The Million Cat Challenge: Diving deeper with Alternatives to Intake

What would YOU do?

What would YOU do?

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Why do people bring cats to shelters?

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In order to help a lost cat get back to its

owner?

In order to protect the cat from danger or

suffering?

To get a behavior to stop that is bothering or

worrying them?

Because there is a barrier to keeping the cat and they want it to

have a new home?

Why do people bring cats to shelters?

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Why do people bring cats to shelters?

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“One of the biggest challenges we have isn’t figuring out a solution to keep the pet in the home, or private rehoming, but debunking the myth that shelters are the #1 place for animals. People honestly believe they are doing the right thing, that there aren’t other options; the responsible and best thing to do is surrender to a shelter.”

Lisa Bassi, SF SPCA, San Francisco, CA

Alternatives to Intake

When to consider alternatives

• Underage kittens?• Feral cats?• Owner

surrenders?• Stray cats?

When to consider alternatives• Any time you could provide

as good or a better outcome for the cat, the person, the shelter, the community by some means other than intake

• Engage your community as a safety net

• Reserve the shelter for animals that can only be served by the shelter

Alts to in for neonates• Consider:

– The goal of the finder/owner

– Shelter resources for in-house foster/neonatal nursery

• Are they really orphaned? – If not, can they stay where

they are? – If so, can the finder/owner

raise them with support?

10Are they really orphan kittens?

What’s on your website?

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• Be friendly but honest about shelter resources

• “Wait until 8” • Wait and watch for a

few hours• What to do if:– Friendly mom returns?– Feral mom returns? – No mom returns?

http://humanebroward.com/found-kittens/

The “Stray Kitten” Scenario

http://www.maddiesfund.org/assets/documents/Institute/Community%20Pet%20Adoption%20Partnerships_WEB.FINAL.5.26.15.pdf

Worth asking• 68% of organizations

that were “extremely likely” to ask community members to care for kittens reported many or some people agreed; organizations unlikely to ask reported only 33% agreement when they did ask

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Take home messages• Cultivate strong and

enthusiastic approaches when asking community members to care for underage kittens – Or do anything, really

• Find ways to offer veterinary care and supplies if possible

• Offer but do not require training in kitten care

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http://www.maddiesfund.org/orphaned-kitten-care-how-to.htm

What could be cuter?• Miami-Dade Milkman

program• Animal service officers

deliver kitten care kits to finders of orphaned kittens

• No increase in field service staffing, neonatal care coordinator added

• Initially funded by grants, then success used to justify funding from municipality

15http://aspcapro.org/blog/2015/09/21/they-did-it-offsite-neonatal-care-kittens

All the details

16Half hour lunch n’ learn with the Million Cat Challenge: email info@millioncatchallenge.org for registration info

The buy-in has been incredible…the assumption was that people wanted the kittens gone, but really most

people just wanted the kittens to be taken care of.

Alts to in for feral cats• Cut out the middleman and

encourage community based solutions

• Decentralize services by local TNR referrals

• Refer to in-house “TNG”: Trap/neuter/give back– Ask with conviction– Offer drop off services if

possible– Weave into daily surgery

schedule– Soft pilot for full RTF or as an

end unto itself17

Alts to in for feral cats• If no on-site or local

TNR option– It’s ok to start by

stopping– Create a plan over time– Offer support/solutions

in the meantime for coexistence and nuisance abatement

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Changing times

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• Because of education now more readily available in our community, the acceptance of TNR programs are becoming more widespread. We now are able to explain to people why feral cats do not do well in shelter environments and how they can live better in the environment they were raised on with just a little support from a caretaker. Once we explain the reasoning behind all this, they really catch on and it has opened numerous spots here at the shelter for us to instead take in cats that will be adopted or ones that really need the medical care.

Sally Hubbard, Save-a-Pet, Grayslake, IL

The right tool for the job

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• Sac Ferals serves as a starting point for complaints about too many cats. Gone are the days of an animal control officer immediately responding to a nuisance call of too many cats, issuing citations and impounding ferals. Working closely with Sac Ferals, we instead ask for their assistance to triage these complaints. Volunteers assist with those difficult conversations, convince well intentioned people to allow trapping and vetting…They are often able to accomplish what a uniform and badge cannot.

