Abilene Animal Services Shelter Assessment

Best Friends Animal Society conducts direct animal-saving operations at its Sanctuary in Kanab,
UT and at its four Regional Center locations: Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, New York City and
Atlanta. Best Friends also operates a national network of over 2,000 rescue and municipal
shelter partners, providing an array of resources to improve our partners’ lifesaving and
operational capacities.

On April 19th and 20th, Brent Toellner, the Regional Director, South Central Region, toured the
shelter, met with shelter staff and city leadership, and observed the operations of the Abilene
Animal Services animal shelter.

It was encouraging to hear that city leadership – including the city manager, shelter director
and shelter staff are all committed to increasing life-saving in the community. And some
progress has already been made as the shelter increased adoptions by 12.6% in 2017 (from
2,551 in 2016 to 2,872 in 2017). During the time of the visit, the shelter staff worked very hard
and demonstrated pride in their work. Unfortunately, there are too few staff due to current
budgets and they struggle to keep up with the very high volume of animals entering the shelter.

While there are many programs that can be added and areas in which the shelter operations
can be improved, the city and shelter will struggle to meet its goals unless funding and staffing
levels are increased significantly along with significant efforts to decrease the volume of
animals entering the shelter. However, with improvements in operations, and increased
resources, the city of Abilene remains poised to see dramatic improvement in the shelter’s life-
saving success.

Demographic Information

The Abilene Animal Services serves the city of Abilene, TX. Abilene has a population of 128,272
and a land area of 105 square miles – which is very low density. Residents in Abilene have an
average annual household income of $45,713, which is 19% less than the Texas state average.
24.7% of residents live below the poverty level – which is 4 points higher than the state average
of 20.7%. 58.2% of residents are white, 26.5% Hispanic, 10.2% black, and 2.4% Asian.

In 2017, the Abilene Animal Shelter took in 8,823 dogs and cats. This is 68.9 animals per 1,000
people. This is an exceptionally high intake per capita compared to other high-intake areas.
Comparatively El Paso takes in 32.8 animals per 1,000 people, San Antonio 21.9 per 1,000 and
Austin 17.3 per 1,000 people.

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Shelter Data

In 2017, the Abilene Animal Services took it 8,823 dogs & cats. Of those, 64% (5,660) were dogs
and 36% (3,163) were cats.

For both cats & dogs, the highest volume of intake came in from the public while a smaller
volume entered the shelter via Animal Control. For dogs, 67.7% came in via the public vs 33.3%
that arrived via animal control. For the public surrenders, just over half of those animals arrived
as owner surrenders vs “good Samaritan” drop offs. For cats, 92.5% arrived via public surrender
– 66.6% were brought in as public strays vs 25.9% owner surrender. 7.5% arrive via animal
control.

For animals entering the shelter, 51% had live outcomes, while 49% had negative outcomes.
The most likely live outcome was via adoption, with 34% (2,872) being adopted, 12% (1,049)
returned to owner, 5% (466) sent to rescue partners. 48% (4,060) were euthanized and 1% (95)
died or were lost in care.

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Outcomes varied dramatically for dogs vs cats. For dogs, 64% received live outcomes vs 29% for
cats. 37% of dogs (2,025) and 27% (847) of cats were adopted. 19% of dogs entering the shelter
were reunited with their owners vs 1% for cats. This is common for most shelters as nationally
cats are much less likely to be reunited with owners than dogs. 8% of dogs went to rescue
groups vs 1% of cats.

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These numbers reflect improvements made over the past 5 years. Intake in 2017 had dropped
24% since 2012, while total live outcomes have increased 31% in the same time period –
representing a 49% decrease in the number of animals euthanized during the five-year period.

Facilities & Budgets

The Abilene Animal 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.

One of the older dog-housing rooms, the yellow room, has only indoor enclosures for dogs. On
each side are the purple and blue rooms. These rooms have indoor/outdoor runs on one side
and an indoor-only run on the opposite side. The Orange room, which is the newest shelter
addition, has indoor/outdoor dog runs on both sides.

The adoptable cat area is toward the back of the shelter – near where intake and animal
quarantine are housed.

The shelter has a large lot with a lot of outdoor play-space for dogs.

The Animal Services budget is $1.2 million – which includes both field services and the shelter
operations. Animal Services has 15 employees – 5 work in field services, 1 in dispatch, and 9
work in the shelter.

