Hi Cassandra,
I'm coming at this from a different angle. I run Animal-Angels Foundation, a prevention-first organization in Central Alabama, so I'm not tracking the same shelter flow you are. But we work closely with shelters, and the gaps I see in their tracking are usually the same ones.
A few things worth considering as you rebuild your tracker:
Intake reason codes that go deeper than "owner surrender" or "stray." We track the root cause: housing loss, financial crisis, behavior the owner couldn't manage, medical costs they couldn't cover, landlord policy. When you start categorizing WHY animals come in at that level, patterns jump out fast. You might find that 30% of your owner surrenders are housing-related, and that one piece of data changes your entire prevention strategy.
Return-to-owner data tied to how the match was made. If you're reuniting animals with owners, track what method found them: microchip scan, lost pet database match, social media post, found pet flyer. That tells you which reunification channels are working and which ones are wasting time.
Post-adoption returns with reason codes. Not just "returned," but why and when. If most returns happen in the first 30 days and the top reason is behavior, that's a training gap you can solve before placement. We run a 90-day post-adoption support window for exactly this reason, and it changes the return rate.
Length of stay broken out by what's actually holding the animal. Is it medical clearance? Behavior assessment backlog? No foster available? Photo and bio not posted yet? A single "days in care" number hides what's causing the delay. If you can flag the bottleneck per animal, you can see where the system is stuck, not just how long animals sit.
Marketing conversion tracking. You mentioned tracking Instagram and TikTok features, which is great. The next step is connecting that to outcomes. Did the animal that got featured on Tuesday get adopted by Friday? If you can tie a specific marketing action to an adoption event, you'll know which content actually moves animals and which just gets likes.
One more: if you're not already tracking zip codes on intakes, start. Geographic clustering shows you where surrender pressure is highest, and that's where your outreach dollars should go first.
Happy to share more about how we track prevention-side metrics if any of it is useful. Always good to see someone asking these questions instead of just running the same spreadsheet they inherited.
BJ Adkins Animal-Angels Foundation Central Alabama
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BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
bjadkins@animal-angels.organimal-angelsfoundation.org
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2026 12:39 PM
From: Cassandra Hawkes
Subject: What Animal Tracking Metrics Are You Using? (Looking to Improve Ours!)
Hello everyone,
I'm reaching out from the Edmonton Humane Society as we're currently reviewing and updating one of our internal animal tracking documents, and I'd love to learn what others in the animal welfare space are using.
Right now, our tracker includes fields such as:
- Intake details (intake date, days in care, status)
- Content tracking (photos, videos, bio completion)
- Marketing features (Instagram, TikTok, website features, etc.)
- Adoption pathway steps (gallery walk, foster placement, volunteer notes)
- General notes and flags
As we look to improve this, I'm curious:
- What key metrics or data points are you tracking that you find most valuable?
- Do you track anything specific related to length of stay, marketing impact, or pathway bottlenecks?
- How do you balance operational tracking vs. marketing/adoption tracking?
- Are there any fields you've added (or removed) that made a big difference for your team?
Our goal is to ensure we're capturing meaningful and actionable data that supports animal outcomes, improves flow, and helps us identify opportunities for quicker placements.
I'd really appreciate any insights, examples, or lessons learned-happy to share more about our setup as well!
Thank you in advance for your collaboration!
Best,
#AdmissionsandIntake(includingIntake-to-placement)
#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms
#CaseManagement*
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Cassandra Hawkes
Animal Flow Specialist
Edmonton Humane Society
AB
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