Why You Should Care About What Happens at Your Municipal Animal Shelter

I had a conversation with someone recently about the municipal animal shelter in the city where I work related to the number of years I have spent advocating for change here. I have invested thousands of hours and thousands of brain cells toward trying to bring this region into the 21st Century in terms of how we view and treat shelter animals.  The person I was speaking to considers himself an animal lover. He knows in kind of hazy terms what takes place at our shelter, but really does not think about it much because he doesn't feel personally affected by what takes place at the shelter.  Which leads me to share my observations about why people should care about what happens at municipal animal shelters. Perhaps you can apply these ramblings to your own community.

Local government can be a lot like air and gravity. It is just there and we expect it to work. We normally only think about it when something either goes really wrong or really right. That is also the case with our municipal animal shelter which is run by the city with the county as a paying customer. Unless you have had reason to interact with the shelter, you may not even know where it's located. 

So. Why should you even care about our shelter? We could talk about this for hours, but here's a couple of reasons why.

Because of our values. Most people who live and work here are proud of our area. Yes. We have some issues to work out. But we are viewed as atypical of our state and region and we have a lot of wonderful things going on here. The City just announced a new master plan initiative called "The Big Picture," and we seek to be named a Compassionate City. Part of how we view ourselves - and are viewed from other areas - includes our values. Not just how we function day-to-day, but also in the choices we make which demonstrate what is important to us. 

If we ever want to be considered a truly great place to live and work, we need to make our community a safe place for the people who live and work here and for the animals we say we love. Some of our local issues are complex. This one is not. Since there are proven ways to save shelter pets being used across the country, we need only learn from those places and then implement successful programs here. This can be done by balancing animal welfare with public safety.

Because of our money. It costs money to impound, house and then destroy animals. Although some may think that becoming a no kill community comes with a hefty price tag, it really does not. Many of the programs we support are actually cheaper than the costs spent to destroy healthy and treatable pets. When we destroy savable animals, that is entirely revenue negative; we have cost output with no gain. When we save those same animals, that process is revenue positive. Even if we waive adoption fees for approved adopters and give animals away, those living animals will require food and veterinary care at the very least. They may be groomed, boarded, trained, kenneled or go to a local day care facility. We may buy them treats or toys or vehicle harnesses or a host of other things to keep them safe and happy. We may enter them in local contests put on my nonprofit groups. You get the point - we spend money on them and a lot of that money is spent here. We can either continue to spend money to destroy them or we can use that same money (or less money) to save them and help our local economy.

Is your community still destroying healthy and treatable shelter animals? If so, ask yourself why you tolerate it if it is not in keeping with your community values and considering the fact that you are paying for it.

(image courtesy of Lisa Vallez)