Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi everyone- just wondering if anyone is seeing any relief from the space crisis plaguing so many of us, particularly in municipal shelters. Today is actually the worst day space-wise in my 6 years in this role. Is anyone seeing a slow down in intake? An increase in outcomes to keep up? Anyone having any success with big adoption specials? Our seem to go on deaf ears lately,..

Hoping to hear some ideas that are actually working to get live outcomes!!!
#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms
#MarketingandSocialMedia
#OrganizationalManagement

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Alexis Pugh
Director, Memphis Animal Services
www.memphisanimalservices.com

Organizational Management
& Pet Support Services Specialist
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Good Day Alexis

We currently  are seeing more animals come in, and currently we have 5 emaciated dogs.  We are about to have an Adoption Event and doing all we can to promote it.  I will keep you posted how it goes.

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Nicole King
Fund Development Manager
Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control
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Hi Alexis,

We are still struggling with space for dogs and have been consistently operating over capacity since June. We reached an extreme level of in-shelter dog population significantly exceeding our capacity for care and made the difficult decision to limit intake at the end of September. Since doing so, our dog intake has decreased by about 40% (compared to the same time period last year) and our in-shelter dog population has decreased by 19% since initiating intake limitations (still 15% over-capacity).  We have been holding off-site and on-site adoption events (each event is advertised on social media with $1K - 2K targeted marketing) every weekend for months and despite this are seeing a 35% decrease in total outcomes compared to the same time period in 2021. Our local private Humane Society is feeling the stress of our intake limitation, so we are anxious to get back to "normal" intake but have to get those live outcomes up to keep up!

We recently partnered with our Parks Department to utilize community centers to get us into new areas to reach parts of the community that we haven't hosted events in. Our first one resulted in 14 adoptions (30 dogs taken to the event) so we are curious to see if getting into new areas will be helpful.

I will be following to hear what is working for others as well. 


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Jennifer Walter, CAWA
Division Chief
Animal Care & Protective Services
Jacksonville, FL
904-255-7372
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Hi, friends. I am a board member, volunteer, and foster caretaker for an all-volunteer cat rescue in NY.  Our adoptions are slower than is usual for this time of year and we have had to close to intake.  However the calls and requests for intake have not slowed and, if anything, have increased.  We're having an unusually warm late fall and are still getting calls for tiny kittens outside.  The eviction moratorium has lifted so many more are facing eviction and homelessness.  Our regional shelters are struggling and have had to cut back on services to municipalities and the public.  There is always the seasonal calls for folks going into assisted living/downsizing. And we just lost one of our low cost spay/neuter clinics. I've been doing rescue in some form for 25 years. I may just be tired, but I don't think it has even been worse.

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Diane Metz
Volunteer
Orange Street Cats, Inc.
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Hi Alexis,

We operate in partnership with a municipal agency (in fact two) and also share our building with both agencies. For the last few months, we saw abandonments and turn-ins at an all-time high. I've been in the field for 15yrs and the last few months were the worst I have ever seen for turn-ins and abandonments in this area. However, just in the last month or so we are finally seeing those numbers change and things slow way down (knock on wood). We've finally been able to get back to transferring in pets at risk from other shelters. We live in the Sierras, so we're not sure if it's due to weather that things have slowed or if we're getting a better handle on things.

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Erin Ellis
Community Engagement Director
Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe

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Foster Program & Volunteer Management Specialist
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