Co-opperation Between Shelters and Rescue Groups

TOWARDS BETTER COOPERATION BETWEEN SHELTERS & RESCUE GROUPS

by Pam Green, © 2004, 2021

In my years of experience since 1987 doing Bouvier (Dog) Rescue, I have seen instances of wonderful cooperation between shelters and rescue groups and instances of distrust and lack of cooperation and everything in between. I have heard similar reports from other rescue people across the nation.

Rescue groups and shelters should be natural allies, for their goals are so much alike. Both wish to keep pets out of the shelters in the first place by educating owners to responsible guardianship. Both wish to minimize the incidence of accidental or irresponsibly bred litters by promoting sterilization of as many pets as possible. Both wish to maximize the opportunities for those pets who are abandoned to be adopted into responsible and loving homes, homes that have been well-matched to that individual pet, and to minimize the numbers who are killed for lack of such an adoptive home. Both dream of a future in which no pet is willingly abandoned and in which shelters and rescues need fill only the limited function of short term care for accidentally lost pets or those whose owners have met with unexpected emergency or catastrophe.

For the purposes of this article, by "rescue group" I have primarily in mind those groups or those independent individuals who primarily rescue pets of one particular breed or related group of breeds. (My own experience and interest lies with dogs, especially Bouvier dogs. However much of what follows applies as well to those who rescue a much broader range of pets, including those other than dogs.) This article is directed at the rescue group taking the dog from the shelter (or from a surrendering owner) in such a way that ownership , authority, and responsibility for the animal are transferred to the rescue group. Someone in the rescue group then serves as foster home under the authority of the rescue group. This is to be distinguished from shelter programs in which shelter employees or volunteers serve as temporary foster homes for animals, often under weaning age animals or sick or injured animals, but the shelter remains the legal owner and retains authority and responsibility for final fate of the animal and the shelter continues to supervise the foster home in its care of the animal. I would suppose that some of the issues I raise might also be applicable to this latter situation of foster care under continued ownership by the shelter. I do not have personal experience with this latter paradigm.

UPDATE 2021
Some of the discussion about email and web sites is outdated, as they played a more limited role back in 2004. These have become more and more useful. Petfinder.com has become an essential tool. Facebook can be useful (so I've been told; I don't live there myself).

At the time this article was written, most shelters needed dogs removed from shelter as soon as possible. So I concentrated on the rescue group taking the dog into their own foster system. But nowadays many shelters would prefer that the rescue group instead refer their potential adopters to the shelter so that the adopter goes to the shelter and adopts direct from the shelter. So as you read, keep that in mind as the alternative.

While I had breed specific rescues in mind, there are other rescue groups that can be equally helpful. That most definitely includes groups devoted to senior dogs and groups devoted to dogs with medical needs or
.

Why do shelters sometimes distrust some rescue groups ?

• Shelters may in the past have had bad experiences of a "rescuer" obtaining a purebred of good quality and then breeding from that dog rather than sterilizing it.
  The answer of course is to do pre-release alteration just the same as if the pet were being adopted to a member of the general public. Where the health of the animal argues for delay of surgery, a sufficiently large neuter deposit is the obvious alternative where the shelter does not have sufficient prior dealings with this particular rescue to trust it with an unaltered animal. Rescuers in turn should always send in spay/neuter certificates on every pet they get from a shelter , whether or not the shelter has asked for this, and likewise to inform the shelter if an alteration has unexpectedly to be delayed past the expected date. Likewise of course if the pet has died or been euthanized.


• Shelters may in the past have had a bad experience of a rescuer asking them to hold a pet for several extra days, but then fail to come pick the pet up.
  This could be minimized if shelters would give rescue groups the earliest possible advanced warning that they have a pet within that rescue group's "jurisdiction" (breed or type) so the rescuer could make arrangements for pick up on the very first day the pet is legally available. Rescue groups in turn must faithfully honor these time commitments and constraints, and on those rare occasions when a delay might be unavoidable should immediately notify the shelter of same, remembering that giving one pet more time means giving another less, possibly resulting in that pet's death.


