Nathan Winograd on the double standard employed by animal groups who rake in donations by promoting the human-animal bond yet are ready to destroy the actual human-animal bond by breaking up families via elimination of shelter holding periods for stray pets.
A private shelter in Brazoria Co, TX was closed due to the director’s poor health and 70 dogs who have been exposed to distemper are now struggling to survive in unheated outdoor pens. Volunteers are trying to care for the dogs. (Thanks Michele for the link.)
Pet owners in the Florida Keys will now have a safe place to take their entire families for shelter during hurricane evacuations. (Thank you to a reader for the link.)
Elizabeth Taylor’s 1974 letter to her “lovely lost cat”, Cassius.
Musicians who have cancelled shows at Sea World in the post-Blackfish era: Barenaked Ladies, Willie Nelson and Heart.
Daily updates from NOAA on the recent mass stranding of pilot whales in Florida.
The widespread myth that sharks don’t get cancer has cost many sharks their lives. Scientists have documented cancer in at least 23 species of sharks, including most recently the Great White.
Reminder: The deadline for photos for inclusion in the Xmas day post is December 21.
The stray hold thing is an issue near and dear, given my recent dealings with my local shelter.
If my cat ends up at the shelter, I WANT HIM BACK. Only 2% of cats are reclaimed from shelters nationwide? Ok, but those 2% are FAMILY and those people deserve to get their cats home. You can’t just throw away that 2% and say, “Well, it’s for the greater good that you’re cat was adopted out to strangers.” You also need to keep in mind that the lack of a stray hold may not be legal and any shelter going that way would want to make sure that they’re not opening themselves up to a lawsuit. (This was going to be the next avenue of argument I was going to bring up for the Medina County Animal Shelter if things didn’t resolve).
But I do understand the need to get cats out of shelters quickly, so let’s find a solution that works for both – getting cats out quickly AND allowing owners to reclaim. And while we’re at it, let’s figure out WHY the RTO is so damn low for cats. Is it cultural? Do people not worry about a missing cat until he’s been missing for a while? Is it educational? Do people not know about the value of microchipping and about using local resources to find a lost cat? Is it economics? Is microchipping too expensive/inaccessible and are reclaim fees too high? Let’s find out what’s going on and how we can change it.
I honestly think that 2% number is meaningless. The problem IS cultural, but it’s the culture of the shelters that seems likely to have the biggest effect here.
We have shelters who only take pictures of dogs to put online, not cats. Who don’t allow owners to view EVERY pet in the shelter. Who immediately label cats ‘feral’ and euthanize on intake. Who have shortened hours. Who either don’t own a chip scanner, don’t scan every animal, or don’t own the RIGHT scanner for that particular pet. Who charge high release fees.
So we have these shelters with a culture that devalues the lives of cats (and all pets, but ESPECIALLY cats.) And we’re using numbers from such shelters to prove that OWNERS devalue their lives. It would be like a grocery store refusing to stock milk because people don’t buy it (which they can prove, since 0% have bought it since they stopped selling it.)
I’ve seen shelters declare themselves ‘no kill’ based purely on numbers concerning dogs, because cats DON’T COUNT. Using these kind of numbers to justify sweeping policy changes is horrifying and proof of an utter disconnect between shelters and the people they’re meant to serve.
When every shelter is doing the right things, THEN we can look at the numbers and see if people really do claim cats less. But since shelters most assuredly aren’t, the numbers only say that shelters are still failing at the very basics.
^This. Exactly this.
There’s also something else to keep in mind about these numbers. The 2% includes ALL cats who come into the shelter. Many cats who come into the shelter don’t have homes…they are community cats, ferals, strays, etc.
The fact is that we have no idea how many OWNED cats are or aren’t reclaimed. To get this number, we would have to remove all homeless cats from the equation. The 2% doesn’t mean “2% of owned cats are reclaimed by their owners.” It means “2% of all cats who enter the shelter system are reclaimed.”
