Lifesaving in Animal Shelters — a Need for a Different Approach
Strategic managed intake is a proven practice that recognizes that entering an animal shelter is not the best outcome for many pets and that remaining in their homes, or being returned home quickly, is the most desirable outcome. Strategic managed intake seeks to triage those situations for which the shelter is the best result, but find alternative solutions to shelter intake when it is in the best interest of the pet.
For decades, animal shelters have told the public to bring lost or stray pets to animal shelters. If someone needed to rehome a pet, we told them to take that cat or dog to the shelter. If an animal services officer picked up a stray pet; to the shelter. If a member of the community found a stray, we also told them that the shelter was the best place for the animal.
What wasn’t shared in this messaging and training is that shelters were killing many — and sometimes even most — of the pets being brought in. Shelters were not resourced to adequately deal with the high volume of animals that this common approach forced upon them.
Today, hundreds of thousands of animals are still killed in shelters each year simply because they do not have the resources or lifesaving systems in place to handle the volume of animals coming through their doors.
Continuing to promote something that doesn’t work, that results in suffering and death, is irresponsible and cruel to both shelter staff and the pets losing their lives — especially when there is a better way.
What if by implementing a strategic approach to choosing which animals come into the shelter, and when, we could manage resources better to create more positive outcomes for more pets while still prioritizing animal well-being and public safety?
The good news is we can.
The strategic managed intake approach prioritizes animal intake based on need, and provides options for animals who do not need immediate entry into a shelter. These pets may be kept in their homes, returned to their homes, or placed in a new home, without having to enter the shelter at all or before entering the shelter.
This leaves capacity for the pets for whom immediately entering the shelter might be the best solution — including those who are sick or injured, who present a danger to the community, or whose lives are in danger.
Even the best shelters can be stressful places for pets — and keeping them in a home, or returning them home prior to needing to come to the shelter, can prevent stress for the animals, and the resource-strapped shelter staff.
Many of the practices and policies of a strategic managed intake program are not new and have proven effective over the past decade. These programs can make a dramatic and positive impact, reducing the volume of pets coming into shelters while also providing the best possible outcomes for pets, increasing lifesaving and safety in our communities.
Triage
When it comes to managed intake programs, one of the most important concepts to understand is the idea of "triage."
A couple of years ago, Dr. Kate Hurley — a veterinarian at the forefront of shelter medicine — wrote a great article for the science journal Frontiers on this topic: The Evolving Role of Triage and Appointment-Based Admission to Improve Service, Care and Outcomes in Animal Shelters.
Dr. Hurley compares animal shelters to our human healthcare system. Human healthcare — which, to be sure, also comes with challenges and room for improvement — is prioritized based on the patient's need and the urgency in which they need it. We generally do not have healthcare on demand but make appointments for care — outside of an emergency.
If people just showed up at the hospital whenever they wanted, regardless of the urgency of their condition, hospitals would be even more quickly overrun, and it is likely that effective care wouldn't be quickly available for those in emergency situations.
By scheduling non-emergency services, we work to ensure the system has enough resources to accommodate those with urgent needs while also supporting those whose needs are important but less urgent. This scheduling means patients benefit from more individualized attention and shorter wait times.
The same principles apply to animal shelter intake. In animal shelters, there are animals in the community who do need immediate entry into the shelter. Shelters should "triage" these cases — like a hospital emergency room — including animals needing immediate intake due to illness or injury, neonatal kittens without a mother, animals facing exigent threat, and animals threatening public safety. For these animals, shelters (and animal services officers) should support them immediately.
By deferring animals not in immediate need, shelters can a) create time to help find outcomes preferable to shelter intake, such as a foster home, and b) ensure shelter resources are available for the animals who need them urgently.
How animals are triaged may vary from community to community depending on the availability of resources — including shelters, private vet clinics, and not-for-profits. The important thing for any organization or agency that takes in animals is to have a plan for the animals who do need immediate support, and to identify that plan early in the intake process.
The idea of triage has existed in animal services for decades. Dispatch offices, for example, have often used this approach to prioritize calls for animal services officers, sending them on more urgent or threatening situations first and relegating non-urgent situations as time and resources allow.
Using this approach to determine how and when animals come into the shelter can be equally effective — prioritizing urgent need cases first, and deferring those that do not require urgent acceptance.
Because some pets need immediate triage support, only on rare occasions should shelters completely close down public intake. Closing down intake entirely may be appropriate for very limited stints only in very limited situations, such as where a significant disease outbreak would put any incoming pets at substantial health risk, or to create a small window of time before space is freed up through positive outcomes such as a major adoption event or transport.
Practicing a strategic managed intake approach
There are two primary ways that pets enter municipal shelters — their owners surrender them to the shelter, or they are found as lost/stray animals in the community by an animal services officer or a member of the public.
Let’s look at how a strategic managed intake approach can work for these situations.
