Questions re holding time

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.]

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: