[violaine]

Basic Guidelines for a Shelter

http://www.animalsheltering.org/reso...delines_for_an imal_shelter_policies.html?log-event=sp2f-view-item&nid=120811371

Standards in Statistics and Transparency

http://www.asilomaraccords.org/

(I don’t know how animals are tracked, etc. If Chief ACO were to use petfinder.com, she would be able to use http://www.petpoint.com/ which is a free shelter management software system to track everything that needs to be known about the animals. The goal is to know what the issues are in your community, why the animals are coming in and creating programs that chip away at those issues.) With petpoint, you can easily print actual kennel cards that should stay with the animal on it’s cage while it is at the shelter. It tracks all the info about the animal, vaccinations, etc.

Adoptions/Dog Walkers

They should also be implementing a program called “Meet your Match” and have adoption counselors.
Meet your Match is a nationally renowned program and now a standard for good shelters to match the right animal with the right person and avoid return adoptions. Bloomington did this and we have very few return adoptions now.

http://www.aspca.org/adoption/meet-your-match/

We also have dog walker volunteers who volunteer and walk dogs everyday to get them out of their cages. We have a training, rules they have to follow, etc. It is a great program that makes for happier dogs and helps us determine their personalities, etc. We also have trained the volunteers now to do basic training with the dogs when they walk them. Any dogs that need some training to improve their adoptability get it from the select group of dog training volunteers or we have even had a certified trainer come in and work with problem dogs that just need a little schooling.


Cleaning Protocols/Disease Control
I would ask for a copy of cleaning protocols document that they should have. There should be cleaning protocols for disease control/prevention, regular daily cleaning, etc. Do they have protocol for what to do if they have a parvo outbreak? Or another highly contagious disease? (As you know, you NEVER HOSE A KENNEL WITH A DOG IN IT!!! Good lord;(

They should be working to strategically minimize euthanasia to just animals that have major health issues that can’t be treated, major behavior problems (aggression, etc.) and get away from euthanasia for space. This should all be reported to the public on a regular basis with the detail of why they are euthanized, source of the animals, etc. If you don’t know any of these things, how can you fix the problems? In the end you save the tax dollars because you are fixing the problems.

This is a lot to take in, but these are just a couple of areas of things that should be brought up. This stuff is the basic, baseline expectations for a shelter. Bloomington was in a similar place as you several years ago. They changed management and followed all of the best practices and now the shelter is a welcoming, happy place that has seen it’s intake numbers go down, public awareness up and is a jewel in the community.

We have volunteers who take pictures of adoptable animals each week, load it to petfinder with descriptions, and produce our weekly adoptable posters that go out in hundreds of locations around town. Volunteers distribute these flyers each week and again are something that our community expects, loves and it produces tons of adoptions. The right group of volunteers and a well outlined program makes all of this really easy and very little effort on the shelter’s part.

I would also ask when is the last time Chief AC Officer went to any national trainings/conferences to stay up on trends in animal welfare. I bet it has been a long time, if ever.

Good luck and let me know if there are others areas/topics that you need further info about. I’m happy to provide it!

[at the top of this letter:

Good luck with your meeting coming up. I know that [your commissioner] talked to [a board member of our animal sheltering welfare group] (Ft. Wayne) last week. The impression is that [your commissioner] thinks [chief AC Officer for your county] knows what she is doing and that the issues brought up aren’t all that valid. [your commissioner] is however leaning toward a national evaluation of the shelter if they can afford it/want to spend the money. our board member talked to your commissioner about our indiana animal control welfare org., but also gave the commissioner the links to the national organizations that will do an evaluation.

That may be the only thing that gets him to see that things are not right at the shelter. He emailed me saying he would be interested in info from our welfare org. I asked by when and he never responded.
I will put together a basic outline of stuff that should be done and offer greater details, etc. as they need/want it. We feel if we give him too much details program information they will be overwhelmed. Very much a learning curve here].