The total budget of $1.2 million is approximately $9.35 per person for the city of Abilene. While
this is a seemingly adequate budget, the very high intake-per-capita leaves only 9 employees to
care for nearly 9,000 animals per year. While the staff works very hard, they are very
understaffed to build the kind of lifesaving programming desired by the citizens and city
leadership in Abilene.

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The shelter also collects roughly $350,000 per year in revenue through various fees. This money
goes into the city’s general fund and does not go directly to shelter operations.

Kudos

Before getting into specific recommendations, it is only appropriate to give kudos to several
aspects of the Animal Shelter for work that is going notably well.

1) Increases in adoptions & other live outcomes – In 2017, the shelter increased dog
adoptions by 13% and cat adoptions by 11%. They also increased dogs transferred to
rescue groups by 27%. These increases resulted in an 11% decrease in shelter
euthanasia – and nearly 500 fewer shelter deaths from 2016 to 2017. This is notable
progress and worthy of celebration

2) Intake protocols – in spite of the high intake, shelter staff is doing an excellent job of
vaccinating all animals immediately upon intake. Studies show that intake vaccinations
immediately improve that animal’s ability to shield off disease. During the visit,
vaccinations were given in a timely manner by kennel staff and before the new intakes
were ever exposed to the general population, which is important for overall shelter
disease management.

3) Willingness to try new things – During the visit, shelter staff was continually open to
new ideas and improved ways of operating. Staff also highlighted several recent changes
they had implemented (including relocation of where puppies are housed at the shelter
for better protection from disease). This willingness to try new things and experiment is
important and commendable. The shelter also seems willing to experiment with a lot of
different types of adoption promotions to help drive adoption traffic to the shelter.

4) Transparency – While its not always easy, transparency for a community animal shelter
is important. It is notable that the Abilene Animal Shelter posts its annual statistics on its
website for public transparency. Over time, this transparency helps the community build
trust in the work the shelter is doing and allow them to see the gaps that still exist in the
community. The community cannot be a part of a solution for a problem they don’t
know about so transparency can help involve them into being a part of the community
solution.

Recommendations

During the visit, we spent several hours discussing many of the challenges faced by the shelter
staff in managing the volume of intake with a small staff and a shelter with significant
limitations. The following recommendations identify some newly identified opportunities for
improvement, as well as potential solutions to challenges identified by the shelter staff. An
attempt has been made to prioritize these recommendations based on the overall positive life-
saving impact combined with the ease of implementation.

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 1) Intake Reduction Efforts – With an intake of 69 animals per 1,000 people, Abilene’s
animal shelter has a per capita intake nearly double even many high-intake shelters.
Shelter policies have made it very easy for both residents and non-residents to
surrender animals to the
shelter. The shelter
charges no fees for
residents to surrender
animals, nor does it charge
a fee for the public to turn
in lost pets. The fee for
non-residents is only $10
per animal with a
maximum of $20 per litter.
Thus, the taxpayers of Abilene are subsidizing the rehoming of pets from people who
live outside the community. The shelter loans out traps for free for residents to use to
trap cats and bring them to the shelter. There are almost no barriers to surrendering
pets to the shelter, and thus, the shelter intakes a disproportionately high volume of
animals with little revenue in return. Thus, 67% of dogs, and 93% of cats arrive via the
public vs animal control field officers.
Immediate actions should be taken to begin intake reduction efforts at the shelter,
including the following:

a) Charge fees for Abilene residents to surrender pets to the shelter. Begin with a fee
of $25 for one pet, with $50 for litters. Considerations should be taken to stair-step
that up over time.
b) Discontinue impounding pets from other communities (as per the intake signage). If
the city feels uncomfortable not taking these animals in at all, fees should be raised
to $50 per animal and $100 per litter for non-Abilene residents.
c) These fees should all be kept by the shelter to offset shelter expenses.
d) Public Intake should end at 4 PM. The morning shift works from 7-4, while the
second shift works from 9-6. After 4 PM, there is less staff available (because the
morning shift has gone home) to service both adopters and intake – and thus, staff is
often taken away from helping potential adopters to have to handle intake. Shutting
down intake after 4 pm would help the shelter provide better adoption customer
service during this time.
e) Begin managing admissions by only taking animals by appointment. Requiring
appointments for owner-surrendered pets has many advantages. Managed intake
helps manage the time of intake staff. It allows them to pace out their day so that
the volume arrives at a consistent pace. This pace allows for more personal
conversations with surrendering owners so that more pets can be helped kept in the
home or diverted through other means (such as providing the owner or finder of the
pet resources that would enable them to feel comfortable rehoming the pet
themselves).