• Shelters do not always know how to contact an appropriate rescue group. It may be that no list of rescue groups categorized by specialty exits or it may be that the available lists are badly out of date , as contact persons for each group change.
  Rescue groups should make real efforts to ensure continuity and to update any existing lists promptly. At the least, an outgoing contact person must forward messages promptly to the new contact person. Keeping the phone number for a second contact person on one's phone answer machine's welcome message is one way of helping shelters.


• Shelters may have had bad experiences in the past where two or more groups dealing with similar looking breeds each denied that an individual pet was "their" breed .
  Rescue groups can help by keeping working alliances with those for very similar breeds and agreeing to pick up for one another : get the pet out of the shelter and then figure out who will take over the foster care. Where a pet has been misidentified as to breed, the rescuer should help the shelter to contact the more appropriate rescue group. Of course the shelter should be informed of the correct identification in the most tactful possible way. Rescuers, remember that an ungroomed or badly groomed specimen of your breed may look nothing like the photos in the books or on the breed chart on the wall, so be very tactful when informing the shelter staff of any mistakes.


• Shelters can find it annoying if a multitude of rescue people make multiple phone calls about the same individual pet. It is even more annoying if it seems these different rescue people are not communicating effectively with one another and thus are confused as to who is actually going to show up to bail the animal out. This problem of "too many rescuers" and "the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing" can also be incredibly stressful and annoying for the rescue people. It has been happening more lately because the wonderful tools of e-mail and web site allow spreading news rapidly , but do not guarantee that all parties get updated in a coordinated manner.
  I don't know an easy solution here, but it helps if everyone keeps a sense of humor and remembers that it is better to have two people trying to rescue a pet than to have zero doing it. Not so many years ago, it too often was zero and pets died for that lack.


• Some shelters believe that having a supply of purebred pets on hand is a good way to attract the general public to come into the shelter to seek a pet. This may well be true and could be a valid consideration for those shelters lucky enough to be under-crowded.
  But breed rescuers can help by remembering to praise the work of good shelters. Also it often happens that a prospective adopter will on interview prove to be a poor match for the breed sponsored by a particular rescuer and if so the rescuer can encourage that person to make regular visits to the shelter to seek a more appropriate match. Breed rescuers can help inform the public that shelters host purebred dogs as well as mixes.


• Some shelters may resent the higher adoption fees that some breed rescue groups are able to command, ie higher than the adoption fees the shelter is able to charge.
  These shelters should remind themselves that the breed rescue group will also have put a great deal more time , effort , and medical and behavioral rehabilitation and training into each animal than most shelters are able to, as well as much more extensive adopter screening and education and follow-up. Trust me, no rescue group is making a profit on its annual operations ! Shelters could also recognize that if a rescue group is charging more, then that may make the shelter sound like a real bargain to some potential adopters. So it works both ways.
  I should add that some shelters give reduced adoption rates to rescue groups or to those with 501c status; and for the many rescue groups that must struggle with funding, this is a great blessing. The shelter may be better funded than the rescue group and be able to command additional funding through the taxing power of the state and county. S o again , it works both ways.


• Some shelters may resent the attitude of some members of the general public that "the Pound" is a bad place and mostly interested in killing pets, but that "Rescue" is purely interested in saving pets. This is somewhat the same friction as between "open admission" and "no kill" as relates to public perception.
  Needless to say, no rescue person should promote such a bad image of the shelter. In truth , rescue groups vary as much as do shelters in the degree to which they are willing to euthanize animals for medical or behavioral reasons and as to their willingness to take in pets with obvious problems. A wiser adopter would prefer to adopt from an organization which has policy against adopting out pets whose behavior makes them unreasonably dangerous. (The issue of dangerousness is more an issue for large dogs than for smaller ones or for cats.) It is of course true that most rescue groups have the luxury of being able to hold a pet for extended periods, far beyond what the shelter is able to do, and thus most rescue groups seldom or never have to kill merely because of lack of space. It is also true that rescue groups are often able to provide the training and behavioral rehabilitation or the medical care needed salvage a pet the shelter would consider unadoptable and therefore euthanize.