So once you remove all strays and community cats, you’re left with a base number that is significantly less than the total population of cats in shelters. Only then can you determine how many OWNED cats are reclaimed, and that number will indeed be higher than 2%. It may in fact be significantly higher, but THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW. That last statement is so important. For all we know, 50% of owned cats are reclaimed (I doubt that, because shelters are failing cats, so…) But you can NOT determine how many cats go home to their owners if you count cats who ARE NOT OWNED.
Brent Toellner over at kcdogblog did a lengthy write-up about the stray hold issue, including referencing Nathan Winograd’s thoughts:
http://btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog/2013/12/thoughts-practical-solutions-to-the-idea-of-reducing-eliminating-holding-periods-at-shelters.html
I have volunteered a fair amount of time at local shelters, but 99.9% of it has been with dogs (I’m very allergic to cats and quite frankly I like dogs a lot more). So I wouldn’t claim to have much knowledge of the stray hold issue as it relates to cats. But Brent’s points were interesting.
The main idea is that the RTO rate for cats so low, and the majority of those returns are due to microchips and collars. As I understand it, the stray hold period would still apply to cats who arrive at the shelter with identification. Cats that arrive with no identification are extremely unlikely to be RTO, so their main hope of getting out of the shelter lies with an adoption or rescue organization, and elimination of the stray hold period makes that more possible.
Totally agree that most people need to make sure to microchip their cats. Not sure about the reclaiming fee issue. I really had no idea that the RTO rate for cats was so low. I would have guessed lower than for dogs, but not that low.
Pets are family. Zero redemption time is something I could never support.
Follow up from Nathan Winograd on the subject: http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=13776
I of course agree that pets are family. But if the vast majority of the cats who are RTO have identification, and cats who have identification still have the stray hold, then the cats whose stray holds would be eliminated already have virtually zero chance of going back to their family (if they had one in the first place).
It’s an interesting debate with a lot to consider, and like I said I’m a lot more in tune with issues facing shelter dogs than cats so I’m no expert here. But I don’t read Brent’s thoughts and conclude that he in favor of breaking apart families from their pets or increasing shelter killing.
I have a cat who is not microchipped. I would still want him back.
I want a solution that gets cats out of the shelter quickly AND allows me to reclaim my (unidentified) cat. Let’s come up with that plan.
Joel, the RTO rate for cats without identification is low, but it’s non-zero. No matter how low the number is, those cats still count. Their families still count. If you are in favor of eliminating the hold period for cats (with or without ID) you are in favor of breaking apart families.
“Joel, the RTO rate for cats without identification is low, but it’s non-zero. No matter how low the number is, those cats still count. Their families still count. If you are in favor of eliminating the hold period for cats (with or without ID) you are in favor of breaking apart families.”
Oh geez, now people who want to eliminate the hold period are in the same bucket as “the other woman”.
It’s very limiting to think of this a stray hold/no stray hold approach, because as Casey mentioned there are other policies that could be implemented in tandem. I have no idea what they are.
But let’s just pretend that eliminating the hold period would increase the overall live release rate for cats. At what ratio is more cats leaving the shelter alive worth having to deal with a furious owner whose cat got rehomed because the family didn’t identify their cat?
2 additional saved cats for each furious owner?
20 additional saved cats for each furious owner?
100 additional saved cats for each furious owner?
With the miniscule number of non-ID’d cats who are currently RTO, 100 to 1 isn’t necessarily unreasonable. Don’t worry, I’m not going to accuse you of being in favor of killing shelter cats if you say there is no ratio that would justify the elimination of the hold period.
And again, I have no opinion on this one way or the other. I’d like for as many cats to make it out of the shelter alive as possible, but labeling people who feel one way or the other is not going to encourage dialogue.
“Oh geez, now people who want to eliminate the hold period are in the same bucket as ‘the other woman’.”
So you don’t see pets as family members and you think people who do are ridiculous?
“It’s very limiting to think of this a stray hold/no stray hold approach, because as Casey mentioned there are other policies that could be implemented in tandem.”
Of course other policies should be implemented too, because there must be some way to increase the RTO rate. However, other policies being implemented does not change the fact that there is either a stray hold or there is not.