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 Also attached (or at the link) is information regarding the Austin Pets Alive PASS
Program that helps pets bypass the shelter and either stay in their home or be
rehomed directly by their owner.

Managing intake also allows the shelter to better manage the flow of pets coming
into the shelter, which can better enable staff to plan for potential positive
outcomes for incoming pets. Read more about the Oregon Humane Society’s
managed intake process.

f) Quit giving out traps to the public for trapping and surrendering healthy community
cats unless they are part of an official TNR program. The laws in Abilene do not
prevent cats from being at-large, and thus, there is no reason for the public to trap
them and bring them to the shelter unless it’s for sterilization and release.

2) Cease euthanasia for Upper Respiratory Disease (URI). Currently the shelter is regularly
euthanizing dogs with URI out of fear that the illness will spread to other dogs.
However, the most frequent shelter URI is kennel cough, and essentially a common cold
for dogs, and not a reason for dogs to be killed. Additionally. by the time the disease
becomes noticeable in the
dogs, all of the other dogs in
the room have already been
exposed but may not yet
showing symptoms.

The staff is rightfully

concerned that more deadly
diseases, such as distemper,
also have similar initial
symptoms. However, because
the staff does proper intake
vaccinations (which includes
distemper vaccinations) the
risk of significant distemper
spread is low. It is
recommended that dogs with
minor URI be treated in their kennels – or, for best results, placed in the orange room.
The orange room has outdoor kennels on both sides and the dogs don’t move between
kennels during the cleaning process. By treating dogs with URI in the orange kennels,
the dogs will have the most access to fresh air (which helps prevent the spread of air-
born disease) and help reduce risk of major disease spread. And, because most of the
dogs will have only minor URI, more dogs will be available to be saved.

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 3) Implement a shelter/neuter/vaccinate/release (SNVR)program for community cats.
Many of the cats that enter the shelter are community cats – or cats that live in a
community where the community is their home, or sometimes live in multiple homes in
their community. Many will not be “adoptable” in a traditional sense because they are
less social with people. In 2017, more than 25% of all animals euthanized, and more
than 50% of all cats, at the Abilene Animal Shelter were euthanized for being
community cats. Current best practices recommends that shelters spay/neuter the cats
(to eliminate reproduction), vaccinate them against future disease and then release
them back to the neighborhoods where they were found. This program would have a
significant impact on the shelter’s live-release rate for cats.

A complete guide to best practices for community cat programs can be found here.

4) The current housing situation for

new cats into the shelter sets the cats up
for failure. At the time of the assessment,
new cats entering the shelter were often
placed in the quarantine area that
houses sick dogs. Thus, the cats are
captured, removed from their
neighborhoods, and then brought to the
shelter and kenneled less than 4 feet
from barking dogs. This stress either
ensures they remain in a feral state, or
the stress is so severe for them their
immune systems become compromised
and they become ill.

It is recommended that the city place a

permanent or temporary structure in
some of the green space at the shelter to
be used for a cat intake area to create more humane conditions for the cats during the
intake hold time so they can remain healthy enough for the SNVR program or become
eligible for adoption to improve cat life-saving.

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 5) Extend adoption hours.
a. Process adoptions until 6:30 PM. Current shelter policy is to allow adopters to
look at pets until 5:30 – and then they must have their pets picked out for
adoption. And adoptions processing happens until 6. PM. However, the busiest
adoption time at the shelter was after 5:00 – and several adopters who were
looking at pets left
without pets
because they ran
out of time to
meet them. It is
recommended that
adopters be
helped with finding
the right pets until
6 PM (or even
longer if they are
already in the shelter) and stay as late as necessary to process the adoptions.
This will make for minimal extended time for the shelter staff, but that time is
during the period when the most adoptions will take place. If staffing is a
significant issue, it would be recommended to open for adoptions at 11:00 am
(vs 10:30) to make up the difference.
b. Open for adoptions on Sundays. For many shelters, Sundays are among their
most popular adoption days because people are off work and families often
spend the day together. Being open when families are off work and together can
be great for increasing adoptions.

6) Build volunteer program and

community support. During the two
days of the assessment, there were
no volunteers present. Volunteers
can do many functions, including
many daily functions to off-set work
being done by staff. They can also
play an important role in canine and
feline enrichment by playing with
cats and taking dogs for walks and
letting them play in the play yards.
This type of socialization helps
reduce stress in dogs to keep them
mentally and physically healthier and more adoptable. Volunteers can also take on
much-needed promotional efforts in photographing and helping promote adoptable
animals (see #10) It is highly recommended the Abilene Animal Shelter hire someone
who can be responsible for increasing community engagement and volunteer support

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 for the shelter so volunteers can serve this critical role at the shelter.