What then are some of the complaints rescue groups have about some shelters?

• Some shelters do poorly at breed identification and therefore either fail to call the rescue group for an animal that does fall within that group's "jurisdiction", which may well result in that animal's death, or at the other extreme very often call the group for animals which are not even remotely "their " breed. Given that there are many breeds , especially longer coated breeds normally subjected to substantial grooming that affects appearance, which can look very different when neglected and long ungroomed or when atypically groomed, such misidentifications are impossible to avoid.
  Breed identification could be helped if every time any breed rescuer is present at a shelter, that person take some additional time to look at all the animals and help to identify their breeds. It would also help immeasurably if groomers and breed rescuers could band together to create a breed identification web site that had a search engine that allowed checking off the various sizes, coat colors, hair types, ear shapes and tail shapes to lead to pages of breed photos that included the ungroomed and atypically groomed versions of each breed alongside the normative show type illustrations.


• Some shelters wait to phone rescue until the animal has been there many days past the first day of availability for adoption, and then too often want the animal picked up that very day or the following one or else it will be killed. This makes organizing transportation and foster care much more difficult for the rescue group.
  Shelters can make the rescuer's life vastly easier by giving the longest possible advance warning , some days before the animal's hold for owner time expires, even though of course that will mean some "false alarms". By enabling the rescuer to come for the pet immediately after the hold for owner reclaim time has expired, the shelter can lighten its own caseload and make space available for another pet.


• Rescuers may sometimes resent that some shelters are under obligation to make the animal available for adoption by the general public for a day or more before making it available to rescue. However, such a policy must be respected ; often changing it would be outside the power of the shelter director.
  In the interests of getting pets out of the shelter as early as possible, shelters should still give the rescuer advanced warning of the pet's rescue availability date, so the rescuer can phone to find out whether or not a general public adopter has shown up during that preferred interval. If a member of the general public does adopt the pet, the shelter could agree to pass on the rescue contact information so that the adopter can use rescue as a source of breed specific advice and follow-up help. That would be to the advantage of all parties, most of all to the advantage of the pet, and would reduce the chances of the pet being later returned to the shelter because of a problem that could have been solved with good advice or help from the breed specialist rescuer.


• Rescuers may have difficulty with some shelter policies that involve making multiple trips to the shelter , especially for those rescuers living further away. In particular some shelters require all potential adopters including rescuers to make two trips to the shelter, first to meet the pet and sign up to adopt it and pay for the spay/neuter, then a second trip to actually take possession.
  While all rescuers are whole-heartedly in favor of pre-release spay/neuter, those who must travel a long way would appreciate being able to accomplish the work of the first visit (commitment and payment) by telephone and credit card. Unlike the general public, who so often would be ill advised to commit to adopting an animal without first meeting it in person, most breed rescuers are committed to saving any animal within their breed and are willing to trust the shelter staff's identification and/or an e-mailed photo. Most breed rescuers are quite capable of dealing with problems , behavioral or medical, that a general public adopter would balk at or be unwilling to adopt. Where two in person visits are considered essential, it would be helpful to rescue groups if the shelter agrees that it could be two different members of the group who make the two visits. More and more, rescuers in geographically distant places are assisting one another by doing the in person shelter visits for one another.

What can be done on either side to improve cooperation and save more animal lives ?

• Create regional or national directories of rescue groups categorized by breeds or types of pet they rescue. Ideally these directories would be available on-line, either by e-mail request or published on the internet, and would be up-dated quarterly or more often. In Northern California, an excellent list "the Ohlone list" has been maintained and published by the Ohlone Humane Society for many (over 10) years; however it is not available on-line and does not get updated as often as would be ideal. In Southern California the "Muttmatchers list" served a similar function ; I don't know if that list is still going on.


• Rescuer groups should visit and establish relations with shelters in their area so as to be entered in the shelter's own database of accredited rescuers. this would include providing the shelter with any information the shelter requires, such as the group's 501c identification number, names and contact information for the groups key people, information as to the group's basic policies. The group should also obtain from the shelter all relevant phone numbers, hours of accessibility, and basic policies.


