this issue and I encourage you to reach out to local shelters to volunteer or donate supplies.
-Jo Beth
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