I attended the Athens-Clarke County Federation of Neighborhoods meeting earlier this month, where members of the community learn about a different topic relevant to the area each month. The August meeting focused on animal welfare in our community. Though it was location-specific, I believe much of the information can be related to other areas as well. I’ve touched on the main topics discussed among the panel of animal organization staff and the attending community members below.
ACC Animal Control Euthanasia Rates
The director of the ACC Animal Control discussed the progress of the shelter over the past 15 years as well as some of the issues they currently see most often. I was surprised by the level of lowered euthanasia rates since 1996, with it lowering from 60 percent to now 9 percent. The ultimate goal of animal control and all animal welfare groups is to eliminate euthanasia rates altogether while lowering pet overpopulation in the area. However, the community must first be better informed to fully achieve these goals.
Responding to Neglect
The ACC Animal Control officers respond to all types of animal welfare issues, but the large majority of calls are due to animal neglect (approximately 90 percent). The responding officers usually try to work with pet owners to educate them about how to better care for their animals and teach them how to improve their quality of life. Most times, the owners genuinely don’t know enough about pet ownership and don’t realize that their actions are causing their pets to be neglected. Sometimes they respond multiple times to the same homes, but the officers seemed to feel confident that working with owners generally results in better care of their animals and thus a more informed community.
Lack of Pet Identification
One of the other major issues with animals coming into the ACC Animal Control is a lack of pet identification. It is surprising how many pets go without collars, tag, or microchips. And quite often, animals will have collars but no ID tag attached. Though some owners say that money is a factor in the lack of identification, the ACC Animal Control actually provides free tags to pet owners. Also, local animal organizations provide opportunities for owners to get discounted microchips, such as the Athens Area Humane Society’s monthly Pet Care Clinics on the first Saturday of each month. Pet owners also should remember to update their tag information if the address or phone numbers change and to keep microchip information updated and registered (most require a small yearly fee of $10 to $20).
As a side note, I have personally seen that pet identification is a large problem in the area (and in general) after having so many people ask me what to do with animals they’ve found or how to find animals they’ve lost. Identifying your pet, even if it’s indoor-only, requires little funds and might be the $10 investment that reunites you with a lost pet or helps you to successfully reunite found animals to their owners. I think that’s well worth the investment.
Lost and Found Database
There was a lot of talk about the lack of a comprehensive lost and found database in the area, which is likely an issue in most communities across the country. Education is again the key to help facilitate the best use of these databases, but it can be somewhat time-consuming for pet owners. The ACC Animal Control, as well as most of the local animal welfare organizations, has a lost and found database. However, the databases are not connected to one another. This means that in order to maximize reuniting with a lost pet, owners need to call each shelter to provide information about the lost (or found) pet. Refer to my previous posting, I Found a Stray… NowWhat?, to learn more about how to deal with a lost or found pet.
Though a comprehensive database would be helpful for all parties involved in Athens, it’s simply not feasible at this time. The amount of time required to set up and continually update such a database would probably require a full-time employee or volunteer. ACC Animal Control already has a difficult time keeping up with the database they have and trying to match animals to lost and found descriptions, so like most shelters, time is a significant factor.
It should be noted that the ACC Animal Control is the only shelter in the Athens area that takes in animals from the public. Local rescue organizations pull animals from animal control and adopt them out, which gives more animals the chance of finding forever homes and has been a positive collaboration to lower the area’s euthanasia rates.
Student Impact on Local Animal Welfare
Athens has over 40,000 students, so students certainly play a role in animal welfare in the community. Most are living on their own for the first time, which means new homes without pets. It’s been widely assumed that students have impacted animals negatively by leaving them behind or surrendering them once they move on to other cities. Though there hasn’t been any research done to fully grasp their impact on animal surrenders, the ACC Animal Control has not seen an increase in surrendered or abandoned animals at the end of school semesters. They also haven’t seen a strong indicator that students are more irresponsible that any other pet owners in the area, which is refreshing to hear.
Also, students comprise most of the volunteers at the animal control, so they are a great population to get involved with helping animals while hopefully spreading awareness about responsible pet ownership to students and the rest of the community.
Economic Impact on Animals
With the current economic situation and Athens-Clarke County being one of the poorest in the state, Athens Canine Rescue has seen an increase in pet owners’ bringing their adopted animals back to the rescue because of financial problems. This in turn decreases the number of animals they are able can pull from animal control and decreases their available foster homes.
The Athens Area Humane Society is working on expanding its Food Bowl: Pet Soup Kitchen program to be able to offer pet food to owners who are unable to afford it (there is an approval process to ensure that those most in need will have access to the food). With support from the community, this program should provide owners the ability to keep pets that they might otherwise consider surrendering because of unfortunate financial burdens.
Athens Pets Website
Volunteers have started a website, AthensPets.net, to accompany the ACC Animal Control animals that are up for adoption. It is run solely by volunteers, but they do a great job of keeping as up-to-date as possible. This has helped quite a bit with helping animals to find new homes, whether by members of the community or by the local rescues who pull from the animal control, and to help lower euthanasia rates.
Suggested Ideas for the Future
The panel members were each asked to give one idea that could help the community’s animals, and community members also weighed in on their own ideas. A brief list of the ideas is below.
- Start a mobile spay/neuter program to offer free or low-cost spays, neuters, and vaccinations to low-income communities with pet owners who may not have available funds to provide basic veterinary care to their pets otherwise.
- Educate the public about the fact that pets are not disposable, and the decision to adopt a pet should be weighed responsibly and be considered a life-time commitment.
- Increase the punishment for animal cruelty violations. Related to this idea is spreading education about the correlation of animal cruelty to domestic violence and other serious forms of human cruelty.
- Consider offering a two-tiered pet fee at apartments, where tenants would receive lower pet fees for animals who are spayed or neutered and up-to-date on required vaccines.
- Solicit a student research project through UGA to gather basic data on pet ownership in the area, such as the number of dogs and cats owned, number of spayed/neutered pets, number of feral cats, etc.
- The idea of a county-wide registration fee was suggested, but this is a very complicated topic that may or may not be detrimental to the goal of lowering pet overpopulation.
As you can see, there were several topics discussed at the meeting. The overarching theme here is that education is the key to improving animal welfare in our community. Many of the people who volunteer locally with animals and attend such meetings as this one tend to be the same faces over and over. It’s fantastic to see such dedicated people, but it’s obvious that spreading awareness beyond this small group is also important. Please consider volunteering at your local animal rescue, spread your knowledge with others and ask your animal-friendly friends and family to get involved with you.
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