It is recommended that to maximize the success of the volunteer program, a volunteer

coordinator oversee and provide structure for the program, and also the shelter create a
signed agreement of mutual understanding between the volunteers and the shelter to
ensure a cooperative relationship between shelter staff and volunteers.

7) Morning cleaning routine should focus on puppy areas first. The morning cleaning
process is very challenging for staff due to the necessity of having to move dogs often
between kennels. However, the current process is as efficient as possible given the
current shelter construct.

The puppies have recently been moved into a different area of the shelter which
appears to create more isolation for them from other areas in the shelter.
However, it is advisable for staff to clean puppy areas first. Because the kennels are all
walk-in kennels, it is impossible to clean the kennels without staff physically entering
them. Thus, it is advisable to clean and sanitize those areas first so any potential
diseases that exists in other kennels doesn’t get tracked into the puppy kennels since
puppies are more susceptible to most shelter diseases.

8) Increase staffing – Staffing is lean in all areas of the shelter with only 9 employees caring
for 9,000 animals per year. An increase in staffing would help them provide better
service to the public, increase staff morale, better protect pets from disease and
increase lives saved. Currently, the veterinarians is seldom on-site, there are not enough
staff to help potential adopters, and staff is unable to spot-clean kennels during the day
– leaving them to be less than optimal when the public begins arriving late in the day. At
a minimum, the shelter should look to hire a full-time veterinarian, a veterinary
technician, two additional kennel staff for dogs, two staff focused solely on cats and the
new SNVR program, and a volunteer/foster coordinator.

9) Increase transfers to rescue partners. Most shelters work with rescue and transfer
partners in their region to help offset the life-saving work. And indeed, the Abilene
Animal Shelter significantly increased its transfers to rescue in 2017. However, most
successful shelters will be able to transfer 15% of their dog population to rescue
partners. The Abilene Animal Shelter is currently transferring about 8%. Doubling the
volume of animals going to area rescues would create a positive outcome for another
440 dogs per year. The shelter should actively look to recruit more transfer and rescue
partners to increase its rescue volume.

10) Marketing Improvements – The Abilene Animal Shelter does a very good job of creating
adoption events with good themes and discounted pricing to drive traffic. The shelter
also does a good job of getting media support behind these efforts. One area that could
use improvement is with taking better photos of the animals and using those photos to
promote the animals via social media. While staff may be stretched too thin to do this

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 work, volunteers can be equipped to get dogs out of the shelter and take better, more
natural photographs and write solid pet bios for use on social media and on the city’s
website that would create interest for particular pets.

For more information on photography, writing bios, and doing better, more efficient
social media work, there are three documents from HeARTSpeak that address these
topics attached.

Taking Great Cell Phone Pictures: A Guide

Social Media on a Schedule

Tips for writing pet bios

Also, it is recommended that the

shelter use discounted pricing for
adoptions vs rebates. The “rebate”
model for providing discounts is a
more labor-intensive way to handle
discounting adoptions and may be
viewed more skeptically by adopters.
Just applying the discount at the
point of adoptions is the quickest
and most natural way to handle this
type of discounting.

11) Increase “spot-cleaning” efforts during the day. The staff does a very good job of the
daily morning cleaning/sanitation efforts. However, as the day progresses, kennels get
soiled and staff is stretched too thin to spot clean kennels as dogs defecate in their
kennels during the day. Thus, by the end of the day, kennels have become unsightly for
prospective adopters. Increased kennel staff (see #8) would enable this substantially.
Also, increased volunteer support (see #6) would allow for more dogs to defecate
outside vs in their kennels creating less need. Together, an increased staff and increased
volunteer base could help keep kennels cleaner for the dogs and for potential adopters.

In closing, there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the future of the Abilene Animal
Shelter. There appears to be support from the highest leadership in the city, and the shelter
staff seems committed to making necessary improvements. In spite of significant challenges
that face the shelter with minimal staffing and a high volume of animals, animals seem
generally well-cared for and most dogs receive positive outcomes. However, the shelter could
use some support in intake-reduction, addressing the needs of the cats entering the shelter,
additional staff and community support would also aid in progressing the Abilene Animal
Shelter toward its lifesaving goals.

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