Category: News

Lost pets found their way home. Abused pups were rescued and shown how to trust again. Sick and injured animals were rehabilitated. Children adopted their first pets. This is only a small snapshot of what happened inside the walls of the Seattle Animal Shelter in 2019. Here’s a deeper look at what happened this year and how it will impact the shelter in the new decade to come:

By the numbers

It was an incredible year for Seattle’s homeless animals; in 2019, the Seattle Animal Shelter took in a total of 1,056 cats, 891 dogs, and 358 critters. Of those, 844 dogs, 916 cats, and 349 critters adopted, transferred for adoption elsewhere, or reunited to their owners. The shelter continues to stay well above a 90 percent live release rate (the percentage of live outcomes compared to overall outcomes).

Growing our volunteer community

This year, the shelter welcomed 236 new volunteers! This includes volunteer foster parents, behavior team volunteers, in-shelter volunteers, Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation (SASF) volunteers, and more. Our incredible volunteers work 365 days a year and are extremely dedicated. They save thousands of animal lives each year. Without them, the shelter would not be the success it is today.

New staff members

In 2019, the shelter welcomed a new member to its animal control team, which handles all manner of cases, commonly those of abuse, neglect cruelty, injured and sick animals, and aggressive animals. The shelter also brought on its first full-time animal behaviorist. Kimberlee Spicer is a CPDT-KA and Fear Free Certified trainer. She formerly worked with Homeward Pet Adoption Center, starting as an adoption counselor, then a dog behavior coordinator, and finally as an animal behavior manager.

Since 2016, the shelter’s behavior training program has helped at-risk dogs overcome their fears and start to trust humans again through positive behavior modification techniques. It also helps cats find the right homes through animal profiling, which matches a cat’s personality type to an adopter. Learn more about the behavior program here.  This unique program is entirely funded by SASF donors. With a full-time behaviorist on board, the shelter can now expand its training of volunteers and staff to assure every animal with special needs benefits from the program.

Donations

Our annual Furevermore Fundraising Gala raised $213,000 alone. Our Furry 5K raised more than $114,000. (Get details on our 2020 events here!) While helping supplement shelter essentials such as veterinary care, animal control, food and supplies, staffing, spaying and neutering, and facility upkeep, this funding also supports a range of programs that go beyond what the City of Seattle can finance, including our Behavioral Training, Foster, and Fospice programs.

 

 

 

 

 

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By Taylor Laidley   

Since its inception, the Seattle Animal Shelter’s (SAS) donor-funded Behavioral Training Program has saved 1,329 dogs and 2,243 cats. Thanks to the generous support of the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation (SASF) donors and the tireless work of the shelter’s behaviorists, this groundbreaking program is changing the lives of Seattle’s most at-risk animals. But there is still more work to be done.

Living inside a shelter can be traumatic for any animal—especially those that have been previously neglected, abused, or under-socialized. When animals feel overwhelmed or scared, they can develop adverse behaviors or aggravate existing behaviors that significantly decrease their chances of adoption. Previously, many of these animals were euthanized. But now SAS’s unique program gives them a second chance at life.

“Any dog that couldn’t be walked by our volunteers or easily handled by our staff, that was a dog that would often be euthanized or put down,” said Kara Main-Hester, deputy director of SAS. “When these dogs come into the shelter, I feel like they break just a little bit…It’s overwhelming and exhausting, and because of this, we see a lot of behavior come out, whether it’s literally a dog who sits with their head facing the wall because they’re so overwhelmed, or they become outwardly aggressive. Pretty much what they’re saying is, ‘get away,’ ‘please stop,’ ‘I can’t take it anymore.’”

Developed in 2016 with the help of animal behaviorists from the University of Washington and a grant from the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation (SASF), the shelter’s unique Behavioral Training Program is based on positive reinforcement, love, and patience. The program uses behavior modification techniques to help at-risk dogs overcome their fears and start to trust humans again—all in a matter of months.

Through the program, all volunteers and staff are given the necessary skills to curb those adverse behaviors and make that animal’s shelter stay less stressful. In 2017, all of the shelter’s adopted dogs (472) received SAFER training (Safety Assessment for Evaluating Rehoming), a tool developed by ASPCA to help shelters assess the risk of future aggression in dogs and identify which dogs will require one-on-one behavioral training before they can be adopted. More than 50 dogs received highly specialized behavior training in 2017 for especially challenging behavior issues such as separation anxiety and fear aggression.

Cats also benefit from the program. In 2017, all of the shelter’s adopted cats (764) received the “Feline-ality” assessment. Think of it as a friendship app for cat lovers! Whether the cat is chill and laid-back or extroverted and full of energy, this assessment allows the shelter to match the cat’s personality with an owner who is looking for a pet with those traits.

“This [program] isn’t just some sort of luxury,” said Main-Hester. “This is truly just as important of our veterinary programs here at the shelter.”

Across the country, behavioral training programs are slowly being recognized as a necessary component of care. But unfortunately, not every shelter has the resources to institute a program like this. Of the estimated 6.5 million animals that are surrendered to shelters each year, approximately 1.5 million of them are still euthanized, according to ASPCA. SAS hopes that the success of its Behavior Training Program will lead to it being replicated in shelters across the U.S. so more lives might be saved.

