Animal Welfare Professionals

Alexis,

I thought I'd share some information as we often work with shelters in right sizing a facility. There isn't - to my knowledge - an all encompassing formula for shelter size for a community but there are some good tools available.  One can do some ballpark capacity calculations for housing numbers for dogs and cats(or any other species) using intake numbers and average length of stay. Here are some calculators that my be of use:   https://www.sheltermedicine.com/library/shelter-capacity-calculators/ 

One can also look at intakes on a per capita basis – per 1000 population served. A number of years ago we did some work looking at per capita intakes across California and it varied from about 5 to over 20 per 1000 people served- (for dogs and cats each). So a community with a human population of 300,000 might have between 1500 and 6000  intakes of cats or dogs annually.  In many communities at that time dog and cat intake numbers were similar- so if dog  intake was ~1500 – we generally saw intakes for cats about 1500 as well (and commonly it was more).  In many shelters now we see fewer cat intakes than dogs.

It's interesting and kind of counter intuitive but increases in human population in a community has not been correlated with increases in shelter animal intakes- at least historically.  In many communities the trends in shelter intakes stabilize or decrease with human population growth. This has been especially true for feline intakes over the last 5-8 years where best practices have been implemented. 

Another tool to put to use is length of stay(LOS). Its impact on capacity is huge.  In an existing facility if there is room to shorten the average LOS – this will help to decrease daily care needs – overall less animal inventory and open up capacity.  For new buildings  - going from a more traditional facility design model of holding areas and adoption areas to an open selection model (where there is generally a mix of hold and adoption housing together) or some hybrid there of will decrease the average LOS such that the capacity needs for the shelter may be able to be decreased. 

Shelter size and related "capacity" are highly dependent on resources. We often talk about capacity for care – in a nutshell and from a facility standpoint - it's the operational relationship between available humane housing units and available care staff such that animal, people and organization needs are met.  Mismatches here are especially difficult. Reduction in resources (funding and/or staffing) can limit a shelter's "capacity".  A good reason for operating via managed intake is that it's a more nimble operational model and as changes occur in staffing or funding the capacity can be adjusted to better meet the available resources. 

Programs offered also impact capacity and capacity needs.  Those programs that help to serve people and animals outside the shelter(preventing intakes) or that shorten LOS when in shelter – things like: spay/neuter, return to home in the field, wellness care, managed intake, daily rounds,  food banks, phone bank to answer questions, foster programs, etc, etc.  So understanding what programs are going to be in use or put into use can help in right sizing a facility too.  What I like about these programs is there is often time to put some of these into play in existing facilities – prior to designing a new facility such that capacity needs will be more clear when it comes time to build.

Hope this is of some help.  Always happy to discuss if there is more interest. 

Thanks,

Denae Wagner DVM, MPVM

UC Davis, Koret Shelter Medicine Program

www.sheltermedicine.com

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