Owner-Surrendered Pets
For owner-surrendered animals, one of the most important factors is to triage the situation through a triage hotline — which is really just a phone line for people to call before bringing a pet to the shelter.
The triage hotline allows you to identify the pets needing immediate intake, and to prepare a plan before they enter the shelter.
This should go without saying, but it's important for shelters to answer their phone when they have a triage hotline.
For owned animals not at immediate risk, remaining in their current home — even temporarily — can often be the best possible solution. Have these pets’ caregivers schedule a call to talk with a trained staff person or volunteer about problems leading to surrender, and solutions that can help keep the pet at home and/or help the family find the pet a new home.
Having the first conversation via phone can be very helpful because there is often an emotional disconnect once people show up at the shelter with their pet.
Through the conversation with the pet caregiver we often find that they are struggling with resources, behavior, or housing that is causing their need to surrender the pet — and can identify solutions that may allow the pet to stay at home.
For pet retention, this is where pet resource pantries are a great idea. Sometimes money is tight, so a bag of food or a box of litter to tide people over is a huge help. Some shelters have programs to help with pet deposits and maintain lists of pet-inclusive rental housing, and can arrange a temporary foster until the owner finds new housing.
Often, shelter staff can help pet caregivers address their pet’s small behavior issues, too, or direct them to external support. Pet caregivers are often not aware of simple measures that can help curb unwanted behavior — that chew toys and scratching posts can be furniture and pillow lifesavers; and baby gates and crates can help in managing minor behavior challenges. This is how we can bring our expertise into helping pets stay in homes with the people who love them.
If a pet cannot stay in their current home, providing information and support for caregivers in rehoming the pet themselves can give them the confidence they need to do so. You can help them create visibility for pets by sharing tips and guidelines for writing a short bio, taking pictures, posting to social media, sharing with friends, and using applications like Adopt-a-Pet's Rehome platform. Research from Adopt-a-Pet indicates that around 87% of pets posted on their platform never end up at the shelter — with two-thirds being rehomed and about one in three being kept by their families. Supporting your community’s self-rehoming efforts can be a very valuable way to help pets move from home to home without having to go to the shelter.
Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter has an interesting system that helps encourage and facilitate home-to-home rehoming. They provide ideas and resources on their website to help people in rehoming. Their fee structure also provides financial discounts for surrendering a pet — owners can get discounts for posting their pet on social media, on the Rehome platform, and by asking friends and family for help.
If a pet does have to come to the shelter, shelters should work with the family to get the pet vaccinated in advance, if possible. Also, scheduling an appointment can allow shelters to network with their rescue group partners in advance to see if the animal can go straight to rescue instead of into the shelter. At the very least, this allows the shelter to plan for the pet’s arrival to ensure there is space available for them when they arrive.
Take a look at the Managed Intake Playbook.
Stray/Loose Dogs Found by Animal Services Officers
Animal services officers serve a very important public and animal safety role. For animals who are a risk to the public, or are themselves in danger, the role of triage is very important. These animals should go to the shelter immediately so the public can be kept safe or the animal can get the attention they need.
For stray and/or loose animals who aren't at risk, there are more options.
Stray cats pose very little public safety risk. If an at-large cat is healthy and not in immediate danger, he or she should be left alone unless part of a Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (TNVR) program. Cats can live very happy lives outdoors and often have caregivers in the community. TNVR programs can be helpful for population management and overall animal health but if those resources aren't available, leaving healthy cats alone is a better alternative than going to a shelter without the resources to care for them and where they are likely to be killed.
For dogs, research suggests free-roaming dogs are more often "loose owned" and less often truly "stray." Thus, in most cases, there is a home for them to go to. Research also suggests that lost dogs are commonly found close to home. Roughly 70% of found dogs were found within a mile of their home — and 42% were within a city block of their home.
Because of their proximity to home when found, dogs are also substantially more likely to be reunited with their family (the best outcome) if they remain in their neighborhoods versus being taken across town to the shelter — which is often in an out-of-the-way location.
This is why, when animal services officers find a loose dog, they should implement field return-to-home (RTH) policies to help reunite the pet in the field without necessarily coming to the shelter. Field RTH programs involve practices like officers scanning for microchips in the field; knocking on doors or asking neighbors or neighborhood kids if they know where a dog lives; or following a dog who, when scared, is likely to just run back home. When dogs are picked up and brought into the shelter, it’s effective to put up found dog flyers or yard signs so their families know where to find their lost pet.
An added benefit to field RTH programs is that they often allow officers to be able to talk to families to resolve issues that caused the dog to be at large in the first place — reducing recidivism, and helping keep dogs safe and at home. As an added benefit, that officers feel like programs that return animals in the field versus impounding animals and citing owners help build long-term community engagement and trust between the community and field officers. Research shows that officers feel like programs that return animals in the field versus impounding animals and citing owners help build long-term community engagement and trust between the community and field officers.