Gina Knepp, Front Street Animal Shelter, Sacramento, CA

Alts to in for owned pets• Resources for keeping

– Medical – Behavioral– Cost of care– Life circumstances

• Resources for rehoming– Rehoming readiness

(spay/neuter/vax/ID)– Photos– Flyers– Web and social media posting– Media posting (radio, TV, news)

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http://www.animalhumanesociety.org/admissions/alternatives-surrendering-your-pet

Helping cats think inside the box (and other behavior issues)

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http://www.animalsheltering.org/page/guide-cat-behavior-counseling

http://www.animalsheltering.org/content/cat-behavior-and-retention-course

Problem solving scripts and systems

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Rehoming, help!

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Needs a home with no other pets. She

becomes very attached to her humans. Does

not do well with other animals.

Helping rehome

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Looking for someone to cuddle with on a rainy

afternoon? Che’s your girl! You can’t help but fall in love with this affectionate, sweet

lady who loves laps, head rubs and quiet time. She can

also catch the red dot! Better hurry and meet her…

she won’t be here long!

Alts to in for healthy strays• Most free roaming cats

brought to shelters aren’t lost pets– Some aren’t pets– Some weren’t lost!

• Most lost cats aren’t recovered by a call or visit to a shelter

• Even if there’s room, admitting a healthy stray may not be in anyone’s best interest

Lost cat reality check• Random digit dialed national

survey• 15% of households had lost a

cat• Of those, 75% were found

– 1/54 by visit to shelter– 48/54 by returning on their

own or searching neighborhood• Out of 506 households, 18

cats were lost and never found within the preceding 5 years

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Resources for finders• Resources for finding the

owner– Post on shelter website– Lost and found facebook

page– Third party website– Scan for microchip– Downloadable flyer to print

• Resources for co-existence– Spay/neuter/vaccination– Non-lethal deterrents– Responsible care

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Alt to in

FOUND, FOUND, FOUND

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Web and social media

What sites do you like? • Facebook? • Shelter software linked? • Custom in-house solution? • Third party website? • Smartphone app?

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Finders, Keepers

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• “When a stray finder calls, if we have space, we welcome the cat. If we don't, we offer the finder a microchip scan, free vaccines, food, litter, a crate, etc. Person after person says to us that they want to keep the cat and giving them these items plus a scheduled spay/neuter helps them to do so.”

Emily Klehm, South Suburban Humane Society

Dear Million Cat Challenge...

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That all sounds great, but how can we afford to

give people all those goodies?

Smart investment

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• We fund it by recognizing that preventing intake saves us cost-of-care hours. By managing our population, our adoptions have skyrocketed because our population is healthier. We have four PetSmart locations that permanently house our cats and with healthier populations, we're able to get them there faster which increases our funding.

Emily Klehm, South Suburban Humane Society

Take Credit! Communicate to staff &

stakeholders Report help calls and

results along with intake and outcome numbers Still helping animals Still using resources

Shelter software can help you track

All In on Alts to In• Small public shelter

– Private shelter does cat and dog adoption

– Staff of 6, serving ~ 90,000 people

• Discontinued intake of healthy cats– Healthy owner surrenders

private shelter for adoption– Finders of strays resources to

find owner and/or TNR group in community

– Staff counsel community members on coexisting with cats

The new policy means more work on the front

end for staff, who have to explain the options for

people who have unwanted cats in their

yard, for example, Mohr says.

But the trade-off is that fewer cats enter

the shelter, and fewer get euthanized—which makes for a

happier staff.

http://www.animalsheltering.org/magazine/articles/change-better-chico

• People no longer could use the shelter as the “Easy Button” – a place to drop off cats without trying to find their own solutions to the problem, sometimes of their own making. So for example, someone contacts us saying there are stray cats in their yard/neighborhood. The old answer would have been: set traps and animal control will go out and pick up the cats. This option has been eliminated. Now we have a conversation…our job is to help facilitate the public to engage in the desired behavior which could be TNR or helping a neighbor with TNR, not feeding their pets outside which could be attracting cats, making their yard unattractive to cats in various ways, having a stray cat scanned for a microchip, advertising a found cat on Craigslist, etc.

