Several of our supporters have written to us this week about an Associated Press article that ran in Sunday’s Washington Post and is featured on CNN.com. On the CNN Web site, the story is headlined “No kill shelters hurtful to animals?” It focuses on San Antonio’s city shelter, which has developed a plan to transition to no kill by 2012. While the story does not include details of the shelter’s plan, it does collect criticisms of the movement from a variety of sources.

One of the common arguments presented in the story states that no-kill shelters fill quickly and that when they stop taking in animals, owners are forced to go to open admissions shelters, which euthanize, or the animal ends up on the street. However, in Richmond and other communities like San Francisco, the statistics have shown otherwise. Both intake and euthanasia are down in the City of Richmond since 1999 (the year the Richmond SPCA’s board of directors adopted the long-range plan that led to our transition to no-kill).

Combined statistics for Richmond Animal Care and Control and the Richmond SPCA:

            11,149 total homeless dogs and cats received

                5,798 or 52% euthanized / 46% live release rate

            7,664 total homeless dogs and cats received

                1,614 or 21% euthanized / 76% live release rate

Total intake is also down communitywide, which includes shelters in the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico. This decrease has occurred as the live release rate has risen significantly.

As Maddie’s Fund President Richard Avanzino is quoted in the article, “It’s not something that you just flip a switch and it happens immediately.”

There are many facets to the no-kill model. The Richmond SPCA was the first to replicate the San Francisco model, and now we have partnered with ASPCA Mission: Orange as a learning laboratory for other communities transitioning to a no-kill model.

The essentials of the Richmond model include an effective public/private partnership to eliminate overlapping services between private and public agencies, pet retention programs to address the problems that lead owners to surrender their pets, humane education to provide information about responsible pet care and ownership, and a high-volume, low-cost spay/neuter initiative. A shelter does not simply decide to stop killing, but by putting effective programs in place to address the underlying problems that led to pet overpopulation, a community can become a place where every life is precious. 

The other concern raised by “animal advocates” interviewed for the article is the practice of “warehousing” more animals than a shelter can care for responsibly. At the Robins-Starr Humane Center, we care for an average of 400 cats and dogs each day, and more than 3,000 pets were adopted into loving homes in 2006. While they are in our care, our staff and volunteers work diligently to provide them with mental stimulation, specialized training, socialization, daily walks and play time in our Track and Training Center. We hope that each pet’s stay with us is as brief as possible before he is adopted into a loving home; however, once we have taken a pet into our center, we are committed to care for him here until he finds the right home. Our facility was designed with the mental and physical well-being of pets in mind. Dog living rooms and catillions provide a less stressful environment while they await that home that is their perfect match.

Additional Information:
Compare statistics from 1999 and 2006
Background information on the Richmond Model
Frequently Asked Questions about the no-kill model

Today’s blog was written by Tabitha Hanes. Tabitha is the community relations manager at the Richmond SPCA. 

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