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UPAWS: Doing It

December 11, 2010

This is the story of the Marquette Co Humane Society in MI – but it could be your local shelter’s story too.  During the period from 1999-2006, the private open-admission shelter was killing 60% of the pets in their care.  Their administrator had been in place for decades and was very resistant to change.  The shelter operated under policies rooted in myths and fallacies.  Numerous complaints were brought before the Board.  In the summer of 2006, they were very close to ceasing operations when a longtime volunteer introduced the Board to Nathan Winograd’s book Redemption.  The Board decided to implement some major changes to the shelter and things started to improve dramatically.  From a recent letter sent by the Board President Reva Laituri to the No Kill Advocacy Center:

Although we were still fearful, the results spoke for themselves and we realized we could save lives and do it without condemning animals to fates ‘worse than death” as we had been routinely warned. As more animals went into homes instead of garbage bags, the direction we had chosen to take was validated and many of the fears and premises we had based our policies on were proven to be invalid.
The letter outlines the changes at the shelter over a 2 year transition period (2006-2008).  During that time, the Board began investigating complaints and made greater use of volunteers.  The shelter torched their blame-the-public philosophy, replacing it with a let-us-help-you-find-the-right-pet, adopter friendly attitude.  The administrator and some staff members who could not get on board with the changes were replaced by people dedicated to saving lives.  A new manager expanded shelter hours as well as the foster program.  Rescue groups were welcomed, Petfinder and social media sites were utilized, offsite adoption events were held and interactions with the public were significantly improved.

 

For the past two years, the shelter has continued and expanded upon their new programs.  They have reached out to the business community for partnerships and kept an open line of communication between the shelter and the public.  People in the community are quick to respond to special needs cases because they want to be part of the effort to save as many pets’ lives as possible.   Another change was the name of the shelter – from the Marquette Co Humane Society to the Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter (UPAWS).  I asked Reva Laituri the reason for the name change and she explained there was a widespread misconception “that we are a part of, or in some way affiliated with The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).  This leads to two problems.  First, they think we receive funding from our “parent” organization and second, they believe we subscribe to all the same views and stances taken by HSUS.  Neither of which is true.”  UPAWS included the community in the selection of a new name by taking suggestions from the public.

 

But the best news of all about the past two years at UPAWS comes in numerical form.  93 to be exact.  UPAWS has saved over 93% of the pets coming through the doors of their open-admission shelter for the past two years.  Goodbye myths and resistant-to-change shelter staff, HELLO LIFESAVING!

 

I asked Ms. Laituri about any doubts or fears the shelter staff experienced during their transition period:

[S]ome of us were afraid remote adoptathons would result in impulse purchases and that many of the animals would be returned or dumped someplace.  That didn’t happen.  We were terrified that reducing adoption fees would result in a loss of income that we could not afford.  What happened is that people wanted to start sponsoring pet adoptions to supplement the lost income from the fee reductions.  This happened spontaneously.  People loved being able to see their dollars at work and know they helped a particular animal find a home.  We then feared that the people who began sponsoring adoptions were just re-directing their donations.  They weren’t.  These sponsorships went over and above what they had been giving before.  Everybody won.  Animals found homes.  The shelter gained good PR, more supporters (through happy sponsors and adopters), and the sponsors felt good, seeing their dollars at work.  And donations, in general increased as people started seeing the changes.  And surprisingly, the results started showing up pretty quickly.

Two things reinforced our belief we were headed in the right direction.  The first was our stats.  You can’t ignore that fact that with each change you made, big or little, more lives were being saved.  The numbers stared us in the face every day.  The second was the feedback from the community – both in word and deed.  Donations increased, adoptions increased, more people wanted to volunteer at the shelter or foster home pets, we began hearing about what we were doing right instead of what we were doing wrong (it was so nice not having to defend indefensible policies!), and people wanted to connect with us again and be part of these life-saving programs.  Adopters were no longer driving past our shelter to go another 100-150 miles to visit another shelter.

In addition, she shared challenges that she personally faced as the shelter went through major changes. I think her candor will touch many of you involved with your local shelter:

[T]wo things I found difficult were first, accepting there was a ideological chasm that was widening between me and our Executive Director who I had considered a friend for over 20 years, and facing the reality that like her, I had been so indoctrinated with the whole idea that euthanasia was necessary and in fact, even the preferred alternative, that I had subscribed to, and condoned so many deaths.  I know she deeply cared about animals and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see that in setting impossible standards for both the animals and people to meet, instead of saving their lives, it was costing them.  I love animals, always have.  And I have had to accept that I had a hand in killing so many of them needlessly because I didn’t question the accepted practices and blindly accepted everything I was told.  Euthanasia is necessary because of irresponsible pet owners.  If people can’t meet our standards they shouldn’t own a pet.  Pets put up for adoption shouldn’t have any behavioral or medical problems.  The best thing for an old pet was to euthanize it because they couldn’t adjust to a new home. And on and on.  False premises based on I-don’t-know-what.

I also asked Ms. Laituri how UPAWS is doing financially now that they are saving so many pets instead of killing them:

Financially, we have no bills in arrears and in fact, have set aside three months operating reserves and are working at building that up to six months.  We are looking toward the future in terms of building a new shelter.  A big reason for the financial turnaround is because of a couple of bequests.  However, I can’t help but wonder if we would have gotten those bequests had we been operating the way we were.  In addition to the bequests, we have seen significant increases in memorial donations and honorariums.  For as long as I can remember, donations have traditionally drastically declined during January and February as well as again in June and July.  That hasn’t happened the last couple of years.  Even during these last few years of a bad economy, we have held steady, and even improved.

As chair of the fundraising committee, I have also noticed that more and more people want to do third party fundraisers for us, including businesses who want to set up programs that would donate portions of their proceeds from events or products to us.  And if we have a special need – like a new furnace, a storage building or an animal needing expensive surgery, we put it on our website and typically have the money in 1-3 days (animal needs the quickest).   Although I’ve now seen this happen many times, it still amazes me how quickly people respond.
So much for no kill costing too much money.  So much for the irresponsible public.  So much for needless killing.  UPAWS proves shelters can save lives, involve the community and remain financially sound.

 

I’m hoping to have a second post about UPAWS next week with input from additional shelter staff members.  Stay tuned.

 

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We can save them all if we want.

Certainly the majority of them can be saved. We do it one by one...other rescue groups take van loads. Using volunteers and volunteer groups and Independent Rescuers is making a difference, slowly. Instead of bossing people around, ignoring ideas of others and being "self-important," many more shelters and rescues are beginning to save more animals through a partnership with volunteers. Now, if many long entrenched rescues and shelters would start to be more open to change, maybe the rest can be saved.

Agree with you 100%!

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