Real solutions

Tracy Mohr, Chico City Animal Shelter, Chico, CA

A whole new ballgame

40Intake ↓ from 1881 to 442, euthanasia ↓ from 527 to 88 (including ORE)

Initiated 2/2013

Letting the community step upWord is out since we had a gentleman come in saying he knows we don't accept feral cats, but where can he get

traps to do TNR. We have gotten a lot of support from the media and the

public, and it vastly outweighs the people who are against it.

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It takes a village

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Hi Dr. Hurley, You made a presentation in Chico on December 18, 2012 about community cats, and TNR. In response, myself and nine other awesome ladies decided to form a trap-neuter-return group in Chico that we call Neighborhood Cat Advocates (www.neighborhoodcatadvocates.org). We just tallied our final numbers for 2013 - we trapped, neutered, and returned 683 cats. 683!!! We also facilitated the adoptions of over 150 kittens that were trapped, socialized, and became pets. What a great year! Let's do it again!

Last month

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Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 6:37 AMTo: Kate HurleySubject: Re: Chico TNR - great successes!!! Hi Dr. Hurley, I'm Shelly Rogers in Chico. We just got our final numbers for 2015, and we TNR'd 1,026 cats in 2015!! That brings our total number of cats TNR'd in three years to 2,778!

Dear Million Cat Challenge...My question is always, "if we don't

take them, what will happen to them? What field will they be

dumped in? What river or creek will they be drowned in?" The

possibilities if we didn't take them eliminated the possibility of turning

an animal away.

Initiated 2/2013

No measurable impact on risk

I get it

“Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter is an open-admission shelter, meaning that we turn no animal away.”

Reality check• Population 822,553• 1 pet cat/~4.1 people• 1 community cat/~7 people

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158,587 pet cats117,508 community

cats

Reality check• Estimated ~ 50 million outdoor

pet cats and 30-80 million un-owned cats in the United States

• ~ 3.4 million cats admitted to animal shelters annually– Average of 1 in ~11,800 outdoor

cats admitted per day– No meaningful change to risk

unless special circumstances• Provide alternatives to keep

the cats safer, whether indoors or out

Dear Million Cat Challenge...

How is alternatives to intake not just foisting

the problems on other organizations?

Referrals that make sense• Complementary services

– E.g. TNR group for shelter without in-house program

• Cut out the middleman– E.g. direct to receiving

partner rather than transfer• Specific focus

– E.g. breed, age or condition specific rescues

– Including neonatal kittens• Balancing resources

– Changes over time

Dear Million Cat Challenge...

We don’t have a TNR partner we can refer people to and

we’re a public shelter, so we still end up taking in ferals

and healthy strays for euthanasia. We don’t like it, but how can we turn people

away?

Just start somewhere

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We took a very quiet approach. Since we work for a police department my direct supervisor alerted the Chief and the admin team of our plan and we really just went for it. We made up a brochure with some basic information. We told our citizens we would take healthy adoptable owner releases, babies that were too young to survive, and the injured/dying.

Betty Cochran, Supervisor of Animal Services, Clovis Police Department, Clovis, CA

Let the community step up

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I expected all heck to break loose BUT starting this on December 1st helped as it was the slowest time of the year for us with cats. I had many conversations about why we’re doing this and the main one being we were not going to keep killing healthy community cats.

Let us help ;-)

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Yes there are those that gave us the “we pay your salary” and all the other threats citizens come at city employees with. We countered some of the negative by saying we didn’t just make this up. (Throwing ucd under the bus) We were working with experts in shelter medicine and other experts in the area of community cat management across the United States. That seemed to help give credibility to our actions.

A world of difference

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Since we housed 1000 less cats in 2014 we were able to spend time saving the little’s that we didn’t have the time/staff before.That was huge obviously for the animals but the staff did an amazing job raising little monsters and getting them adopted. The other thing that happened is we had time and space and money to rehab injured/special cases.

Same shelter, different world

Last week From: Betty Cochran [mailto:BettyC@ci.clovis.ca.us] Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 8:41 AMSubject: Had to share For the first time ever I got an email from the adoption center asking for cats because the beautiful community cat room was empty.Now that was a victory in so many ways for me….then of course I had to round up some cats for adoption

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More questions for the Million Cat Challenge?

???http://www.millioncatchallenge.org/resources/dear-million-cat-challenge#cat2 Info@millioncatchallenge.org

#ThanksToMaddie!

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