Making the facts fit the theory around dog surrenders

From the comments:

I have to question your figure: “85% of dogs entering shelters in Australia are entering as strays”**

Here are the ACTUAL 08_09 and 9_10 NSW Council Stats:

YEAR COMPARISONS COUNCILS NSW
08_09 09_10 CHANGE
Total dogs arriving in Pounds

H Transfered to Pound 33,886 31,164 -2,722

J Surrendered Dogs 6,649 6,401 -248

L Dumped dogs 11,651 12,393 742

Total 52,186 49,958 -2,228

In the 09_10 year 38% of dogs entering NSW Council pounds were surrendered or dumped. That leaves 62% registered as “Transfered to Pounds” – this is a mix of “seized and strays”. A long way way from 85%, at least in NSW Council Pounds. The figure of 38% surrendered or dumped by the public is a serious concern. Regards Paul@deathrowpets

Death Row Pets has done some amazing work in compiling stats in their area (from the NSW DLG annual Council Pound summary) and presenting them in a format that animal advocates can use to assess the issues in the state. The problem is, that although the intentions are very, very good; when you’re an advocacy group with a particular viewpoint to present – in this case ‘overpopulation’ – it can make you square up your figures in a way that suits your theory, rather than in a way that presents the whole picture, warts and all.

But first

Let me start by saying I never intended to challenge the view of overpopulation. In my ‘other life’ I have a website that, if anything ‘proves’ there are thousands of pets entering shelters and rescue each year, and it would be very easy for me to move from there to a theory of ‘overpopulation’. But what I also discovered pretty quickly is that most dogs listed on the website have more than one applicant come forward to adopt them, potentially 20 or 30 applicants if the dog is a ‘desirable’ breed. Most cats listed get adopted; granted it is definitely slower and occasionally we’ll get the one that stays in care for a few months, but nearly all eventually move into new families. These cats are generally in foster care, so aren’t on ‘death row’; but as we know that there are very few proactive programs for cat management in Australia, meaning the majority of cats entering shelters are untame shouldn’t be doing so. Breaking apart cats and dogs, therefore becomes vital, as the solutions are different.

But on the whole, those pets made available for adoption get adopted. I’ve seen whole shelters empty themselves with clever marketing campaigns, which says to me people are willing to forgo the pet shops and breeders in favour of shelters if we just show them the way. I’ve also seen council pounds who either block access to rescue, or rely on them so completely that the groups become overwhelmed. Rescue groups crying out for support for puppies on ‘death row’ is a huge red flag; why on earth would, what would be considered highly adoptable animals lives be at risk? When you dig a little deeper you realise the pound doesn’t desex, doesn’t offer a proactive adoption program, doesn’t use the local media to get pets adopted, doesn’t list lost pets online, doesn’t run a volunteer or foster program of their own – all because they genuinely believe their responsibility for that animal ends once it is impounded. That isn’t ‘overpopulation’ either; that is a system that is failing pets.

But I digress

Let’s get back to the figures from the NSW DLG Council Pound Summary. Check out the headings; ‘transferred’, ‘surrendered’ and ‘dumped’, to a total of a little over 52,000 dogs.

Not one of these categories was determined to be ‘lost’ dogs – as in ‘the dog got out and it was lost’, or ‘the dogs was found wandering and was handed in, therefore it is lost’. Is there even a difference between ‘surrendered’ and ‘dumped’? Both terms refer to people who hand over pets to shelters. If we condemn both as ‘irresponsible’ we’re being misleading. While extrapolating that out to “all of these owners are ‘irresponsible’ and therefore bought their pets on a whim and gave them up too easily, and therefore pets are too easily acquired and therefore we have too many breeders, and therefore we have ‘overpopulation'” is simply creating work of fiction.

But what is really interesting, and not highlighted in these claims of ‘overpopulation’ and widespread pet ‘dumping’, is that by their own figures 20,000 of these dogs went home, or nearly 40%. Those guys ARE absolutely lost animals. They’re the ones that the system was designed for; to act as a safety-net to pets and owners. Pounds are supposed to exist to act as a central point to keep pets safe until their owner can be located.

From there, 6,000 pets were adopted and 7,500 went to rescue (13,500 or 25%). We can either assume that these guys were genuinely surrendered, OR we can assume these were social, lost pets who weren’t reunited with their owners. It’s probably some of both. What we do know is that when pounds run programs which increase reclaims (put photos on the internet, encourage people to register pets through benefit not punishment based systems, aggressive lost and found procedures including knocking on doors where the pet was found) they can get their reclaim rates up to 65%. That’s around 13,000 less pets to find homes for in this instance; or exactly the number presently being rehomed. Co-oincidence? Or a sign that these, friendly, adoptable pets probably had owners looking for them?

Finally, we have the 17,000 dogs in the pound who according to these figures are presently being killed (32%) <— remember this number :)

According to the latest pet industry report (Contribution of the Pet Care Industry to the Australian Economy) in 2009, the same time these figures were compiled, New South Waleians kept about 1.1 million dogs. That means every year, just 1.5% of the total dog population of NSW is dying in the pound.

Could we reduce that number by improving pound procedures, reclaims and rehoming rates? Sure. But can we bemoan an irresponsible public and a breeding system which is ‘overproducing’ using these figures as ‘proof’ – notssomuch.

And it doesn’t stop there

Even more astounding is that groups using these figures also like to extrapolate them even further; 52,000 dogs entering the pound system as ‘surrendered or dumped’, mulitplied by 5-6 major states in Australia = 250,000 – 300,000 ‘death row’ dogs.

Except; about 30% of the population of Australia reside in NSW, giving them by far the biggest dog population, the biggest pound system and the most impounded animals. Victoria has about 25% of the population, so they’d be similar (so far we’re up to 55% of the population and around 100,000 dogs), so it in conceivable that including the rest of Australia, we at the very most have 200,000 impounds.

But as we’ve seen ‘impounded’ dogs doesn’t mean death row dogs (or at least it shouldn’t). If we use the actual figure of 32% of impounds to be likely at risk of death in the current system, that’s just 64,000 dogs for our whole nation. Or, to put it another way… the number of dogs truly on ‘death row’ is just 1.8% of the total national dog population of 3.4 million dogs.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

I’m a huge fan of gathering figures from pounds and shelters to help us solve our companion animal issues; I honestly believe without transparent figures we will continue to chase the bogymen and mantras of our industry and continue into a future that looks very similar to our past:

Kill pets, blame overpopulation and an irresponsible public; repeat.

But when we are given figures, we have a responsibility to present them to the public in an equally transparent and responsible way. We can’t blur impound rates and kill rates to prove our point. We should offer perspective along with our passion. And we should most definitely keep our minds open when looking at new data and allow it to challenge our beliefs.

While Death Row Pets may be one of the first to go there, they will be simply the first of many taking on this role of data-miner. As animal advocates we owe it to our public to resist following in the footsteps of major welfare leaders to date, by obscuring facts in favour of our own theories and holding back the truth believing our community is better off left in the dark.

We must be honest as to what our figures are really saying, whether we like it or not.

**“85% of dogs entering shelters in Australia are entering as strays” comes from a published JAWS study from Victoria of 20,000 dog intakes (What Happens to Shelter Dogs? An Analysis of Data for 1 Year From Three Australian Shelters (2004))