Animal Welfare Professionals

This week in Los Angeles, a dog was horribly abused and then dumped from a car to die.  She passed away the next day.  She was adopted 2 weeks prior at a low cost ($17.00) adoption event from a shelter.  Now people are up in arms about these lowered adoption fee type of events and demanding that all shelters do home checks, etc.   Wondering what input anyone might have on this. 

That is very sad, and harmful to all animals in need of homes.  An old stat was that 25% of animals in shelters are pure bred dogs that people probably paid a large sum to purchase.  So even those who pay a lot for an animal, may abandon the animal, or turn it into a shelter.  Evil is out there, and will affect the animals we work so hard to protect.  We can give them the very best chance, but we can't control what happens once they leave us.  Much as we would like to.  

We held a free cat adoption event.  Over the next two weeks we had half the cats back in the shelter, being picked up as stray or abandoned.  A portion of the people wanted to rescue the cats thinking they were saving them because if they were being given away we must be getting ready to euthanize them.  The others were people that would take a turd if it was free.  We do still have discounts but nothing free anymore.

Pete, a couple of things you might try: (1) make sure every volunteer and staff member has been trained in how to do conversational adoption screening (Open Adoption) to make sure you are still getting good adoption matching in high volume events, and (2) make sure that people know that the event is likely to empty your shelter and that pets do not need to be "rescued" from the shelter. The important thing in any adoption is that a good match is made; the amount of money that changes hands is irrelevant.

What a disappointing experience for you! That's not consistent with what most groups experience at all, so I'd bet that if you make some tweaks like Susan suggests, you could still make fee-waived events work. We rarely need to do fee-waived events to move cats and kittens through, but when we do them, we don't see an increase in returns. We've found it important to keep our screening the same for those events. And it sounds like for your community it is important that people recognize that the cats are safe--you just want to send them home! 

I read about what happened earlier this week in L.A. and it's tragic. Unfortunately, sometimes horrible people do horrible things. I don't mean to minimize what happened to this poor dog with my response. I just wanted to share that there has been research showing low-cost or free adoption events do not result in an increase in mistreated or returned pets. Here's a blog post on our website from last August sharing results from three studies with links to the studies as well as additional articles and webcasts about low-cost and free adoptions:  https://chewonthis.maddiesfund.org/2017/08/the-truth-about-free-pet-adoptions/. I encourage you to read and share this with others.

Like Kim, I don't want to minimize what happened in this instance. I think it's important to keep in mind that, as she suggests, there is no evidence linking adoption fees and returns, neglect, or abuse. Tragic as these situations are, it's important that we not allow them to limit the number of positive outcomes that come from low- and no-cost adoptions. (The same goes for other programing, by the way: sporadic news accounts about cats being abused should not dissuade us from implementing robust return-to-field programs, for example.)

It is important to remember that it is the act, not the low-cost or free adoption, that we should be condemning. The perpetrators would have gotten a dog from the classifieds or have stolen one, they were going to do it either way. Doing away with free and low-cost adoptions will not stop people from committing horrendous acts of evil. What will stop them is society taking a stand against animal abuse and violent people. Statistically speaking, these monsters probably have a history of violent crimes. The last time we had a severe cruelty case in my area, only a handful of people showed up for the hearing or submitted letters. That being said, I believe if we had  more people actively advocating for stricter laws, harsher penalties, and enforcement of them, it would make a bigger impact than stopping free or low-cost adoptions. Some of the best pet owners I've ever met have adopted at free or low-cost events. With proper screening, these events save lives, lots of them.

Thank you for all of the replies!  I needed to hear some encouraging answers and I did.  And Kim at Maddie's, thank you for all of the link info.   It is great to have some data to show to people who are just reacting to the bad news.

You're very welcome, Pam. Thanks for starting this conversation!

This is horrible! how can someone be so cruel. Some legal action must be taken against the owners.

Any update on the person who did this? What will s/he be charged with? Are they walking the streets right now, in search of their next victim?

The last update I heard last night that the police did serve a search warrant.  It is being treated as a criminal act.

I've worked in animal control for 20 years as director of three different community's public shelters and animal control programs. Stories like this unfortunately are not uncommon, but what seems to be uncommon is that no one ever talks about those people that do the same thing after paying a full adoption fee, after spending thousands of dollars at a pet store, or when they pick up the dog from a neighbor of backyard breeder. These situations are happening every day across this country but it's not attention getting for the internet trolls and naysayers that can only look for the isolated examples of something they want to use to condemn an entire progressive program that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives over the past few decades. It seems like there is a faction in animal welfare that just can't find it in their make up to help us solve the bigger problems and move into an era when we can say that the issue of healthy adoptable pets dying in shelters is over and that then we can invest more money is criminal investigations and prosecutions to really hit these abusers hard. It's a real shame that we even take the time to give credence to these naysayers when we know the overwhelming good such practices have had for thousands of pets. Ask your local government how many abuse cases are from adopted pets at low cost versus not - the extreme majority are not adopted at all and even fewer are adopted at low cost or fee-waived events.

To all who have responded,

Is there any movement in animal welfare circles to develop data bases [similar to criminal background checks]  where individuals could be reported so as to prevent these episodes? I am aware that this may not prevent the first incident but my perception is some of these individuals could be repeat offenders. This would most likely have to be on the scale of a national data bank and would have to pass "legal muster". Wouldn't this be a good agenda for the Humane Society of the US and the SPCA?

IF this were possible we would all be part of the solution as following the guidelines/rules and reporting offenders precisely would be of utmost importance in order for the system to work.