This year, the shelter hopes to bring on a full-time behavior specialist to sustain the program and expand its training of volunteers and staff so that the shelter can continue to serve every animal that comes through its wide-open doors. And you can help make that a reality.

The Behavioral Training Program would not exist without the life-saving generosity of SASF donors. On Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019, join fellow animal lovers for a night of games, silent and live auctions, delicious food and drink, and camaraderie at the 9th annual Furevermore Fundraising Gala.

By Kelli Harmon

Published courtesy of Best Friends Magazine. This article originally appeared in BFM’s November/December 2018 edition. Posted 2019/08/03 

SEATTLE ANIMAL SHELTER started out like most other municipal animal services departments around the country. It was “the pound.” That was in the 1970s, when animal shelters were little more than short-term holding places for stray animals. But, says Ann Graves, Seattle Animal Shelter’s executive director, “We have a history of being progressive as a city and as a municipal agency.” So it wasn’t long before Seattle’s municipal shelter became a lifesaving model. They’ve proven that it’s possible for a cityrun, open-admission shelter to not only reach no-kill, but to sustain it.

A progressive history
What sets Seattle apart is that, as a city, it has consistently been an early adopter of core programs that go beyond the bare minimum in animal sheltering. “The low-cost spay/neuter clinic opened here in 1982, years before others around the country,” Ann says. “Seattle citizens recognized the need to do something about the overpopulation of dogs and cats, and voted for an initiative to open the clinic.”

Throughout its history, the city shelter has been open to new ideas and just keeps moving forward.

Their volunteer program started in the late 1990s, before most municipal shelters had such programs. (In fact, some shelters still don’t accept volunteer help.) They began working with rescue groups early on and they stopped the killing of animals on account of lack of space years ago, in large part because they created a foster program.

Collaboration with the public, private organizations and other agencies is a huge part of the shelter’s success. Ann, who started as a volunteer and has worked in a professional capacity at the shelter for 18 years, still remembers the first time shelters in the region got together to talk. Today the city and county shelters, as well as local nonprofit organizations, have an excellent working relationship. Ann says, “We’ve done a good job of recognizing when our neighbor needs help, and they do the same for us.”

Choices to make
As things shift and change in animal welfare and sheltering, leaders at Seattle Animal Shelter have had choices to make. What will it take to save animals coming into the shelter? How much time and funding will it require, and how can they get those resources? Today, fewer animals are coming into the shelter, but those who do have more medical needs.

“Many of the animals we’re saving now would have been euthanized in the past,” Ann says. “Thanks to the Help the Animals Fund, we’re able to provide medical care for more animals who are sick and injured. In 2011, a 501(c)3 (Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation) formed and it has increased our ability to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome the animals most in need.”

Getting to no-kill, and sustaining it, can feel like a moving target, in that each challenge that’s overcome can seem as though it leads to a new challenge. The people at Seattle Animal Shelter know that all too well. But that’s not a reason to give up — that’s a reason to keep going.

By Ann Graves, SAS executive director. Published 2018/04/06.

With the new year a memory and 2018 unfolding quickly before us I wanted to pause for a minute or two and express my gratitude to the Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation for the training funds made available to our team in 2017. Training brings us information, builds new skills and when it is combined with meeting people outside of our own shelter or workplace, is instrumental in exchanging information and building relationships.

In October 2017, I attended the National Animal Care & Control Association Conference in Virginia Beach, Va. There I had the honor of opening the conference at the invitation of the NACA Board of Directors. While I was acting director of SAS, I had asked them to host a roundtable at some point during the conference where others who were interested could simply meet and converse about our profession, experiences, challenges and opportunities in an open forum. I made this request because in my new role I continually found myself wishing I knew what others were experiencing and felt the opportunity to connect with colleagues and peers at the conference was too good to pass up. The NACA board was so receptive to the idea they invited me to open the conference in lieu of a keynote speaker and we had a group discussion that included animal care and control professionals from across the country. It was an amazing opportunity and to hear a few hundred people talk to each other about their experiences, challenges and opportunities was an experience I will treasure. Throughout the rest of the conference I was approached by people who expressed appreciation for the dialogue as we all attended classes and learned from the experiences of our peers.

In November 2017, I attended the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators Conference in Miami, Fl. This was the first SAWA conference I have attended and while there I found myself surrounded by leaders in the field of animal welfare including Lisa LaFontaine, President and CEO of Humane Rescue Alliance, Matt Bershadker, President and CEO of the ASPCA, Steven Feldman, Executive Director of the Human Animal Bond Research Institute and many others. I was also able to spend time with colleagues from Washington and worked to renew and build relationships with colleagues from PAWS in Lynnwood and the Humane Society of SW Washington. Some of the topics presented at the conference included “Beyond Labels II: The Future of Animal Welfare”, “Evolution of the Animal Welfare Movement: Meeting the Needs of Rapidly Changing Communities” and a day long symposium covering topics of current research capped off the most informative, inspirational conference I have attended in my career.

These are two of many opportunities for our team at SAS to attend various trainings locally and nationally in 2017. We also brought training directly to our team, so all could benefit including Crisis Intervention Training specifically tailored to our professional needs. On behalf of all of us at SAS I want to express our gratitude for your support and our commitment to bringing the information, skills and knowledge with us each day that we come to work as we continue to strive for excellence in all we do to serve our community and for the benefit of the animals in our care.

Gratefully yours,
Ann