Often, lack of time for officers is given as a barrier to implementing field RTH programs. But if you compare the time it takes to drive back across town to the shelter, intaking, vaccinating, and taking a photo to post on lost and found, then caring for the animal at the shelter — it adds up. And it's time well spent on building community goodwill, getting a lost dog back home, and helping prevent the same pet from becoming loose and lost again.
Best Friends does not endorse telling officers to just set dogs loose if they are unable to locate where they live. This is not helping the public or the lost animal.
The Intake Diversion in the Field Playbook has lots more information about field RTH programming, including sample procedures and program information documents.
Stray/Loose Dogs Found by the Public
Stray and/or loose dogs found by members of the public are a final crucial component of a well-thought-out strategic managed intake program.
Often referred to as Friendly Finders, Good Samaritan, Finder to Foster, or First 48 programs, these programs give the public the ability to help with lost pets without necessarily taking them to the shelter. Through these programs, community members may foster lost pets while helping reunite them with their families — with shelters providing support like food, supplies, microchip scanning, and guidance on searching for the pet’s home.
These programs understand a crucial point: The public wants to help pets. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t have worked to catch a loose pet in the first place. But they generally call the shelter to take them because we have been telling them for 40 years that that’s the best thing to do!
Also, these programs recognize that most dogs are found close to home are more likely to be reunited with their owner if they stay in their neighborhood, than if they are brought across town to the over-capacity shelter. Analysis of data from multiple shelters suggests that residents are highly engaged in efforts to reunite lost pets and that the associated RTH rates are considerably better than those of a typical shelter. Because of these factors, shelters and dispatch centers should again use a triage system to prioritize how to best help these animals:
- Using triage practices, if a found animal is in immediate danger, the finder may bring them to the shelter, or an officer can be dispatched to pick up the animal.
- If they’re a healthy/neighborhood cat, they are not a public safety threat and there is likely a caregiver in the neighborhood. Allowing them to remain in their outdoor home is best absent illness, injury, or another extenuating circumstance.
- If the found animal is a non-aggressive dog, implement a Good Samaritan or Friendly Finder program.
For these programs, have a conversation with the finder. Help them understand that keeping the pet in the neighborhood is the most likely way the dog will get back home — the best possible outcome. Offer to scan for a microchip and have the finder check for ID.
If the finder is able to safely secure the dog for a few days and is willing to provide temporary foster care, provide templates for posting on social media platforms like Facebook neighborhood groups and Nextdoor, and on Petco Love Lost. Provide templates for them to hang signs in the neighborhood. Post a listing on the shelter's lost and found page. If an owner isn't found after a couple of days, set an appointment to bring the dog to the shelter — or let the finder continue to foster if they choose.
If the finder isn't able to safely secure the dog, then the best option may be to bring the dog to the shelter immediately. Not everyone will be able to be a Friendly Finder, but the community wants to help, so many will choose this option if they feel supported and understand why it is in the best interest of the animals.
Best Friends does not endorse telling finders to set dogs loose if they are unable or unwilling to keep them. Doing so does not help the public or the lost dog. If a finder is unable to temporarily foster, the dog should be considered a triage situation and brought into the shelter.
For Friendly Finder programs, communication is important. While explaining the program is important, it is better to explain why this program is in the best interest of found pets. If people realize that dogs are twice as likely to be returned home through such a program than if they go to the shelter, many will be more likely to help than if they think the shelter is just telling them “no” they won’t take them. Providing the finders the support they need is also vitally important.
Neonatal Kittens
Due to their underdeveloped immune systems and the level of care they require, neonatal kittens are uniquely vulnerable and highly susceptible to illness and death in a shelter environment. Because of this, triage for neonatal kittens operates differently than for dogs or adult cats. For neonatal kittens, if a mother is present, it is usually best to return the neonatal kittens to their mother where they can get the care they need. If there is no mother present, Finder to Foster programs can be exceptionally valuable in helping the kittens get the care they need without subjecting them to the shelter environment.
For more information, check out our neonatal kitten playbook.
A Commonsense Approach
A well-executed and comprehensive managed intake system can be a valuable way to maximize limited shelter resources and engage the public in the work of helping homeless animals in our communities.
As with any program, good public communication is important. Animal welfare organizations should not only clearly communicate what the new policies are — but also why they are important and why they serve the best interests of the animals in their communities.
Managed intake is also better for staff so they can better manage workflow, be less overwhelmed, and the public, and save more cats and dogs.
And while it would be great for incremental funding to help support these programs, in many cases, resources can be reallocated to helping animals before they enter in the shelter versus after.
Most animals don't thrive in shelters — so shelters should be a last resort, not a first. By helping pets stay in their homes, getting more animals back home quickly, and helping facilitate peer-to-peer adoptions and reunifications, we can do best by animals and also ensure that finite shelter resources are available for the triaged animals who need them most.
Brent Toellner
Senior Director, Lifesaving Programs
Best Friends Animal Society