“But let’s just pretend that eliminating the hold period would increase the overall live release rate for cats. At what ratio is more cats leaving the shelter alive worth having to deal with a furious owner whose cat got rehomed because the family didn’t identify their cat?”
Why would we pretend that’s the case when it’s obviously not? And why would we pretend that the problem is “furious” owners rather than heartbroken?
“a furious owner whose cat got rehomed because the family didn’t identify their cat” sounds like blaming the owner for the cat not having ID. Is the owner still to blame if they don’t know about or can’t afford a microchip? Is the owner to blame if the cat gets out of his collar that had his ID tag on it? This is one thing shelters are FOR – a safe place for lost pets so their owners can find them.
Chips can migrate. Not every shelter bothers to scan for every cat. Cats who behave like lost, manhandled or traumatized cats often do – terrified, defensive, or shut down – are often assumed to be unowned. Shelters also don’t necessarily question those surrendering cats, and assume it’s legitimate when it’s not – when the person bringing them in is not the owner and has no right. Just how that could effectively be done I don’t know, but a good start would be to check for chips.
I know a person whose cat was lost for more than 15 years. The cat had a chip, which had migrated, and when lost had a collar. Where she was and what happened to her, no-one knows. Like as not the collar was lost early on, no-one checked for a chip or didn’t think it might’ve migrated. Sadly, while she was finally returned, she was also by then mortally ill.
Bottom line, it’s not always because people don’t provide identification for their cats.
Sarah, I have specifically avoided saying that I support removing hold periods. Please direct me to where I endorsed that idea. I haven’t. As I mentioned, I have no firm opinion on this. So I have zero idea why you’re implying that I support eliminating stray holds, or why anyone who would support removing them doesn’t consider pets to be family members. Nor have I called anyone ridiculous.
Shirley, I didn’t blame anyone for anything under the scenario I described. Don’t put words in my mouth. Obviously a cat that is not microchipped is not going to be as easy to RTO as one that is. But I said absolutely nothing, and certainly didn’t blame anyone, as to why a cat would not be microchipped. Owned cats arrive at shelters without microchips, but why the cat would not be microchipped is 100% irrelevant.
My first point is that with 2% of cats being RTO, and the vast majority of those being RTO because of their identification, this scenario that we’re wanting to paint about hold times enabling owners to show up and reclaim their lost non-ID’d cats just isn’t happening that often. Certainly not as often as the situations that Brent is describing below.
And my second point is that anyone who recognizes this, and questions the role of stray hold times in the overall goal of getting more shelter cats into homes, shouldn’t be thought of as someone who wants to “break apart families”, or “doesn’t think of pets as family members.” That makes no more sense than labeling people who want mandatory stray holds as being in favor of inflicting cruelty on feral cats.
But the “my way or you’re cruel” approach is an attitude that is pervasive in all areas of animal welfare from people on all sides of various issues. I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything different on this topic. Casey seems to be the only one trying to think through solutions instead of just giving boiler plate kneejerk reactions.
I didn’t say you were endorsing it – where do you think I said that? As for the rest of your nonsense, it’s clear that regardless of your stance on holding periods, you don’t think of pets as family members and think that people who do are ridiculous. You may not have used the word “ridiculous” but your statement “Oh geez, now people who want to eliminate the hold period are in the same bucket as ‘the other woman’.” is obviously meant to ridicule.
Can I say a couple of things here?
I agree that pets are family — and that we should try to reunite them with their owners whenever possible. But as someone who manages a shelter, we see truly feral cats come into our shelter virtually every day. We are 99.9999% certain these cats are feral, and need to be altered and released back into the community. But because of mandatory hold times, we are required by law to hold them for 5 days at our shelter. If you could see the terror and trauma that caging these cats for 5 days endure I think you’d understand why we some really compassionate people want to eliminate hold times for feral cats so we can release them as quickly as possible back to their “home”. Holding them isn’t humane. And it’s taking up valuable shelter resources unnecessarily.
