Guest guest Posted February 20, 2007 Report Share Posted February 20, 2007 >With all the controversy surrounding the shelter, do you agree with >strays being euthanised after 72 hours? The U.S. federal Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966 deemed five working days to be an appropriate and workable holding period, after days of Congressional hearings, at a time when U.S. shelters were handling seven times more animals than now, with a pet population barely half as large and only a quarter as many shelters to funnel the animals through. The five-day standard was reaffirmed when the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act was amended into the present Animal Welfare Act in 1971. With all the advances in animal care & control made since then, the five-day standard should be more workable than ever--but the federal law applies only to federally funded facilities (including animal control agencies that sell animals to laboratories, which now number only in the low dozens, down from 300-plus then). States and municipalities are at legal liberty to set any holding periods they wish. > Wouldn't it be a good start to have animals that are adopted out >microchipped? The Animal Foundation, operating the Lied Animal Shelter, has been doing this for close to 10 years now. >Do these shelters have scanners? Yes. I don't know of any major or even medium-sized shelter in the U.S. that hasn't been using scanners for at least five years. Many have been using them for 15 years or more. > With a facility of this size, couldn't incoming pets be separated >until checked by a vet? No. The problem is that the facility was not designed and built to isolate an adequate volume of incoming animals. This is a very common design flaw in shelters. Back when animals were usually killed within 24 hours of receipt, which was still often the norm as recently as 20 years ago, disease rarely had time to spread through kennels, & quarantining was done only for observation of possibly rabid dogs who had bitten someone. This happened relatively seldom. Quarantining incoming animals to prevent the spread of diseases within kennels has only been done routinely since the early 1990s. Most shelters designed before then can quarantine at most 10% of their holding volume. Capacity of 25% is often needed, and 50% would not be excessive in the case of no-kill high-volume adoption shelters. > Are there fees for animals turned in by owners? Not at any well-managed shelter. Surrender fees result in abandonments. This has been known, studied, & documented for more than 20 years--but there are still benighted shelter directors who try to charge surrender fees. Just about exactly 10 years ago I read the riot act to one such idiot in the Cleveland area who called to complain about animals being abandoned around the shelter. He was charging the highest surrender fee of any shelter within a radius of several states. He was eventually fired, but just a few days ago I got a fax of a newspaper clipping in which his successor is making the same complaint. >The only Military sponsored adopting agency on Okinawa recently >stopped providing spaying/neutering of animal they adopt out. This is also idiocy. >Animals over three months of age are not allowed to be adopted out >at the local pound, even when healthy, friendly and still young. And so is this. Adoptions of older animals actually have a higher success rate than adoptions of puppies & kittens, if the animals are housebroken--and one of the most useful things that shelter volunteers can do is help to housebreak dogs by walking them at appropriate times. (Note: the only use for a rolled-up newspaper in housebreaking is for wrapping up accidents. The best use for a rolled-up copy of ANIMAL PEOPLE is to unroll it & read it, before using it to wrap up accidents--which reminds me that several times I have been sincerely flattered to walk into shelters and find staff or volunteers on hands & knees reading the old copy that they found on the floor, or standing up with a copy they'd plucked from the floor. One such gent, Alex Stewart, then of the SPCA of Texas, now retired, turned out to be a fellow I'd known in San Jose, California, 25 years earlier. Both of us were early neighborhood voices for sterilizing cats, & back then none of the many shelter workers we knew seemed to believe that any of the recent progress toward ending shelter killing might ever be possible. We had in common being considered lunatic idealists.) -- Merritt Clifton Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE P.O. Box 960 Clinton, WA 98236 Telephone: 360-579-2505 Fax: 360-579-2575 E-mail: anmlpepl Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org [ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide, founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations. We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year; for free sample, send address.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 21, 2007 Report Share Posted February 21, 2007 I guess I have been away from the States too long, I do remember when the news came out about microchipping animals, I didn't realize it had been that long. All sheltrers should microchip so that pets with loving homes can be traced back to their owners. Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions and give your comment on the situation here on Okinawa. I loved the last part of your reply. Liz www.oaars.com Merritt Clifton <anmlpepl wrote: >With all the controversy surrounding the shelter, do you agree with >strays being euthanised after 72 hours? The U.S. federal Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966 deemed five working days to be an appropriate and workable holding period, after days of Congressional hearings, at a time when U.S. shelters were handling seven times more animals than now, with a pet population barely half as large and only a quarter as many shelters to funnel the animals through. The five-day standard was reaffirmed when the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act was amended into the present Animal Welfare Act in 1971. With all the advances in animal care & control made since then, the five-day standard should be more workable than ever--but the federal law applies only to federally funded facilities (including animal control agencies that sell animals to laboratories, which now number only in the low dozens, down from 300-plus then). States and municipalities are at legal liberty to set any holding periods they wish. > Wouldn't it be a good start to have animals that are adopted out >microchipped? The Animal Foundation, operating the Lied Animal Shelter, has been doing this for close to 10 years now. >Do these shelters have scanners? Yes. I don't know of any major or even medium-sized shelter in the U.S. that hasn't been using scanners for at least five years. Many have been using them for 15 years or more. > With a facility of this size, couldn't incoming pets be separated >until checked by a vet? No. The problem is that the facility was not designed and built to isolate an adequate volume of incoming animals. This is a very common design flaw in shelters. Back when animals were usually killed within 24 hours of receipt, which was still often the norm as recently as 20 years ago, disease rarely had time to spread through kennels, & quarantining was done only for observation of possibly rabid dogs who had bitten someone. This happened relatively seldom. Quarantining incoming animals to prevent the spread of diseases within kennels has only been done routinely since the early 1990s. Most shelters designed before then can quarantine at most 10% of their holding volume. Capacity of 25% is often needed, and 50% would not be excessive in the case of no-kill high-volume adoption shelters. > Are there fees for animals turned in by owners? Not at any well-managed shelter. Surrender fees result in abandonments. This has been known, studied, & documented for more than 20 years--but there are still benighted shelter directors who try to charge surrender fees. Just about exactly 10 years ago I read the riot act to one such idiot in the Cleveland area who called to complain about animals being abandoned around the shelter. He was charging the highest surrender fee of any shelter within a radius of several states. He was eventually fired, but just a few days ago I got a fax of a newspaper clipping in which his successor is making the same complaint. >The only Military sponsored adopting agency on Okinawa recently >stopped providing spaying/neutering of animal they adopt out. This is also idiocy. >Animals over three months of age are not allowed to be adopted out >at the local pound, even when healthy, friendly and still young. And so is this. Adoptions of older animals actually have a higher success rate than adoptions of puppies & kittens, if the animals are housebroken--and one of the most useful things that shelter volunteers can do is help to housebreak dogs by walking them at appropriate times. (Note: the only use for a rolled-up newspaper in housebreaking is for wrapping up accidents. The best use for a rolled-up copy of ANIMAL PEOPLE is to unroll it & read it, before using it to wrap up accidents--which reminds me that several times I have been sincerely flattered to walk into shelters and find staff or volunteers on hands & knees reading the old copy that they found on the floor, or standing up with a copy they'd plucked from the floor. One such gent, Alex Stewart, then of the SPCA of Texas, now retired, turned out to be a fellow I'd known in San Jose, California, 25 years earlier. Both of us were early neighborhood voices for sterilizing cats, & back then none of the many shelter workers we knew seemed to believe that any of the recent progress toward ending shelter killing might ever be possible. We had in common being considered lunatic idealists.) -- Merritt Clifton Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE P.O. Box 960 Clinton, WA 98236 Telephone: 360-579-2505 Fax: 360-579-2575 E-mail: anmlpepl Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org [ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide, founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations. We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year; for free sample, send address.] OKINAWAN AMERICAN ANIMAL RESCUE SOCIETY " LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND " WWW.OAARS.COM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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