Can we ‘save them all’? Interview with Susanne Kogut of the open admission No Kill Charlottesville SPCA

Notes from a YouTube video from Michigan’s 1st No Kill Conference. More videos can be seen here.

Susanne Kogut, Executive Director of the open admission No Kill Charlottesville SPCA, details how she drastically reduced killing and created a No Kill community (saving 90% of the animals) in a very short period of time. Under her direction CASPCA quickly became a no-kill shelter and has since become a national model, as well as a model for other countries, in how to operate an animal shelter in a way that saves lives. CASPCA has seen a 600 percent increase in the number of fostered animals and a 70 percent decrease in the euthanasia rate, in less than two years.

Can we “Save them all?”

– Susanne was called “naive”, told “she didn’t know what she was doing”, that “you’ll never get to No Kill”, “you don’t have any experience”, “we know better”.

– They have saved 92% of intakes in 09/10. Their community is not in some great situation. They don’t have a lot of money and take in a lot of animals. It’s about attitude.

– Community pride. The community is really proud to be part of a community that doesn’t kill healthy, treatable pets. It helps with fundraising and their community is part of the effort.

– It’s not ‘just about the animals’ – you have to care about people. They are the ones who are going to help you achieve your goals.

– Positive! Positive! Positive! People don’t want to be involved in “the pets are all abused and if they don’t get adopted, they’ll be killed” negative messages. All of their messages are upbeat. Solutions not excuses.

– Its not about a ‘No Kill shelter’ it has to be about a No Kill community. It’s not about telling other people what they “should” do, it is about surrounding yourself with good people and motivating them to achieve great things.

– They demand accountability of themselves; adoptions for March weren’t what they wanted them to be. They didn’t sit around going “oh woe is us; people aren’t coming in!”. Instead they were asking “What did we do wrong and what can we do to increase adoptions?” It doesn’t happen to you, you make it happen.

– CASPCA do around 4,000 desexing per year and have used grants to do it. “You have to look at the data of where most of your intakes are coming from and target your desexing programs to those areas.”

– Outreach desexing is important, but there is a pretty good correlation between an increase in the number of desexing surgeries they were doing and an increase in their expenses. So you’ve gotta do the easy stuff too; the adoptions, the foster care, the marketing… you can do these very cheaply.

– They had seen their intakes go up after they announced they were going No Kill (people started bringing the kittens to them rather than rehoming them, themselves). Their intakes are finally starting to come down: the reason their intakes are going down? Is it desexing? Nope it’s actually not. Number one for reducing intakes was developing a relationship with animal control and getting them to stop bringing in the feral cats.

– The county was reducing their budgets. The SPCA was paid ‘per intake’; Susanne told them they could save money by allowing them to develop TNR programs with local community groups and arranging desexing.

– Surrender counseling also reduces intake; working with people on common pet behavioural problems. There is nothing wrong with asking someone to make an appointment to surrender an animal. You don’t get to get up and go to the doctor without an appointment, so it is no big imposition.

Example; a lady came in desperate, saying she was going to be evicted because of her dogs. The SPCA staff got more info saying she had 90 days, so they knew they didn’t have to take them immediately. They called her landlord, told them they were going to take the dogs and not to evict her. The landlord said there was no problem with the dogs. Turns out a neighbour who didn’t like the pets, had told the lady they were going to be evicted. The lady kept her dogs.

Adoption policies

– They don’t do home visits for every pet; they don’t think you need to, to find a good home.

– Don’t be afraid of returns. Some people are so afraid of returns, that they only adopt out a few.
– – Rescue tell people in our adoption contracts, that if they’re not happy with an animal to bring it back. When they do, rescue are mad. But they did what we asked them to! How can we be mad at them?

— We all know not all pets act the same in the facility as they do in the new home. Take the pet back, say thank you, get more information on what that pet is like in the home and make a better match next time. Don’t think they’re a bad family, don’t put them on a DNA list and send it out to everyone in the community. It may have just been not a good fit,

– Their adoptions returns are around 8%. This has remained constant since they changed their adoption policies from judgemental to more relaxed. It has not increased.

– They screen foster homes through an interview. If they feel uncomfortable they can do a homecheck, but they don’t always.

– If they are a family and the kids want kittens for a while – give them kittens! Give them kittens that day – don’t make them come back. Use students and transient people who want a pet ‘for a time’ – given them ‘adopt me’ vests to walk the pets around in the community.

– They hardly ever refuse an adoption. They don’t believe people come into their organisation to abuse animals. They may not be as educated about animal care as we like, but they try to make the adoption happen.

– Barn cat adoptions works for outdoor only cats.

Offsite adoption events; are no longer needed! People love their organisation and they adopt everything out successfully. They do still work with local businesses (a antique store took kittens) and they did publicity around it in the local news.

“When an animal comes in that door, its life depends on us,” she says. “It’s a huge sense of responsibility and obligation. To turn your back on that is impossible.”

Notes from a YouTube video from Michigan’s 1st No Kill Conference. More videos can be seen here.