Animal Welfare Professionals

Is your shelter involved in cooperative efforts with shelters in other jurisdictions to raise live release rates? If so, I'd love to hear about it. I'm aware of statewide efforts in Delaware, Virginia, Utah, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Washington, and regional efforts in Florida (Jacksonville area), Kentucky (powered by TZ), Tennessee, Oregon (the Portland region), and Nevada (Washoe County and Carson City). Any others?

Massachusetts Animal Coalition is working on it in MA-- their AniMatch program is amazing!

Thanks! I believe the Washington state program wants to do something similar with transports and shelter statistics.

Our rescue has been around for 5 years and began by trying to relieve the overfilling of our local animal shelter -- saving 400 in our first year that would not have to grow up in a shelter.  We now take in from three states and over 12 counties in our tri-state rural region.  We began by just pulling puppies as they were the easiest to get a northern rescue to take and we had volumes of them.  Until late 2016, we had no real exit plan for older puppies or many adults, then we were approached by two humane societies in Michigan.  We have found that working with our partners in Michigan now, we have been able to save over 1500 lives this year as they take not only puppies (<12 weeks), but puppies (<6 mo) and some adults from us AND take from our local animal shelter as well!  It is a cooperative effort that has made a huge impact on our area of rural SW Tennessee, NW Alabama and NE Mississippi.  We went from over 98% young puppy intake, to 90% puppies <6 mo and 10% adults and we can now take nursing moms and pregnant moms as we now have an outlet for them! The payoff is high when you can find the right partners and work together to do the best for both of you!