Recently, the Petco Foundation made publicly available a remarkable new asset to the field of animal welfare in the form of a well-designed tool for valuable statistical analysis. After I was first introduced to it and then spent time discovering its extraordinary capabilities, I was thrilled. I was particularly thrilled about the fact that the first state’s statistics that have been utilized for this wonderful new resource are those of Virginia. That is because Virginia has required shelters and other releasing agencies to provide their intake and outcome statistics to the state for public access for the longest time. The Petco Foundation’s plan, as I understand it, is to provide this same tool for the statistics of other states that require such record keeping and also to use it to urge states that do not currently require such filings of the immense value of doing so.
The field of animal welfare was resistant for many years to the notion of transparency. That attitude existed because of the fear of many people running animal shelters that the public would not react well to being confronted with the hard, cold realities of the vast loss of animal lives that was occurring. As improved life-saving results have been achieved through the spread of progressive approaches in much of our state and others, there has also come a recognition that the public deserves to have clear and unfettered access to accurate statistics of the actual results, both good and bad.
This statistical tool provided by the Petco Foundation may be found at Data Saves Lives. Scroll down past the heading “Virginia’s Progress” and you will see the data tool. There are several tabs at the top:
- Summary provides consolidated data.
- Year Over Year Trend shows animals by category coming in and going out of sheltering organizations.
- Trend Analysis allows for analysis of organizational effectiveness and makes it possible to make valuable comparisons.
- Lastly, a map shows the lifesaving occurring in each municipality in our state.
The map demonstrates very clearly the impressive progress that has been made in most of Virginia in life-saving over the years, and the absolutely tragic lack of such progress in certain pockets of the state.
In 2005, the combined euthanasia rate for dogs and cats for the entire state of Virginia was 43 percent. In 2017, it had been brought down to 14 percent—yes, 14 percent was the statewide euthanasia rate for every reporting agency in the state combined last year. And yet, still in 2017, there were certain Virginia sheltering organizations with euthanasia rates in the mid-70’s.
In our own community, the save rate for the City of Richmond (inclusive of all public and private shelters and rescue groups) was 96 percent. The save rate for the entire community (inclusive of all public and private shelters and rescue groups in Richmond, Henrico, Hanover, Chesterfield and Goochland) was 90 percent.
If you play with each of the tools you will see how they may be used to provide a large range of information about sheltering organizations and striking comparisons that will permit us to bring clarity to what programs, services and policies are actually working to save more lives. It also makes crystal clear where there are geographic pockets of large loss of life in the middle of geographic areas that are succeeding in saving the vast majority of animals coming into the care of shelters. This clarity dispatches the long-standing claims that loss of life in some communities is just a necessary evil and that the status quo is not subject to change. I have long believed in the importance of basing our choices regarding policies, procedures, programming and messaging on actual empirical data and not on old assumptions and outdated notions about both people and animals. This tool that Petco Foundation has generously put the resources into providing moves our field mightily in that direction. Now we can see exactly what is working and what is not and where each is occurring.
Like every instance of greater knowledge becoming more widely accessible, we need to make sure that it is used properly and successfully. Organizations and communities must be willing to look honestly at the data and the comparisons it affords and be willing to change long-standing concepts and old habit patterns to more closely resemble those practices that are working to save lives in similar communities.
I am so grateful for this tool. The Richmond SPCA made a commitment to the no-kill philosophy and model long before it was as widely accepted as it is now. That commitment changed everything about how we operated. It was a gutsy thing to do at the time and a decision that we will always be proud of having made. The back lash we took in the early years of our commitment, and still do take from some quarters, for our stance was well worth the immense life-saving success it has brought to the precious animals of our community and state. If there is anything that is clear from the comparisons that can now be made with this tool, it is that every community can save all of their healthy and treatable animals if they are willing to look honestly at how that success has been achieved elsewhere and undertake progressive changes.
George Orwell said that telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Petco Foundation has had the courage to be a revolutionary and I am deeply grateful to them.
Robin Robertson Starr is the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA. To read her biography or that of our other bloggers, please click here. Before posting a comment, please review our comment guidelines. Please note that our comment policy requires both your first and last name to be used as your screen name.
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