• Shelters should use any database of rescuers to notify rescuers as soon as possible after taking in a pet that may be within that rescue group's definition. Ideally a digital photo of that pet (including a 12" ruler in the photo or some other size indicator) could be sent to the rescuer immediately along with all known information. If necessary, the rescuer could arrange for someone to visit in person to verify that the breed or mix is correctly identified, and to correct any misidentifications and help start the process going with an appropriate rescue group. The rescuer could post information on their own web site and on the breed e-mail list to attempt to find the animal's owner and to attempt to line up an adopter. And of course the rescuer would also begin immediately solving the logistic problems of picking the pet up the moment it becomes available for rescue, so that it leaves the shelter at the earliest possible moment.


• Shelters should use any database of rescuers to attempt to persuade surrendering owners to take the pet to the relevant rescue group instead of surrendering it into the shelter. This would reduce the shelter's caseload and would give the pet the best possible chance for adoption into a home well matched to it. It allows the rescuer to get a good history on the pet, probably more detailed than the shelter worker could obtain, partly because the information can be sought in the informality of the rescuer's home and partly because the breed rescuer knows that breed and the questions to ask.


• Shelters should recognize that rescue groups can do some things better than the shelter can. The rescue group almost always can hold a pet for longer to wait for an adoptive home. The rescue group can often house the pet in a private home, which is a better environment for the pet in terms of contagious disease risk and mental/behavioral stressfulness than is the shelter environment. The home environment is also more favorable for the pet to begin learning how to behave acceptably in a home situation and , for dogs, to learn the basic obedience commands. A breed or type oriented rescue group is probably more qualified to evaluate the behavior and working drives of the breed in which it specializes than is the shelter, more qualified to determine which problems are solvable or manageable, and more experienced to actually rehabilitate the problems as well as having more time in which to do so. A breed or type oriented rescue group is also more qualified to screen applying adopters for their suitability to that breed or type and is more qualified to educate adopters as to the characteristics (desirable or undesirable) of that breed or type. A shelter may be legally limited in how seriously it can screen adopters or at times when the shelter is over-crowded may fear that turning down a sub-standard or mediocre adopter will result in the pet not being adopted at all and ultimately being killed.


• Rescue groups must recognize that sometimes the shelter has the superior ability to do something, something the rescue group cannot do as well or cannot do at all. In the current evolution of sheltering, there are shelters that have highly qualified behaviorists and/or highly qualified trainers on staff ; such shelters may well do a better job of evaluation and rehabilitation than almost any foster home can do and the shelter has the advantage of perhaps being more objective about recognizing serious problems than a fosterer who was emotionally attached to the rescued animal could manage to be. Moreover it can be valuable to have tested the animal's behavior range under more than one situation and environment, ie both in the shelter situation and in the home situation. For example unpredictable biters may be more apt to bite in one situation than another. Some of the more fortunate shelters are blessed with a dedicated veterinarian on staff and with the funding to supply high levels of treatment; such a shelter may be able to provide better veterinary treatment than those rescue groups that are not well funded could provide. Some shelters have excellent web sites that attract adopters and so may be better able to do so than a rescue group that lacks internet savvy.


• Rescue groups may include people able to help the shelter do some jobs better. For example a rescue group might include someone who is a good digital photographer who could help the shelter get photos of new intakes up on its site faster. Or a rescue group might include a web weaver who could help the shelter get a web site started. Or perhaps the group includes a groomer, veterinarian , behaviorist, trainer, or grief counselor whose services the shelter might want to draw upon from time to time.


• Rescue groups must recognize that they must always "keep faith" with the shelters they work with by being honest and reliable. That means you always do what you have promised and immediately notify the shelter if an emergency forces a change from the agreed plan. That especially means picking up an animal when you said you would and returning a proof of alteration if you are entrusted with an intact animal.


