Animal Services

TO: Robert Hanna, City Manager

FROM: Mirenda Walden, Animal Services Director

DATE: July 5, 2018

SUBJECT: Best Friends Shelter Assessment

______________________________________________________________________________

On June 13, 2018, Best Friends sent their assessment of the City of Abilene Animal Shelter to
shelter management. The document noted several positive items for shelter operations, but also
gave suggestions related to process and program improvements. The following recommendations
are an action plan for implementing the best practices identified in the shelter assessment.

Recommendation for a new Animal Shelter

Best Friend’s noted in their site visit that, “the Abilene Shelter is an older facility that has been
added onto multiple times over the years, resulting in a bit of a maze of animal housing corridors.”
The current facility was designed during a different era of animal sheltering. It represents the
views of sheltering for the 1970s, rather than the more progressive mindset of today. In addition,
the various wings and configuration only allow for limited isolation of animals and the functional
systems of the facility including plumbing, ventilation and airflow do not meet current citizen or
management expectations of an animal shelter. Anyone who visits the shelter on a busy day will
experience difficulty finding a place to park and immediately notice the lack of lobby space.
Through the years Animal Services continues to make progress despite the limitations of the
facility. However operating in a building that was not designed with animal welfare and life-
saving as its primary function, presents challenges that can only be triaged. They will never be
fully reconciled without a new facility. Shelter management recommends we begin the task of
soliciting community support for a new adoption focused animal shelter.

Intake
Best Friends indicated that the City of Abilene experiences an animal intake per capita higher than
the majority of the communities that they have encountered. One of the most important things the
Animal Shelter can do is reduce the number of animals we intake. This helps to increase the
shelter’s live release rates. As a result, Best Friends presented several recommendations related to
managing intakes.

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Shelter management’s proposal to implement these recommendations are:
• Stop animal intake at 2:00p rather than 5:00p
o Give notice to the public via social media and assistance of the communications
office.
o Change signage to reflect the new hours.
o In August 2017, the shelter stopped intake on Saturdays. This action did not see
any statistical change in the number of stray animals seized in the field or left at the
shelter.

• Managing intake for owner surrenders

o Develop a signed owner surrender disclosure form encouraging the owner to find
another placement for the pet that also highlights the risk of euthanasia.
o This form will be made available on the website for the owner’s convenience.
o Those individuals who would like to surrender their pets would need to make an
appointment. The number of slots each day would be set and a person might be
asked to come back later in the week. The purpose of a managed intake process is
to equalize the daily intake across a week rather than experiencing variances or
spikes which can lead to space-related euthanasia.

• Intake diversion program

o Helpful citizens bring the shelter around 1,870 dogs each year. An intake diversion
program would allow those citizens the option to keep the dog in their home for
three business days and then if an owner did not come forward, the dog would be
legally adopted to them.
o If a citizen opts for this program the following steps would occur:
§ A complete intake including vaccination(s), citizen information, animal
information and a photograph
§ The pet would be posted on the Abilene Animal Shelter’s Adoption
Clearinghouse Website. This Website would serve as a single point of
community adoption information for the shelter and all participating rescue
and foster organizations.
§ If an owner does not come forward to claim the pet it will be adopted out to
the citizen, or the citizen could serve as a foster until the animal is adopted.

• Change cat sick bay/feral housing

o An insulated portable building has been donated by Rescue the Animals, SPCA to
allow a separate place to house cats that are not immediately ready to be placed in
the general cat room at the shelter.
o Hawk Buildings is currently outfitting the building with AC and an appropriate
door.

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Volunteer Program
• Legal and shelter management are working together to develop more specific applications
and guidelines for the management of a volunteer program.
• Volunteers will be given specific job descriptions and duties rather than the previous
program which allowed a volunteer to decide what they wanted to do each time they
volunteered.

Clean puppy areas first

• This change has already been implemented and incorporated into the daily cleaning.

Marketing
• A high-priority focus of the volunteer program will be those volunteers who can take the
photographs and write pet bios recommended by Best Friends.

Second deep cleaning in the afternoon

• City Council approved two positions in May to address this need at the shelter.
• Another high-priority focus of the volunteer program will be the daily walking of the dogs
at the shelter to give them an opportunity to do their business outside.
• A second deep cleaning of the shelter area in the afternoon will help address concerns of
dirty kennel runs and provide an opportunity for greater staff and animal interaction.

Veterinarian Program
• We are requesting funding for a full time Vet and Vet Tech in the FY 2018 budget.
• In addition to performing in house spay/neuter and rabies vaccinations, the Vet will assist
shelter management in animal intake analysis, provide meds as needed and serve as our
resident medical expert.