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Although there was an initial decrease in euthanasia from 85% to 50% between 1999 and 2001, after 2001 the AAC (the only open admission shelter in Austin, Texas) consistently took in over 23,000 animals and euthanized an average of 50 - 55% of the animals admitted each year.

In fact, AAC euthanized over 14,000 animals in 2007, which was a decade record and showed me that my efforts were not decreasing shelter intake or euthanasia like I had hoped.

Using Data to Identify and Fill in the Gaps

Using Data to Re-Assess and Fine-Tune Programs

The second strategy

Using Data to Develop Programs: Filling the Gaps

The first strategy

the medical help that I provided did not help the sheltered animals leave alive in any larger numbers.

off-site adoption programs

These were animals with mange or kennel cough, minor behavior issues like being scared, or animals with minor injuries. APA created a large-scale foster program to provide short-term foster for these animals as they overcame their minor problems.

neonatal nursery with all the supplies needed for around-the-clock kitten care

again built up a large-scale medical foster base for all the injured and ill animals.

large breed dogs with behavior problems.

The Austin community's demand for adopting a pet is higher than the supply from AAC

By bringing in animals from other shelters, APA is able to prevent adopters from becoming pet store pet buyers and thus save a whole lot more lives.

adult large breed dogs with behavior issues are adopted each year because of improved customer service,

pet-matching practices,

behavior modification

APA rescued over 5,000 animals last year. No cat, kitten, small breed dog, puppy of any breed, or large breed friendly dog, including pit bulls, died in the City of Austin in 2011 simply because it didn't have a home.

increase the number of adoption venues

additional exposure.

Some animals entering a shelter are free-living cats. A No Kill shelter will spay/neuter and release those cats instead of kill them.  Likewise, injured animals will receive medical attention, and then go into foster homes, as will other sick animals, orphaned neonatals, and dogs with behavior issues that need rehabilitation. And, lastly, further reducing the number of animals a shelter has to find homes for are local rescue groups. These groups take some of the animals entering the shelter, and a well-run No Kill shelter considers such organizations valuable allies, and has a friendly, cooperative relationship with th

good adoption hours

offsite adoption venues,

the lack of programs, the lack of alternatives to killing.

the problem is not “pet overpopulation,” but a lack of imagination, commitment, and determination to treat each animal as an individual with distinct needs that must be met.

MSNL do not decrease the number of animals entering or being killed in shelters.

MSNL have resulted in more abandoned animals, higher shelter admissions, higher kill rates, lower compliance with licensing and rabies vaccination laws, and radically increased costs for animal control. 

People become afraid to get pet licenses because proof of sterilization is required. 

They are afraid to go to a veterinarian for rabies shots or medical care because veterinarians are required to report them

People abandon their pets because they fear fines and penalties.

Numerous studies have shown that the primary reason people do not sterilize their pets is costs

When the result of not sterilizing is an unaffordable fine or confiscation/impoundment of the pet, animals die.

more than 80 percent of owned cats in the US are already sterilized

This means that the majority of unsterilized cats are unowned strays.

MSNL would do nothing to increase the sterilization of unowned cats and would not reduce their deaths in shelters.

Also, MSNL are a nightmare to enforce.

hey burden already underfunded, understaffed animal control departments with more responsibilities.

Each community must hire more animal control officers to enforce them so an enormous amount of additional money is spent to enforce a draconian law when a much better use of those funds would be to provide low cost or free spay/neuter services.

immediately after passing MSNL, kill rates began to rise in L.A.

successful no kill shelters have stopped the killing without these laws.

Even though the author claimed that the economic downturn has caused kill rates to rise in L.A., clearly this isn’t the correct explanation.

All of these shelters dropped their kill rates without MSNL.

It is obvious that Mandatory Spay/Neuter laws are not a factor that helps to stop the killing in shelters. 

requiring public animal control agencies and shelters maintain a registry of private rescue groups willing to take animals earmarked for euthanasia.

Animal advocates point to a No Kill Nation statewide survey of rescue groups that shows 63 percent of the organizations encountered a government shelter that rejected a collaborative approach and killed animals instead.

helters have a variety of rescue access policies, with half the respondents saying the criteria sometimes depended on the whims of staff on duty

That is poor public policy.

An additional benefit is a savings for taxpayers as shelters lower operating costs by releasing animals to rescue groups.

Bennett cites both those savings and the additional shelter revenue from adoptions as rescue organizations would be charged a fee for saving animals.

The city and county of San Francisco saved almost $500,000 in animal control costs with a similar rescue access law and transferred 4,000 additional animals to private groups, according to Florida-based No Kill Nation.

One of the keys to increasing pet adoptions is marketing

writes a popular weekly column for the Bradenton Herald titled “A View to No-Kill” t

One of the most popular features on www.braden ton.com are the image galleries of available pets.

Animal Services posts images of adoptable animals at www.mymanatee.org/pets

a group of volunteer photographers is joining forces to boost the no-kill movement by shooting more becoming images and posting those at a new website, www.picture themadopted.com,

Responded Humane Farming Association founder Brad Miller, “It is simply delusional to think that getting humane organizations into the business of promoting meat from heritage breed chickens will result in even the slightest reduction of animal suffering. The ASPCA decision to fund the commercial production of chickens for meat raises a number of troubling issues,” Miller continued. “Beyond the obvious ethical issues from the animals’ standpoint, there is also the matter of using charitable dollars to further the commercial interests of a privately owned, profit-driven poultry company. This is just the latest,” Miller charged, “in a growing trend on the part of several major animal organizations to, in effect, merge with the livestock industry.” Miller noted that Farm Forward has previously promoted a variety of federal and state legislation that HFA regarded as more likely to entrench the status quo in animal agriculture than to bring about meaningful change.

“A commercial animal production operation is not an alternative to factory farming, but an extension of it. In this instance, chickens and turkeys are being mass-produced in mechanical hatchery incubators, raised motherless for human consumption by the thousands, and slaughtered, i.e., factory farmed.

“In addition to cruelty and commodification of animals being falsely represented as ‘humane,’ ‘compassionate,’ ‘anti-factory farming,’ etcetera,” Davis added, “is that these relatively smaller farms seek to grow and expand. Regardless of what size they are, they do not reduce the amount of resources needed to raise and slaughter animals

“It is unethical for an ‘animal welfare’ organization,” Davis concluded, “to suggest to the public that millions and billions of people can continue to eat the same number of animals, as long as these animals are raised ‘humanely’ on non-factory farms. Humans will never set aside hundreds of millions or billions of acres of land to accommodate billions of animals living ‘free range,’ yet this is the false prospect being offered to a public that wants to believe that incompatible desires and realities can be reconciled.”

If you think it is wrong for the ASPCA to use charitable donations to fund and promote poultry slaughter, expand poultry breeding and hatchery facilities and pretend that a factory farm is Not a factory farm, while doing NOTHING to promote genuine compassion and respect for these birds,