There has been progress in saving Broward’s pets

In her Sun-Sentinel op-ed,

Wendy Schugar-Martin noted an independent assessment conducted by the nationally recognized Best Friends Animal Society identified overpopulation issues at the Broward animal shelter. She also noted that shelter visitors are “assailed by stench,” and that at a recent community meeting, “the shelter director failed to answer any questions” nor provide a strategic plan.

The dedication and passion for saving pets exhibited by Schugar-Martin are both commendable and shared by staff at our facility.

The assessment by Best Friends was proactively conducted at my request with the approval of the Broward County Commission. While we agree with the overpopulation issues identified, there has been notable progress in saving Broward’s pets — a tradeoff for having more pets at times than we would like.

It is important to note that the assessment did not find that the shelter pets were mistreated. In fact, the Best Friends Outreach team highlighted work performed “…that is going notably well and can serve as a model for other communities,” including staff that is caring, genuinely want to achieve “nokill,” go above and beyond for the animals and provide overall great client services.

The assessment also included an inadvertent misinterpretation of the data (mistakenly referenced by Ms. Schugar-Martin), which made it appear the shelter “in-house” population was a significant number of pets higher than the actual number. This was due to fostered animals (who do not live at the shelter) being incorrectly counted as “in-house.”

About visitors to the shelter being “assailed by stench,” our facility is the only open admission shelter in Broward County that takes care of every animal in need. If 20 dogs arrive at our shelter, we welcome 20 dogs.

We acknowledge that it was discovered recently that the shelter air handling system needed adjusting, and an upgrade is currently underway. We are currently outfitted with several large fans to mitigate odors and have increased community outreach to alleviate overpopulation when the influx of pets in need exceeds the preferred shelter capacity. Lastly, we acknowledge that the environment at the shelter is a kennel, and believe visitors understand that.

About failing to answer questions, we take your comments seriously, and we do our best to respond fully. We learn much by listening to our community. At a January 19 open house, referenced by Ms. Schugar-Martin, Animal Care staff and I answered questions until 3 p.m., even though the program was scheduled to end at noon. We feel these interactions are invaluable, and we have adjusted programs and policy from such communications to improve our services and will continue to do so.

About strategic planning, the

Broward County Commission established a goal in 2012 to meet nationally recognized “No Kill” standards, and a strategic plan was created to pursue that goal (updated in 2016). These plans can be reviewed on our website Broward.org/Animal. With new shelter leadership arriving last March, another effort to update and reorient the strategic plan was initiated. A draft updated plan was released last October, and we invited the community to submit comments. We anticipate an updated strategic plan will be available in March.

Always striving to improve, we believe there has been much progress in saving Broward’s pets. We couldn’t do this without dedicated and compassionate support from our community. It is noted that the shelter achieved a 90 percent live release rate for dogs last September and December.

We believe these are the first occurrences of the Broward shelter reaching that shelter industry “No Kill” goal. Our current combined live release rate for both cats and dogs is in the mid-80’s percent.

We recognize that we have much to do to maintain and improve on such progress. We are committed to work hard and seek the community’s vital support and encourage everyone to join us in our mission by volunteering, rescuing, fostering and, of course, adopting.