House fewer dogs at a time, consultant tells county shelter
A consultant hired by the Franklin County commissioners to review operations at the county dog shelter has made a number of suggestions to help improve operations that revolve around one core philosophy: care for fewer dogs at any one time.
That doesn’t mean helping fewer dogs overall, just better managing priorities and flow at the Franklin County Shelter & Adoption Center, said Sandra Newbury, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Shelter Medicine Program and an assistant professor in its School of Veterinary Medicine, who authored a just-delivered 14-page report.
“Having fewer dogs at any given time allows the shelter to move dogs through more quickly and more efficiently,” Newbury said Friday. “And if you reduce the length of stay for dogs, you reduce the risk of disease.”
In her report, she wrote that caring for fewer dogs at a time also “will allow more resources for every individual and will better enable staff and volunteers to pay closer attention to animal well-being.”
After a distemper outbreak at the shelter in 2016, 99 dogs at the shelter were euthanized. That number outraged some animal-advocacy groups, who said such a loss was unnecessary and who raised questions about how the outbreak was handled. As a result, the county made some changes in shelter practices, hired the Wisconsin program to perform this review, and created an advisory board — that includes animal advocates — to suggest ways to improve.
Newbury, who praised the county for its forward-thinking approach and the work it already does, will present her report to that advisory board on June 28.
Some of the recommended changes have already been made, said shelter director Don Winstel. To better manage the intake of dogs, the county has closed the 24-hour drop-off site at the shelter. A dispatcher is still on-site to handle emergency drop-offs, but otherwise there is no way to simply abandon a dog, no questions asked, after hours. In addition, people must now schedule appointments to surrender their animals, as opposed to just walking in.
What that does, Newbury said, is put a focus on helping keep pets in homes in the first place. With an interview process, the shelter staff can figure out why the person is surrendering and perhaps help resolve the issues.
“The old way is the equivalent of a hotel that doesn’t take reservations and everyone just shows up. That’s hard to manage,” Newbury said. “In a shelter, if you don’t control the flow, you function beyond your capacity, and that is how disease happens and spreads.”
In addition, the report recommends that adoptions need to be easier. Winstel said the shelter is working to remove some of the barriers that make the process arduous — such as calling landlords, requiring veterinarian references and making a whole family come in to meet the dog — and may prevent good candidates from taking home a dog.
The shelter takes in about 10,000 dogs a year and euthanizes about 9 percent of them. Space isn’t the issue, Winstel said; it is about “capacity for care.” The shelter has a physical capacity for 307 dogs and averages between 190 and 210 at any time. An ideal number to allow better care and quality of life would be closer to 150, he said.
As for medical care of the animals, the report recommended that the shelter use a new disinfectant to prevent the spread of disease, and that is already being done, Winstel said.
More resources and attention are already being focused on the medical care of animals at intake, both so they can be moved to the adoption floor more quickly and because that’s where the greatest risk for illness and disease comes in. The report also recommended that the medical workload be redistributed among on-site veterinarians more than those on-call.
Tyler Lowry, the board of commissioners’ director of public affairs, said the $50,000 contract with the University of Wisconsin includes consultation through the end of the year and carries an option to extend the contract into 2019. He said it is likely the commissioners will pay for the extension.