• Rescue groups must also be reliable about NOT placing animals that prove to be too dangerous for adoption to the general public. This is especially true if the group has convinced a shelter to release to their care an animal whose behavior at the shelter is questionable in this regard. Remember that any time an adopted pet injures someone, it reflects badly on the shelter it came through, on any rescue group it came through, and on the entire concept of adopting a cast-off pet.


• Rescuers must always treat shelter staff with the utmost courtesy and appreciation. And if some shelter worker should seem to be deficient in courtesy towards the rescuer, the rescuer should make allowances for the stressfulness and fatigue involved in shelter work. Working in the shelter is much harder in every way than working in rescue. The rescue worker enjoys a far better ratio of heartwarming success to heartbreaking tragedy than does the shelter worker who sees the latter every single day.

And let's all remember that we are ultimately on the same side of the battle to save innocent animal lives !

remarks by Dr Kate F. Hurley, DVM, MPVM

Shelter Medicine Program Director
Center for Companion Animal Health
UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

Hi Pam,

I'm taking the opportunity of a plane trip to Florida to catch up on emails, and finally got around to reading this document. This is great! You lay out the issues and provide constructive suggestions at the same time.

I love your idea of including ungroomed and atypical specimens on a breed ID website; in the meantime, if rescuers can share printed photos of breed examples for the shelter rescue coordinator to have on file, that would be helpful too. Just keeping a file of photos of dogs they have rescued in the past and showing that to shelter staff would help give them an idea of the range of looks consistent with the breed. It would be great to put together a "shelter breed identification" workshop that included photos of atypical breed specimens; this would be good for vet students too.

One concern {of shelters} that often comes up is the worry that some rescuers take on too many animals and end up keeping the animals in poor conditions (more common with cat rescue, but happens with dogs too from time to time) and/or place dogs that are dangerous or place them in in-appropriate situations for a particular temperament. It would help to remind rescue groups that a good shelter will screen them at least as carefully as they in turn will screen prospective adopters. Having written or at least clearly articulated polices regarding temperament and placement may be helpful too.

my response to issues raised by Dr Hurley

The questions Dr Hurley raises about the quality of care for rescued animals and quality of match-making in placement are questions every rescuer must constantly ask herself (himself) and that rescue buddies should consult with one another for a "reality check" from time to time. Less experienced rescuers and foster homes often turn to more experienced ones for help and advice. Decisions about health or behavior can require professional help from a veterinarian , behaviorist, or veterinary behaviorist, especially when a possible euthanasia is being considered.

Added to the list of concerns by the shelter about how rescuers care for dogs (and other animals) and how they place them, ie match-making of animal and adopter, runs the potential conflict between shelter and rescue group as to philosophy between the "no kill" end of the spectrum and the "euthanize for health or behavior reasons" end of the spectrum. I can see where a shelter that is "no kill" being unwilling to turn an animal over to a rescue group that does euthanize an animal who the rescue group evaluates as too dangerous to place (and likewise too dangerous to foster forever) , or likewise a group that does euthanize for medical reasons. I would suppose that one solution might be for the rescue group to agree that , except in emergencies where great suffering or great danger make immediate euthanasia necessary, the group will return the animal to the shelter rather than euthanize it. (I would certainly caution any rescue group against accepting an animal without any right to either return or euthanize it for good cause; ie I would caution any rescuer against making a commitment to foster this animal until the natural end of its life no matter what issues of health or behavior might arise.) Equally I can see a shelter that is not "no kill" being concerned about turning an animal over to a rescue group that is "no kill" if there exists any doubt about the animal's temperament and dangerous potential or if the animal has a health issue that may not respond sufficiently well to treatment.

Where a concern exists, honest discussion of the problem and what resolutions are acceptable or unacceptable to both parties seems to me to be the best course of action. Whichever side perceives the potential problem should initiate this discussion.

• Breed Rescue : how to start and run a successful program by Sheila Boneham, PhD (book review of an excellent book). I have drawn on ideas from this book as well as on my personal rescue experience and experience of my rescue net-friends. Dr Boneham's book is based on experience of a wide variety of dog rescue workers accross the country and beyond.
  This book has been updated and published as "Rescue Matters". A Must Read for anyone involved in rescue.