The same is true for litters of young kittens. No one “loses” an entire litter of kittens. We’e had kittens come into our shelter and the person that brought them to us swears the mom is a community cat, and that these are her kittens. The person turning them in knows the mom is fine in the community, but the young kittens are to fragile. Again, we are 99.9999% sure that these young kittens are not all “lost”. And yet, we are required to hold them. If you’ve ever watched a litter of young kittens all get sick and some die because of airborn illness that inevitably exists even in a clean shelter that young kittens can’t fight off, you’ll understand why many compassionate people want to find a way to move them out of the shelter quickly and not have to hold them for 5 days when we know an owner isn’t coming.
Maybe eliminating hold times is not the right answer, but I wish people would at least consider the need for some middle ground here.
And middle ground I think is what we all want. I don’t want ferals kept for one minute more than absolutely necessary. But I also don’t want (as is the case in my shelter) cats declared feral simply for ease of killing.
I don’t want a litter of kittens getting sick and dying in the shelter. But I also don’t want a litter of kittens killed out of hand simply for being kittens with no owner.
I also want to be able to reclaim my lost cat.
So – how about this – we change it at the other end of things. Zero hold time for cats. BUT. Anyone who adopts a cat from the shelter, does so with the understanding that if an owner comes forward within a certain period of time (say, five days from intake or whatever) that person must surrender that cat back to the original owner. So every adoption has a “hold period” where the adoption is not finalized until the five days are up. The shelter MUST post stray cats as found and maintain that posting until the five days pass – then the cat is considered adopted and owned by the new family.
This would require good record-keeping and photos and careful paperwork, of course.
What do you think?
I think ferals are their own category. I would be fine eliminating holding time for ferals coming in from known, managed colonies.
The problem with simply eliminating holding time for all cats who come in labeled feral (but not from a managed colony) is that many shelters absolutely do falsely label all aggressive, frightened, and shy cats feral (and use it as an excuse to kill them immediately.) But the shelters who do so are also euthanizing those cats, not TNRing them. So with the above, I’m fine eliminating holding time if the cat is not being euthanized or adopted, but is being returned to their home (the community.)
Agreed. My shelter uses “feral” as a reason to kill.
I think we can all agree that “feral” shouldn’t = kill. But to me this has far more to do with a need for shelter reform. I just know that hold law helps you in these situations — it just prolongs the inevitable.
Casey. Thanks for being open to new idea. That is what I was trying to do with my article is trying to find middle ground (for which I’ve taken a lot of heat for). I fear that the “adoption hold” idea is setting us up for the same problem as the “make available for instant adoption” idea. Either way you have a family that has fallen in love with a pet (even though maybe for only a short time) getting taken away from them. And overall, i have a strong fear that a couple of these stories and you’d end up turning people away from adoption (which is no bueno).
I completely agree that the problem in all cases was that the determination of what is and is not feral is completely reliant on the competency of the shelter staff — which is why I think the “any form of identification” takes the subjectiveness out of the picture (to some degree).
“And overall, i have a strong fear that a couple of these stories and you’d end up turning people away from adoption (which is no bueno).”
Brent, if the RTO is indeed as low as it seems, there isn’t going to be much of that scenario. Indeed, some people looking to reclaim lost cats may be content with the thought that the cat is in a new home. And unless you’re adopting out the majority of cats within the five days (or whatever the stated period is), the chances of someone adopting a cat that will later be reclaimed are extremely small.
Meanwhile, the shelter gets kittens and ferals (who will NOT have an owner reclaim) out as quickly as possible.
Is there a better solution? This is the question that we have to keep asking as we go.
” if the RTO is indeed as low as it seems, there isn’t going to be much of that scenario.”
I guess that’s my point all along. Based on RTO rates, this isn’t going to come up a lot. But when it does, who is our loyalty to? The original owner. Who lost their pet and didn’t put any ID with it? Or the person who came to the shelter to adopt a needy cat?
In the end, I’m siding most with the cat. And it’s best way out is through the adopter…with no strings attached.
“But when it does, who is our loyalty to? The original owner. Who lost their pet and didn’t put any ID with it?”
Really? You’re blaming people for losing their pets, and assuming that a pet that comes in with no ID never had ID? You’re unaware that collars and/or tags can get lost and that chips can migrate?
Sarah — I was responding to a specific scenario that was introduced in the original recommendation and I asked, in a case of potential co-ownership, who would the loyalty be with? The original owner, who had options for having made it possible to return the cat, or a new owner who had just recently been adopted. Either way you would be removing a cat from its home and people who (at least in theory) love them. It’s not as easy question to answer. I just don’t understand the specific need you seem to have to assume others are stupid or heartless.
“But when it does, who is our loyalty to? The original owner. Who lost their pet and didn’t put any ID with it? Or the person who came to the shelter to adopt a needy cat? ”
It has nothing to do with loyalty, it has to do with legality. If the person adopting the cat signs the agreement that they understand that said cat is still available for reclaim within the holding period, then that cat must go back to the person looking to reclaim.
And honestly, Brent, you don’t get to judge who has the deeper bond with an animal. The jerky old man who comes off as an asshole looking to reclaim his cat may seem like a poor choice as pet owner to outside eyes. But that cat may be the only thing keeping him going day after day. You can’t know. None of us can.
“Sarah — I was responding to a specific scenario that was introduced in the original recommendation and I asked, in a case of potential co-ownership, who would the loyalty be with? The original owner, who had options for having made it possible to return the cat, or a new owner who had just recently been adopted.”
You shouldn’t have to choose between loyalties – I was not the one endorsing this setup. But obviously you were saying it was of some significance that the original owner lost their pet w/out ID, otherwise you wouldn’t have written what you did. I don’t know why it matters that it’s a “specific scenario” – you still seem to be implying that the original owner’s claim to the animal or bond with the animal is “less than” based on the evidence that the animal was lost without ID.
“I just don’t understand the specific need you seem to have to assume others are stupid or heartless.”
Well, in this medium, what I do is I read the words that people have written, and determine what they mean based on that. My only assumption is that they mean what they’ve written. Did you not mean those words that you wrote? Maybe you should write more carefully. You’ve written things multiple times now that seem to indicate that you think it’s ok to take animals from owners just because they lost them without ID. That does sound a bit heartless.
Casey, in fairness here, what we’re talking about is rewriting laws to improve outcomes for cats. So the legality is what we make it. So if you’re rewriting the law, who do you want to allow to have first rights to the cat? The new adopter? Or the original family? Both of whom likely consider the cat family.
You asked me what I thought and I guess I don’t see your recommendation of adopting a cat to a home, and then getting reclaimed as solving the initial problem…which is a pet, which is family, being removed from that family.
And yet, Brent, you would have the same thing happen on the other end of things – a lost cat adopted out immediately, the original family loses their pet. A “bummer” as you called it.
IF we got rid of stray hold time (to save more lives) THEN we must make certain that we’re not going to do it in such a way as to penalize those pet owners who want their cats back.
So let’s say that 1% of all cats entering the shelter are reclaimed. Now, how many of that 1% would be adopted out in the five day stray hold period? Half? Of those who are adopted out within the five day stray hold period, how many of the owners looking to reclaim are going to say, “Hey, you know what? I just didn’t want this cat to die in the shelter and if she’s with another family who loves her, that’s cool with me. They can keep her.” A few will do this, certainly.
BUT – the “OMG, this is my autistic daughter’s indoor only cat who escaped the house when we had a burglary and this cat means EVERYTHING to our family” situation will happen. VERY, very rarely, but it will happen and it MUST be addressed in such a way as to be able to reunite that cat with that family.
So yes, by all means, get the cats out of the shelter as soon as physically possible with no stray hold. BUT, make the system so that a desperately grieving pet owner can reclaim their animal within a certain period of time. The two are not mutually exclusive. It just requires a little innovation and will to make it happen.
Keep in mind that of that 1% that are returned to owners, the vast majority have microchips or other Identification — which should put them in a longer hold time because this would be a likely candidate for RTO.
I agree that when an owned pet’s original owner is found that they have been adopted it’s going to suck. But honestly, it happens now. We see it a fair amount at our shelter that someone will see an adoption photo of their dog and claim it was there dog but the dog has already been adopted. It’s horrible, but we hold them for 5 days, post lost and found photos, scan for chips, call on tags, are open 7 days a week etc. At some point there isn’t a lot else we should be expected to do. I’m not trying to belittle the pain here for the original owner, but we have to understand that this happens even with long hold times. There is just some margin of this that is unavoidable.
So I’m open to ideas about how you fix it, and minimize it, but at the same time, making it fair to shelters to not run up a lot of costs/space issues/expense for cats that are extremely unlikely to ever have owners come for them.
“There is just some margin of this that is unavoidable. ”
Then I cannot understand your hesitation on the “adoption as stray hold” proposal. If a cat comes in on day 1, gets adopted out on day 2 with a caveat that if an owner shows up to reclaim in the next three days, they’ll have to return that cat to the original owner, otherwise the cat is theirs after day 5, AND this allows for all (unidentified) cats to have a no stray hold at the shelter, then why not do it?
The chances of conflict between new adopter/old owner are so small as to be negligible and the benefits to all cats are demonstrable (especially ferals, kittens, etc.).
The reason I oppose it is that the same conflict exists in either case. If the cat is adopted, it is in a home. If the person comes to reclaim, it is still ripped from the new adoptive family. So we need “fix” the problem. We just changed who’s hurt by it.
My personal opinion is that it is better in these exceptionally rare cases to leave them with the adopter. My best projection into the future is that if this happened at your shelter, if it remains with the adopter, the messaging would be about the importance of tagging/chipping your cat so they will be held longer at the shelter and can be reunited. However, if the original owner go them back, the message would be, don’t adopt from the shelter, because they may take your cat back.
If the heartache is the same either way, I’d rather not discourage people from adopting and rather encourage them to tag/chip.
Again, it’s just one man’s opinion.
I’ve been reading about Qui tam actions – and as I read from Black’s Law Dictionary…well it seems to be interesting as a recourse maybe if it could apply.
“An action brought by an informer, under a statute which establishes a penalty for the commission or omission of a certain act, and provides that the same shall be recoverable in a civil action, part of the penalty to go to any person who eill bring such action and the remainder to the state or some other institution, is called a “qui tam action”; because the plaintiff states that he sues as weel for the state as for himself.
Recently heard this could amount to some money for the informer.
If a shelter wanted to redesign the holding period for unidentified cats so that the owner still had a reasonable chance to get their family member back, I would support that. I’ve never said otherwise. What I’ve said and stand by, is that I could never support anything that gives families zero chance to reclaim their family members.
A redesigned holding period for a facility that does a 5 day hold might look like this: Excluding day of impound, the unidentified cat is held for 2 days exclusively for owner reclaim (assuming the facility is open, obviously) then held for an additional 3 days during which the owner could reclaim, an adopter could adopt or a rescue group could rescue. This gives the owner a chance to reclaim and eliminates the possibility that unidentified cats would be sent to the kill room before the mandatory hold period expired.
I would also support unidentified cats being sent to approved foster homes with the same understanding in mind and with reasonable protocols in place to encourage, not discourage, reunification. For example, if an owner took the bus to the pound to reclaim his cat and the cat had been sent to a foster home, either the foster or the pound would be responsible for promptly bringing the cat either to the pound or to the owner’s home.
Personal attacks are not allowed here. Straighten up and fly right.
Shirley, all of that is fair for cats that have owners. I guess what I’m asking is, what do we do for obviously unowned cats? Most shelters regularly get in cats that we know are not owned (which is bound to happen when nearly 1/2 of the cats in this country are feral/community cats). Keeping them in a shelter for a series of days not only leads to significant undue stress for the cats, but also takes up valuable shelter resources that could be used to saving other cats. I’m just trying to reconcile how we can do right by these cats under a system required to hold them.
I am opposed to evaluating cats for feral status immediately upon impound. There appear to be way too many cases of mistaken categorization of pets as feral. It seems reasonable to me that the two days allotted for owner redemption (in my redesigned holding period example) would also be fair for allowing a possibly tame cat to settle in sufficiently so as to not be miscategorized as feral.
ETA: Ear tipped cats are excepted obviously and should not be impounded.